The Healer Double Standard

[Rilifane]

I'd love to see some branched combos on healers.
Things like dps spell 1-> dps spell 2 -> choice between heal finisher and dps finisher.
If you use the heal finisher, you get some small, short-time buff to your dps. Not strong enough you want to keep it up at all times but a nice little bonus for ending a dps combo with a heal finisher. The dps finisher on the other could give you a small bonus for heal.
Or something like an aoe dot you can consume for instant heal. Targeted, so you can target someone and every mob gets the dot removed and the target is healed. Okayish baseline healing but the bonus for each consumed dot makes it strong. It would be a fairly strong single target heal but it's not something you'd do everytime as you lose 1 gcd for reapplying the aoe dot.
Trade-offs. I love trade-offs, it makes a class much more interesting to play.
And risks.
Cleric stance was overly clunky but I did like the risk it involved. If you didn't pay attention to damage patterns, you risked getting the non-existent heals at a really bad time. The 5% buff they changed it into was just another mindless button and I'm glad it's gone.

Healers can contribute so much dps in this game compared to games like Tera or even early WoW, why not own it and make dpsing and healing synergise with each other? It doesn't even has to be taken to the extreme in form of a leech healer, just something that makes dpsing feels more like a meaningful choice and part of your kit instead of it feeling like a filler - a filler you spent most of your time on.
Something that makes you focus more on which dps buttons you push and gives you the ability to sacrifice dps for heal if you are in a pinch or shit hits the fan.
I enjoy having plenty of heal buttons but many of them are just way to close to one another and it feels more like same skill, different name instead of different skill, different choice.

[Jimmymagic]

Sounds like you just want to be the star in your parties by saving them when *%#* hits the fan. So considering that incoming damage is completely scripted and 90% avoidable, what do you do with all of that downtime you should be having?

Oh, right, because if you contributed to the group effort and helped bring the mobs down faster, you wouldn’t get to be the hero healer that uses LB3 when it could have been used to efficiently kill off the boss before they hit their enrage timer.

It’s not all about you.

If you want to be that healer who stands there with their thumb in their nose until there is something to heal, then go ahead and continue to do that and see how many groups want to play with you.

I prefer to utilize the entire kit given to me as a healer in order to help the group out by whatever means necessary. If I’m running with an efficient group, I will DPS until my heart’s content cuz, hey, a dead mob does no damage.

Stop pretending like you know the only way to play a healer. There is more than one way to play this game, to play it efficiently, and to enjoy it.

What? Scripted or not has nothing to do with what I said. Tell you what you play the way you want and I'll have fun healing people who stand in AOEs who do not follow mechanics or just make a mistake. Using entitlement fallacy for incompetent argument. I stated an opinion doesn't have anything to do with what your saying. Also I said nothing about not dpsing only to prioritize healing first. Of course I dps on down time. Every role dps to an extent. My examples of using "save the day" is not indicative of generalization just something I like personally.
Here is a suggestion enjoy the game. Play the way you want or don't.
I meant no offense but perhaps there is something wrong with you if you get angry over suggestive opinion on a forum titled " the healer double standard" ....

[TonberiScholar]

SHB SCH is in a much cleaner state if your goal is to balance the healer jobs and expand upon them in the future. The ACN relics we had before were an obstacle for the long term future and I'll gladly take the changes (except Energy Drain, it needs to come back in some form) if it means there's a chance we get meaningful choices in the future.

It feels like they left the job half-finished, with no indication of them even seeing that leaving it half-finished is a problem.

This is the same Job design team that's held up GCD cast-time heals with almost no interactions with the rest of the Job kits as the gold standard for what they expect the "majority" of Healer gameplay to consist of for the past six years.


Best examples:

All of SCH's pet control buttons are useless now but still on their bars (this hits Summoner to a lesser degree but they at least got new animations for stuff).

We have one entire Role skill (Repose) that's there just for one Role Quest.

SCH's "new" AoE is literally just a recycled PvP animation.

Fluid Aura still exists (a WHM thing, but still).

Content is interesting, not the number of buttons.

Engaging Job gameplay is a type of "content" too, and it's one Healer players have been more and more removed from with each expansion.

Their solution to adding new things for Healers is simply to throw more redundant Green Sledgehammer buttons at us while taking away DPS options to make room for them.

They don't "get" how to make engaging Healer jobs because their vision of them is basically a glorified Trust system that exists to make the Jobs they actually put effort and resources into have better queue times.

That doesn't leave me hopeful for the "future".

But, to others who quote replied me, because I feel this way, I'll likely never feel DPS is a part of a healers identity, so I won't really hold a debate with people that do, I just don't see the kits as vital as you do, I dunno.

Okay, so.

Do you view Healers as an "adventurer" or as someone who follows real adventurers around?

Because if the only thing you can do is heal, you'd be far better off staying in one fixed, safe location and allowing people who need healing to come to you.

Going out into the world with nothing more than a stick and a sunny disposition is a quick way to get killed, and that's all "Healers" are without at least some form of self-defense/offensive magic.

Given that they need to have the ability to defend themselves (and presumably, the people they're helping), why shouldn't their damaging/offensive abilities be distinguishing features?

Ignoring the fact that, in a mechanical sense, Healers both occasionally have to solo and the raid-level group reward for more efficient healing is "more overall DPS", an increase that's baked into the Healers themselves to avoid dropping a Healer for a DPS Job.

