Has anyone quit healing?

[Rilifane]

I take it you never have anything positive to say?

Nobody is denying that some changes were definitely for the better.
The new lily gauge is a major improvement over the old one and dealt with a basically useless job gauge and the mobility issues WHM often struggled with. Misery is a decent compensation for having to rely on GCD heals in certain situations.
The QoL changes for AST were godsent, making weaving feel natural and fluid. Same with the fact that you can hold cards indefinitely now.

But that doesn't mean healers as whole aren't facing some serious issues. Why else do you think so many people quit healing and healer queues are the shortest they've ever been, getting more instant invited than tanks ever did? A lot of healer mains like complex gameplay. Many dps mains chose the role because they want to relax, they don't want any additional responsibility safe for their own numbers while many healer mains know precisely what they signed up for, actively sought it even - only that a lot of what they signed up for is gone now.
Right now healers have the most downtime they ever had yet at the same time their filler acitivity is the most braindead it ever was.
They gave healers even more tools to quickly heal even huge amounts of damage while stripping them of all their filler options safe for one cast and one dot.

[Saefinn]

I take it you never have anything positive to say?

I take it you never have anything constructive to say.

[Deceptus]

Let me put it this way, I'm a SCH. Before 5.0 I leveled as a SCH because I could do so relatively efficiently. Not as efficient as a SMN but I could do it and I did it because I loved the gameplay of a SCH.

5.0 was the expansion I said screw it and leveled as a SMN, because the difference in kill speed was night and day.

Shadowbringers effectively killed my desire to heal in almost all aspects and if they don't do some SERIOUS changes in 6.0 I won't be healing anymore.

[Brandedblade]

I take it you never have anything constructive to say.

I gave up being constructive once I realized I was talking to walls, I'm just here to watch the fire.

[MintnHoney]

I gave up being constructive once I realized I was talking to walls, I'm just here to watch the fire.

To give something up, one must actually have had it.

[Thoosa]

Not quite yet but in savage it feels like tanks and dps can fail mechanics as much as they like and nothing happens, but if healers do, they get kicked from the group.

[Kienkarajo]

I still play as a healer but I quit SCH as my main and now I play more as a tank or dancer, if I need to heal I play WHM, however overall Im not happy with the changes made to Astro and SCH and Im tired of the old excuse that they are having issues with balancing the healer role.

[Vitreus]

Hate to say but I've completely quit healing despite it being my favorite role in Stormblood. It wasn't really a conscious choice like I was protesting the changes, I just don't enjoy it anymore. And the biggest reason is the changes in how we do damage. I know that probably sounds a little hypocritical because I'm playing a healer and not a dps, but doing damage has always been a major component of the healing role. Ever since I joined XIV I was told that good healers are expected to damage whenever we could instead of just standing around waiting to heal. We have downtime and we are expected to do damage in that downtime.

Now in Shadowbringers that major part of the job has just been gimped. And personally I think it just feels terrible. Like every dungeon I do has been synched down to sastasha and my toolset just doesn't exist. That's what doing damage as a healer in Shadowbringers feels like now.

If the devs truly want us to have this crazy simplified damage rotation as a healer than they need to give us something else to do like filling more of a support role when we don't need to heal. Something as simple as a castable short term buff on an ally that increases their damage or haste or crit. A way to assist them outside just keeping their health up. There needs to be something to replace what has been a core aspect of healing since the beginning of the game now that they have decided it should be minor.

[Side-Eye]

If the devs truly want us to have this crazy simplified damage rotation as a healer than they need to give us something else to do like filling more of a support role when we don't need to heal. Something as simple as a castable short term buff on an ally that increases their damage or haste or crit. A way to assist them outside just keeping their health up. There needs to be something to replace what has been a core aspect of healing since the beginning of the game now that they have decided it should be minor.

Unfortunately, a support role doesn't help in completing solo content, MSQ, etc. If pDPS is low, even being able to use those buffs on yourself is just turning crappy damage into slightly-less-crappy damage. Healers need a decent method to output damage. Perhaps if there was a big self damage booster (bigger than cleric stance) which could only be used while ungrouped, then having support be our secondary grouping strength would be acceptable.

[Lodi]

If the devs truly want us to have this crazy simplified damage rotation as a healer than they need to give us something else to do like filling more of a support role when we don't need to heal. Something as simple as a castable short term buff on an ally that increases their damage or haste or crit. A way to assist them outside just keeping their health up. There needs to be something to replace what has been a core aspect of healing since the beginning of the game now that they have decided it should be minor.

We used to have plenty of dots, those were great for dealing damage while healing and filling our downtime. Even as a WHM, I had to refresh a dot every 11s on average. Now I just tap 1 over and over and then 2 every 30s.

I've been enjoying DRK and RDM a lot more since ShB, not gonna lie. I actually feel busy playing these.