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

[Semirhage]

There will always be a relative shortage of tanks and healers. These are team-focused support roles. People pick these roles so that they can have an impact.

You don't need incentives to get people to play DPS. There's just less hassle, and you can play it like it's a single player game. The problem is that because the majority of the playerbase plays DPS, that's where the majority of the focus and effort goes. You want to have impact? Play DPS. You want to have first dibs on gear upgrades? Play DPS. You want job variety? Play DPS.

You're not really giving up that much control over how the fight pans out, either. Bosses move and position themselves, so tanks don't really tank anything. Outgoing damage completely scripted, so your healers aren't reacting and making critical saves so much as they are following a set of timestamps. Anything interesting in gameplay just comes down to dps, and as we've seen in the past two expansions, there's a widening gulf between 'support' roles and the main stars of the show. Why wouldn't you play DPS? It seems obvious, in retrospect.

Tangent supporting point: I played a terrible pay to win MMO long ago that followed this pattern exactly. As time moved forward, classes became stronger and less reliant on one another. You could play it like a single player game for the most part. Shockingly, it meant fewer people played tanks or healers. The problem here is that healers could heal through harder stuff and had 6+ massive stat buffs that lasted half an hour that provided a significant boost to performance. Players started to complain that they couldn't get steady access to healer buffs or a healslave. They had to roll alts and level them up just so they could log, buff a friend, then have that friend do the same. The solution? The game added pets with more powerful heal spells than the healer classes and dropped NPCs in major towns that would just put all of the support class buffs on you for a minimal fee. No I'm not kidding. To hell with making healers and tanks relevant or fun to play, just reduce their jobs to NPCs. Trusts are a less-offensive extension of the same thing after all.

DPS are always center stage in the end.

[Kabooa]

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.

They're often baseless statements, but they sound good for trying to prove a point.

People will play what is the most effective in given content. Bozja is a strange example, because due to the way healers are balanced, and how lost actions function and interact, they are among your highest DPS options with minimal lost action investment. Aetherweaver + Lost Seraph + Burst is an AoE option that is more powerful than Black Mage's single target, outside Delibrum Essence, Chain Spell, and Lost Font. Some of these actions are far easier to get than the others, and one job still has access to a full suite of a healing toolkit, and the other is still among the least able to support the party in the game.

[Roeshel]

There will always be a relative shortage of tanks and healers. These are team-focused support roles. People pick these roles so that they can have an impact.

You don't need incentives to get people to play DPS. There's just less hassle, and you can play it like it's a single player game. The problem is that because the majority of the playerbase plays DPS, that's where the majority of the focus and effort goes. You want to have impact? Play DPS. You want to have first dibs on gear upgrades? Play DPS. You want job variety? Play DPS.

You're not really giving up that much control over how the fight pans out, either. Bosses move and position themselves, so tanks don't really tank anything. Outgoing damage completely scripted, so your healers aren't reacting and making critical saves so much as they are following a set of timestamps. Anything interesting in gameplay just comes down to dps, and as we've seen in the past two expansions, there's a widening gulf between 'support' roles and the main stars of the show. Why wouldn't you play DPS? It seems obvious, in retrospect.

I play DPS. I enjoy it but I avoid playing as dps because of long queues. Not to mention, dps players have no say in how much the tank should pull, if both the healer and tanks want to do baby pulls they can only leave, while if I am a healer I can pressure the tank into doing his job.

[RinaB]

I play DPS. I enjoy it but I avoid playing as dps because of long queues. Not to mention, dps players have no say in how much the tank should pull, if both the healer and tanks want to do baby pulls they can only leave, while if I am a healer I can pressure the tank into doing his job.

First of all the fact that you play healer for faster queue times is clearly an ongoing group problem in this game because of homogenization and accessibility. Second if all it damn right does matter how the dps performs because if they can barely down 3 efficiently then maybe pulling 15 is dumb. I'm going to assume you're already on my blacklist.

[Roeshel]

First of all the fact that you play healer for faster queue times is clearly an ongoing group problem in this game because of homogenization and accessibility. Second if all it damn right does matter how the dps performs because if they can barely down 3 efficiently then maybe pulling 15 is dumb. I'm going to assume you're already on my blacklist.

