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

[Semirhage]

Actually the thing that matters most is teamwork, though that's always overlooked here (in NA) in favor of personal performance. Yes, tanks and healers can do damage (can even do very good damage) but for the most part its incidental--like for solo instances (from a design standpoint). IMO, the game is set up so that ideally a group of a certain iLvl, using basic skills from their kit can clear the duty in the allotted time. The only real exception being Savage and Extremes/Ultimates where time is a factor due to enrage.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for utility but I don't want to suffer through another optimization war where I'm suddenly expected to play someone else's role so someone else can play mine. (I do really miss manashift but mp management on healer seems to be less of a thing now.) Hopefully they'll give us back a little with Endwalker.

Not that I'd mind reversing course on this downward grind of support skills (though I enjoy dealing damage as a healer and would never touch the role again if they removed that facet), what impetus do they have for that? DPS are the stars of the show. They're one-character-armies that can heal themselves, damage shield, power through solo duties with the most ease. Most popular role. Most MMOs I've played have a direction that their entropy flows, and that direction is toward making DPS the king role that occasionally stoops to allowing teamwork in the increasingly smaller areas of content it remains necessary.

Teamwork in MMOs lasts as long as the DPS playerbase feels like relying on you. If they don't feel like it anymore, expect to be made redundant.

[Rufalus]

I was thinking how cool it would be to combine the healer jobs into one job. Whm's cane for the weapon but have a fairy and arcana buffs too. Could have aoe combo like gravity > demiga > tornado. There should be some kind of side content that lets you be broken and mix stuff from all jobs. Mix their glams too.

[Kabooa]

Not that I'd mind reversing course on this downward grind of support skills (though I enjoy dealing damage as a healer and would never touch the role again if they removed that facet), what impetus do they have for that? DPS are the stars of the show. They're one-character-armies that can heal themselves, damage shield, power through solo duties with the most ease. Most popular role. Most MMOs I've played have a direction that their entropy flows, and that direction is toward making DPS the king role that occasionally stoops to allowing teamwork in the increasingly smaller areas of content it remains necessary.

Teamwork in MMOs lasts as long as the DPS playerbase feels like relying on you. If they don't feel like it anymore, expect to be made redundant.

This isn't even close to being true in the current game state.

The "one man armies" are the tanks.

Bozja belongs to the healers. The duels being the exception, because Memeflare.

Solo Deep Dungeon belongs to tanks, healers, and some of the DPS.

Extreme? Throw an extra 100ilvls on any class and it's going to make the other roles look irrelevant.

Any relevant content requires all the roles, because that's how they're tuned, unless it's six summoners, because summoners were fair and balanced in 5.1-2.

[Semirhage]

This isn't even close to being true in the current game state.

The "one man armies" are the tanks.

Bozja belongs to the healers. The duels being the exception, because Memeflare.

Solo Deep Dungeon belongs to tanks, healers, and some of the DPS.

Extreme? Throw an extra 100ilvls on any class and it's going to make the other roles look irrelevant.

Any relevant content requires all the roles, because that's how they're tuned, unless it's six summoners, because summoners were fair and balanced in 5.1-2.

And wide swathes of unique support abilities are a nonstarter in the current state of the game. Largely due to Square's insistence that all comps need to be viable. A boss needs to be silenced? All jobs in [insert role here] need silence. Stunned? All jobs need a stun. This insistence from some of the forum community that healers get unique party support utility ain't gonna happen. Anything that becomes necessary also becomes universal. What relevant content requires tanks and healers to do much of anything outside [mechanics positional dance], [do your rotation], or [perform basic role function of eating or restoring damage]? That's been the trend for a long time, and I don't see it reversing.

Interesting about Bozja. I haven't touched it. I don't care about the latest iteration of Diadem. Maybe they've moved away from snoozy field mob grinding for this type of content FINALLY and I'll check it out next expansion. If they have interesting, unique mechanics in there...then why is there only one country in the game world that allows the use of actual interesting abilities?

[Kabooa]

Interesting about Bozja. I haven't touched it. I don't care about the latest iteration of Diadem. Maybe they've moved away from snoozy field mob grinding for this type of content FINALLY and I'll check it out next expansion. If they have interesting, unique mechanics in there...then why is there only one country in the game world that allows the use of actual interesting abilities?

Mostly because they're broken AF, but there's several actions in there I'd like to see translated into the main game. Try it, or don't. It's no skin off my nose.

[Kazukiyashuo]

Healers were always like that. If u think that applying 2 more dots in your rotation was a complex gameplay then u are delusional or a bad player. AST always had 1 dot 1 spell . Im tired of this non sense topics all the time. If u want more spells to do dps play a dps or pick a game where healers are dps as well. In this game healers mainly heal.

[Recon1o6]

Healers were always like that. If u think that applying 2 more dots in your rotation was a complex gameplay then u are delusional or a bad player. AST always had 1 dot 1 spell . Im tired of this non sense topics all the time. If u want more spells to do dps play a dps or pick a game where healers are dps as well. In this game healers mainly heal.

