I hate to, but I think I put down healing for now. Please make it engaging again, SE.

[EwokAssassini]

I didn't intend to at first, but I guess it just ended up happening. I've been reluctant to do any sort of content on healer of late, especially roulettes where you get put into a raid/trial/dungeon to spam one button over and over again.

Getting geared up must have only made it worse. My healers reached iLvl 470 (near) BiS after 12+ weeks of Eden savage (most of the pieces bought with books, thanks to the great new loot system in pugs), but what did I get? The luxury to heal less and broil more?

Great.

I think healers have really gone downhill in Shadowbringers, and it hurts to say as someone who's naturally drawn to the role. It's bland, very monotonous, and feels like a chore to do.

If there was anything I could tell Square Enix directly, it would be to hire some bleedin' healer designers for god's sake. I don't know if it's true, but last I heard their design team is made up by the same 4 people since the release of A Realm Reborn. That's unacceptable for a game that's expanded this much over the years (not to mention all the expansion jobs).

The story of Shadowbringers has been amazing, and it's definitely next to Heavensward in my book, but the current state of the healers is really unfortunate and doesn't bring justice to what the rest of the game has to offer its players.

[Risvertasashi]

my 2 gil -

I think the healing kits, in themselves, are fine. There's different resources and cooldowns to manage, and you have to think about how they interplay, what you might want to set up for later, so on.

Except with one major caveat. Only when there is significant healing pressure.

The only time I'd say I really have to think about all that stuff is Titan final phase. Dungeons? Snooze. Trials, even extreme? Ehm, maybe I think about one or two placements, mostly I snooze through it. Every savage floor before Titan? Doesn't matter, I could probably not use my CDs go through them just fine, I just get more DPS for using them.

Titan final phase is the only time where I go "Ok I want to save this CD for this group of mechanics, but I need to have this other CD ready for the next one, I need to pop lucid right there and save my stacks/lillies for that one point..."

It's actually kind of nice to have to think like that instead of just "I'll stand here so I don't have to move much so I can spam my nuke". Doesn't happen often even in high end content, however.

SE seems to have tried to "fix" this with ShB by reducing the power of potencies so that our heals restore a lower % of the party's HP, but doesn't seem to understand that doesn't work when the system's still fundamentally based on infrequent damage spikes.

[Lastelli]

my 2 gil -

I think the healing kits, in themselves, are fine. There's different resources and cooldowns to manage, and you have to think about how they interplay, what you might want to set up for later, so on.

Personally, I think the healing kits are the biggest problem. All healers are now reactive healers. Healing has become easier and easier in the last two expansions as it doesn't require to manage resources and plan as much as before: mp management is close to non-existent, no heals precast to cover incoming damage because of the overabundance of instant heals, and after the very low healing requirements are easily met with the aforementioned instant heals, all that's left to do is spam that one glare/broil/malefic with the occasional dot.

I believe SE should embrace the healer dps aspect of the job, give them more interesting dps rotations and provide some synergy between their healing and dps kit (something akin to the current lily system, but more expanded upon).

Also for god's sake remove some of the instant heals and don't add any more, they're destroying the role.

[ForteNightshade]

Healers started heading in this direction in stormblood. Now the role is pretty much completely ruined thanks to SE's balance team and their cluelessness. I think it's partially our fault for not letting SE know that the changes in stormblood were bad, but it's too late now. I gave up healing a while ago. If I have the urge to heal again, I'd sooner return to WoW and play healer in that game than heal on this game.

People were not shy in the slightest with their opinions in regards to how low the healing requirements were becoming in Stormblood. Unfortunately, SE caters far too heavily towards the lowest common denominator. They're not thinking "will the average healer who at least knows their kit decently enough enjoy the healer role." They're thinking, "How can we make it so even someone who has no idea what they're doing can still feel comfortable healing." And therein lies their problem. You can't balance around borderline incompetence and still expect the role to be engaging for everyone else. It'd be one thing if the higher end Savage raiders weren't as engaged because hey, you don't want EX Primals or 24 mans catered towards E4S. That isn't the case though. Everything outside Savage is a complete joke. When I go Nier with my BFF and we both run WHM. I legit am a green DPS because I simply overheal most of what she does otherwise. Honestly, she may as well be too given how little healing either of us have to do. It has to be a total mess for me to actively help.