I never said that it doesn't matter how the dps performs. Of course it does but they really can't tell the healer or the tank to pull more. It could be literally beyond their skills to survive wall to wall pull. Some players are just not good enough. My dps as a healer is stronger than that of the dps in dungeons pulls when playing sch or whm in the majority of cases if the tank lets me DPS and uses their cds because most players don't actually know how to play their roles properly. While I was levelling my ast I got these funny dps players that wanted to do big pulls in dohn mheg when the tank was first-timer. He was not using the blackest night and was scarcely using his other cds. The tank was one thing, the dps of the dps players was just not good enough. It became visible at the last boss, where I used 3 divinations. Needless to say, I didn't suffer their lack of skills and we did small pulls after the second one cuz I let them wipe. I am not ever entering into benefic II spamming phase because you can't play but you want to do big pulls. I do that because I don't want my party members to be left with the wrong impression that they played well because everyone survived. It encourages bad play.

Also, thanks for the preemptive measures, never seeing each other in df is for the best.

[Lyth]

...

No. The fact that there is always fewer players willing to play tank or healer than are needed in an MMO is essentially a tautology. People don't go out of their way to prove the obvious. Any official census numbers that we've gotten to date support the fact that we're not at the desired 1:1:2 ratio, which is what translates into your queue times. And that's going to be true even when you're encouraging players to pick those roles.

People will play what they find most personally rewarding. DPS is the lowest commitment role. Find 3-7 other players, jump in, and play your single player game. It will always be high value in terms of reward vs. effort. Healing and tanking can be extremely rewarding, both from a skill and community perspective, but the dev team has to give value to the odd player who goes looking for that sort of supportive playstyle with their game design.

...

It's amusing that the greatest variability in tank/healer performance comes out in dungeons. Even this seems to be more standardized than ever, given that they won't even let you pull more than two sets before you hit a wall. I daresay you could contribute just as much if not more on DPS by simply being able to burn things down faster than the average player. If not, you could always run a tank for your roulettes and then main whatever you like for content that matters.

[Kabooa]

No. The fact that there is always fewer players willing to play tank or healer than are needed in an MMO is essentially a tautology.

Then you'd have absolutely no issue just posting a few sources to back up your claim. An updated Lucky Bancho perhaps? Been a while since I had some numbers to crawl through.

[IDontPetLalas]

I remember playing Aion, a PVP game, and getting shrekt on the field by clerics. Healers can be fun to play, if they're allowed to play the game. Someone compared XIV's combat to an ATB system and with that outlook I think healer could be really fun if allowed to do more than press a button when anyone's HP dips below 70%. Have healing phases such as that part against High Seraph Ultima where the entire alliance's HP is plummeting but also DPS checks where little healing is required and it's all about slapping that HP bar.

That takes me back- I wish healers some of the love from the devs that cleric had in that game. I played from closed beta until 2020- so 11 years - clerics actually had 2 skills trees, and could even run a hybrid spec. In healing spec, they couldn't kill a fly- this is what AST and the SCH feel like, and solo questing feels pretty miserable, I find WHM is more tolerable. In that spec, cleric have tons of heals to support a team in PVP or the hardest PVE content.

However, in their DPS or even hybrid content, clerics could solo in PVP and easily solo in PVE- depending upon the release, they were one of the few classes (jobs) that could solo bosses. They were decent backup healers and very decent as PVE DPS.

[Dzian]

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.

The healer player base is definitely smaller than it ever has been youncan see this just by looking at the AIN in roulettes. 2.0 3.0 4.0 nearly always tanks. Known as the insta queue jobs. Where healers would often be queuing alongside dps.

5.0 its not uncommon to queue expert or something on your tank and be told your 15th in the queue. Because so many people have dropped healers since 5.0. They've become the insta queue job because noone wants to play them since they got butchered to hell.

[SweetPete]

nothing you've said here is correct

I been playing this game since the beginning. I saw lots and heard lots. So don’t tell me I don’t know what I’m talking about. I’m not saying everyone was like this but for the most part it was extremely toxic. I’m not here to convince you or anyone else otherwise. I know what I observed.