Why is the healer class basically a one spell dps class?

[Lauront]

I'd like to see a proper rotation for healers. Doesn't have to be as complex or demanding as a dps rotation, but something beyond 1 nuke 1 dot 1 CD.

[Imora]

I just set up my bars for AST and can't see myself doing ANY DPS if they add more DPS buttons to the mix. I just simply don't have room for them.

[GrimGale]

I just set up my bars for AST and can't see myself doing ANY DPS if they add more DPS buttons to the mix. I just simply don't have room for them.

AST doesn't suffer from Healer downtime as much as WHM and SCH. They get their own minigame in-between damage and healing. The other two though definitely need something to fill their downtime beyond one-button spam.

[Imora]

AST doesn't suffer from Healer downtime as much as WHM and SCH. They get their own minigame in-between damage and healing. The other two though definitely need something to fill their downtime beyond one-button spam.

I don't have anything set up for WHM since I don't have it unlocked yet, so I can't say anything about that.

But while I understand one button spam is boring, I'd rather see them make GCD heals needed more often than add more buttons.

[dezzmont]

But while I understand one button spam is boring, I'd rather see them make GCD heals needed more often than add more buttons.

It would be extremely hard to do this without removing a significant amount of oGCD healing. This may not be a terrible idea (GCD heals take up a lot of 'job identity' but in fact barely matter at all, which is why SCH is in a big way way more a regen healer than shield!) and could be used to help differentiate healers more (part of SCH's identity, for example, is modifying their GCD heals and having lots of fairly weak oGCDs, and if they had more exclusive access to oGCD healing that could help them out a bit) but it would be such a radical shift to do.

More likely is pulling a Blood Lilly and making GCD heals 'more worth it' for healers, something they actively want to do at some point in the rotation. But even that is hard because healing resources are extremely plentiful so unless oGCDs, again, got nerfed you are looking at it either not being used because a regular cast is better, or people 'burning' a GCD heal they don't need for no reason without thinking because the DPS is higher.

XIV is in a weird spot because the entire concept of a healer is weird and it chose to implement them very differently than other MMOs due to how scripted damage is and how plentiful healing resources are. Could you imagine tank swapping so the WHM could save mana by just applying a regen rather than cure 2 to the tank? So the various 'styles' of healing lose a lot of meaning, because they are mostly various ways to efficiently maintain HP, which doesn't matter when damage is less random (party members generally only take damage to raidwides or mistakes, the boss never randomly decides to swipe at your DPS for 40% of their health just for fun to keep the healer on their toes and make letting people sit at half a bad idea) and the efficiency of various GCDs doesn't matter because the idea of running out of mana spamming even your strongest AOE heals is a bit unrealistic in XIV.

So I am not surprised they have struggled to make healing engaging, the main 'challenge' of it as opposed to other games basically doesn't exist at all, but they also don't want to give it DPS rotations either. Its hard to make 'healer feel like a healer' when healing is so ridiculously de-emphasized in the design and that is unlikely to change. Especially when only one of the healers is 'allowed' the identity of being a buffer as well.

[KizuyaKatogami]

I just set up my bars for AST and can't see myself doing ANY DPS if they add more DPS buttons to the mix. I just simply don't have room for them.

Honestly idk how this can be possible. I play on controller which has even less space than kb+m(which i’m assuming you’re using) and i’ve never run into a problem of running out of space for skills.

[Dearche]

Honestly idk how this can be possible. I play on controller which has even less space than kb+m(which i’m assuming you’re using) and i’ve never run into a problem of running out of space for skills.

Controller is 5x8 buttons, right? Considering that all healers are roughly at 30 skills or less, it's pretty easy to fit a lot more new skills, since you can fit 40.

In fact, it actually takes more setup to get so many skills working on KB+M because the default binds force you to move your fingers to quite extreme positions if you have more than 15 skills or so.

[Shurrikhan]

Controller is 5x8 buttons, right? Considering that all healers are roughly at 30 skills or less, it's pretty easy to fit a lot more new skills, since you can fit 40.

In fact, it actually takes more setup to get so many skills working on KB+M because the default binds force you to move your fingers to quite extreme positions if you have more than 15 skills or so.

Depends on how much use you make of mod keys. If you make use of Alt (rebound over Caps Lock in my case), Shift, and Ctrl, very, very little hand-stretching is required. Personally, I never have to have stretch my hand any further than a natural resting position.

That said, I do also use my mouse for 3 job-specific skills, auto-run, a toggle for all my additional menus (gearsets, quick links to most used menu items, etc.), Discord Mute toggle, target nearest enemy, target previous, and Interact/Confirm in addition to standard LMB and RMB functions. So, that also lightens the load noticeably.

[KizuyaKatogami]

Controller is 5x8 buttons, right? Considering that all healers are roughly at 30 skills or less, it's pretty easy to fit a lot more new skills, since you can fit 40.

In fact, it actually takes more setup to get so many skills working on KB+M because the default binds force you to move your fingers to quite extreme positions if you have more than 15 skills or so.

5x8 yeah. KB+M has the benefit of more flexibility though. Since mouse buttons exists and there’s usually enough keyboard room to be met with comfort, whereas with controller it’s moreso trying to jumble up everything together between the bumpers, but irregardless i don’t see how you could run out of room on a keyboard and mouse for skills since healers don’t really have that much to begin with. Mostly because you can take out a few like cure 1,benefic 1 etc.

[Dearche]

5x8 yeah. KB+M has the benefit of more flexibility though. Since mouse buttons exists and there’s usually enough keyboard room to be met with comfort, whereas with controller it’s moreso trying to jumble up everything together between the bumpers, but irregardless i don’t see how you could run out of room on a keyboard and mouse for skills since healers don’t really have that much to begin with. Mostly because you can take out a few like cure 1,benefic 1 etc.

Oh no, definitely KB+M is far more flexible and capable of handling more buttons. I'm not denying that. I was just trying to state that the gamepad actually has a decent default configuration, something that isn't really that good on KB+M. Once you start going past 15 skills, you NEED to do an overhaul of the controls, or else you'll be mouse clicking on a third of your skills.

And you know, it's sad that cure 1 and its equivalents are so useless nowadays. Back in ARR, physic was my most used heal spell by far, because you couldn't afford to use the more expensive heals too often or else risk running out of MP for the big heal moments.