healers need a serious overhaul

[Rilifane]

It's not about getting a higher parse, it's about being appreciated as a member of the team. It's fine if the DPS get the first pick each week. But if the DPS get all loot until they're fully geared, then the tanks, before healers are finally allowed to get something, that makes me feel like a third-rate citizen as a healer.

It's a bit hard to find information on how the loot drops work. Most clear videos cut off just before the chests are opened and guide videos usually don't show the ending at all. From the ones that did include loot it seems that 2-3 gear coffers are dropped per stage, and some also drop a Cryptlurker upgrade item and/or a special tomestone for the weapon. The total amount from all stages seems about enough for fully gearing one character, so depending on how the distribution of coffers matches gear slots, worst case is that a healer would need to wait six weeks from the start of the tier before getting any loot.

As scripted and low incoming damage in savage is, healers are still important.
The main difference is that they don't need gear to perform their role efficiently and well and gear upgrades have very little impact compared to a dps and to an extend, even tanks. As a healer in raids I feel gear is just wasted on me and will gladly hand it over to a dps or tank anytime and take whatever is left. If I have enough to get by and not be a one shot even through mitigation, that's fine.
Gear makes healing more comfy but with two healers being overkill in most savage fights, it's the last thing I need in our static. In a chaotic PF party it may feel nice but definitely not in a coordinated static.

And even after only a few kills we already had a couple of free for all items, meaning everyone who needs it already got it. And even if it's not BiS, it's an upgrade so there's always the option to take an upgrade that may not be perfect but is still an improvement.

nononono you're missing the point.... I have nothing against meter whoring itself.. I just dont want to be a part of it. thats why I play healers... Its fine to have meter whoring... for people who play DPS. The healers and tanks should be concerned with with keeping their "friends" alive... let the DPS worry about the "Web Site that shall not be names"

You're missing one important point here: although it's all about dps, only an efficient use of your own toolkit and coordination with your co heal allows you to really push dps. The dps you are or are not doing is just a result of your level of gameplay when it comes to your primary function: healing. Only a good healer can become a good green dps. Statics are more willing to take someone who is not yet doing a lot of dps but has the healing part of their class down, meaning they know the fight, the incoming damage and prepare instead of blindly reacting, they use their whole toolkit and keep their oGCD heals rolling, they don't miss important cd uses, line up raid buffs properly, neither overheal too much nor snipe their co heal etc.
Because they may still grow into a really good green dps or at least never crumble under pressure when things go south.

It sounds more like you don't want to be judged for performance but even in games with full-time healers it was all about performance for most endgame players.
Because a good full-time healer, that used their own toolkit efficiently and worked with their co healer(s) gave the static the option to drop a healer for another dps because more dps is always useful. Or it at least allowed healers to spec and play more offensively as a makeshift solution until they reached the threshold for dropping a healer.
It is still all about performance and dps.

Someone who has healbot gameplay level in FFXIV still wouldn't be welcome in many statics in those games because it's clear from the beginning that they will neither enable the static to drop a healer later nor will they be the one switching to dps.

[EtherRose]

Wrong thread topic. It should be more like "Why do Toxic Elitist Static Raids only want DPS Healers?"

[tdb]

As scripted and low incoming damage in savage is, healers are still important.
The main difference is that they don't need gear to perform their role efficiently and well and gear upgrades have very little impact compared to a dps and to an extend, even tanks. As a healer in raids I feel gear is just wasted on me and will gladly hand it over to a dps or tank anytime and take whatever is left. If I have enough to get by and not be a one shot even through mitigation, that's fine.
Gear makes healing more comfy but with two healers being overkill in most savage fights, it's the last thing I need in our static. In a chaotic PF party it may feel nice but definitely not in a coordinated static.

Sure, on a logical level it makes sense. But on an emotional level it still feels bad if everyone else gets shiny new stuff and I don't. Maybe it's more of a failure in game design that makes healers an afterthought rather than the group being jackasses, but that doesn't change the fact that it feels bad.