This is completely incorrect. 60-80% of a healer's gcd casts in duties are dps actions. Its been that way throughout the game's lifespan. We used to have more dps actions as well and it was more fun for most to fill in the massive amount of time we don't need to heal. Our healing kits are too strong and too plentiful and the lack of damage buttons turns every solo duty, fate and more into a chore. That's why a bit of a dps rotation is needed. We aren't asking for a full dps kit, but at least 4 different buttons with some semblance of management.

Like when sch had multiple dots to juggle and aetherflow to track for damage and whm had to plan out casts and movement. Even Astrologian had a couple of extra buttons once upon a time.

[Kazukiyashuo]

This is completely incorrect. 60-80% of a healer's gcd casts in duties are dps actions. Its been that way throughout the game's lifespan. We used to have more dps actions as well and it was more fun for most to fill in the massive amount of time we don't need to heal. Our healing kits are too strong and too plentiful and the lack of damage buttons turns every solo duty, fate and more into a chore. That's why a bit of a dps rotation is needed. We aren't asking for a full dps kit, but at least 4 different buttons with some semblance of management.

Like when sch had multiple dots to juggle and aetherflow to track for damage and whm had to plan out casts and movement. Even Astrologian had a couple of extra buttons once upon a time.

Dude im playing since realm reborn. Healers always were simple with few spells. Whm had 1 spell and 2 dots and 1 aoe , and now its minus 1 dot. Ast was always like that 1 dot 1 spell 1 aoe. Sch had 3 dots 2 SPELLS for single target and a crappy shadowflare. SCH didnt have aoe spell like the other 2 and he was using bane to spread the dots. Now u dont spread the dots , u have 1 aoe spell like the other 2 healers always HAD. SO PLEASE before coment get your sht right. Not to mention that right now SCH kept his ruin 2 and can weave dmg very easily and whm and ast cant do that

[GrimGale]

Dude im playing since realm reborn. Healers always were simple with few spells. Whm had 1 spell and 2 dots and 1 aoe , and now its minus 1 dot. Ast was always like that 1 dot 1 spell 1 aoe. Sch had 3 dots 2 SPELLS for single target and a crappy shadowflare. SCH didnt have aoe spell like the other 2 and he was using bane to spread the dots. Now u dont spread the dots , u have 1 aoe spell like the other 2 healers always HAD. SO PLEASE before coment get your sht right. Not to mention that right now SCH kept his ruin 2 and can weave dmg very easily and whm and ast cant do that

"In this game healers mainly heal"

Parsers seem to differ. 60%-80% of casts for damage seems like an accurate representation of the amount of time a healer devotes to damaging in high end content.

I am a grey dps healer and I often have 130+ casts of Broil and 30+ casts of Biolysis in Savage fights as opposed to a combined 20+ casts of Succor and Adloquium. Adding healing oGCDs brings up the total healing abilities and actions a bit higher, maybe 60+ uses of healing abilities.

Even during progression and training I use most of my time with DPS spells, considering the group's HP often stays topped off. There is no point in overhealing, so in order to contribute to the fight and honestly simply do something instead of standing there doing nothing, I end up casting Damage spells.

As to wether we had more spells and damaging abilities before, yes we had more buttons to press even if we had just one or two more.
But this is the thing: Having less buttons to press during healing downtime would not be a problem if said downtime wasn't so prevalent. Healing game play quickly devolves into a very noticeable "one button" spam. I remember for example E3s, where after the first boss AoE we had like almost two minutes of no damage done to the group.

[Recon1o6]

Dude im playing since realm reborn. Healers always were simple with few spells. Whm had 1 spell and 2 dots and 1 aoe , and now its minus 1 dot. Ast was always like that 1 dot 1 spell 1 aoe. Sch had 3 dots 2 SPELLS for single target and a crappy shadowflare. SCH didnt have aoe spell like the other 2 and he was using bane to spread the dots. Now u dont spread the dots , u have 1 aoe spell like the other 2 healers always HAD. SO PLEASE before coment get your sht right. Not to mention that right now SCH kept his ruin 2 and can weave dmg very easily and whm and ast cant do that

You arent the only one whose been playing since ARR and you definately cant get your facts straight if you think ast cant weave. They get a weave window every time they cast malefic! Finally dot management is actually a fun style for a lot of people and quite a good one for healers.

Whm had stone (remember this was when cc mattered) stone 2, aero 1 and 2 (because guess what? you conveniently forgot that skills were separate back then) holy, fluid aura had damage and that was before cross class and hw where we got aero 3 on top. With cross class they could add thunder to the list. Now we have glare, dia and misery. No offensive ogcds

Shadowflare was amazing, crowd control and aoe dot. Its why its so requested to come back. Scholar could have miasma, bio and debuffs like virus in addition to a useful energy drain and mana management that mattered more than just a hard limit on raising.

Ast never quite had the same as those two, but they still got combust 1 and 2 (combust 2 had a cast time!) malefic, stella (useful in movement heavy spots and in the open world) plus gravity and they had fancy time magic as well. Plus lord of crowns before it too was made into discount balance.