What the term "healer" means to me

[Deathroes]

I only heal in dungeons, but I'll dps if I'm not healing a tank that pulled 15 enemies at once. I can heal and dps on regular pulls, but no so much on large pulls.

As long as you get through a pull you're golden no matter what you do, this isn't something like mythic+ in WoW where your completion time is tied to your rewards. People who come after you for not dpsing are, in my opinion, impatient people who settle for nothing less than instant gratification

[ty_taurus]

The thing about being a healer and the responsibility of keeping the team alive is ultimately that it's a pass-or-fail responsibility. Either your team survived and cleared or they didn't. This doesn't necessarily mean that when you fail, it's all your fault. That's something that's more about mechanics, but it is your fault when your team fails because you couldn't heal the tank in time, or some similar example.

What it does mean is that there's no real way to really separate the bad healers from the good healers from the great healers on healing alone. Heal parsing isn't a thing because there's a hard limit to how much you can heal.

So what does actually establish which healers are bad, which are good, and which are great is definite largely but what else they can do on top of keeping the team alive. Basically, it means being a good healer by doing nothing but keeping the team alive is the bare minimum of what you are expected to do. It's a lot like a job in the real world.

If you're hired as a cashier in a cafe, your responsibility is to manage the cash register at whatever store and assist customers with their purchases. If you do that and only that, you're doing your job. But if there's no one currently purchasing something, what's stopping you from wiping down a table, sweeping a floor, cleaning the bathroom, or wiping some windows? Sure, you weren't hired as the janitor, but that doesn't mean you're incapable of optimizing your time. This doesn't mean go wipe the windows while people are waiting in line to order of course. Your responsibility is first and foremost running that cash register after all. But there's a big difference between Susan who sits at the cash register on her phone when no one's in line, and Bethany who's on her knees cleaning the wall tiles with a scrubber. If you were a business owner, wouldn't you prefer to hire Bethany?

Same is true for Bethany who mains White Mage and finds every opportunity to weave in Glares and Dias where Susan stands there, vacant for 5 seconds before the next raid wide AoE.

This doesn't mean that Susan is necessarily a bad healer if she can keep the team alive, but she's not a great healer--i.e. she's not optimizing her time the best that she can. When it's Susan being lazy, and not doing it even though she can be, then we just don't like Susan and kick her from our static. If Susan is just overwhelmed because she's new to healing, her ilvl is low, or she's learning the fight, then we can understand her plight and work with her as she gets better to hopefully evolve into Bethany.

[Deathroes]

The thing about being a healer and the responsibility of keeping the team alive is ultimately that it's a pass-or-fail responsibility. Either your team survived and cleared or they didn't. This doesn't necessarily mean that when you fail, it's all your fault. That's something that's more about mechanics, but it is your fault when your team fails because you couldn't heal the tank in time, or some similar example.

What it does mean is that there's no real way to really separate the bad healers from the good healers from the great healers on healing alone. Heal parsing isn't a thing because there's a hard limit to how much you can heal.

So what does actually establish which healers are bad, which are good, and which are great is definite largely but what else they can do on top of keeping the team alive. Basically, it means being a good healer by doing nothing but keeping the team alive is the bare minimum of what you are expected to do. It's a lot like a job in the real world.

If you're hired as a cashier in a cafe, your responsibility is to manage the cash register at whatever store and assist customers with their purchases. If you do that and only that, you're doing your job. But if there's no one currently purchasing something, what's stopping you from wiping down a table, sweeping a floor, cleaning the bathroom, or wiping some windows? Sure, you weren't hired as the janitor, but that doesn't mean you're incapable of optimizing your time. This doesn't mean go wipe the windows while people are waiting in line to order of course. Your responsibility is first and foremost running that cash register after all. But there's a big difference between Susan who sits at the cash register on her phone when no one's in line, and Bethany who's on her knees cleaning the wall tiles with a scrubber. If you were a business owner, wouldn't you prefer to hire Bethany?

Same is true for Bethany who mains White Mage and finds every opportunity to weave in Glares and Dias where Susan stands there, vacant for 5 seconds before the next raid wide AoE.

This doesn't mean that Susan is necessarily a bad healer if she can keep the team alive, but she's not a great healer--i.e. she's not optimizing her time the best that she can. When it's Susan being lazy, and not doing it even though she can be, then we just don't like Susan and kick her from our static. If Susan is just overwhelmed because she's new to healing, her ilvl is low, or she's learning the fight, then we can understand her plight and work with her as she gets better to hopefully evolve into Bethany.

The comparison with only doing the bare minimum in a real life job is spot on. It fits the discussion so well.

[Cynfael]

Year after year, the healer discussion is the same around this topic.

Players who desperately want only to focus on healing will reach for any rationale to justify not dealing any damage. It's a selfish choice not to DPS at all as healer, but at least a few people are honest about their reasons and admit that they are either lazy or refusing to DPS because it doesn't fit with their personal vision of what the role should be.

I think many players fall into the "common sense" group of attacking when they have time to do so, because standing around doing nothing is just plain counterintuitive.

And this is EXACTLY what Square Enix said would lead to them removing support for damage meters.

And you know what ......I say go for it. When damage meters are completely banned maybe Healers can be healers again.

Amusingly, with the broad removal of enmity management tools from most classes, players now have a much better idea of how DPS are doing relative to each other just by observing the aggro rankings in the party list, assuming no deaths or other shenanigans. Healers are harder to gauge since healing builds enmity as well, but the general notion of paying attention to other players' performance isn't going away anytime soon.

