General Community Resistant to Healer Damage?

[Videra]

Oh you're not allowed to like it. Listen to the I want healers to be more like dps crowd.

I want healers to be more like they used to be. It's a simple fact that healers - good ones, anyway - spend at least 60% or more of their GCDs on DPS. And I go entire dungeons where my only GCDs are Broil and Biolysis, which isn't particularly hard - and speaks to the problem. Healers have lost DPS skills, every single one of them, and as a result, have become noticeably less fun because of the game's design. Even White Mage has lost a great deal of dot management over the years. Every single healer used to have a much higher skill floor and skill ceiling, and I loved that - and I want it back. Cleric stance? Yeah! MP management actually being a thing? You know it. More dots than I know what to do with? YES!

Healers used to be much better, they were much more fun in the bygone days of Heavensward - and even Stormblood.

Edit: I should add that because there were less OGCD heals, people actually used more GCD heals in HW and it was a balancing game. How novel.

[ForteNightshade]

The problem is they already are like dps and always have been. You know, if they did increase healer dps complexity and perhaps softened dps checks to compensate for it, why would you care if they did that? You aren't forced to do the more complex rotation, you may keep it at 1 button if you want, nothing changes in accessibility as far as I'm aware.

Or how about we have a more simplistic healer (White Mage), a more complex one (Scholar) and a more mixed (Astro), thus allowing everyone to enjoy whatever might tickle their fancy. Shame we didn't have an expansion that already accommodated that four years ago. /s

Just in case my sarcasm wasn't painfully obvious. This is what really irks me regarding the changes to both healers and tanks. They already had a good foundation between easy but rewarding and complex but also rewarding. Instead of building on that, they dumbed everything down to easy because a handful of people whined Dark Knight, Scholar or Astro were "too hard!!!"

[Granyala]

Cleric stance? Yeah! MP management actually being a thing? You know it. More dots than I know what to do with? YES!

1 F*** Cleric stance! I hated that thing with a passion. It wasn't hard to execute the dance but so often the dumb server would not recognize my input and I'd only notice while the next cast was underway... ugh. Do NOT miss that one bit.
2 Agreed. Infinite MP, while nicely OP is boring in the long run.
3 Definitely, I miss having to juggle more than one DoT.

But lets not just lament about DPS abilities, after all we are HEALERS. I would like to see more hard hitting content, necessitating me to heal more.
You know SE, the reason why I rolled a white Mage in the first place? To heal? Because that's where the fun is, not in executing some mediocre DPS rotation or priority list.

Ugh who am I kidding, gotta balance everything that isn't "organized raid" to the lowest common denominator.
And yes, before you ask: I no longer raid savage because since ShB the game has become so laggy that it isn't feasible (no it's not hardware on my end, it's some net company between my ISP and SE's ISP. So the lower content is all I got. >.<

[Iscah]

And what kind of team is that? The brain dead one with the Summoner barely pulling 2.3k dps in AoE, never touching Pheonix or Bahamut, with the tank not having Blackest Night and not knowing what a cooldown is, with the Bard AFK the entire time and the party wont kick them because "reasons!"?

Just kill me now if they are tuning healing for that, because that's not gameplay, that insanity and idiocy being praised. Back in HW people actually had to pull their damn weight, and if you sucked you got kicked, PERIOD.

It's levelling roulette. Bad teams happen.

As long as people are putting effort in, and not AFK or actually unable to progress, it's a game. They met the requirements to be in the dungeon.

Also I understand that kicking is a lot more common on the American data centres, and that Japanese players are more likely to just get on and complete the dungeon with people regardless of standard. I can only remember a handful of times there was ever a vote, usually because someone actually was AFK or disconnecting. It's rare. So - as far as I have experienced - is the attitude of refusing to participate or demanding to be kicked.

You cant handle more than one or two button's on healer? ARE YOU KIDDING ME? You're joking, you HAVE TO BE.

I said I'd rather not.

I get no joy out of more skills. It's just more things that have to be mapped onto layer three of my eight-button controller and I am less likely to remember to hit them all.

If this was a game where you applied different skills in different situations, it might be different. But if in all situations you're required to do the same thing of "hit your prescribed attack sequence" then I don't want to be thinking about a complex sequence at the same time. Playing DPS is different because I am not responsible for watching my team's health - and even then I am prone to tunnel-visioning if I am watching too many things. I know this and it's not as simple as "don't do it" or I wouldn't.

I play Healers in literally EVERY game I play, and do you know what I do in my downtime? DPS. Cleric? Flame Strike or smack the crap out of that Vampire with Cure Wounds. Dragon Age? Fist of the Maker or Bolt the ever loving s**t out of them, or freeze them and set them up for the warriors to shatter them?

At what point did I say I don't DPS?

I just said I don't want a large number of DPS skills for the sake of having more buttons to press.

[Derio]

I bet if they dumbed down WHM to SCH level. Took away the stun from Holy and removed the damage from assize more people would be upset.

