Why Don't Healers Get Assists/Battle-High Stacks in Frontlines?

[Yoln]

So I'm fairly 'fresh' to FFXIV, as in I didn't start playing until Shadowbringers had been released for a couple months, and I'm wondering if I'm missing something with healing in Frontlines.

I love healing in frontlines; high-octane nonsense of spamming AoE heals and being as disruptive as possible with some tank buddies is my jam. With that being said, it feels pretty rough as the game progresses to have minimal battle-high stacks. I feel pressured to spam dots just to get assist tags, and glares can be hard to slip in during the heat of things.

I can see where AoE heals granting assists (2BH Points) would get out of hand. I even feel pretty darn powerful once I get to Battle High 2 or 3. So could healers get like 1 point for healing assists? Like I said before, I'm fairly fresh and have even less experience in PvP so I'm not clued in to the state of PvP in FFXIV beyond 'it's lacking' or whether that would get out of hand or not.

A summary of my Grievances™:
There's already a lack of healers in the FLs I've been in, and having slower power-gain compared to teammates/opponents not only feels bad but makes me hesitant to go healer so I have to assume that is not unique to me.

I'd love to hear thoughts on it, or just tell me I'm a stupid idiot white mage that should learn how to glare.



NOTE: I should have specificed in the post title 'Why Don't Healers Get Assists/Battle-High Stacks For Healing in Frontlines?'

[Laphicet]

So I'm fairly 'fresh' to FFXIV, as in I didn't start playing until Shadowbringers had been released for a couple months, and I'm wondering if I'm missing something with healing in Frontlines.

I love healing in frontlines; high-octane nonsense of spamming AoE heals and being as disruptive as possible with some tank buddies is my jam. With that being said, it feels pretty rough as the game progresses to have minimal battle-high stacks. I feel pressured to spam dots just to get assist tags, and glares can be hard to slip in during the heat of things.

I can see where AoE heals granting assists (2BH Points) would get out of hand. I even feel pretty darn powerful once I get to Battle High 2 or 3. So could healers get like 1 point for healing assists? Like I said before, I'm fairly fresh and have even less experience in PvP so I'm not clued in to the state of PvP in FFXIV beyond 'it's lacking' or whether that would get out of hand or not.

A summary of my Grievances™:
There's already a lack of healers in the FLs I've been in, and having slower power-gain compared to teammates/opponents not only feels bad but makes me hesitant to go healer so I have to assume that is not unique to me.

I'd love to hear thoughts on it, or just tell me I'm a stupid idiot white mage that should learn how to glare.

Only way I could see this causing issues is with that one meme strategy of a healer death-ball. Where everyone on a team just goes healer and turns into a self-sustaining horde... but that doesn't work so well the minute the other teams figure out how to focus targets.

[ReiganCross]

I love healing in frontlines; high-octane nonsense of spamming AoE heals and being as disruptive as possible with some tank buddies is my jam. With that being said, it feels pretty rough as the game progresses to have minimal battle-high stacks. I feel pressured to spam dots just to get assist tags, and glares can be hard to slip in during the heat of things.

I love healing in Frontlines too, if only for the feeling that if you hold your ground long enough you can just turn a losing battle into a victory on virtue of healing alone.

So with that in mind, it does make sense that they want you to slip your support skill as much as possible for you to get assist. All of the Healing "DoT" don't actually cause damage over time but does something useful to have on the enemy, like Dia does a 10% damage increase tag, which helps in focus targeting. Eukrasian Dosis slows the GCD on your targets, Biolysis reduces healing recieved and I forgot what Combust does. But all of them are things that you're really supposed to tag on the enemy team anyways.

And if a healer is something incredibly dangerous to leave alive at even BH1 or 2, can you imagine how powerful they would be if they could reach BH5 like a DPS? Seeing a Healer on BH5 on the enemy team is normally a death sentence for the match, the guy becomes the highest priority target in there and still doesn't die because BH5 is making him heal-tank entire 8-man squads if he so wants to.

So don't really bother with Glares much, they're annoying anyway, but make sure to tag Dias on priority target so you can increase the damage on that guy and get them assists.