Sadly, with how much Shadowbringers has shifted towards a more casual mindset. I doubt things will change. They'd rather someone who can't be bothered to read their tooltips, still thinks Benediction and Tetra are emergency buttons only and stands around waiting for damage half the time feel comfortable than make the role enjoyable for people who put effort into learning it even if they aren't Savage raiders.

[Billythepancake]

I certainly think they're better off just embracing the green DPS. Nothing square does, outside of massive rework to both classes and encounter design, will change how healers play now. Doing that on top of everything else they need to do in an expansion is honestly too much. Just give healers something interesting to do in downtime and stop fighting against how they're played.

[purgatori]

I certainly think they're better off just embracing the green DPS. Nothing square does, outside of massive rework to both classes and encounter design, will change how healers play now. Doing that on top of everything else they need to do in an expansion is honestly too much. Just give healers something interesting to do in downtime and stop fighting against how they're played.

I'm for this. We have red DPS and blue DPS, so why not green DPS?

[CrimsonGunner]

i do not believe green dps is the only solution while dps is part of being a downtime issue it isn't the only thing that can improve healers.i believe if healers got their support identity more widen and themes more emphasized i think it could make the healers fun and engaging while retaining their original kit for now.

WHM- i believe if the blood lily concept will be introduced at level 30 and have more skills use the blood lily(not necessary new skills but also existing ones like glare or even fluid aura change when the blood lily blooms) ,it will make WHM more fun to play. the concept of healing contributing to dps is nice and if it also could be the other way around like using dps skills will shorten the lily gauge would give depth to WHM gameplay that it needed without breaking its norm right now.
i would like to see in the future the return of spells like protect,shell and maybe get reflect on him cause it doesn't feel like FF14 WHM is a true FF white mage without them, at least that how i feel

AST-better card system and AST could be perfect i think,SE need to rethink and redo their card system to work for all players(mouse & keyboard and controller).the idea is solid but the cards and their effects aren't there yet.
i believe if the 6 basic cards were to become party buffs like bard songs with varied effect(not necessary dps boost) could alleviate some issues AST has right now and wait until 6.0 to release a new system or rework the current one to be better used and fun.(someone posted that idea and i believe it could be a solid solution cause it will involve less target switching for controller users)

SCH-while i don't have that much experience with him his kit feels like the only thing engaging about it is the fact that his skills are more of a hindrance to one another rather then actually working along side or improving him in any way.Fairy delays are too horrid and it isn't a player management issue,it actually her response time as coded by SE.SCH feel like he needs more attention to how he works due to how clunky fairy and seraph work as well his resource management in a way.
i think SCH would have a better time if he could control his fairies gcd and ogcd and instead of auto embrace anyone near her just command her to use embrace on someone automatically instead like a toggle skill.
i think if SCH got his fairy management back in a way ,it will ease up their fairy response and improve some of their issues because any delays and ghosting will be a result of player managing the fairy gcd and ogcd timing and not the fairy own coded AI that delays it and while he controls the fairy along side his own skills will be giving them more engagements and stuff to do.
i also believe some skills are actually good in SHB as some said like recitation and even deployment tactics but others need to be looked upon like fey union or even emergency tactics ,i would even consider ED to be looked upon and maybe change to be like ACN ED cause it weird to me that the identical skill suddenly does a different thing despite SCH is an advanced class that inherit his skills.
overall i believe that SCH need his kit to looked at again while some points are definitely good in SHB ,it mostly has a weird source management and a feel that skills aren't synced to help each other at least in my taste.i believe ED need to retain ACN version and give stacks as well along side atherflow skill ,have his skills be examined again both in their effect and their resources giving more use for aetherflow stacks and fairy gauge use and lastly i believe that scholar need to control or should be able to command the fairy when to use her gcd and ogcd and not let her cast embrace automatically on her own but rather on command and with a target priority on that as well.

[CrimsonGunner]

i said it once ,i will say it again. they designed all the healers to fit a bot player rather then a human.
also there is a thread called "has anyone quit healing?" u can post there as well it might help push the urgency of addressing the healers.(if SE does read the forums)

[Adeacia]

I've been a healer main since 3.2. None of the changes have made me heal any less than before.

I always dps as much as I can get away with while healing and I enjoy doing it. Losing a couple of dps skills doesn't matter in the least bit to me. The players I always have to heal give me plenty to do as much as they mess up.