The Healer Double Standard

[Endeleon]

With a comment like this, I have to ask...Is it normal in most MMOs for 'healers' to really just...Heal? Is that common? I came from City of Heroes before this, where even the most healery of healer sets had buffs to utilize and attacks to work with.

Apparently it's the case in WoW and ESO(Well, eso is weird in that you can choose whatever you want but I guess the meta is that if you are healer you better not have any attack skills or you suck)... but none of the other MMOs I've ever played had this weird healers don't attack mentality.

[Kabooa]

With a comment like this, I have to ask...Is it normal in most MMOs for 'healers' to really just...Heal? Is that common? I came from City of Heroes before this, where even the most healery of healer sets had buffs to utilize and attacks to work with.

Depends. There's a plethora of games out there now and it's not feasibly possible to play all of them and experience the content the various classes are designed around.

Generally speaking, themepark MMOs like FF14, the healers all have some measure of offensive capability. They have to - It's not party centric, so they need to be capable of dealing with the leveling process.

However if you want to go by various design schematas, in the Trinity System that FF14 uses, healers are traditionally not that diverse in their offensive capabilities, and their damage contributions are often minimal. When looking for more complex damage set ups, there is usually a common thread - You stop being a healer.

This is generally handled by having healing being the focus of play. It's usually a resource management game, and a more managerial approach to combat. You get various healing tools so you pick the right one for what you need, but misusing them means you go OOM and then everyone dies. The downtime with healing is usually punctuated with buffing, debuffing, or setting up mitigation options. FF14 however does not do this.

In fact, it heavily lacks variety in both tanking and healing roles. The whole point of having this division of role and responsibility is to -minimize what those players don't want to do- and -emphasize what they do want to do-.

Not every tank wants the same thing, yet every tank is designed the same way. Burst windows and boring filler combos.

Not every healer wants the same thing, yet every healer is designed the same way. Sporadic healing filled with rocks during down time.

[Evumeimei]

Have you ever considered that vocal tanks don't represent every tank?

You tell me I get more traditionally tank stuff like counter attacks, target debuffing, ally protection, and short term active mitigation, and I'll be the happiest tank.

The issue, for me, is how much is simply too much? How many different regens, gcds heals, and instants do we need? Even now, healers don't make the most of their healing potential. It's the reason WHM is generally dropped after progression. So, is SE really going to change dungeons, etc... up so much that we'll actually need all that? And, if not, adding DPS or support abilities makes more sense than further healing.

[Kabooa]

The issue, for me, is how much is simply too much? How many different regens, gcds heals, and instants do we need? Even now, healers don't make the most of their healing potential. It's the reason WHM is generally dropped after progression. So, is SE really going to change dungeons, etc... up so much that we'll actually need all that? And, if not, adding DPS or support abilities makes more sense than further healing.

Don't know. There's a fair number of directions they could have taken.

And not a single one of them would have made everyone happy.

[Deceptus]

Have you ever considered that vocal tanks don't represent every tank?

You tell me I get more traditionally tank stuff like counter attacks, target debuffing, ally protection, and short term active mitigation, and I'll be the happiest tank.

I can't think of a single tank who would be happy with a 1-2 combo, an AOE and nothing but tanking CD's.

They might exist, but they'd be extremely rare.

[Kabooa]

I can't think of a single tank who would be happy with a 1-2 combo, an AOE and nothing but tanking CD's.

They might exist, but they'd be extremely rare.

I'm going to let you in a little secret.

Different people like different things.

[technole]

I can't think of a single tank who would be happy with a 1-2 combo, an AOE and nothing but tanking CD's.

They might exist, but they'd be extremely rare.

+1 more in the combo, and you have 2.0 Paladin right there.

What a snooze fest that was!

[kidalutz]

Well considering that theres quite a few healers that are so DPS happy that they let the tank die after they've blown thier cooldowns I don't see the downside of the argument. a Tank can still keep aggro a healer thats DPSing when they should be healing is a liability.

[Ilenya]

Well considering that theres quite a few healers that are so DPS happy that they let the tank die after they've blown thier cooldowns I don't see the downside of the argument. a Tank can still keep aggro a healer thats DPSing when they should be healing is a liability.

So some bad healers ruin it for everyone, therefore tanks should have never had DPS combos because of a few that couldn't keep proper hate.

[kidalutz]

So some bad healers ruin it for everyone, therefore tanks should have never had DPS combos because of a few that couldn't keep proper hate.

You ever hear the saying this is why we cant have nice things? It's brought about because a few ruin it for everyone. If tanks lost thier dps I personally wouldn't mind that either. I Tank and Heal and DPS and I do my damage when I have an opportunity on all the classes I fail to see why a handful of people are still pissing and moaning when they only have one half of the equation which is they're losing some DPS stuff when they havent had a chance to test what the new content has to offer them. Would I like to see an increase in damage to compensate absolutely but I'm willing to be chill until I see what the content has to bring to the table.