Yoshi-P: "If you want more engaging content, go play Ultimate"

[Semirhage]

I'm not the most prolific MMO consumer, but I've played my share. I have played pay to win Korean grinder MMOs. I've played subscription MMOs published by AAA companies. I've played boring bot-infested dead server MMOs. In every. single. one. of. them. I had more actual healing responsibility, more casts of healing spells, more engaging and complex downtime activity, and in nearly all of them I had all of these things while ALSO having a more complex set of damage spells beyond 111111111. And to top it all off, I can think of several instances where I did all of these things in a DUNGEON, where I was more engaged with my kit than I've been healing an Ultimate reclear in this game. Miss me with this feigned bewildered take that healers couldn't possibly have more to do because healing is just so haaaaaaaaard that causals are pushed to the very limit of a panicked press of Medica 2 once a minute.

[RinaShinomiya]

I only played 2 Japanese MMO's so it's not a good sample size to make that assumption but it seems Japanese devs are struggling with the idea that healers need engaging DPS rotations.
PSO2's Techter suffered the same fate of being a brainless 1 button spam Support type class but since it's and action game we at least didn't have to suffer a bloated healing kit & dodging/Blocking is far more engaging by default. PSO2:NGS didn't improve this issue by much.

I really wonder how healers/Support classes in Dragon Quest X look. If they're as bad then i'm starting to see a pattern.

[MintnHoney]

I really wonder how healers/Support classes in Dragon Quest X look. If they're as bad then i'm starting to see a pattern.

Well, we can look at AST and Fortune Teller, as they're similar to each other in theming, and the difference is, to me, very extreme. To quote from the wiki:

Fortune tellers may equip Swords, Spears, Whips, and Bow. Their unique ability is to use use tarot cards in battle to provide a variety of effects; 22 arcana with 78 variations per card that can be organized into a single deck of twenty cards. This gives the fortune teller 1716 options to choose from when assembling a deck.

As such, they're capable of providing a very variable (customizeable) combination of Healing, DPS, and even specialized Support.

I suppose the de-facto healer in DQX is Priest, and they're generally only capable of healing and support, but they're really good at it and considered essential for a majority of party make-ups due to healing actually being a necessity in DQX.

To be fair, DQX is a very different game, where there's plenty more things to worry about and necessitates the need for support abilities, like status effects, breath weapons, instant death effects, and elemental damage, on top of the general attack/defense/dodge/etc. buffs/debuffs. Each class even has personal "limit breaks," called their Coup de Grace, even in group content.
Basically, the things we're clamoring for here: engagement, necessity, options, are all there. A shame we'll never get the game to come overseas, because I would drop XIV in a heartbeat for it.

[GrimGale]

Ultimate is not even a good test of healing. There is no randomness, there is no "saving" anybody with a well tiled oGCD.

It's just more of jumping through hoops.

Yes, those hoops do require you to press your healing buttons more often to fix unavoidable damage, but I'd argue in terms of healing, they are even less engaging than Raids.

Healing will not solve mistakes. It will not save the party. Most if not all mechanics in Ultimate are a one shot wipe. Dance around markers, stay in your positions, mechanic solves, blanket raid with a heal and back to spamming your nuke, you're gonna need that dps.

Did anybody mess up? Back to the start. What makes those fights intense and complicated is that there is little to no recovery possible.

Guess which role is responsible for "recovery".

[Floortank]

Ultimate is not even a good test of healing. There is no randomness, there is no "saving" anybody with a well tiled oGCD.

It's just more of jumping through hoops.

Yes, those hoops do require you to press your healing buttons more often to fix unavoidable damage, but I'd argue in terms of healing, they are even less engaging than Raids.

Healing will not solve mistakes. It will not save the party. Most if not all mechanics in Ultimate are a one shot wipe. Dance around markers, stay in your positions, mechanic solves, blanket raid with a heal and back to spamming your nuke, you're gonna need that dps.

Did anybody mess up? Back to the start. What makes those fights intense and complicated is that there is little to no recovery possible.

Guess which role is responsible for "recovery".

"Healer Legend doesn't take role skill" is a zero credibility argument.