[Yoln]

All of the Healing "DoT" don't actually cause damage over time but does something useful to have on the enemy, like Dia does a 10% damage increase tag, which helps in focus targeting. Eukrasian Dosis slows the GCD on your targets, Biolysis reduces healing recieved and I forgot what Combust does. But all of them are things that you're really supposed to tag on the enemy team anyways.

Ok this is where I start revealing just how little I know about the game: I had no idea the dots had secondary debuffs beyond just DoT, let alone different jobs have unique debuffs. That's wild. Already feel like my third eye is opening. Definitely writing that down about Dia on prio targets.

[Random0]

Every time I see a Healer with BH5 I have to pause a moment and just think to myself, "That... that just ain't right...."


Then I turn on Focus Target.


That being said, I earned my 5,000th kill and the "Hand of Mercy" title on AST. Go figure.

[Sinstrel]

So I'm fairly 'fresh' to FFXIV...

... So could healers get like 1 point for healing assists? Like I said before, I'm fairly fresh and have even less experience in PvP so I'm not clued in to the state of PvP in FFXIV beyond 'it's lacking' or whether that would get out of hand or not.

Hi Yoln,

I just wanted to let you know that healers do get assist points for heals, but only under certain conditions. For example, if you have a regen buff up on any player who scores a kill, you will receive assist credit. This is true for any buff on any player who scores a kill, and is applicable to every job. So a MNK could get assists for using Brotherhood (aoe damage up buff on the entire party) and any party member scoring a kill while the buff is active grants the MNK assist credit toward battle high.

[Yoln]

Hi Yoln,

I just wanted to let you know that healers do get assist points for heals, but only under certain conditions. For example, if you have a regen buff up on any player who scores a kill, you will receive assist credit. This is true for any buff on any player who scores a kill, and is applicable to every job. So a MNK could get assists for using Brotherhood (aoe damage up buff on the entire party) and any party member scoring a kill while the buff is active grants the MNK assist credit toward battle high.

This is definitely new info to me. Either I'm a worse FL healer than I thought, or I'm missing something, because I don't think I've ever received an assist unless I specifically Dia/Glare someone and watch them die. Then again, I don't think I've paid close enough attention to where my assists roll in to say that with confidence.

[Mistress_Irika]

I just wanted to let you know that healers do get assist points for heals, but only under certain conditions. For example, if you have a regen buff up on any player who scores a kill, you will receive assist credit. This is true for any buff on any player who scores a kill, and is applicable to every job. So a MNK could get assists for using Brotherhood (aoe damage up buff on the entire party) and any party member scoring a kill while the buff is active grants the MNK assist credit toward battle high.

I'm not entire sure if that's true. Unless I somehow missed an update for pvp the last I've checked you had to be on the offensive as a healer in order to get credit for your battle high.

[Ixon]

I forget exactly what affects what, but I definitely find it easiest to get Battle High on(in order): WHM > AST > SGE > SCH. Pretty much any jobs with decent AoE's are going to be the king of getting assists just like BLM or DRG, and why WHM with both Assize and Misery plus the vuln up from Dia are really strong in Frontlines. I assume it's made this way to not have healers get Battle High crazy fast by simply AoE heal spamming. The best way for you, or any job, to get points for Battle High is to cleave as many people as possible with your damage AoE's and hope for kills. We will have to see what persists and what changes with the major PVP changes coming sometime in 6.1.

[Yoln]

I forget exactly what affects what, but I definitely find it easiest to get Battle High on(in order): WHM > AST > SGE > SCH. Pretty much any jobs with decent AoE's are going to be the king of getting assists just like BLM or DRG, and why WHM with both Assize and Misery plus the vuln up from Dia are really strong in Frontlines. I assume it's made this way to not have healers get Battle High crazy fast by simply AoE heal spamming. The best way for you, or any job, to get points for Battle High is to cleave as many people as possible with your damage AoE's and hope for kills. We will have to see what persists and what changes with the major PVP changes coming sometime in 6.1.

Yeah when I first started getting into WHM FL I drastically underestimated the power of assize. Knowing what I know now about the Dia damage+, that's gonna help me out a lot for my Misery targets.