Time to expand a little on my comments about SE needing to hire a healer designer.

[MerlinCross]

This fame generates so much money our money that I don’t see why they can’t have dedicated designers to jobs. There is really no reason why especially when the healer player base has been neglected for so long.

Because they don't need to.

Healers currently are overly tuned, and the damage is on a rotation so they can easily balance the expected amounts of heals along with factoring in possible failures from players. Healing is actually pretty strong in this game, and that's all they need to balanced around; it needs to be strong enough for the casual off healer to que up and feel like they did well.

The problem is the healer and combat design seems tailored to this; the off healer. The side healer, the newbie healer and the panic healer(Along with the people that think Healer should only hit the HP recover button). In this sense, it works but the moment healers start getting better? That they can start to process and understand their kit along with people getting just better or geared up? These problems become clear. Heck, I see the problem myself and I've only taken healers into normals, not extreme or trails and I see this corner they seem to be putting themselves into.

SE isn't neglecting Healers, they want people to play healer and set things up to focus on that goal of getting new people into healing. The problem is there's nothing to KEEP Healers in the role. So they make things more inviting or easier to try and get more people into the role, and then wonder why they are bleeding more people... and the cycle keeps going.

I'm probably tripping over my words here but that's how it feels to me. They designed Healers to make it so anyone can pick up healing and not fail so long as they are paying attention(And the rest of the party also doesn't eat paste), but once that given success is routine..., why keep healing?

[Allegor]

That's kinda the problem isn't it? why is healing the only role of the trinity that feels it gets worse the better you get at it, rather than more rewarding. Why would healer design be focused on the lowest common denominator when tanks are the infamous role the least amount of people want to pick? "tanxiety" is a thing, but I never heard of "healxiety" or whatever similar words. It's a double standard that's really hard to cover

[HyperiusUltima]

That's kinda the problem isn't it? why is healing the only role of the trinity that feels it gets worse the better you get at it, rather than more rewarding. Why would healer design be focused on the lowest common denominator when tanks are the infamous role the least amount of people want to pick? "tanxiety" is a thing, but I never heard of "healxiety" or whatever similar words. It's a double standard that's really hard to cover

When it comes to "tanxiety" as you term it, more or less it's just a whole mindset of fear of a multitude of things - screwing up, being yelled at, etc. It varies from person to person when they tank the first time.

"healxiety" is something I don't really think is a thing among healers, but if we really have to coin a definition for it it'd probably be in regards to bad habits that are developed really early on in healing, namely from WHM. Panic Healing being prominent when people blame you for screwing up or not keeping tanks up or such. But sometimes they blame us anyway as a "get off me" just because it's easy to blame the healer for another person dying to mechanics since people don't always realize it.

[Risvertasashi]

That's kinda the problem isn't it? why is healing the only role of the trinity that feels it gets worse the better you get at it, rather than more rewarding. Why would healer design be focused on the lowest common denominator when tanks are the infamous role the least amount of people want to pick? "tanxiety" is a thing, but I never heard of "healxiety" or whatever similar words. It's a double standard that's really hard to cover

When it comes to "tanxiety" as you term it, more or less it's just a whole mindset of fear of a multitude of things - screwing up, being yelled at, etc. It varies from person to person when they tank the first time.

"healxiety" is something I don't really think is a thing among healers, but if we really have to coin a definition for it it'd probably be in regards to bad habits that are developed really early on in healing, namely from WHM. Panic Healing being prominent when people blame you for screwing up or not keeping tanks up or such. But sometimes they blame us anyway as a "get off me" just because it's easy to blame the healer for another person dying to mechanics since people don't always realize it.

It might not have been coined as a term, but people staying away from healers because they fear/have anxiety about the responsibility, being yelled at when things go wrong, etc etc absolutely is a thing. Has been for a long time.

[Allegor]

It might not have been coined as a term, but people staying away from healers because they fear/have anxiety about the responsibility, being yelled at when things go wrong, etc etc absolutely is a thing. Has been for a long time.