[GrimGale]

"Healer Legend doesn't take role skill" is a zero credibility argument.

What does that mean?

[Maltothoris]

Ultimate is not even a good test of healing. There is no randomness, there is no "saving" anybody with a well tiled oGCD.

It's just more of jumping through hoops.

Yes, those hoops do require you to press your healing buttons more often to fix unavoidable damage, but I'd argue in terms of healing, they are even less engaging than Raids.

Healing will not solve mistakes. It will not save the party. Most if not all mechanics in Ultimate are a one shot wipe. Dance around markers, stay in your positions, mechanic solves, blanket raid with a heal and back to spamming your nuke, you're gonna need that dps.

Did anybody mess up? Back to the start. What makes those fights intense and complicated is that there is little to no recovery possible.

Guess which role is responsible for "recovery".

THe onlt randomness from ultimate that truly was there was Nael's quotes. You could get as few as 3 Thermionic beams to as many as 8 should the second phase goes its full duration with 6 quotes and you get 2 beams from the 2 quotes. Plus Twin critted a lot during add phase with the damage up and before the shadowbringer tank changes, tanking her was the only time that tanks would go into tank stance.

Of course that being said, you are right about the other two. Nothing is random in Uwu, Ifrit phase is a complete bore, only healing intensive parts were Garuda cleanses and Primal Roulette. Even LL and BJ/CC get a little easier once you get things mapped out and Alex and Perfect Alex were bores with the expectation of J-wave enrage.

It is kinda sad that the most random fights in the game total a number of 4. A6S had Brawlers armaments which had a random order, it carried over into A8S for council phase, UCOB with nael quotes and SOSex with the random order of the summons after the add phase.

[technole]

Back in ARR we'd used to say a healer earned their stripes if they cleared Turn 13, that wasn't an easy fight on-content.

Megaflare damage was heavy, and as long as Medica II was cast no later than 1 GCD after the hit, DPS should have enough HP for the next mechanic. Otherwise you were falling behind, as with earthshakers targeting two random DPS, you have another GCD heal situation, (if you are newer, White Mage times where oGCD healing does not exist), so it's not like you have time to be throwing stones. Scholar could 2x lustrate their side, basically you'd work it out with the other healer, who will heal the right side and they heal the left side. Pre-i130 you had to use more than Cure II.

Fast forward to say TEA LL, which that phase does make a healer use all their buttons pretty much, including esuna to it's fullest extent. There hadn't been a mechanic like that for awhile, A3S had it and T7S. Another one of those discuss with other healer and decide which part of the party list they will be responsible for.

Random mechanics that involve discussion with healer they probably want to keep that in savage and beyond, but they certainly have that in their tool chest.

[EaMett]

Just going to give my 2 cents because I really want devs to acknowledge this issue.
The problem with healers is that the role isn't engaging to play. We press 1 button on repeat from lvl 1 to 90 ultimate content. And it's not a bit, the majority of our time is spent doing this in ALL content (yes ultimate too, you're looking at 70+% time spent hitting 1-1-1-1-2).
We don't need harder content. We just need more engaging gameplay.

The reality of the current situation is:
Healers are hard to find in high-end content. It's the most requested role in static building communication channels. Most likely because the role doesn't reward anyone with a bit of experience, so most veterans and career healers dropped it. Finding good healers is a real challenge and most of the groups I know have settled for more novice healers for lack of a better option. And forced into a longer prog cycle as a result.
Healers are becoming more and more "in need".. During an expansion that released a new healer. Yikes

I get it, they tried lowering the skill floor and ceiling to get more people playing the role. But the reality is that people don't stick to healer unless they main/career it. And that last demographic has slowly been pushed further and further away from the role because of the design choices.

[Ravor]

The status of healer right now is more like an assurance more than a neccessity, yes you can finish most content without healer, but having them around will make more peaceful state of mind and faster the content to be finished since tank and dps can focus more doing dpsing rather than have to do mitigation or self heal, i use dps or tank if i want to be so focus on content and i use healer to be more relaxed, being healer i can see the mechanic easier since all my rotation is only 1 button most of the time