Healers need an overhaul

[HyoMinPark]

IIRC, there are 3 types of DPS

1. Direct DPS
2. DOT
3. AoE DPS

I think that's enough though, if you want a rotation I suggest making it like GnB 1 button combo I think? I mean, I still want to focus on heal even though there's a DPS... DPS-ing can be quite hard in dungeon especially in W2W scenario where the tank could be just wanking and defending it and didn't use any CD (and mad at me in the process) or even the standard tanking with CD

But it's a dungeon scenario, I haven't played any savage or any ultimate so I put it as dungeon perspective first.

There aren’t really three types of DPS—it’s more like three types of damage abilities. And the healer design was simply the developers going Ctrl+C > Ctrl+V for each one, changing the names, and then tweaking certain skills just slightly to give the illusion that this healer is different from that healer.

There are only a select few dungeons in this game that actually have any bite to them when it comes to being a healer—and several have been nerfed throughout the years due to gear scaling, job changes, and direct nerfs by the development team. Stone Vigil used to be an excellent dungeon for challenging a healer approaching level 50 in ARR. Even in HW, SB, and ShB it could have a bit of bite to it. It has since been adjusted to remove things like the patrolling Aevis mobs that could surprise an unsuspecting party and up healing requirements. Other notable examples include:

— Aurum Vale: Leeroying into the first room was a death sentence, and still is to some extent, but it certainly doesn’t hit as hard as it used to.
— The Vault: OG The Vault in HW was brutal in terms of the amount of damage tanks took and healers had to heal. It was actually a wonderful dungeon because of that. It got nerfed.
— Bardam’s Mettle: due to Stormblood gear stat scaling, Bardam’s actually ripped unprepared tanks a new one even in i270 or i274 stuff, which was the highest item level gear you could have at level 65. Even tanks that came in synced down from level 70 could get their butts handed to them by the first few trash pulls if they weren’t careful.
— Holminster Switch: the pulls leading up to the first and second bosses are honestly still a bit spicy. The ones leading up to the last boss are boring because they’re forced single pulls.

Other than that, all the other dungeons are snoozefests—especially any dungeon that was once a level-cap dungeon (i.e., 50, 60, 70, 80, and now 90 dungeons). I can heal the level 90 dungeons with oGCDs alone and never have to touch my GCDs on any healer that isn’t a WHM. The only time I have to GCD heal in most dungeons is either I’m level-synced and don’t have my oGCDs, or I have a paper tank. The latter is artificial difficulty; not genuine difficulty of the healer role being challenging.

Savage content has even less healing: to the point that decent healers don’t even touch their GCD heals, and heal primarily with oGCDs. This tier only had a handful of mechanics that were spicy heal checks, and that was primarily during Week 1 when you were at the minimum item level required for the content. With gear, they are trivialized, if not skipped altogether if the group has good damage (e.g., P3S Life’s Agonies). A healer’s most cast ability is their single-target nuke, and by a long shot. For Ultimates, they tend to be more mitigation check than anything else; only TEA has a real heal check in Living Liquid’s and BJ/CC’s phases, and during J-Waves. Perfect Alexander is resident sleeper though in terms of healing. DRU is more mitigation check than anything else, speaking as someone who is currently progging it on a healer. If someone misses a mitigation piece, people just outright die, and you can’t really do anything about that as a healer. You can’t heal one-shots. Which, is okay, I guess—until you consider that Yoshida told healers that, if they wish to be engaged in their role, to go do Ultimate. My engagement comes from the mechanic dance; it doesn’t come from performing my primary role.

The healing requirements in this game aren’t that high. It takes a seriously memey party to really make healers break a sweat—you’re more likely to find those in 24-mans versus any other piece of content. There’s a reason I run some of the old 24-mans routinely on healer: at least I might have a chance to be a healer over a damage dealer. And it’s honestly quite fun to get the clown fiestas. I love Day 1 24-mans for that reason alone.

I really don’t like how, when you have a good party, your job as a healer becomes more monotonous and more boring. You can only really perform your primary role when people are seemingly going out of their way to get hit by stuff or die to stuff. Tanks can suffer from this to an extent, but at least they have a damage rotation they can perform and focus on. DPS are engaging right off the bat in terms of their rotation. I don’t understand why healers have to be the only role treated as if everyone who plays it is a fragile human being that cannot string together more than a single button. Or who would fall apart at any sliver of difficulty.


All that said, healers are primarily dealing damage most of the time they are in combat. It’s simply a fact. At this stage, the developers need to give them an interesting damage toolkit instead of continuously bloating their healing toolkit with more oGCDs that are overkill for 99% of the content in this game. And each healer’s DPS kit should be slightly different from one another. WHM could have your basic 1-2-3 with Misery maybe being a powerful finisher if people want it detached from the healing (or they could leave it as is now, since it is finally DPS neutral). SCH could get its DoTs and Shadowflare back and be a DoT healer with a nuke they spam between DoT management. SGE could have more oGCDs in its kit that further expand on the healing via damage/Kardia job gimmick. Only AST really functions well with the current 1 DoT-1 nuke design due to having its own mini game in the form of the card system (as horribly gutted and clunky as it is).

1-button DPS rotations should be an optional configuration. Not everyone wants to just press a single button constantly—that’s literally the complaint healers have right now. I’d prefer separate skills since they simply feel more engaging to me over 111111111111111, even if said 11111111111111 is actually three different skills. Perhaps it’s because I play on controller and it just feels better to be pressing circle > X > square > left D-pad > weave in right D-pad and triangle > etc. over XXXXXXXXXXXX.