Healing MSQ Duties Is Incredibly Dull

[Rydia_Misuto]

The first time I did the solo instance at the end of Endwalker, it was incredible. I had a blast. Constantly darting around, using a complicated DPS chain, managing gauges and juggling when I could attack with when I needed to defend, or use self-healing options.

I did it as a Reaper, and anyone who has played any amount of time as a healer in this game knows I wasn't describing a healing role. On two of my alts, I went through the game again as a white mage, and as a sage (and sometimes astro), and in both cases every single solo instance is miserably boring. I appreciate the 'role-playing' system means there's variety, but any time I'm forced to control my own character and playing a healing role, any of the healing roles (since in solo content they play completely identically), it's completely miserable.

I'm curious, has anyone first-time healed these things and felt like it was really fun to press a DoT and then mash a single target damage button for 30 seconds and then press a DoT and mash the single target damage button for 30 more seconds, and now the fight's over, hooray?

[Azurarok]

I started this game during ShB as CNJ/WHM. Stuck with just it up to HW patch content, and unsurprisingly I didn't think the battle system was particularly fun until then. In hindsight it's kinda distressing to think about how happy I was when I learned Assize.

Still do MSQs with it most of the time since I just associate my WoL with it now though.

[Alice_Rivers]

Fun? Not especially. But I would rather have a requirement for my healing kit in content than a dps rotation, I am supposed to be a healer after all and healers should heal.

[Silver-Strider]

Fun? Not especially. But I would rather have a requirement for my healing kit in content than a dps rotation, I am supposed to be a healer after all and healers should heal.

Except the overwhelming amount of content doesn't even let you be a healer. You're nothing but a weak DPS with healing utility and it's been that way for years now. It's boring and trying to do any MSQ solo instance as a healer is akin to getting your teeth pulled, slow and painful

[wildvenonat]

It's hilarious and I have a blast. I threw rocks at someone and this is the best fight they've had in ages. I love it.

[ConantSivrha]

Though I’m not a healer main, I sometimes play parts of the MSQ on healer jobs. I learned very quickly to always switch to a non-healer job before going into solo duties.

Healer is the only role that feels truly incomplete outside of multiplayer duties. This is an MMO, but the MSQ is a lengthy solo experience placed between players and those multiplayer duties, so it doesn’t seem right that one role feels this bad to play alone. It’s like they think everyone who plays healer does it as a side job, and it never occurred to anyone that a player might think of their character as a healer and want to play through the MSQ as one. Even the way other characters perceive and talk about the WoL implies that you’re “supposed to” primarily associate your character with a DPS or tank job.

“I’m glad the game sometimes removes me from my character and makes me play another character with a different job, and I don’t like it when I’m ‘forced’ to play my character and the job I chose” is a sentiment that crops up nowhere else. At the very least, challenges that need to be overcome with healing should be added to solo duties if you enter them as a healer, but I think the main problem is the design of healer jobs themselves.

[LilimoLimomo]

Yeah, healer in solo content feels bad, with the exception of role quests that are specifically designed to be played as a healer. When I started the game back in ARR, I was a WHM main, and I was doing the whole MSQ as a WHM. But it didn't take me long to learn that it was just tedious to complete quests as a WHM outside of group content. While I still love healing groups as a WHM, it has resulted in my putting less and less play time into WHM with each new expansion.

Healers just don't have a role to fill in most solo duties, so they're relegated to bargain bin DPS. And that's a real bummer.

In an attempt to be comprehensive: if you're not skilled at the game, healer does technically present the safest option for many of these duties, as your deep well of healing potential will allow you to recover from just about any series of mistakes you make that aren't of the instant-kill variety. So to be fair...it does have that upside for the players who really really need it. But especially given the game's "Very Easy" options for solo duties, I would imagine that the overwhelming majority of players don't need that much of a cushion at this point.

[IDontPetLalas]

Yeah, healer in solo content feels bad, with the exception of role quests that are specifically designed to be played as a healer. When I started the game back in ARR, I was a WHM main, and I was doing the whole MSQ as a WHM. But it didn't take me long to learn that it was just tedious to complete quests as a WHM outside of group content. While I still love healing groups as a WHM, it has resulted in my putting less and less play time into WHM with each new expansion.

Healers just don't have a role to fill in most solo duties, so they're relegated to bargain bin DPS. And that's a real bummer.

In an attempt to be comprehensive: if you're not skilled at the game, healer does technically present the safest option for many of these duties, as your deep well of healing potential will allow you to recover from just about any series of mistakes you make that aren't of the instant-kill variety. So to be fair...it does have that upside for the players who really really need it. But especially given the game's "Very Easy" options for solo duties, I would imagine that the overwhelming majority of players don't need that much of a cushion at this point.

I would even remove your exception, as I found DT's healer role quests to be so horrendous that for the first time I ended up skipping through cutscenes and trying to get them over with as quickly as possible. I realize that writing quality is subjective, but I found the content juvenile and boring. The emphasis on Esuna (over and over and over) was rather condescending, it felt like whomever designed basically "phoned it in" for healers, and the capstone fight was a slog on a healer- in comparison to a tank or a DPS, where they can be interesting.

[Alice_Rivers]

Yeah, healer role quests are kinda disappointing with the lack of actual healing involved.

[CaptainLagbeard]

The game does kind of actively punish you if you try to do the MSQ as a healer... But healers are totally fine guys, just stop complaining and go play some other roles if you don't like spending 10 minutes spamming one button for a quest.