The healer issue? I really dunno what to put here.

[DarkCobalt]

As others have said, healer DPS is by far the most important part of healer in endgame content, as they do a non-negligible amount of damage and thus clearing content requires healers to maximize their damage output. The healing is actually secondary, all healing choices made are made to avoid using GCDs on healing (Medica, Medica III, etc.) and instead maximize GCDs allocated to DPS abilities (mashing Glare). This means that if you somehow end up with a less competent co-healer, or your tanks are not using mitigation, or your DPS are not using Addle/Feint/Magick Barrier/Tactician etc., then you inevitably have to sacrifice your own contribution in order to make up for your party's shortcomings. But on the flipside, if all goes well and everyone is using their stuff properly, you push 1 oGCD (i.e. Liturgy of the Bell, Macrocosmos, Panhaima, Seraph, etc.) to resolve the hardest mechanic in the fight and continue to spam 1 spell over and over and over again. So it's like a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation with healing: if you heal well or your party mitigates well you are rewarded with more Glares, which is boring, but if you don't heal well or your party can't use mitigation well, then you're punished with lower DPS and possibly hitting enrage. Neither feels good.

I think they need to bring back Stormblood job design to some extent for healers if they intend for healers to be played like some kind of green DPS with healing attached to it (because that's really what's going on here). Have slightly more complex DPS rotations to make the combat feel more engaging and be more rewarding for when healing/mit is done properly rather than being graced with more single-button GCD usage. Tanks IMO have had it a fair bit better, like a gunbreaker who knows the fight well can greed for full uptime and keep their combo rolling which feels pretty good in practice. Healers need something like that.

[Aurelius2625]

The problem is, SQUARE ENIX themselves want Healers to PRIMARILY dps, but that consists of 95 percent of their casts being glare/dosis/malefic/broil. Don't believe me? Check any log of a decent healer. Mostly dps casts, not heals. Heals are the MINORITY of healer casts in every content where you have someone that knows the kit. That's it. The issue is: It's BORING to hit ONE button. So if SE won't design encounters to truly make healers "heal a lot" and use their kits, all they do then, is dps mostly...which is just two buttons. That's the thing. They need something for when they don't need to heal because it's all scripted and covered with off global tools.

I leveled WHM to max and it was literally the same garbage as SHB as it was for EW as it now is for DT. Glare and Holy spam. That's it. Oh wait, THREE casts of GLARE 4 every TWO minutes! Damn!

[shigaisen]

The last time healers had an engaging dps/kit rotation was in Stormblood, and then Shadowbringers happened.

I still miss SCH with Miasma and Bane. It was a sad day logging into ShB on release and seeing them unavailable.

[Supersnow845]

I have really conflicting thoughts about all of it. I'd like for healer gameplay to be more engaging but i'm also ok with it being what it is. Because they're healers..

I think healers have too many off gcd heals for sure. idk why they can't just consolidate lilybell potency into medica at 90 or some bullshit like that.
If you want to heal raidwides and group stacks, then play heal. Like you know what you're signing up for. Nobody is clearing worqor without healers.

It's been this way since i started in 2020, you either like the role of healer or you don't. I feel like a lot of older vets are trying to convince themselves that the game will change but clearly it isn't. Seeing how they dumbed down monk, there's absolutely no way healers are getting changed.

Worqor extreme has been cleared without healers BTW

[Sani2341]

The problem is, SQUARE ENIX themselves want Healers to PRIMARILY dps, but that consists of 95 percent of their casts being glare/dosis/malefic/broil. Don't believe me? Check any log of a decent healer. Mostly dps casts, not heals. Heals are the MINORITY of healer casts in every content where you have someone that knows the kit. That's it. The issue is: It's BORING to hit ONE button. So if SE won't design encounters to truly make healers "heal a lot" and use their kits, all they do then, is dps mostly...which is just two buttons. That's the thing. They need something for when they don't need to heal because it's all scripted and covered with off global tools.

I leveled WHM to max and it was literally the same garbage as SHB as it was for EW as it now is for DT. Glare and Holy spam. That's it. Oh wait, THREE casts of GLARE 4 every TWO minutes! Damn!

That's the weird Part.

To me it feels like the Encounter design team puts in just enough unavoidable damage that the average group of the targeted skill level needs a healer to deal with those mechanics, then expects the Healers to contribute dps in between these mechanics, and maybe when people do a stupid (really loved the DoTs replacing vuln stacks on some bosses on the new raid for that when doing em with the static Yesterday.)

But the job Design team approaches Healer with a mindset of "well I guess healers want to heal stuff, so they don't need more damage spells than strictly necessary to clear solo msq duties"

[ForsakenRoe]

It's been this way since i started in 2020, you either like the role of healer or you don't. I feel like a lot of older vets are trying to convince themselves that the game will change but clearly it isn't. Seeing how they dumbed down monk, there's absolutely no way healers are getting changed.