[Toystore]

Year after year, the healer discussion is the same around this topic.

Players who desperately want only to focus on healing will reach for any rationale to justify not dealing any damage. It's a selfish choice not to DPS at all as healer, but at least a few people are honest about their reasons and admit that they are either lazy or refusing to DPS because it doesn't fit with their personal vision of what the role should be.

What a horribly unconstructive post.

Players who desperately want only to focus on dps will reach for any rationale to justify more damage. It's a selfish choice to push DPS maxing as a healer, but at least a few people are honest about their reasons and admit that SE's encounters are lazy and they DPS because of it. Even doesn't fit with their personal vision of what the role should be. Rather than hold SE responsible they're instead trying to push a square peg in a round hole. And force the healing cohort that have been in MMOs forever to accept their corrupted vision of the role which they want no part of.

You see how utterly ridiculous it is to malign people's intentions going by the most absurd strawman of WHY they advocate for a position? Because I can turn around and do it to you and then the bad blood just goes both ways.

[Cynfael]

What a horribly unconstructive post.

Players who desperately want only to focus on dps will reach for any rationale to justify more damage. It's a selfish choice to push DPS maxing as a healer, but at least a few people are honest about their reasons and admit that SE's encounters are lazy and they DPS because of it. Even doesn't fit with their personal vision of what the role should be. Rather than hold SE responsible they're instead trying to push a square peg in a round hole. And force the healing cohort that have been in MMOs forever to accept their corrupted vision of the role which they want no part of.

You see how utterly ridiculous it is to malign people's intentions going by the most absurd strawman of WHY they advocate for a position? Because I can turn around and do it to you and then the bad blood just goes both ways.

You can't successfully turn my statement around, because your version of it doesn't make sense.

Take a look at how the game is designed and how much healing downtime is inherent in the healer role. To ask another old question, what exactly do you do when healing isn't imminently required? How is it not selfish to know that you could be doing more and choose not to?

If you want to blame SE for how the game is designed, that's a different talking point. As players we have to deal with the framework we're given.

[TankHunter678]

What a horribly unconstructive post.

Players who desperately want only to focus on dps will reach for any rationale to justify more damage. It's a selfish choice to push DPS maxing as a healer, but at least a few people are honest about their reasons and admit that SE's encounters are lazy and they DPS because of it. Even doesn't fit with their personal vision of what the role should be. Rather than hold SE responsible they're instead trying to push a square peg in a round hole. And force the healing cohort that have been in MMOs forever to accept their corrupted vision of the role which they want no part of.

You see how utterly ridiculous it is to malign people's intentions going by the most absurd strawman of WHY they advocate for a position? Because I can turn around and do it to you and then the bad blood just goes both ways.

There is not a single MMO I have found where Healers are not expected to do damage when they can when there is downtime in healing. In fact often times the heals in many MMOs do dual purpose and damage enemies while healing allies. The only close to pure healer MMOs I have experienced was WoW because they try not to give any healing downtime at all, and Ragnarok Online which followed DnD conventions where the Holy Magic that the healer classes (Cleric, Priest, High Priest, and Archbishop) used could only harm Undead and Demonic enemy types.

As it stands in this game if the healer is not lending damage when they do not need to heal they are just slowing everything down. In a way pure healers can be seen as griefing because they are just trying to waste others time. While healers trying to maximize DPS while not slacking on their healing duties are not. Though healers who only DPS and do not do their healing job are also seen as griefing (I had an experience like that when I joined my friends for their first Innocence fight, we had 2 SCHs and one of them never cast a healing spell, as a result we wiped a couple times and had to boot them).

[Sloprano]

When it comes to what I expect from healers I'm grouped with for a Duty Roulette, is what I expect from all I get matched with. Tend to adhere to the 25 year-old adage of "Duty Roulette is like a box of chocolate, never know what you're gonna get or who you'll meet."

Discussing it seems like a lost cause, especially in a duty. Myriads of possible well-intentioned and unnamable reasons these two stances clash.

Since roulettes place me with complete strangers I'll probably never see again I just expect us to clear it, using everything from world-record time to 60 minutes. It's other people after all, and they are more often than not very much different from me and have other ideas. Unless I know them or they ask for advice, I don't think I'll change their mind in a Roulette. Just themselves know what they want out of the job.

To get back on topic: For me a healer is "You want heal or hurt? I can do both!"

[Blum4vi]

One thing I am curious is why people act like we are all born healers.
Guys, you can change classes. I know, right? Shocker!
Just because someone is healing in an instance doesn't mean you can stereotype them "healer" and call them mean names, as I've seen numerous times before on several posts.

I also LOVE how they make up a huge storyline for astrologian, then make every card balance, unnecessarily still give you six cards for no reason since they are all the same thing you put on three different roles.. why even keep arcana if you will butcher it and the main characteristic of class?
Just for the newest 2% of the content because some people just cannot stop crying "heal bad, not dps". How's that fair?

[Deathroes]

The biggest problem with going from Yoshi statements (tm) is that they are usually taken in far to literal a manner. The context and sidenotes get buried and people quickly view it as a black and white, right or wrong argument. The reality isn't anything like that and even Yoshida himself acknowledges this in some of his interviews. It's just that when people use that statement to try and back their views on this topic. They typically don't show that part of the quote

The actual reality is much more nuanced than these forums would often like to admit.

Ahh, I see, good to know! I have not personslly experienced the endgame since I just recently moved from WoW, so my perspectives mostly come from forum posts and early game gameplay hehe.