Not that you have to worry about getting me in your savage group any time soon, if ever. Recently my interest in the game as a whole has been on the level of "I guess I'll have to do an expert to not miss out on the tomestones" and none of my friends have played in weeks so I'll probably take a break after I get my cryptlurker weapon. Kinda wish the game had less daily/weekly things to grind so it would be easier to just leave.

[Rilifane]

Sure, on a logical level it makes sense. But on an emotional level it still feels bad if everyone else gets shiny new stuff and I don't. Maybe it's more of a failure in game design that makes healers an afterthought rather than the group being jackasses, but that doesn't change the fact that it feels bad.

Not that you have to worry about getting me in your savage group any time soon, if ever. Recently my interest in the game as a whole has been on the level of "I guess I'll have to do an expert to not miss out on the tomestones" and none of my friends have played in weeks so I'll probably take a break after I get my cryptlurker weapon. Kinda wish the game had less daily/weekly things to grind so it would be easier to just leave.

Of course it feels bad and you know what? I'd quit healing in a heartbeat if I could.
The only reason I'm staying on healer is because I don't want to slow down prog in a static I enjoy raiding with and where prog is going nicely for a very casual schedule and going in blind. But I'm well-aware of all the issues healers currently face and it annoys me that I'm basically just a slot that needs to be filled to bait mechanics. It's a gigantic failure in game design and it's no wonder so many healers quit during ShB, both for casual and endgame content.
Getting gear wouldn't make it feel better, because I know how unneccessary and wasted it is and it would be nothing more than a consolation prize. I prefer the whole raid progressing further and further over getting pity gear.

[ForteNightshade]

Sure, on a logical level it makes sense. But on an emotional level it still feels bad if everyone else gets shiny new stuff and I don't. Maybe it's more of a failure in game design that makes healers an afterthought rather than the group being jackasses, but that doesn't change the fact that it feels bad.

Not that you have to worry about getting me in your savage group any time soon, if ever. Recently my interest in the game as a whole has been on the level of "I guess I'll have to do an expert to not miss out on the tomestones" and none of my friends have played in weeks so I'll probably take a break after I get my cryptlurker weapon. Kinda wish the game had less daily/weekly things to grind so it would be easier to just leave.

Not to sound cold, but emotions aren't going to help clear the fight more efficiently. It doesn't make sense prioritizing healers because they're the only job who have a solution if you're dying to unavoidable damage: trade damage casts for more healing. As a tank, my options are "where do you want <insert 90s CD> and/or Reprisal?" Otherwise, I'm a gimped DPS. For example sake, say you're close to enrage. Which helps the group more, funneling gear to the tank doing 11-12k or the healing doing 8-9k? Unless that gear allows them to jump several thousand DPS, you'll see better results for the group as a whole giving the tank gear. Of course, this all depends on your group mentality, how quickly you're aiming to clear and how aggressive your healers play. Furthermore, most groups I've seen or been apart of follow that priority only if the pieces are BiS. I've also seen some funnel DPS everything but let tanks and healers get upgrade items. So it isn't a hard set rule.

With all that said, yes it is a design flaw. You could solo heal most Savage fights if it weren't for one or two mechanics that specific target healers, thus making it far too impractical to drop one. Frankly, I hate that design approach because it feels arbitrary; a way to force two healers into content that doesn't require it.

nononono you're missing the point.... I have nothing against meter whoring itself.. I just dont want to be a part of it. thats why I play healers... Its fine to have meter whoring... for people who play DPS. The healers and tanks should be concerned with with keeping their "friends" alive... let the DPS worry about the "Web Site that shall not be names"

See my example above. Tanks have two abilities that mitigation AoEs, otherwise they're gimped DPS who occasionally take big hits. Sure, I may need to rotate something like Rampart or Nascent for autos but I'm far more focused on my damage simply because... well, what else am I supposed to focus on? Looking at my recent E11, I used a total of 25 mitigation CDs. I pressed Infuriate, and just Infuriate 18 times. One of my DPS buttons made up 72% of all my mitigation tools combined. This isn't taking into consideration I'm actually over mitigating with things like Raw because E11 has several downtime moments, and I don't have much else to do with it anyway. All in all, the reason damage is so prominent is because that's all the matters in the end. You can only heal or mitigate to a certain extent whereas damage is always valued. I don't need to sit at 200k the whole fight when all I'm taking are weak autos.