See, that's the thing. What a lot of 'us older vets' are advocating for, we already HAD back in like 2017. Then, the game changed. If it can change from what it was to what it is, then it can also change from what it is, back to something more like 'what it was'. Which is, a better balance between damage actions and healing actions, and more variety in what damage actions we use.

Did you know, back in the days we Veterans (or maybe we should call ourselves the Ascians of Healing, since we want to go back to the old times) are pining for, the idea of clearing a final Savage fight (eg O4S, O8S, etc) without spending a single GCD on healing, was a statistical impossibility? It was an 'ideal' to strive for, but not one we could ever touch. But now, with how bloated our kits are, we can attain that goal, which makes the first GCD you spend on healing so much more impactful. Because it's easier to rationalize to yourself 'using 14 GCDs on healing instead of 13', but it's a literally infinity% increase to go from '0 GCDs on healing, to 1'

As yes, "Let's argue semantic numbers because I don't want to refute the point it happens" excuse. Everyone knows it happened quite often, and everyone knows it'll happen more often if healer DPS checks get increased and made more complex. Yeah, everyone is expected to contribute to the DPS, my point is healer should be the least expected, and focus on healing and keeping people alive. Stop pretending people are stupid and don't see what ya'll want. You want ego stroking and gatekeeping on logs. This isn't the first game I've played where people used the "We're bored" excuse, so they could convince the developers to make ways they can grandstand.

And while I'm here, someone from my Ult static was healing as AST in a roulette, and a death occurred on their watch. Not due to being wrapped up in dealing damage, no, it was because of trying to work out what the new healing cards do. That's right, they messed up their job of healing, because of confusion surrounding healing tools. Maybe SE should remove those, too?

As for Logs, sod them, I hate egotistical players crowing about 'the funny number' as much as the next player. I've played too much highend content as healer, and pressed my Glare key one too many times, to care about what a number on a third party website says about me. Sometimes I get purple. Sometimes I get green. I do what is needed to be done, to get the clear, even if it costs me a 'good parse'. There were plenty of times back in SB raids (when I was a Tank main), that I'd sacrifice myself to keep a pull alive and get a clear. Mostly the O11S lasers at the very end of Panto 2, if someone died in Panto 2, I'd take their laser even knowing it'd kill me and therefore my parse. Because I don't care about parses. If I wanted to be competitive, I'd pick a video game that's designed for it like DOTA or LOL or something, not bloody FFXIV raiding. 'egostroking and gatekeeping' don't make me laugh

[Mortex]

So fight become a joke once you outgear the content? That sounds like an everyone's problem, not a healer problem.




But it adds important context to the problem, and open different approach to solve the problem. I personally prefer to have an extensive kit to deal with an elaborated fight, rather than having a smaller kit for more simple fights.

Fight is already a complete joke and you have to pray getting thunder after adds or you don’t need to heal and you don’t have any cd problems in this fight at all. Really love the 50/50 hoping I get the opportunity to heal at all. And that is only the start of thunder and ends after feathers, after this point you sleep again.

[ForteNightshade]

something wrong with them? not sure.... but perhaps you can figure out why Warrior and Monk need an AOE heal with a regen... because for the life of me... I cannot.

They gave Shake aoe healing because of the more frequent multi-hit attacks in Savage where it was objectively inferior to Dark Missionary and Heart of Light, especially with the overabundance of magical based raidwides. Admittedly, they went a little far with it but from a balancing perspective, Shake did need the buff. Keep in mind, Warrior's self sustain is not anywhere near overpowered in Savage.

Monk is a little more puzzling but I suspect it's to better differentiate the melee. They've seemingly decided Monk should lean more towards utility than selfish like it did in previous expansions. Which is a bit odd given Ninja has become increasingly less utility driven.

Unfortunately, the problem with giving both jobs even more healing options is how much it encroaching on the healing role that already has very little to actual heal.

[Striker44]

Worqor extreme has been cleared without healers BTW

By a random group of average players in DF or by an organized group of veterans who can play with a peak level of skill? When your typical, average player grouping up with other typical, average players can reliably clear an extreme without healers, then I'd feel there's a conversation that needs to be had. But just because something "can" be done by high-level players doesn't make it the norm or worth changing the experience for everyone else.

[Silver-Strider]

By a random group of average players in DF or by an organized group of veterans who can play with a peak level of skill? When your typical, average player grouping up with other typical, average players can reliably clear an extreme without healers, then I'd feel there's a conversation that needs to be had. But just because something "can" be done by high-level players doesn't make it the norm or worth changing the experience for everyone else.

Keep moving that goalpost. Eventually, SE will make it possible to solo an Ultimate raid.