Final Fantasy XIV’s healer problem and how it’s kind of unsolvable

[tinythinker]

A take on healing and a new healer job in FFXIV at Massively OP: https://massivelyop.com/2020/05/18/w...of-unsolvable/

Seems to summarize some core issues pretty well.

[Deceptus]

The thing is, though… well, there’s a problem with that. See, while the acquisition of gear and power makes every job better at its role, healing becomes better at the same rate it becomes less necessary.

Yep, saw someone say this once and I 100% agree with it. Healers are the only role in the game punished with worse gameplay for playing their role well / efficiently.

[Vitreus]

Yep, saw someone say this once and I 100% agree with it. Healers are the only role in the game punished with worse gameplay for playing their role well / efficiently.

Healers 100% need something besides healing to do in order to scale properly with content. I wouldn't mind the role taking on more of a support role, where we cast buffs on our allies during our downtime, but the most important thing is for it to be fun. As it stands now the stronger we get the more downtime we have and, since our dps kit was simplified to an absurd degree, the more boring it becomes. Repeatedly casting a single spell except for a dot twice a minute is mind numbing.

[Semirhage]

I agree with the article insofar that what it says is *a* problem. Definitely. The healer role has a weird Gordian knot of several interconnected problems that reinforce one another, which I suspect is why trying to fix them onesie twosie as *THE* problem hasn't cut it.

[Tulzscha]

That was a painful read.

The tl;dr is healers are boring when there's nothing to heal, which occurs with greater frequency toward the end of a raid tier, and they can't be made more interesting because some people suck at healing.

Yes there will always be times when healing is boring which is why it's important to have something else to do, especially in FFXIV. Different encounters are different, some require less healing, some groups take less damage, and of course with practice and gear you learn and are able to use fewer healing spells. This game in particular is extremely scripted so you always know this amount of damage is coming in at this time and where you need to be and so on, only exacerbating the issue and making the importance of healers having more to do that much greater.

No they should not be trimmed down to the bare minimum for the weakest players. I don't know if that's conjecture or the dev team's thoughts on the matter but I think it's hella wrong. If someone is so bad at their job they get overwhelmed and confused by a couple extra dps buttons and can't keep their group alive, they're not going to be doing difficult content - or at least they really shouldn't. And if they're not doing difficult content there's absolutely no need for a healer to dps, they can safely ignore those abilities until they get used to healing then eventually work them in. Y'know, learning. It's a thing that (some) people do.

So yeah it'd be great if healers had more to do during downtime, whether it's dps or buffing or managing resources or playing with cards or themselves or whatever just something. That's all.

[basketofseals]

As a result of all this work, each DPS player deals 10% more damage, each tank takes 5% less damage and deals 5% more, and each healer deals 5% more damage and heals for 5% more

...

Based on all of these changes, your party-wide DPS has increased by 60%.

That's.....really not how math works.

[EaMett]

That's.....really not how math works.

Thanks. I wanted to say a few things and this was one of them. Also, it's not a new or different take on anything. It's exactly what everyone in this forum has been saying for the past x years. So if you haven't bothered reading the article, you essentially saved yourself some time.

Also, while we're at it. It's only unsolvable if the only solution you accept is healers being pure healers. Which everyone in here at this point understand is not even close to a solution. There are plenty of other solutions that inject uniqueness to jobs and stuff to do during downtime while keeping things balanced. These downtime activities just aren't healing related.

[AnotherPerson]

This problem is compounded by the fact that… well, there are lots of healers who are not very good as healers. You don’t really want to encourage the “I’m green DPS” dude to not pay any attention to actually healing the tank, especially when his assumption is that the tank will last just fine into three-digit HP based on nothing more than thinking it’ll probably work. Better to lean too hard on healing over dealing damage, then.

This one is iffy. That's partly because to be a good healer, you have to take risks. This applies to DPS and amount of healing required. No other role requires to take risks besides maybe tanks who pull big in order to improve their gameplay. A lot of good healers are made only through the deaths of a lot of party members to figure out their general baseline.

A Green DPS over dpsing is based on multiple reasons. It's a problem with everyone involved. Healers who over DPS is either tunnel visioning to eek out more DPS and assumes the tank is alright for x GCD or so, may it be because they forget about the incoming non-avoidable damage, or assume the tank would avoid the incoming orange AoE spot/mitigate/invuln on the incoming tankbuster. This is not inherently bad because it means the healer is trying to improve their overall contribution to the team. It means they misjudged their baseline for healing, which frankly is not uncommon because healing damage is dependent on multiple factors: gear, knowledge of the run (hurts first-time players and those not knowing the mechanics), the ones who are actively avoiding damage, the ones who failed to dodge damage, and damage that can't be avoided.
Every party in Duty Finder is different - healers adjust to this inherent difference by adjusting their baseline of when they heal and at times, on the fly when players suddenly start dying more often. This is the difference in the mark of a good healer than one who just spam heals at 90%.

However, this baseline technique takes time to get used to for any healer who are starting out because it really becomes developing a sixth sense and paying attention to how well your party does mechanics. Everyone is prone to making some mistakes and for healers - this is the mistake they make if they're trying to maximize efficiency to play better and contribute more by overestimating their team's ability to handle damage. However, people expect healers to be always a 'pro' at healing, or make assumptions that healers are just not doing their job effectively by not topping everyone off every time. Healers are criticized if they don't preform well or cause deaths, which also leads into the factor of responsibility and not wanting to take risks when trying to reach that standard. Only by trial and error and lots of practical experience (and with potential wipes) will a healer figure out where their baseline is and become a 'good healer' who can do both dps and keep everyone alive.

After experiencing the baptism of healing, only real issue is the downtime gameplay and lack of DPS rotations.

[Gemina]

I don't have a whole lot to add to that. It states a lot of things myself and others have been saying for quite some time now. However, if that same article was a translated response from Yoshi, my eyes would be glowing with heart emojis.

I think most of us know that they have a total clusterfork to deal with, and it is far easier and safer to leave healing as is. Being complacent and uncommunicative is definitely not the answer though. There's a lot at stake with 6.0's release. I greatly fear that if healing is not addressed properly, there won't be many left to run the high-end content, and that would be disastrous.

[Deceptus]

I don't have a whole lot to add to that. It states a lot of things myself and others have been saying for quite some time now. However, if that same article was a translated response from Yoshi, my eyes would be glowing with heart emojis.

I think most of us know that they have a total clusterfork to deal with, and it is far easier and safer to leave healing as is. Being complacent and uncommunicative is definitely not the answer though. There's a lot at stake with 6.0's release. I greatly fear that if healing is not addressed properly, there won't be many left to run the high-end content, and that would be disastrous.

I'm just glad to see SOME sort of media attention about FFXIV healers because that seems to be the only way to get to the development team. Because their hand picked "influencers" didn't ask more than 3 questions about healers during the lead up to Shadowbringers and most of those questions were waved off.