No one seems to want a healer

[Fjaere]

Does anyone else find it extremely difficult to a place in statics or party finder groups as a healer? I've found that healer spots fill up the fastest and no one ever wants me as a SCH. My main DPS is only i210 so no one wants that either...

Is it worthwhile to stop gearing up my SCH and just focus on my BRD? I cant seem to get into anything and it frustrates me how much time and tomes I spend gearing up my SCH only to use it in dungeons

[Canadane]

If your goal is to be in a static, then yes switching roles to fit the needs of a group may be what you want to do.
If your goal is to play scholar, then just keep waiting.

[Kaurie]

You could try forming your own static. I've done that as a SCH a few times now and every time I have my group up and running within ~3 weeks.

[NorthernLadMSP]

I'm not in a static ATM, but I absolutely get frustrated trying to get a healer spot in PF. They ALWAYS seem to fill up first on Gilgamesh, and the healers are my main, so they're what I feel most comfortable with.

[Katlyna]

Ultros has been reporting similar issues. Apparently we are a bit over-inflated with healers right now. The addition of Astrologians bumped up the healer population a REALLY healthy amount.

[Lastelli]

Ultros has been reporting similar issues. Apparently we are a bit over-inflated with healers right now. The addition of Astrologians bumped up the healer population a REALLY healthy amount.

I doubt this has anything to do with AST. I also noticed that queue times for healers have become much longer...I suspect it has more to do with the fact that we got to the point where if you're a dps, you're expected to perform very well and a lot of players found out that healers are a little easier to use. You know, no complicated rotations, no j**ks insulting you because of low dps and so on. So more people start healing and reach end-game with that role. Just my feeling ofc, but clearly HW made dps classes a lot more complex to master and complexity may be troublesome for less skilled players or players that don't have much time to play. Healing on the other hand is pretty much the same as it was in ARR.

[DarkmoonVael]

I doubt this has anything to do with AST. I also noticed that queue times for healers have become much longer...I suspect it has more to do with the fact that we got to the point where if you're a dps, you're expected to perform very well and a lot of players found out that healers are a little easier to use. You know, no complicated rotations, no j**ks insulting you because of low dps and so on. So more people start healing and reach end-game with that role. Just my feeling ofc, but clearly HW made dps classes a lot more complex to master and complexity may be troublesome for less skilled players or players that don't have much time to play. Healing on the other hand is pretty much the same as it was in ARR.

Although healing has not changd much since ARR, its not quite as simple to say "DPS has become complex so they have gone to healers which havent changed" (although i can see where you are coming from). Healing is one of these roles where the pressure and stress is very obvious and can overwhelm a lot of people. Add to this the complication (and this is where the complexity is with healing) of stance dancing, a skill which many veteran healers make look easy, but most new comers can not handle, especially in raids. DPS have complexity in rotations, healers have complexity in stress, responsibility and stance dancing. Its because of this lots of groups only go with healers they know and trust.

And this is possibly whats going on with you, OP. Lots of people go with healers they know and trust, which is why those positions are filled very very quickly, or often not available at all. Couple this with the influx of AST who can not heal to save anyones life, and you have more and more groups retreating to healers they know. I main AST in raids, but i would not trust 99% of AST to be able to heal - they seem to like the shiney spells they cast rather than the role they chose.

[Nekotee]

One big problem I do see often in PF...
Is group asking a SCH because they have a WHM or a WHM because they have SCH...
A big part of the PF completely put out AST as healer... so it's even worse when you're an AST and want to go raid...

Lots of people go with healers they know and trust, which is why those positions are filled very very quickly, or often not available at all. Couple this with the influx of AST who can not heal to save anyones life, and you have more and more groups retreating to healers they know. I main AST in raids, but i would not trust 99% of AST to be able to heal - they seem to like the shiney spells they cast rather than the role they chose.

I seconded and thirded that...
When I go as healer... I'm wondering what the other heal is derping about... and how he is burning his mana since I'm doing the heal...
When I go as DPS... I'm wondering how the heal he is burning his mana since no one is healed
(in both case the healer DPS is near 0...)

[Lastelli]

Although healing has not changd much since ARR, its not quite as simple to say "DPS has become complex so they have gone to healers which havent changed" (although i can see where you are coming from).

I agree, I mained WHM in ARR and AST/SCH for the first few months of HW (started gordias savage as a SCH and had to switch to MNK at A3S) so I understand what you're saying. Still, complexity in healing hasn't changed at all since ARR. You have more skills, true, but these do not add complexity, they just let you have more freedom and provide some more flexibility. AST is a little trickier than whm/sch because of card management and lower healing tools, but still the approach to healing is the same. Stance dancing was a thing even in ARR. Whereas many dps jobs have become much more complicated to be used effectively because of jobs specific mechanics that were introduced in HW. I'm just arguing that while dps jobs were preferred previously because of a lack of accountability due to the ignorance of the majority of the player base about the actual end-game meta and simplicity of their core mechanics, now since more players know about the meta and since performing poorly has become somehow easier and more damaging to the party, a bad dps is much more likely to be reproached for low dps than before, even in easy content. In my opinion, this may have convinced a lot of players to look at healers as an easier job for low difficulty content, which leads to a overinflation of healers when and if some of these players start looking for a static. Of course most of this is just me speculating based on what I see in DF and PF.
What I know is that lately I see mediocre healers more often than in the past. And I'm not even talking about SCHs that won't dps at all even if their fairy can basically solo-heal the whole dungeon or the other healer can solo-heal the trial...I'm talking about healers ragequitting if they see that the tank pulls more than one group of mobs.
Also don't forget that finding a good dps is as hard as finding a good healer. Actually, finding a good player, be it tank, dps or healer is very hard. It's not like statics will start accepting bad dps players as long as they keep their skilled healers.

[Katlyna]

I main AST in raids, but i would not trust 99% of AST to be able to heal - they seem to like the shiney spells they cast rather than the role they chose.

We've had discussions in our FC about the skill of Astrologers in difficult content. On Ultros we're still seeing a very steep curve in the skill and capability of different astrologers. Many are unable to properly heal EX and Savage content, and make the rest of us look really bad. None the less in the right hands the class spins like a top, and performs fantastic.