[Acesfool]

I've played a few different MMO's and healers never have a lot of dps options. Unless it's a healer who heals through dps, which I only remember one game with that, Rift. As soon as FFXIV began filling with former WoW players I was expecting this to happen. The meters (which I never use or look at) are all anyone cares about. Dungeon groups want to pull wall to wall and expect you to heal through it. Even if you do heal through it they'll complain that you didn't do enough dps. I play a healer or tank to heal or tank. I don't want to be a fake dps when playing those roles.

[Hatstand]

I've played a few different MMO's and healers never have a lot of dps options. Unless it's a healer who heals through dps, which I only remember one game with that, Rift. As soon as FFXIV began filling with former WoW players I was expecting this to happen. The meters (which I never use or look at) are all anyone cares about. Dungeon groups want to pull wall to wall and expect you to heal through it. Even if you do heal through it they'll complain that you didn't do enough dps. I play a healer or tank to heal or tank. I don't want to be a fake dps when playing those roles.

Then you could have played as the old WHM. They had very simple dps options. And yes, maybe they needed a buff. I would have supported that. But variety is the spice of life. There’s no reason for all the healers to have no complexity to their dps.

As for people who give healers trouble... isn’t it kinda nuts to punish healers because other people are a**holes?

[TonberiScholar]

I play a healer or tank to heal or tank. I don't want to be a fake dps when playing those roles.

What's the appeal of only using half (or less) of your kit?

I'm not trying to be sarcastic, I honestly don't understand both from a mechanical sense and an in-world/fantasy perspective.

Tanks literally walk around with pointy bits of metal that they hit things with. How can you view that as them "not doing DPS" as a core feature of their job?

And see above for the Healer PoV. A world that has Healers in it that "just want to heal" makes absolutely no sense when the assumption is that every player character (and thus, every Healer) is an adventurer by trade.

Being able to play healthbar whack-a-mole isn't going to make that coeurl think you look any less tasty.

There's a reason Amdapor and Mhach caused a calamity, and Amdapor wasn't just throwing around green numbers to do it.

DPS Role Jobs aren't (and shouldn't be) the only ones that do damage. They're the specialists at it, sure. But so long as the ability to defend yourself in-world relies on bringing the opponent's HP to zero, DPSing is something every adventurer needs to have at least some baseline competence in.

[Acesfool]

What's the appeal of only using half (or less) of your kit?

I'm not trying to be sarcastic, I honestly don't understand both from a mechanical sense and an in-world/fantasy perspective.

Tanks literally walk around with pointy bits of metal that they hit things with. How can you view that as them "not doing DPS" as a core feature of their job?

And see above for the Healer PoV. A world that has Healers in it that "just want to heal" makes absolutely no sense when the assumption is that every player character (and thus, every Healer) is an adventurer by trade.

Being able to play healthbar whack-a-mole isn't going to make that coeurl think you look any less tasty.

There's a reason Amdapor and Mhach caused a calamity, and Amdapor wasn't just throwing around green numbers to do it.

DPS Role Jobs aren't (and shouldn't be) the only ones that do damage. They're the specialists at it, sure. But so long as the ability to defend yourself in-world relies on bringing the opponent's HP to zero, DPSing is something every adventurer needs to have at least some baseline competence in.

If that's the case then why have the different roles to begin with? I'm not saying I won't do any dps. But as a healer my main objective is to heal. Any dps I manage to do is just a bonus. The same when I'm tanking. And I haven't found any situation where I need a bunch of dps spells as a healer. In the open world I have no problem killing mobs four or five levels above mine.

[Acesfool]

Then you could have played as the old WHM. They had very simple dps options. And yes, maybe they needed a buff. I would have supported that. But variety is the spice of life. There’s no reason for all the healers to have no complexity to their dps.

As for people who give healers trouble... isn’t it kinda nuts to punish healers because other people are a**holes?

WHM is the only healer I play. When I play a healer I expect the complexity to be in healing. When tanking I expect the complexity to be in the defensive and protective abilities.

[Hatstand]

WHM is the only healer I play. When I play a healer I expect the complexity to be in healing. When tanking I expect the complexity to be in the defensive and protective abilities.

Good for you. I’m glad you have a job you like. I expect my role to reward me for mastering my healing kit by giving me something interesting to do in my downtime, which the current iteration of healers fails to do.

Also, if this is your position, what do you think of tanks being dubbed by the devs as “blue dps”?

In response to your other post, I agree that the priority should be healing. That doesn’t mean that the dps kit can’t be fun too, for when you use it. I can also kill things pretty easily, but the one button spam it involves makes me want to set up a watering bird next to my keyboard and do something else.

As for situations where you need a bunch of dps as a healer... as you get better at content, and as your gear gets better, there’s less healing required. That’s just a fact. A few days ago I did a level 50 dungeon where I was able to do all the healing with my fairy cooldowns (and Eos’s auto-embraces). Given that, any of my own gcds I spent on healing would have been a waste. As such, I spent 20 minutes spamming Art of War and then Broil when enough things died. I could certainly have used a more interesting dps kit then. And all content will eventually end up that way, to some degree. I don’t want to upgrade my gear and think “oh no, now I get to spam broil more”.

[Taika]

When I play a healer I expect the complexity to be in healing. When tanking I expect the complexity to be in the defensive and protective abilities.

Yeah that's not how any healer or tank job in this game has ever worked, for both the focus has always been in maximising DPS while surviving content (with a minimal use of tank stance and healing).