Why you should play a healer!

[Sebazy]

Parses don't equal content completion.

Perhaps our opinions are split because of differences in how we approach content I guess?

O4S is typically regarded as a step up from A12S in terms of difficulty, but still quite a way short of what we saw in Gordias and Midas. Yet at iLvl 320 I can promise you that things needed to be fairly tidy. You couldn't simply back off and say damn it to the logs and it certainly didn't take too many mistakes to hit the enrage timer at this point.

If you come at the same content a few months down the line with 330+ gear then chances are you're going to see it in a very different light as in this situation you are indeed correct, as you are if you've stuck to the earlier Savage turns such as O1S.

Me? I'm still haunted by the level of optimisation we needed to pull out of the bag for A4S.

I don't really get your closing point though. You sure you're not reading things that we aren't saying? Implying healers are getting carried? I'm the last person on earth who's going to say that =(

But there has never been a fight where all the DPS had to achieve their perfect theoretical DPS for a given fight in order to complete it, even with problematic raids like Gordias.

Bzzzzt, wrong. You do realise that A4S stood for roughly a month before it was killed right? Why? Because people couldn't hit the DPS required to make the strategy needed to clear it viable.

[Ghishlain]

I think it comes down to a hard cap/soft cap kind of thing. In terms of core function a healer has a hard cap of keeping everyone alive enough to beat enrage where as DPS are always chasing a higher number. To an extent (most) healers are as well, at this point we can probably comfortably say healer DPS is a thing, but the level of skill to perform optimal single-target healer DPS is so low (are your DoTs up? Are you nuking?) compared to a tank or DPS they aren't in the same galaxy.


This means that to adjust as a healer is intrinsically less on their DPS than adjusting for a DPS. Why do you think no healer has a gap closer or any movement abilities? WHM and SCH could certainly use them for Holy/Assize/Miasma II but because they aren't punished nearly as hard for disengaging it isn't an issue.

This is a necessity of the healer role in FFXIV, we have to be able to put down and pick up our DPS around healing the raid, but if Stone IV's potency started at 180 and increased by consecutive, uninterrupted casts (or some other still comparably easy mechanic) healers would at least begin to understand the turmoil a DPS faces when a boss goes untargetable, a status effect hits them or they happen to die. I don't want that, it would be terrible, but because we have this luxury to put out comparatively stronger DPS with less focus on it we do, by definition, have an easier time.

Lastly I would like to say even in reasonably easy content like EX primals or Omega normal a part of the healer's comfort is determined by their group. Are you in a competent, knowledgable static? The healer has a great time. Are you with inconsiderate, stupid pugs (not all pugs, I know) who eat every other bit of avoidable damage and don't perform basic mechanics? No one in that party is working harder than the healer.

+1

But again, I don't know why you all are so hung up on making strict comparisons in difficulty to the point of trying to imply healers are getting carried. And we wonder why there seems to be fewer healers...

It's less about the fact that Healer's are being carried and more about the fact that healer's have a fairly low skill floor compared to the other roles but in the same token have a very comparable if not higher skill ceiling versus the other roles as well. The ability to adapt as a healer is not something easy to master but if everything goes swimmingly, a healer can provide the lowest contribution to the group if all they're doing is healing via Cure / Benefic / Physick through the entire fight and letting the rest of the group do the DPS necessary to clear the content.

[Jerichai]

Snip

Not sure why you're so intent on using A4S as your hill to die on. Most people I've talked to have said that the insane DPS requirements nearly killed the raiding scene in this game. Not to mention that tier absolutely depended on healers and tanks optimizing their DPS contribution to make ends meet. Considering that...maybe we shouldn't pray for unnecessarily strict DPS cutoffs from now on...

It also doesn't refute my point either. All content has a min group wide DPS requirement to meet in order to clear the content. It doesn't matter whether those members have 99th percentile parces or 50th percentile parses, as long as the group meets the minimum DPS cutoff, and successfully navigates the mechanics simultaneously, they'll defeat the encounter. And that's all the game, within itself, cares about. Sure, world first DPS can't be sloppy (but they still make mistakes), but that makes up less than 1% of the playing population of this game. Gordias just happened to set that cutoff well above what was healthy for the community.

And yeah, when you say so intently healers are a breeze to play, some people will take that as their efforts and overall contributions are not as valued...which is a shitty attitude to bring to a thread aimed at attracting new healers.

[Kabzy]

And yeah, when you say so intently healers are a breeze to play, some people will take that as their efforts and overall contributions are not as valued...which is a shitty attitude to bring to a thread aimed at attracting new healers.