Indeed, it is very real - when I started playing, I was admittedly intimidated of Cleric Stance because of the all too familiar thought of "but what if something happens within those 8 seconds?!" but that´s where the double standard begins.

Over time, tanks have been given lots of QoL fixes and even mechanic changes to make tanking less stressful, but more fluid and engaging, to the point they´re now essentially DPS with extra aggro, but healers? they´re treated as a chore, a mandatory raid slot "someone" has to fill, rather than a role meant to be enjoyed just as much as DPS and tanks.

Heck, the only reason healers even still have Glare/Broil/Malefic and their one DoT is probably because they need to somehow be able to do questing - yes, people play healers outside raiding. Shocking, right?

[Azurarok]

That's kinda the problem isn't it? why is healing the only role of the trinity that feels it gets worse the better you get at it, rather than more rewarding.

This might be at the heart of what's been getting at me. Despite all the balancing problems being discussed, I still have a lot of fun with the actual healing part of any job in the role, but the better the party is, the less opportunities you get to do so. DPS and Tanks get busier but healers other than AST devolve into just spamming simple damaging spells, and it just becomes less fun.

[Aluja89]

Indeed, it is very real - when I started playing, I was admittedly intimidated of Cleric Stance because of the all too familiar thought of "but what if something happens within those 8 seconds?!" but that´s where the double standard begins.

Over time, tanks have been given lots of QoL fixes and even mechanic changes to make tanking less stressful, but more fluid and engaging, to the point they´re now essentially DPS with extra aggro, but healers? they´re treated as a chore, a mandatory raid slot "someone" has to fill, rather than a role meant to be enjoyed just as much as DPS and tanks.

Heck, the only reason healers even still have Glare/Broil/Malefic and their one DoT is probably because they need to somehow be able to do questing - yes, people play healers outside raiding. Shocking, right?

You say this like it's a good thing. What a joke.

[Azurarok]

So I asked in the JP forum what folks there think about the non-healing aspect of Healers. I've only gotten two replies so far, and they were both kinda dismissive.

According to one of them, apparently someone asked pretty much just that to YoshiP in one of the media tour interviews before the EndWalker release, and his response was that they're "working to make the healing aspect more engaging", "adding too much to do outside healing will put too much responsibility on the role for a party to complete a duty", and that "its getting easier is inevitable with Item Levels going up as time goes on". As a disclaimer though, this is just me paraphrasing by translating what that forum user paraphrased from him, so I could very well be missing or dropping some context.

What bothers me is that this seems to be largely looking from the perspective of doing savage/extreme content, with enrage and all. The role's damage contribution is pretty close to that of Tanks despite how the difference in their dps rotations are night and day, so I do get they can't quite up the complexity of our dps kits without really lowering our output from not doing a hypothetical rotation correctly.

But at the same time, even with the one-button dps we also have healers in regular duties doing zero of it. Can that make those runs long and rough? Sure, but we still can finish them fine as long as they're doing the healing part. It's kinda like having a Tank not do any more than having stance on and spamming their AoE to make sure they have aggro.

And regardless, I don't think we're really asking for our damage output to fluctuate so much as really just wanting some better utility to actually vary the gameplay? I do like having the extra mobility, but SCH/WHM actually lost a strategic aspect to their kit with the shortened cast time because we no longer have to really think about when to use an instant cast to move or weave an oGCD.

[IttyBitty]

snip

The thing is, we still have to do things solo? There are a load of solo duties and quests that require combat. Do they not get...bored? As much as I love the design of those instances, I've almost committed to side levelling some other class next expansion solely just to do those, because oh my god, running around an arena casting a single spell the entire time does not fit any kind of class fantasy I've ever had and really takes me out of the moment. I don't feel like a powerful caster, I feel like an apprentice casting magic missile over and over.

Healer is the only role that actively gets more boring as *other* people's skill level and gear get better, to say nothing of your own, and that feels just...wrong.

[AFuzzyMu11in]

I enjoy healing it's a lot of responsibility and stress at the same time. You are underplaying it