Disheartened healer annoyed with Shadowbringers' difficulty

[Zoberraz]

Um, hi everyone! I'm very apprehensively posting this. I kind of expect to get verbally mauled for it.

I've been with this game since 2.1 and my main class was White Mage. I always was a terrible tank, always felt being a DPS was lacking in agency vs. group success... so, I felt like I was the most in control as a healer. White Mage, in particular. It made me feel useful, pivotal, so I enjoyed the job.

Stormblood saw me branch out with Red Mage, who'se party utility appealed to me. I leveled Dark Knight due to its story, but still considered myself a rather hapless tank beyond normal dungeon content. With Shadowbringers, I decided to stick to tank and mostly use the Trust system, since it exposed me the least to peer pressure. Any screw-ups would be only on me, and hopefully I'd improve on my own. Dancer was the other class I leveled to 80; as many, I enjoyed how it felt as I played it.

And now, I'm back to my White Mage. So far, I have her leveled to 74. I expected to it being like putting on an old comfortable shoe. It hasn't been. Frankly, it's kind of been awful for me so far. I found ways to enjoy Dark Knight and Dancer; but by contrast being a healer is an unmitigated disaster.

Now, I'm sure others will turn this into a narrative of "You think WHM is bad? You haven't seen SCH/AST!". I'll admit I'm happy about the WHM's kit, and I feel for you... but that's not what I'm talking about. I mean, sure, I want things for the WHM, like for Holy to be at targeted ranged AoE to fill in the void of Aero 3 and be less risky to use; and holy spam is pretty intense on the eyes (especially considering the lower MP cost seems to encourage it)... but in general, I'm happy with WHM. But that's beyond the point I want to make.

Healing since Shadowbringer is just so difficult! I won't claim to be the best healer ever, but I generally handled anything non-Savage/Extreme dependably. There are instances where I've felt powerful as a healer; like, keeping other parties of an alliance alive alongside my own in 24-man raids.

But now, it just feels so grueling! There's this sense of difficulty that makes encountering a single group of enemies rather painstaking; Divine Benison and regen on the tank, drop assylum and then I try to Aero the four enemies. After 2 Aero cast, my tank is at half-health and I go "whoa" and try to double-time my heals on him. That's... 6 seconds and suddenly we're in trouble. Then I heal him - and I do have the tools to heal him - but the urgency of it is startling.

And unforgiving. What if I felt we were doing fine, I cast a third aero, and suddenly he's only at 1/4 health thanks to a critical hit? What if I meant to cure him, mistargeted and the Cure ends up on me? (healing in a panic just on me happens; and realizing it is often too late.) What if I'm busy doing Esuna on a Poison, and he suddenly gets a critical hit? Not that I was that much of a screw-up, but there's a clear sense of 'unforgiving' being present now.

[Zoberraz]

It is just so drastically more easy for things to go downhill; as if healing was walking on a tightrope the entire time. There's little room for spontaneity; either I'm a perfect healbot doing only that, or my tank dies.

Chain pulls are worse. They will, the times we survive, take absolutely everything I have. We'll narrowly survive, when we do. It took everything - even in the kitchen sink - but the rest of the party is going to be fine and they are going to do it again, right away. Why? It don't get why. They'll go "it's fine", "I have faith in you, you can do it", "other healers are able to do it; should be okay".

HOW?! Why can anyone justify the added risk of being under fire by a lot more enemies with AoE skills that have a pretty sharp diminishing return for a kill time that's barely any better than fighting single groups (in which I might at least be able to contribute DPS, slightly, as the mobs die and the damage dwindles down). I don't know, but everyone I come across seems to be cool with it, and the implied conclusion is:

"Get good, scrub."

I'm done feeling bad about it, though. I was never a great healer, but I did consider myself good. I did take some pride in it. So the conclusion I reach is: healing since the Shadowbringers expansion is stupidly hard! It's unpleasant! For me, no role feels nearly as desperate to succeed as the healer. It's stressful, and it's now reached a certain degree of being not fun for me.

The only relief I found in dungeons are the boss fights. The boss fights feel like something I can cope with. In fact, they feel much more fair than the rest of the content leading up to them.

I think it was a good idea to shake things up some. To undermine what complacency I might have felt to make the content more challenging. To have the blood pumping more. Sure, I understand the Devs wanting to invest healers more.

Yet, I feel this is a step too far. I really hope the lack of breathing room, how unforgiving it feels now can be alleviated. That the experience can be made to feel less frantic and desperate.

Maybe the Trust system will save me for now, allowing me to level my WHM without ruining the dungeon experience for other players. But then, what would be the point? The whole reason of playing WHM was to feel useful. If playing healer doesn't make me feel useful, why play the role at all? I really wanted the AF4 WHM dress, but I'm not sure it's worth it anymore. It's actually kind of depressing; and I feel discouraged enough that I was compelled to start this thread.

So, that's about it. I said my piece. Thanks for reading.

[LegoTechnic]

To be honest, it's like this at the start of every expansion. Players are used to zerging as they have been since the latter part of the last one, and don't know half the mechanics, and expect to do the same in their crappy paper leveling gear so sometimes you get a party that doesn't know (or care) that the little frog-men buff the big beaters which makes your life hard. But this difficulty typically diminishes when gear ilvl increases and people are able for farm their daily tomes, both your own and your party's. As is true for most classes, encounters become easier the better your gear is, and healing becomes easier as a result.