That's a pretty unfair assumption that you're making here. Technically anybody making that claim is not wrong. When you look at the actual execution of healing and healer DPS in this game, it's easily the most simplistic out of the other roles. Our difficulty comes purely from content design, which branches off to managing resources, pre-casting, mitigating etc etc. Nobody is claiming that healers are easy, just that their difficulty doesn't come from their actual kit, unlike DPS and tanks.

And for the record, it's not only the world first DPS who can't play sloppy. Creator and Omega have been a little on the easier side, but even there you need to be on point when you're progging, and DPS mistakes are very noticeable. No one cares about people clearing fights at x percentile once they're overgeared. You can't simply dismiss the work they have to put in to keep their rotations going 100% throughout an entire fight.

[Jerichai]

It's amazing how many people will pile on when you suggest that DPS aren't god's gift to gaming and are no more important or inherently more complicated than any other role in end game content.

Like seriously, people looking down on my because I prefer to main healer is exactly why I only ever try to do more challenging content with people I know, cause the elitism has just gotten intolerable in most MMOs, and it's always over such manufactured BS.

But man, those combos...

[Cynfael]

Like seriously, people looking down on my because I prefer to main healer is exactly why I only ever try to do more challenging content with people I know, cause the elitism has just gotten intolerable in most MMOs, and it's always over such manufactured BS

It’s looking increasingly like you have some unresolved issues of your own that you are projecting onto other posters, because you continue to argue against a point that no one is making. How many people have to rephrase the same explanations for you before you understand that no one is beating up on healers?

You do realize that most of us around here are healer mains, yes? And a good number of us actively participate in Savage-level content on healer and on other roles? We have a fairly good understanding of what the three roles entail in end-game, so no, this is far from a bunch of DPS players putting down healer contributions.

Do your arguments come from personal experience, or are you whipping up hypothetical scenarios to support your points? You’re quick to push back on any suggestion that healer is less than complex in every possible meaning of the term, yet you deride DPS role requirements as extremely easy to achieve, even in context of Savage raids. Tell us more about your Savage experience with healer and DPS roles and how you came to these conclusions through your own gameplay.

It’s your hypersensitivity to perceived criticism that started this conversation and kept it rolling even after I ducked out of it, not any elitist conspiracy. As soon as you saw someone suggesting that healing wasn’t mechanically complex (not even a comment on overall difficulty), you fixated on what you assumed was being said and still haven’t let go of that bone.

[MoroMurasaki]

It's amazing how many people will pile on when you suggest that DPS aren't god's gift to gaming and are no more important or inherently more complicated than any other role in end game content.

Like seriously, people looking down on my because I prefer to main healer is exactly why I only ever try to do more challenging content with people I know, cause the elitism has just gotten intolerable in most MMOs, and it's always over such manufactured BS.

But man, those combos...

How is anyone looking down on you for maining healer? The vast majority of people who have responded to you, myself included, are healer mains!

As I have said several times now you keep creating this false narrative that equates saying DPS are technically more complicated in their gameplay than healers with the idea that healers are lazy or being carried. Literally no one is saying the thing you are complaining about.

Maybe try reading the posts in the thread you're responding to before you go and try to have a passive aggressive pity party because you don't like opinions you don't agree with.

Edit: Damnit Cyn, stop posting a minute before me while saying what I said better than I said it >.<

[Sebazy]

It also doesn't refute my point either. All content has a min group wide DPS requirement to meet in order to clear the content.

Consider that a) we don't hit the ground running with capped gear in a new progression tier and b) strategies can take weeks to get refined and optimised to what you see in a MrHappy video. SE are fairly shrewd in tuning content so that it is dooable out of the gate, but with rather strict requirements compared to further on down the line. So yes, that gap between a flawless run and a wipe to enrage can often be very very narrow initially. As iLvls go up and strategies get optimised it widens rather significantly. My stance on this is no doubt skewed because I put my stock in the early weeks and tough times of progression, that's the time when content matters and I'm enjoying myself the most IMHO. I do appreciate and understand where you're coming from, perhaps it's time you returned the favour?

Why did I bring Gordias into this?

But there has never been a fight where all the DPS had to achieve their perfect theoretical DPS for a given fight in order to complete it, even with problematic raids like Gordias.

.... there has never been a fight where all the DPS had to achieve their perfect theoretical DPS ....

Yeah, uh, hi?

And yeah, when you say so intently healers are a breeze to play

Say what?

Please quote me where I 'so intently' said that.

I still think you're absolutely misunderstanding my point =(

It's as Cyn's saying, a healer's core kit is rather simplistic, notably more so than the rocket science DPS combos and Tank 'phases' in this game. Does that make a healer comparatively effortless to raid with? Absolutely not, healers need a level of spatial awareness and presence of mind that would actually be rather detrimental to a top tier DPS. Not to mention, significant Healer mistakes tend to get punished with a far higher frequency and with much more impactful results than DPS mistakes.

some people will take that as their efforts and overall contributions are not as valued...which is a shitty attitude to bring to a thread aimed at attracting new healers.