[Mavrias]

I know the site. and I dont like it, because again it ONLY talks about damage uptime. it doesnt mention anything about "better healing or tanking"

Because at the end of the day, if you cleared the fight at all it assumes your healing and tanking is adequate at the very least. Although it does track healing cooldown and resource usage.
Additionally, damage dealt is the end all be all of job mastery in this game.

If your knowledge of your toolkit, the fight and communication with your co- healer is good, then you both will be able to push out more damage because you will be able to minimize GCD healing. "Earthly Star is up so I can hold this Rapture and cast Glare instead." "Assize is 10 seconds out and there is no raid wide coming up for the next 30 seconds. I can afford to keep dpsing and heal with Assize instead of a GCD heal." That kind of thing.

Additionally you made a comment earlier about having lower uptime due to movement and yes occasionally you will need to move. But you need to consider, "did I preposition appropriately to minimize necessary movement for this mechanic? Could I have stocked a movement tool or ability (swift cast, light speed, aflatus rapture/solace/ misery, etc) so that I could keep my gcd rolling during this movement phase?"

[Wyakin]

I’m sorry but the short sightedness of a lot of people here is amazing. The end goal of any boss is to reduce its HP to zero... to do that, you need to do damage.. the more damage you do the quicker that happens. There’s a minimum threshold for how much healing is required and any more healing is wasted any less means death. Fact remains, the only way to reverse is it to either remove healer dps abilities or make the bosses so significantly more damage.

As for static loot, the priority list I’ve seen written dps > tank > healer is dumb. It’s a team game, 8 players. Every member is pulling their weight so deserve an equal opportunity to role. That’s how I run things, it’s how I’ll always run my static

[Marcus]

My favorite job since forever is WHM, on all of FFs, even the ones that didn't have jobs (I'd get attached to the ones that was the healer, like Yuna). It was my main on FFXIV. After SB, I just couldn't handle it, and I gave up. I wanted to heal, not press glare over and over and over and over and over again. Now I'm a RDM.

[Anhra]

It would be great if the healers in FFXIV had at the very least, as much depth as their counterparts in FFXI (havent played it so please be merciful on this), just from what i see on paper on the wiki's they look really interesting in a way which could even work in PvP without having to make a seperate skillset for it.

i mean, just look at them:

White Mage: https://ffxiclopedia.fandom.com/wiki/White_Mage

Scholar: https://ffxiclopedia.fandom.com/wiki/Scholar

No Astrologian as far as i can see, but Geomancer should come a bit close to this and maybe some of the ideas could be used for AST: https://ffxiclopedia.fandom.com/wiki/Geomancer

[Liam_Harper]

As for static loot, the priority list I’ve seen written dps > tank > healer is dumb. It’s a team game, 8 players. Every member is pulling their weight so deserve an equal opportunity to role. That’s how I run things, it’s how I’ll always run my static

Nothing wrong with your way at all, but calling others methods dumb is being short-sighted yourself. Gear in a static is simply a tool to achieve your goal. If I, as a healer, have far less use for that tool than the dps, I don't even want it. I'd prefer it went to the team and provided greater contribution.

The healers and tanks should be concerned with with keeping their "friends" alive... let the DPS worry about the "Web Site that shall not be names"

We are concerned with that, it's the primary goal. But if doing both that and damage as a healer is of similar difficulty to doing high damage as a DPS, then it's natural that you'd be expected to do both if you wanted to be viewed as a good player. It's about putting in as much effort into your gameplay as the rest of the group. In the same way DPS aim to have close to 100% uptime pressing their buttons correctly, healers should aim to have nearly 100% uptime pressing buttons correctly too.