Is healing going to get harder?

[Jin-]

I don’t understand why everything always have to be hard. Can’t we just have some things be easy and be happy with that?

Some things easy? I thought it's 99% of the game already

[Laerune]

The stat squish is the main reason for that.
My hardest hitting heal is 600p and an Addersgall and it crits for 14k against a Tanks 70k and the average DPS HP of 45k.
I've only done my Sage to 90 so far, but mass pulling tanks simply cannot be kept alive purely with oGCDs.

Especially not the ones I've been getting in the EX roulette ._.

Granted, we are at the base/floor for ilvl right now.
It always gets easier when you overgear the content.

Something so many healers forget is that the behaviour of the party directly dictates how much effort yp7 need to put into Healing.
Get you a group that never makes even the slightest mistake and works together like a well oiled machine? Yeah, you're gonna be DPSing a lot.
But get a squad that makes frequent mistakes across the team and you'll spend a llot more time dropping heals.

It's the only role who gets less relevant based on the skill of the group.
Hopefully, there will be more unavoidable damage in future content that comes fast enough that we can't just time an oGCD to it for an entire fight.

I think this is also one of the reasons why healing is so hard to balance. Healers performance is linked to the group, if tank does not use migation or DPS is underperforming then you are gonna work hard, but if you only play with friends/FC members who know their class, then you won't have heal much and you will be bored.

I can't blame the developers for having issues with balancing, they need to make it work for all players who want to heal, otherwise the role will scare players away and they will be like the Tank role.

[Krotoan]

I think this is also one of the reasons why healing is so hard to balance. Healers performance is linked to the group, if tank does not use migation or DPS is underperforming then you are gonna work hard, but if you only play with friends/FC members who know their class, then you won't have heal much and you will be bored.

I can't blame the developers for having issues with balancing, they need to make it work for all players who want to heal, otherwise the role will scare players away and they will be like the Tank role.

Just ran an expert with a sage and the other DPS was new to the dungeon (to be expected). Tank was PLD. 2nd and 3rd boss the sage and the other DPS died about 1/3rd or halfway through and me and the PLD completed the bosses without them it just took a while. If people aren't standing in things and are using their own role cooldowns to heal/mitigate you really don't need a dedicated healer, but as soon as people start eating things those heals and saves get needed pretty fast and it's exponential. 1 or 2 vulnerabilities and now you need to be perfect or die.

It's a giant difference to the healer from one run to the next I think. Some runs all you do is heal, others you're basically a one button wonder. SE had to make MSQ possible for both to be the case and still be completable.

[Nihility]

theoretically savage content will have mechanics more often to justify every healer having more big global safety net buttons but harder is a big no. Especially with the tanks(-DRK) all having self healing to a massive degree now. Done some dungeon runs on warrior and lost the healer and literally just took over healing duty with nascent flashes. It's kind of incredible as it currently is

[Wolwosh]

As long as content is fun i'm okay with it.
I've been playing for a long time, so naturally gotten pretty good.
I am starting to enjoy the game less though, mostly because of the dumbed down changes.
They are taking certain things to far, like Tank busters have visual queue's now..

[Laerune]

As long as content is fun i'm okay with it.
I've been playing for a long time, so naturally gotten pretty good.
I am starting to enjoy the game less though, mostly because of the dumbed down changes.
They are taking certain things to far, like Tank busters have visual queue's now..

I think the visual cue for tank busters was needed, was suprised it took so long, we have cues for all other stuff during a mechanic.

[Kyrj]

I mean it's healing, so no. SE is dead set on making healers as easy as possible thus making them the most boring Job to play. I'm leveling all my Jobs to 90 and I just don't want to do healers because they're boring.

Why is it that we can't have more than 2-3 dps buttons? How many times can you repackage a heal and give it to us as a "new" spell in an expac? GIVE US A NEW DPS ABILITY FFS I'M BEGGING YOU...

[UkcsAlias]

Why is it that we can't have more than 2-3 dps buttons?

With proper balance you dont need more buttons, because you should be healing.

The issue however is that if you make healing too difficult, you generaly cause the team to rely on 1 person. Unlike the tank which can be compensated by a healer. It will cause healers to get blamed for losses. This is what causes a healer to become obsolete.

But i think that the solution is simple enough if damage becomes more constant during a fight. So the healer isnt completely being pressed into difficulty, but at least gets the requirement of frequent healing. The more the healer is forced to heal, the less DPS he has to dish out, so less abilities are required.

To counter the issue of making the healer the only one in the team to decide the outcome, other classes must be able to compensate in turn. I think giving other classes a revive option is generaly a way to handle this as if the healer for some reason fails, they would be able to get the healer back.

Also, healing checks can be handled in more ways, even if there is a bad healer, the limit break for the tank could be used as counter. And i think this would also cover the part in which the tank can compensate for a bad healer. LBs are now only used by the DPS anyway as a finisher, i think this is something that could be adjusted.

[Raven2014]

With proper balance you dont need more buttons, because you should be healing.

May I suggest playing AST? There are so many buttons that it's completely bloat. If you give me one more button for DPS or anything else really, I don't even know where it gonna go on my bar!

[UkcsAlias]

May I suggest playing AST? There are so many buttons that it's completely bloat. If you give me one more button for DPS or anything else really, I don't even know where it gonna go on my bar!

Not exactly how i ment my comment. I ment that instead of adding more DPS buttons, they should make healing more relevant. And when that happens, you are going to be using the DPS buttons less often, making it feel like only having a few of them is enough.

As WHM (before the reductions) i far too often notice that i can just heal the tank using just regen (in hard dungeons). And even now using regen with an occasional cure 2 is more than enough to cover most fights. Even though hard isnt ment to be overly difficult, this is however on a too low end.
And i know WHM is ment to be approachable (which is generaly a playstyle i like - instead of getting more buttons, i prefer system in which timing the buttons becomes more relevant). But in this case half of the kit is obsolete as there simply isnt enough damage taking place. And thats when you notice having only a few DPS abilities feels strange.

The other thing is however, if too much healing gets required, some healers might not be able to use any DPS abilities with it. Making too much healing required, a problem for those classes. This can be covered by making DPS boost some healing though, but if that happens, WHM should either get stronger DPS, or more DPS buttons. Both of those are approaches that can either be unbalanced, or make a class more difficult again. But even here, WHM can have mechanics in place that do compensate:
if i would try to get a WHM to dish out more DPS, i would make the lillies charge faster for each stone being casted, and then cause the heal ability to heal a bit more in turn. The charge duration would then also be extended to balance it out (so it for example becomes 45s instead of 30s).

Balancing is difficult, especialy because you dont want the team to entirely rely on the healer. Making a single role blameable will after all make that role unpopular (even more than it already is now).