Have you seen how often I gush over my co-healer?

This weeks O1S was a solid demonstration of why I rate him as one of the very best SCHs in this game.

Almost everyone else died, several multiple times, half of us wanted to get back to Destiny 2, the other half wanted to get back to Coil or just didn't care, we were down to 2 characters standing. The guy not only kept the run on the rails, he bagged a 96% out of it in the process. Fluke? Feel free to look at his logs. I take huge pride in my capacity to carry rough raids, but I couldn't dream of doing it whilst also contributing the DPS that he does in the process.

I overreact to things going wrong and drop everything to unleash the floodgates of HPS to ride the storm. He consistently manages to react just enough to keep things going without derailing his own numbers in the process.

This is why I'm merely a decent healer whilst he is absolutely world class.

To anyone that might doubt that a healer's value and contribution isn't there I ask: Do you think I keep the company I do because of my DPS?

[Vyriah]

Yeah, you're Savage players and you seem to know each other a bit from this forum. Then let a bit of a room to breath to that one person who is saying something different. I mean, you do seem to make a point in not belittleling others but you don't have a problem asking for their creditencial to state what they think.

Also, wasn't it supposed to be something along the lines of floor level vs ceiling level ? I'm not sure what gaming creditentials have to do. You're doing savage, good for you. But exactly because you're seasonned player doing savage tier encounter for years your opinion on floor level gameplay is slightly off. Sure, it look super simple to you but that's not what entry level means.

I've a lot of long time MNK or DRG players say the same thing "it looks more difficult than it actually is, you just use same skills in the same order everytime. By the time you get to lv70, anyone can do that". You think it's simple because you're used to it, everyone will tell you there job is simple. Everytime i say to a PLD that I can't arround that job, I get same answer "no way, it's super easy I'm mostly just using the same spell blablabla".
And the again : SCH is execution monster team. I'm not even sure how anyone playing it can say otherwise. The clear DoT management VS burst healer of HW was about awareness, but the current one is all about weaving all those OGCD in your only two instant cast. This exactly melee DPS gameplay, miasma 2 being point blank AoE even look like caster made postional.

Also, it case that's what you wanted to know : yes, you get insulted and told you're getting carried by parse worshipping DPS and such. Already told it, my single first best performance on SCH (wich I did just because we saw enrage multiple time and tried my best to step up as much as I could, I only saw how it turned out the next day because some else made a log of it) was welcomed by "OMG YOU'RE SO BAD WE CARRIED YOU THROUGH THIS" by a pretty under performing DPS. Most player greatly undervalue healer input into the fight and greatly overestimate DPS. It's not something you should see in static play, but it happens in PU. Not everytime, but enough for anyone to have some horror story about it.
And the idea that healers only have to press the heal and everything is fine is the reason why everyone thing they can be arrogant toward them no matter what happen. Even in this raid where bosses are mostly AoE firing striking dummies with huge down phases (except O3S, again).

I know, you're not responsible for shitty behavior of everyone. But what you're saying right is the exact reason why an extremly average DPS will look down on a average healer, even when they have no clue about what you're doing (some one actually told "but you're bad, I barely ever saw you cast a healing spell" while I was playing as SCH).
So yeah, healing and DPSing asks different type of qualities, but there's no reason to even begin on the "this one is more simple", especially on something as broad as healer vs DPS, as it brings nothing but trouble. And ultimatly, yes, it does downplay healers. You're just not the one getting it.

[Kabzy]

Most player greatly undervalue healer input into the fight and greatly overestimate DPS. It's not something you should see in static play, but it happens in PU.

This is just wrong. I think the reason a lot of us are advocating DPS recognition is due to the fact that they hardly ever get the praise they deserve. Healers have so many areas that they can excel in that will get recognition from others, and DPS hardly ever do. You see this even in lower level content where DPS hardly ever get commended no matter how well they perform. So I'm sorry but I completely disagree with this idea of healers being undervalued. We have the limelight in pretty much any party, whether it's for good reasons or bad.

Also, this entire conversation going on between a few of you is completely pointless. It's just one big misunderstanding. The "savage players" are merely pointing out that the lack of positionals, timers and rotations mean that the healer kit is the easiest in the game. THE KIT. They're not saying that the role itself is easy. Our difficulty comes from content design and our party, more so than the other roles. I don't really see why this needs to be repeated another hundred times for the not so "savage players" to understand.