Poor healers in leveling content - how can I help?

[Stelaria]

As a player recently returning to playing this game more frequently after an extended hiatus, I have been focusing on leveling all of my classes to 70 in preparation for Shadowbringers (as one does.) However, in the process, I've noticed something of a trend in players I've been matched with by the Duty Finder.

Specifically, I've seen an abnormally large number of healers who don't use the vast majority of their skill set. In the most common case, I see white mages in the 60-70 range who simply cast basic Cure spells, not even Cure II, over and over.

When asked about this, they inevitably claim that they'll run out of MP if they cast anything else - even if they're ending every encounter above 60% MP and the tank is dying on larger pulls! Some of them also seem extremely willing to simply quit out of the instance rather than listen to what other players have to say, which doesn't benefit anyone, least of all them.

I think I understand what causes this, and it's silly! Simply put, in WoW a competing popular MMO produced by Activision Blizzard (at least as far as I remember it - I haven't played in almost ten years now!), healer mana economy was extremely tight, there were very few off-GCD skills and those that exist are almost all short-term buffs and support abilities, and healers casting damage spells outside of solo content was essentially unheard of. At the time, even small-group content was also difficult and slow-paced, and crowd control and kill orders even on trash groups were important, though I'm told this has changed. (If I'm wrong about any of this and you have recent experience, please correct me!)

In any case, the phrase 'WoW refugee' and variations on it are things I can safely assume are not taken well and lead people to expect a sneering, toxic atmosphere. (I can't imagine why!)

The problem is the following. Regardless of how they got them, these are players who are approaching the game on faulty assumptions. In particular, these players and tanks who want to do large pulls have the worst possible compatibility which leads to frustrating and slow play. I don't think this is fun, but I don't know how to help and advise a demographic of players who've shown themselves more willing to run away than either figure out their kit on their own or listen to other players.

Is there anything I can do?

[Veis_Alveare]

I've tried everything to reach people like this with virtually no success.

I don't know how much of it can be WoW-refugees, it's been a long-standing topic of debate both on these forums and in the game in general. I once suggested to someone in a discord server that I was sure they could do some dps and that they just needed to have a little faith in themselves and was told to "not tell them what they're capable of" so... yeah, there's that.

SE has made the skill floor for players doing casual content so low that bosses like the Mist Dragon in The Burn have threads here and on Reddit calling for them to be nerfed and healers got the shortest end of that stick because in a party doing small pulls in most dungeons the healer isn't even necessary.

I don't think there's anything to really do for those people other than offer advice and go from there. If they're rude about it maybe kick them? I hate the idea of advocating kicking sprouts but some people only learn with tough love.

[Risvertasashi]

It's essentially the healer version of DPS that ignore most of their skills, tanks that never cooldown, and so on.

Gently offer a helping hand to see if they're willing to take advice. If they aren't... nothing to do but move on.

[Kuurei]

I've tried everything to reach people like this with virtually no success.

I don't know how much of it can be WoW-refugees, it's been a long-standing topic of debate both on these forums and in the game in general. I once suggested to someone in a discord server that I was sure they could do some dps and that they just needed to have a little faith in themselves and was told to "not tell them what they're capable of" so... yeah, there's that.

SE has made the skill floor for players doing casual content so low that bosses like the Mist Dragon in The Burn have threads here and on Reddit calling for them to be nerfed and healers got the shortest end of that stick because in a party doing small pulls in most dungeons the healer isn't even necessary.

I don't think there's anything to really do for those people other than offer advice and go from there. If they're rude about it maybe kick them? I hate the idea of advocating kicking sprouts but some people only learn with tough love.

Bit of irony to me, at least in this post lol. Mist Dragon is where I felt I was finally challenged when I transitioned to being a WHM main. I think what a lot of legitimately new/former other mmo refugee players aren't realizing is that a lot of it comes down to really taking the time to learn your toolkit. All three healers have ways to mitigate their mana costs, or give them breathing room to sit for a few seconds if they DO run too low.

The problem is, teaching a player to Thin Air before a Ress cast, or after you've been rezzed yourself to allow for some regeneration while you patch people (and yourself) off, is generally hard to do for whatever reason. Even when you notify them calmly and considerately that there are some changes that can be made to help the group, the reaction you're generally met with is not equally kind.

I sometimes wonder if part of it is the big hit that actual teamwork has taken in MMOs. Shame, too.