The problem what I have seen is most people who played SCH, myself included just went to WHM

Healing wont see any changes until 6.0

I dont know how it is on other data centers but for primal since shadowbringers launched the adventurer in need 8/10 times is healer for all roulettes except mentor.

[Allegor]

I kinda feel some people are being too hyperbolic. It's either everyone does a perfect job and the healer has literally nothing to do so they green DPS, or everyone sucks and healer is too busy chaincasting heals because how d a r e a healer cast offensive spells ...as if there's no inbetween huh. I can understand both points of view but just because I don't agree with one means I should go lalalala I can't hear and pretend other people's concerns aren't as valid.

Personally, I'd be happy if WHM be the green DPS, SCH be an offensive support and AST be the closest to the 'pure healer'/buffer, since WHM is already the "selfish healer" with the most breathing space to do something else whereas I think AST is already busy enough with the whole card juggling thing.

[Laesha]

I have a lot of empathy for both sides of this argument. It's really frustrating that on one dungeon run, I get ripped for being lazy and treated like a lol-cow for keeping HP totals @ around 70% and dps'ing the rest of the time, while on the next run I get all 3 coms for doing the exact same thing. I think the deep divide in opinion on this subject is the worst thing about healing, to be frank. It's far more harmful and onerous to my enjoyment of the class than any lack of dps, over dps, or lack of hard hitting dmg.

That being said, As a long-time healer, I don't miss past-expac healing in the slightest. I play Astro as my healer of choice almost exclusively, and I enjoy its current iteration more than any of the others. I'm never bored when i play it. Not even a little bit. The mix between keeping my buffs spinning, planning my delayed heals/shields/hots, and using my dps kit (small as it is), is perfect for me. Personally, I think this is the direction they should go with healers and focus on making the dps equation a non-issue. I love the idea of buffs and debuffs, while at the same time I completely acknowledge that current encounter design offers healers a lot of downtime for dps. It becomes a fun juggling act for me between casting my Mal's with their short cast time and then managing the other half of my GCD between each cast. What do i use for my ogcd? do I put up a hot with CO or CO? Do i have cards to play? Do i need to use a GCD for healing? Can i avoid it? As someone who plays DPS often (probably more than any other job these days), i feel like the direction they've gone with Astro gives me just as much opportunity and dynamics as any of the dps classes I enjoy. I know most people don't like Astro at all, and that's fine, but I think it's absolutely a joy right now. The best thing about it for me also is that the cards STILL contribute to overall dps (thus falling in line with dps-focused encounter design) in a different way than having a direct damage "rotation"

Honestly, this is the direction i'd like to see them take healers. More buffs and debuffs while keeping the DD abilities few and far between. Scholar, for example, having more abilities like old-school Shadow Flare. It was a zone that did dot, but also applied a potent Slow debuff. Those are the things that I would really love to see from future iterations of healing classes.

[Morningstar1337]

Frankly I'd be okay IF SE took oneof the following two routes (mostly the former)

• Return the printed DPS tools to WHM and AST, and give SCH more flavorful DPS tools
• Grant Healers more access to buffing spells (in which case AST gets Time Dilation back) to set up for when the downtime ends, as well as maintaining those buffs if case there are no mobs left, preferably proced by healing spells and HoT ticks
• OR change trash pulls so that every mobs has tank busting AoEs, stacking vuln stacks and spicy DoT and overkill damage for failing mechanics, ensuring that healers have less downtime, in other works make the trash hit as hard as bosses, whether as punishment for failing mechanics or as scripted inevitabilities that healers must adjust for.

The former would ensure that Healers have something to do during down time, the third makes it moot by forcing healers to heal 90% of the time, the second also fixes the downtime issue by giving them something to do besides DPS. But as it stands right now, the current approach as an attempt at having the cake and eating it too.

[SamRF]

Or how about we have a more simplistic healer (White Mage), a more complex one (Scholar) and a more mixed (Astro), thus allowing everyone to enjoy whatever might tickle their fancy. Shame we didn't have an expansion that already accommodated that four years ago. /s

Just in case my sarcasm wasn't painfully obvious. This is what really irks me regarding the changes to both healers and tanks. They already had a good foundation between easy but rewarding and complex but also rewarding. Instead of building on that, they dumbed everything down to easy because a handful of people whined Dark Knight, Scholar or Astro were "too hard!!!"

That will be better, however I wouldn't mind WHM getting more dps complexity as well. They have the least amount of buttons by far in healer role. It's okay to simply have diversity in complexity but people who play WHM for the aesthetic theme instead of playstyle will be let down if they remain as simple as they are right now regarding dps rotation. Doesn't have to be much, could be just 1 or 2 more actions, or just an extra DoT, make Fluid Aura a DPS oGCD/proc perhaps, ...

I hear many satisfied with current WHM though so perhaps my opinion isn't very representative.

[Fourbestintoner]

Remember when they said they would make healing more intensive? Such a sad lie that turned out to be, 4s and 8s and tea barely require you to heal.
Sch is such a sad pathetic joke now, all the ones I knew quit or play whm now, which they also hate.