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

[Naoki34]

Hello,

To get to the point, why do the healer classes have so few utility spells. Everything is raw healing. And the amount of healing needed can be covered by your ogcds almost all the time. So you don't even need to break the glare/malefic/broil or Holy/Gravity/Art of War spam.

I get why so many people enjoy ast. It is probably the hardest heal job to learn to play optimally. You have to use ogcd for sustain or dmg buff every time you cast gravity or malefic to maintain your uptime. It's a little bit more complicated than back to back broil or glare spam with the occasional ogcd heal when reapplying DoT.

Don't get me wrong. I like demolishing the pack mobs with AoE spam. I just don't understand why the healers don't have more supportive spells.

Because Yoshi-P didn't like people harassing healers who didn't want to Dps, to go along with that, he removed the majority of offensive spells and even offensive healer stances.

To leave only the bare minimum for a healer to still do his quests, a dot, a aoe (nerfed) and a spell.
This must be from Stormblood.

[GrimGale]

There is literally nothing else the healers need in terms of healing. What else can they add to healers in terms of healing for their new spells and abilities for Endwalker? Another AoE oGCD? Another 2minute CD buff to healing for 10 seconds? Give AST and SCH their versions of Benediction? Give Excog to AST and WHM?

There is only an avenue for creativity and novelty in healers and that's either Utility or Damage.

[Marxam]

Well idk how it was before sb. I started playing this april.

Usually, healers are a support class, they have lots of spells for utility aside from their normal healing spells. In FFXIV it is heal or dps. Only ast has that fraction of true support healer.

It used to have a skill Royal Road where you can use the cards to buff the next card. It is also dependent on what type of card used for the buff i.e increase duration, party wide aoe or potency buff. The cards also had 6 different types of utility instead of just straight damage though damage was preferred. Time Dilation also increased the duration of buffs and regens. You're probably best off looking up a youtube vid since I can't do it justice but suffice to say the healers were a lot more complex back then. SCH faeries used to actually have a function outside of glamour and you had more control over it. Selene used to have an aoe esuna. SCH also used to have more dmg skills because it shared toolkits with Arcanist.

Regardless they are walking a fine line between homogenization and simplification. Don't feel bad though because tanks got the same treatment. Instead of working for aggro you just press a button and no one will take hate from you outside of other tanks.

[Truen]

Hello,

To get to the point, why do the healer classes have so few utility spells. Everything is raw healing. And the amount of healing needed can be covered by your ogcds almost all the time. So you don't even need to break the glare/malefic/broil or Holy/Gravity/Art of War spam.

I get why so many people enjoy ast. It is probably the hardest heal job to learn to play optimally. You have to use ogcd for sustain or dmg buff every time you cast gravity or malefic to maintain your uptime. It's a little bit more complicated than back to back broil or glare spam with the occasional ogcd heal when reapplying DoT.

Don't get me wrong. I like demolishing the pack mobs with AoE spam. I just don't understand why the healers don't have more supportive spells.

Because Joshi-P thought it was a good idea. Clearly, he was VERY wrong.

[Lyth]

...

The more clever that you become with ability effects, the more opportunities there are to break fights. Rather than try to predict these or patch them out, they make your ability set just a little more narrow and a little more tightly constrained the next time. Hallowed and Cover as you mentioned being used to reset stacks are good examples of these. Another interesting example is Holmgang being used to interrupt otherwise uninterruptable abilities. That's one major reason we don't have draw in/knock back abilities in PvE anymore.

Utility doesn't need to be clever to not fall into one of those three categories. Movement is a major one. An in-combat movement speed buff could be used to help you respond more quickly to a mechanic, or it could be used to improve your uptime. Similar thinking could be applied to your casters if you gave them a warp point between two parts of the arena.

What else could you do? Reduce recast on next cooldown. Prevent/cleanse a vulnerability stack. Increase resource generation. Haste buff. Reflect damage.

The more complex you make it, the bigger a dev team you need to balance it. They're just cashing in for cheap.

[Dzian]

....

The thing is its often those things that allow you to break the rules in some way that are actually the fun and engaging ones. And ultimately become a lot more interesting and engaging to use.

Holmgang as you mentioned did allow you to break the rules In certain ways but it was also heavily restricted in others. Such as actually needing a target in order to use it. Where pld could just pop hallowed whenever they feel like...

And as the famous slides from beta and stuff show.

FUN should always come first. If it isn't fun you're doing it wrong.

Not obsession with accessibility. Not obsession with balance. But actual fun, rewarding and engaging gameplay.

Stats are simple and boring,
materia is simple and boring. crit crit crit....
gear is simple and boring. only ilevel matters.
healers are simplified and boring everything that made them fun like 4.0 ast cards has been butchered.
tanks are simple and boring. they're basically all the same.
same again with dps.. so much homogenization. boriiing.

Simple and shallow is ultimately dull and boring. Which is not fun. which then means they're doing it wrong..

I really wish I could find it but someone did something about FFXIV and how it knows its ABC. Accessible Balanced Casual.. but totally forgets the rest of the alphabet. Deep Engaging Fun Gameplay etc etc. continuing all the way to Z

[SweetPete]

Because when healers had many dps skills it created a very toxic player base. If you healed more then dps then you’d be kicked. If the group thought you didn’t contribute enough dps they would bash you and kick you. The toxicity was all to real. Then some healers just dps and didn’t heal much. There was so much mess going on.

New players were horrified to play healers because the veterans created this healer dps toxic community.

Since healer dps changes. The community isn’t very toxic anymore. People don’t care to jump down a healers throat for dps anymore.

[Duskane]

Because when healers had many dps skills it created a very toxic player base. If you healed more then dps then you’d be kicked. If the group thought you didn’t contribute enough dps they would bash you and kick you. The toxicity was all to real. Then some healers just dps and didn’t heal much. There was so much mess going on.

New players were horrified to play healers because the veterans created this healer dps toxic community.

Since healer dps changes. The community isn’t very toxic anymore. People don’t care to jump down a healers throat for dps anymore.

nothing you've said here is correct

[Thoosa]

Also it’s somewhat broken that often levelling dungeons are harder to heal (because of being synced down and the tank having worse gear and mobs hitting harder) than expert roulette where the tank can wall to wall and you barely have to heal.

[Cidel]

consequently, the healer playerbase has plummeted, the skill of healers on average has plummeted, and very few people pick up the jobs to replace them and witht he lack of difficulty or challenge

I have to wonder, are we playing the same game or do I just have (bad) luck? I see this assertion get thrown around here and there, and it seems like hyperbole. Oftentimes in current content, healers are everywhere. It is not uncommon to get invited into parties with 3+ healers out in Bozja, get matched with parties with 4+ healers in DR, and in the active weeks following a new EX trial's release, it can be an actual race to join a PF with a free healer spot... The only place I actively see people avoid healer like the plague is in PvP.