What if we did away with healing duos...?

[FoxyAreku]

Every fight (almost) has been solo healed while it was current since coil.

This doesn't really need a change in the game or how it functions. Premade groups need not adhere to duty finder requirements. Just bring one healer in your group, there you go.

I'm completely against this change if it effects pugs as well, most healers I tend to get are quite bad, there's no way they'd be able to keep a whole group alive by themselves.

[Novak_04]

I mean it. What if future content was solo healer? Similar to how all Alliance Raid parties are currently solo tank?

I assembled some pros and cons. It's by no means a complete list... Just what I could come up with while at work. Interested in the thoughts of others.

(Please help distract me and get me through my day.)

Pros:
- If you only have to worry about one healer, then you don't have to worry about "Healer Synergy" such as the Direct vs Shield healing that Yoshi's wants to break away from. (Would be great for AST in particular). And it could make it easier to balance the healers...

- It would prioritize and reinforce the need for a healer to focus on healing, with DPS being a distant second. Encouraging tactical healing rather than "Lets just both spam oGCD's and AoE heals to brute force our way through this".

- It would promote healer competency. No more half-assing it while the other one does all the work and no more having to pick up the slack for a lazy partner.

- Give credit where it's due. Ever get to the end of a run and want to thank the healer that saved your skin but you don't know which one actually helped you? Not anymore.

- People get another DPS. So they get more damage numbers, faster kills and faster queue times.


Cons:
- I can hear some of you already: "BUT RESURRECTION!" Absolutely. This would be the biggest obstacle. Two healers ensures that the party doesn't wipe because the one healer made a boo-boo. Ideally though, you'd want to delegate that "back-up reviver" status to a support class (hmm, if only FFXIV had a support role... or maybe give healers a "Reraise" ability?)

- Pressure. It ups the pressure and responsibility on the role. It would turn a lot of people off...

- Fewer party spots which could encourage one healer (SCH) to be preferred for everything if balancing is handled poorly. (Which, historically, is a yes).

Looking forward to other's thoughts.

Under what circumstances would you rather have a White Mage over an Astrologian under this model? Under what circumstances would you prefer a Scholar over an Astrologian in this model? This is basically the death of 2/3 of the healers. You'd almost always want the healer that brings the greatest raid utility. Want shields? Regens? Sure thing! Here, have some buffs while you're at it.

I admire the creativity and thought put into this -- really, I do. The ONLY way they could balance the healers to fit this would be to remove the card system altogether. Astrologians have stronger shields (deployed critlo aside) and comparable regens. There's just no contest.

[Foxkid]

Depends. Am I getting mandatory mana shifts or a longer duration/shorter cd Lucid Dream when I have to babysit 6 toddlers with ADHD and their father fighting back the bank trying to take back the house after one late payment?

Besides, somewhere mentioned above (probably), how would raids that handle 2 healers being there work out if there's only one healer to do anything with? Does it target the healer and a random dps or the off-tank? What about heal checks like Reiryu in Shinryu for example that's built around having 2 healers? Mechanics that remove at least one healer from the fight like the Labreha (Lahabreha? Lahabrea?), Alexander, and Sigmascape 1/S raids?

There's more than just "healer competency" to look at when it comes to suggestions like this, and there's A LOT of content to rework if such a thing did happen, especially past content.

[Vivian_Vex]

Even as someone that likes to be stuck with a bad healer because that means more work for me. I most certainly do not want to be the ONLY healer.

[Naoki34]

There are many terrible healers despite this content easy to 24. Despite the simplicity of the fighting, they can chain wype on Cid because lacks Dps or they doesn't pack.

Many healers are very slow in reactivity, to believe that he knows neither the fight nor the notion of precast. After a while, we know the name of the AoE boss or tank buster.

Solo heal at the next expansion will make it inaccessible to these terrible healer. For my point of view, I say why not, I can solo heal, but I don't think Naoki Yoshida wants to make the game less casual.

And, don't rely too much on the raiseMage, I wonder if some do not forget the existence of this spell, they prefers dps or slack and die.

[Atlantasia]

There is always a bell curve when it comes to skill levels:
- The bottom 5% that can barely clear content and needs carried.
- The next 20% that can clear some content, but still makes frequent mistakes.
- The middle 50% that can clear the majority of content, and makes mistakes sometimes.
- The next 20% that can clear any content and rarely makes mistakes.
- The top 5% that can clear anything that's thrown at them and almost never makes a mistake.

This game caters to the majority, so they typically create content around the middle 50% of players. Solo healing is something that the top 25% would relish, the bottom 25% would be unable to do and the middle 50% would be a mixed bag most likely. That's not fun for the majority and therefore it will never be implemented.

Also, RDM and SMN rezzing is a total DPS loss, in MP, time/GCDs and rotation. The only time they should be rezzing is if both healers are down currently and it doesn't change that it's a DPS loss to do so. :/

[JowyAtreides]

I'd support this, but feel that a full party would need shrinking to 6 players.

Having 6 dps per party (in a 1/1/6 format) in many instances would be a bit overkill, unless they reworked health levels to keep fights the same duration of course.

[416to305]

I would LOVE this change as I love when I get to solo heal (like the trials where if you get knocked off the side you're out for the remainder of it, I'm always hoping the other healer does that lol). I find that with PUGs half the time the other healer is really new or is terrible and doesn't play properly anyway, so it pretty much is solo healing. For EX or harder it might be tricky with just 1, but it would be cool if they had a new type of trial or raid where it was designed for solo healing. I think it could be a cool option though if they did it on the next raid tier even since new healers might be less likely to do those anyway. They would need something to tackle what happens if the healer dies since you wouldn't want to wipe the whole party but either way this would be an amazing change.

[EaMett]

For the most part you can already solo heal everything (a bit trickier on SCH but with 5.0 changes it should be a little easier). Just makes progging a little more work.

[Stabby-Chan]

FF XIV selling point is on it being a casual game where classes are doubled.
2 Tanks, 2 Healers, 4 DPS on average.

However, if you want a one-healer setup
Form a party with a Healer + Red Mage.
Have the Red Mage focus on DPS + Resurrectio
Have the Healer run higher MP (To help with MP regeneration and also DPS)
and see how far you can get.

Remember the rule to Party Finder.
Pre-made parties ignore role requirements and iLvL requirements.

In many games one only has one healer and so the party tells the healer to use their mana for healing. Two healers allow for both of them to try to DPS. However, its funny when one healer gets disconnected, the party quickly reverts to how things were like 10 - 15 years ago.

As it currently stands
a good white mage on HP Regeneration abilities can tank a lot of bosses in this game, heal the party, and DPS a boss. (I've done it many times)