Beseechings of a long time healer

[Dearche]

Forgive this long rant, but I need to get it out.


I have been a healer main for a long time in FFXIV. After I raised a DPS, I worked immediately on raising a healer for variety, and I've never looked back, running other classes only to fill gaps in my premades.

I love healing, and don't see myself every changing from that. The power your wield over life and death of the party is intoxicating. A good healer can keep a bad party alive. A great healer can turn a wipe into a victory.

No other role has so much power over the party.

But lately, I've been finding that as fun as it is to show off your skills at keeping bad players alive, I grew frustrated at the sheer number of bad players in the more difficult content.

[Dearche]

I'm not talking about pugging Final Coil, but Urth's Font, or EX Primals are incredibly difficult to DF, much less impossible for T5. And it's not because people are new at the game. There's tons of players who have been around for months on end, raising multiple classes and still are unable to dodge simple AOEs. Nor is it lag that hurts them, as a healer, it's your job to watch the party, not the boss, so you can tell when someone's suffering from lag.

People aren't learning the mechanics, and the worst offenders are the DPS. A bad tank happens. A bad healer happens. But why do bad DPS appear 10x as often as either combined?

Why are you more likely to go into any part of Crystal Tower and have to fully heal the DPS from blatant AOEs 3 times before the first healer or tank falls? Why does this happen almost every duty? Why do people just expect healers to keep these bad players alive through everything?

[MrCookTM]

A bad tank happens. A bad healer happens. But why do bad DPS appear 10x as often as either combined?

Why are you more likely to go into any part of Crystal Tower and have to fully heal the DPS from blatant AOEs 3 times before the first healer or tank falls? Why does this happen almost every duty?

Because there's nothing prior to endgame that teaches a dps how to play this game, while you have to understand the basic mechanics of tanking/healing immediately in order to not wipe your group even in low level dungeons. Dps is arguably the laziest role to play in dungeons, CT, etc., but once you enter Coil, the difficulty skyrockets, while tanking is comperably easy and healing - well, it's tough, but like I said, you already learned the most important stuff in earlier stages.

[Sounders]

Because there's nothing prior to endgame that teaches a dps how to play this game, while you have to understand the basic mechanics of tanking/healing immediately in order to not wipe your group even in low level dungeons. Dps is arguably the laziest role to play in dungeons, CT, etc., but once you enter Coil, the difficulty skyrockets, while tanking is comperably easy and healing - well, it's tough, but like I said, you already learned the most important stuff in earlier stages.

Not really, to be honest. The skill of dodging AOE is needed as early as Haukke Manor. If you can't dodge, you get the fear debuff. This can cause a wipe if tanks and dps can't dodge, but of course can be saved by an awesome healer.

[Garlyle]

Not really, to be honest. The skill of dodging AOE is needed as early as Haukke Manor. If you can't dodge, you get the fear debuff. This can cause a wipe if tanks and dps can't dodge, but of course can be saved by an awesome healer.

This in turn is why Titan (Story) is a wakeup call that wrecks a lot of new players. Get Landslided? Congrats, you are out of the fight. The healer can't heal that. It's a wake up call to a lot of healers too, because they can't just heal the damage to themselves either. You're forced to acknowledge that you screwed up.

But you can still get pulled through it. I've literally cleared Titan Story as tank with just the healer and me alive before. And it almost made me want to throw the fight at the end because those DPS needed to learn, not simply progress - they needed the roadblock.

It's a little cruel and I can recognise the potential for frustration, but I feel almost more like that's what XIV needs to have - more actually unprogressable moments where players have to pass basic checks in order to progress. Not stumble through until they get carried through. Some of the story quests used to do this... until echo was implemented. Guildhests have never been good teachers nor are they touched by the majority of players who would need them. You know?

You can stumble through the game getting carried pretty hard. Then you hit 50, and there are people who could almost literally solo dungeons due to overgearing at this point, and you get carried harder. And then you hit i100+ and you're like "oh yeah there's nothing stopping me from beating Twintania/EX Primals"... except yourself. And in those fights, where your failure actually can impact the performance of others? ...Yeah. These days, closest thing to a hard roadblock in the game up until then is Garuda (Story) - and even then a skilled and determined WHM can carry a team through that fight despite their best efforts. Look at the hilarious trainwrecks that are the current HM primals, Praetorium, etc., that were once supposed to be tests and challenges to players.

[Dearche]

Because we do. Because we will heal them every time they take a hit. We'll heal them every time they mess up and take aggro. We'll heal them every time they get lazy and not even bother avoiding those big red spots on the ground.

All, because healers are the ones punished for other player's mistakes.

Every time someone else makes a mechanics mistake, it's the healer that gets punished. Maybe you think that's what the healers exist for. The healer's job is to fix other people's mistakes. They're the Mr Fixits of parties. The plumber you call every time your sink leaks, so you never have to figure out why it leaked the 3rd time this month.

But here's the thing. SE puts in mechanics for healers too. There's special mechanics for healers to deal with, ontop of having to heal through bad DPS who ignore their own mechanics.

We're shouldering the burdon of 2 others ontop of our shoulders. Why do healers have to put up with bad players expecting others to make up for their laziness?

[Dearche]

SE, I have a proposition: Make the people who make the mistake, pay for the mistake. Nothing too drastic. Something simple that won't drag the party down with the offending player. Something like...every time you get hit by an AOE, you'll take a 2 second stun that can't be resisted. Or maybe petrified for 10 seconds. Or put to sleep for 20 seconds. But start with the stun. Make sure that when they make a mistake, they know "Oh, I messed up, and the healer can't do anything about it, so I won't yell at them."

Please SE, I beseech you. Have some pity for those of us who are abused day in and day out. Those of us who have to always be at the apex of our curve all day, every day, just to get our daily poetics.

Sincerely: an overworked Selene



TL;DR: Put the punishment of those who stand in AOEs to the ones who stand in the AOEs. Make AOEs stun and do damage, not just do ignorable damage!

[Eye_Gore]

SE, I have a proposition: Make the people who make the mistake, pay for the mistake.

Sounds like you have a bit of a god complex. You are not the almighty, this attitude alone can be the difference between a success and a failure. It takes the group to get through, it depends on all of you weather it be life or death, unless you're running low content with high ilvl. I've seen healers, DPS, and tanks, drop like flies being hit by AOE's. Everyone makes mistakes. In large drawn out battles there is alot going on alot of stuff going off. I have missed landslides before only because with all kinds of explosions of party AOE's going off I've lost sight of it on the ground, as I have to be on top of the enemy to do my job. Random circle AOE's I've run right into not knowing where it will hit. Is that a reason to "punish" players, no it isn't.

Some people will learn from their mistakes and it makes them a better player. Others may not or just don't care, but is that reason to "punish" all players?

[Sounders]

Something like...every time you get hit by an AOE, you'll take a 2 second stun that can't be resisted. Or maybe petrified for 10 seconds. Or put to sleep for 20 seconds.

Or falling off a cliff that makes you unraisable.

Ironically though TEX used to be a gateway for EX primals. You can't do MEX, LEX, etc unless you've cleared TEX. But people started whining.
Even so, the thing about TEX's landslide is that you can screw up, but the other 7 players kick ass and you get "carried" so you can still clear the content.

[Able]

A player being stunned or petrified by every AoE would absolutely hurt the party.