However your healing job is also greatly dependent on your tank's ability, and as any experienced healer will tell you there is just no helping a bad tank. Aggro control is easier, but if they aren't able to help you out with proper cooldown usage then keeping them up in large pulls can become exponentially harder. While all roles have responsibility, healers have what can be considered the most "visible" responsibility, in that your failings stand out more than something like a DPS who plays half-assed or a tank who lets a mob get away from them, so it's easy to blame failings on the healer, but remember that it's a team effort. Healers are often in the "scapegoat" role, but sometimes the party demands you carry them beyond their, and your, ability, in which case just try again.

But for the most part understand that it will get easier in the coming weeks, as it always does. That said, you can always try a tank or DPS for a change of pace and see if you like it. Just choose one that fits the level of complexity you want.

[kartana]

I know what you are talking about, especially the "the only relief I found in dungeons are the boss fights". But it's just that if you use all your WHM spells and still can't keep the tank healed then he is just pulling too much for his gear or the DPS aren't using AoE spells (I had this happen too). Tell him to pull less stuff and you should be good. Next time you go into a dungeon and feel like you barely need to heal on pulls (meaning you have a good tank with good gear) you can tell him to pull more. I good tank will notice after the first few pulls how much you as a group can handle and will adjust.

[HyoMinPark]

For WHM, on trash packs you should be using Holy as opposed to DoTing every mob with Aero II—the Aeros just aren’t worth the cast compared to what Holy can do for you. Holy can offer you a Stun for up to 7 seconds before the mobs become immune to it, which means your tank can have a much needed breather when it comes to auto-attacks. It’s excellent mitigation that the other two healers sadly lack. What I tend to do is hardcast the first Holy (tank will have Divine Benison + Regen on him already, or Divine Benison+Regen+Asylum if the pull is relatively large), Swiftcast the second Holy, oGCD heal the tank if need be (usually with Tetra, but sometimes I have to GCD with Solace), and then start casting the third Holy. By the time the third one hits, the mobs will most likely be Stun immune. I keep the tank targeted while I’m Holying so that I can throw heals on them quickly without having to cycle through to find them.

When you have to heal, prioritize your oGCDs first (in this case, Tetra and Benediction); then move to your Afflatus Solace if you have the lilies, since it is instant-cast, and you won’t have to wait for the cast time to go off first for the heal to land. Only after those options are exhausted should you default to Cure II—don’t try to get by with just Cure I. Its potency will be too low during large trash packs to keep up with the incoming damage on your tank. If Divine Benison comes off cooldown and the trash mobs are still alive, throw it back on the tank to add in another buffer while you get another heal off.

It’s also possible that you have landed with tanks that are either pulling too much for their gear, or they aren’t adequately using their cooldowns. Even with heal spamming, you will only be able to hold out so much with the latter type of tank before they bite the dust. And that has always been the case.

For your Esuna, unless the DoT is one that ticks super hard and needs to be cleansed, you can mitigate by just casting Medica II (for party-wide DoTs) or giving a regen (single-target DoT). Take the last boss of the level 73 dungeon: it places a Bleed on the party, but the Bleed doesn’t tick hard enough to warrant 4 Esunas. Instead, a single cast of Medica II will be less casts and less MP cost, and will accomplish the same thing: the HoT negates the DoT.

[Fawkes]

To be honest, it's like this at the start of every expansion.

I don't know, this is like every trash pull was designed based on running to the wall on the first pull of Bardam's. I think this is definitely worse than it's ever been.

[Peach64]

If you are struggling to get the mechanics down as a healer, you shouldn't really be dps'ing much. Try to optimize your healing first for the dungeon. WHM is the best class to heal dungeons with right now, but as some said, HP went up a lot this early expansion whilst the +healing didn't increase much more, forcing healers to heal a bit more. Ironically, I've found Trust NPC Thancred (tank) easier to heal than real player tanks. Outside a few wipes, which was mostly my fault for not knowing mechanics, I did not have much problems healing Trust dungeons all the way to 80, especially not as a WHM.

[Risvertasashi]

If you're really struggling, gear is the likely culprit. That can be both your own and the tank's.

If every time you look at the tank you're panicking at his HP level, try moving your party frame closer to the center of the screen. And lastly... yes, there's a very strong push for healers to DPS. But if you're struggling, don't, just focus on healing. At the end of the day a party can get by without healer DPS, they can't get by without healer heals.

Good luck out there.

[Urthdigger]

If you're really struggling, gear is the likely culprit. That can be both your own and the tank's.

If every time you look at the tank you're panicking at his HP level, try moving your party frame closer to the center of the screen. And lastly... yes, there's a very strong push for healers to DPS. But if you're struggling, don't, just focus on healing. At the end of the day a party can get by without healer DPS, they can't get by without healer heals.

Good luck out there.

This. There's a lot of tanks who are like "Yeah I'm just gonna go to 80 on Augmented Scaevan gear, it's fine." If they bother to augment it at all. And then they try to do mass pulls on top of it. I'm willing to bet this is where the vast majority of your issues are coming from.

[KDSilver]

SHB is not more difficult.

What might make you have this sentiment might be low gear + learning the new mechanics (from dungeons + your class).
+ if your tank isn't properly using his defensive CD.