[Zeromon]

New players don't know how this game works because of course they don't: they're new and inexperienced. Thus most people fall on safe and standard assumptions, such as healers only healing. Changing that mindset is very difficult and takes a lot of time. Time being the key point here. Telling a sprout that holy spamming is good mitigation in a random dungeon won't change their mind no matter how logical you're being. The sprout has cleared all content up to that dungeon without holy spamming and telling him to suddenly change it up won't work.

However, if the sprout player hears that tip continuously for a week it might just do the trick. Just like teachers repeating the important information multiple times in a lecture, there needs to be a sustained effort to educate. So if the sprout you're trying to help is receptive, then good, but if not, just give the advice and hope the veterans after you give the same advice later on. There is no catch all way to get to somebody.

Personally I try to maximise my DPS while on healing, but that habit didn't just come out of nowhere. It was the non-stop healer dps discussions at the end if HW on here and reddit that finally convinced me to do dps. I just needed to see the arguments more. If a random in a dungeon told me to dps I wouldn't have done it. In another anecdote I remember a DPS advising me to use Cure III in a specific situation, but I've never done such a thing before and despite wiping a few times I never bothered to take his advice. Looking back the advice was very sound, but I've only heard it once, and so it took me months until I realized why he said what he said.

So I would just say: give useful advice often and politely, and don't push it too hard. If the other person doesn't listen or respond there's really nothing you can do to make it better. You don't know what their assumptions are, let alone how they got those assumptions. Just hope they take good advice in eventually.

[Naoki34]

I stopped trying to convince this kind of healer and I don't hope anymore, I leave, BL and next...

We can't help someone who doesn't want to be helped.

[AxlTheHunter]

Tonight I experienced the opposite end of the spectrum. A healer who thinks that they're hot shit when they're not. Mind you, I'm still working on leveling PLD and barely qualified to have been in Doma Castle so I played it safe. I always use the first pull to determine how comfortable a group will be. So even with cooldowns it was a lot harrier than it should have been so I grab the Colossus and decided it better to pull it to the corner alone. The healer USES RESCUE on me and face pulls the entire next pull, then blames me for a wipe when I never even had a chance to control the situation.

[griffinborn]

New players don't know how this game works because of course they don't: they're new and inexperienced. Thus most people fall on safe and standard assumptions, such as healers only healing. Changing that mindset is very difficult and takes a lot of time. Time being the key point here. Telling a sprout that holy spamming is good mitigation in a random dungeon won't change their mind no matter how logical you're being. The sprout has cleared all content up to that dungeon without holy spamming and telling him to suddenly change it up won't work.

However, if the sprout player hears that tip continuously for a week it might just do the trick. Just like teachers repeating the important information multiple times in a lecture, there needs to be a sustained effort to educate. So if the sprout you're trying to help is receptive, then good, but if not, just give the advice and hope the veterans after you give the same advice later on. There is no catch all way to get to somebody.

Personally I try to maximise my DPS while on healing, but that habit didn't just come out of nowhere. It was the non-stop healer dps discussions at the end if HW on here and reddit that finally convinced me to do dps. I just needed to see the arguments more. If a random in a dungeon told me to dps I wouldn't have done it. In another anecdote I remember a DPS advising me to use Cure III in a specific situation, but I've never done such a thing before and despite wiping a few times I never bothered to take his advice. Looking back the advice was very sound, but I've only heard it once, and so it took me months until I realized why he said what he said.

So I would just say: give useful advice often and politely, and don't push it too hard. If the other person doesn't listen or respond there's really nothing you can do to make it better. You don't know what their assumptions are, let alone how they got those assumptions. Just hope they take good advice in eventually.

Best answer honestly. Sprouts might not receive your words instantly, so you might take that single moment as "they are beyond help", but they'll have several situations of inadequacy that will probably shape them up eventually. Some people gotta learn the hard way. Coming of age imo.

[gumas]

this is basically what i complain in tales of duty finder thread, seems like many healer that i find in DF tend to just spam cure 1 over and over even to the point of overhealing. i myself is healer main so everytime i play as dps or tank if i see someone like that i tend to told them what to do as polite as possible, like "please use cure 2" or "esuna pls" something like that. some will listen and even apologies for it, some just went berserk and either goes "dont tell me what to do" or just straight leave the party.

i have 1 instance where the healer kind of like that, every fight after 1 or 2 mobs his mp is basically depleted, i just keep going because that how it usually do and we got wiped at the boss, and he simply said "stupid party, cant you see iam oom? and people said this game is friendly?" ??? what happen with lucid dream? what happen to your mana card? (he is ast btw).

what happen with the basic manner of asking the party to stop for a minute? this game community is friendly no doubt yes, but if you stay quiet and expecting all kindness come to you then you are very wrong.