Healers need an overhaul

[Nizzi]

In a world where the developers actually cared about how healers played, we would definitely have more supportive skills, CC options and even a few more DPS spells again. They need to stop treating us like we're the role for idiots who want an easy clear and instead respect that we're just as intelligent as our tank and DPS party members. Our job is to SUPPORT the party - that's why we heal and DPS.
When Yoshida was talking about how good Holy was because of its stun and how they were looking at adding something similar to SCH and AST, I was actually excited because that's the type of thing that healers need and would benefit newer healers immensely in situations where things go wrong if they had buttons that can handle mobs for a moment so they can recollect. Of course, we didn't get Heavy/Slow/Disease/Malady or anything on our AoEs because why would healers get anything actually beneficial or fun?

Why did healers lose Eye for an Eye, a barrier w/ a chance to make the enemy hit for 10% less and instead get Repose? That seems way more useful in almost every situation than Repose is. Was replacing a supportive tool for a shitty ST Sleep that still has the old 2.5s cast time really necessary? Why did SCH lose Virus and DPS got it as Addle? All we have now are just "heal big, heal bigger, mitigation some, mitigate some more" fire and forget bullshit that leaves every job in this role feeling flavorless and like the exact same job. It's stuff like this why I really laugh at the idea that these healer changes are designed to make it easier for newer players. How? Newer players have no CC anymore, they couldn't even bother to make Repose like Sleep and make it AoE, at least then it might have some usefulness in bad situations a healer needs to control. Outside of pressing heal buttons over and over, you don't have any supportive control over situations as a healer, especially in lower levels when players are trying to learn these jobs.

You know why healing continues to be "stressful" for newer players? Because there's LITERALLY nothing they can do except spam buttons and watch health bars ping pong. They can't apply Shadow Flare to slow down mobs anymore. They can't use Fluid Aura to knockback mobs and bind them anymore. They can't use Celestial Opposition to stun them anymore. You know one of the reasons people love playing WHM in dungeons? Because having the ability to do some freaking CC is incredibly helpful and there's never a situation where Holy is not useful in dungeons. But no, SE really thinks that we just love more healing buttons. SE has created and exacerbated this problem of people who only want to heal and only want to GCD curespam, because for 50+ levels now there's NOTHING they can do other than that. If they ask for advice on what to do in these situations, it's pretty much just "yeah spam heals to sustain your tank" and there's no growth, and bad habits start to set in very quickly on what a healer should be doing.

We're very blessed to have these designers that can clearly make well designed healers and put thought into the role and interactions within their kits, and then for some inexplicable reason they remove it all and then tell us to deal with it and that we're never ever getting old job design back. It's stupid and insulting.

[Lilapop]

You know why healing continues to be "stressful" for newer players? Because there's LITERALLY nothing they can do except spam buttons and watch health bars ping pong. They can't apply Shadow Flare to slow down mobs anymore. They can't use Fluid Aura to knockback mobs and bind them anymore. They can't use Celestial Opposition to stun them anymore. You know one of the reasons people love playing WHM in dungeons? Because having the ability to do some freaking CC is incredibly helpful and there's never a situation where Holy is not useful in dungeons. But no, SE really thinks that we just love more healing buttons. SE has created and exacerbated this problem of people who only want to heal and only want to GCD curespam, because for 50+ levels now there's NOTHING they can do other than that. If they ask for advice on what to do in these situations, it's pretty much just "yeah spam heals to sustain your tank" and there's no growth, and bad habits start to set in very quickly on what a healer should be doing.

that's stressful? it's stressful for healers to... heal in dungeons? and yet healers want... more things to do to stress them out even more when their primary goal is a stress factor? confusion. maybe if... teamwork... was applied to keep the healer alive, this wouldn't be a problem. this is a foreign concept in this game for some reason. don't see why healers are expected to be dps/support/with enough hp to practically tank all in one? there are too many healer buttons, which is about the only thing in this little chunk that makes any sense. if you see someone telling one of these "bad habits" why don't you step in and correct them, then? though personally, i haven't seen anyone say "oh just curespam the tank and they'll be fine" at all. anyone who is curespamming simply isn't aware of how to utilize the rest of their kit and figures that they can barely get by with it, and they can. so why would they change if its working for them? there's no motivation to do so.

[Shurrikhan]

that's stressful? it's stressful for healers to... heal in dungeons? and yet healers want... more things to do to stress them out even more when their primary goal is a stress factor? confusion.

"The only thing stressing healers at most levels of play is tedium and a lack of agency."
-> "Well then surely anything added, even as it would decrease tedium and increase agency, would overstress the role!"

???

[Lilapop]

"The only thing stressing healers at most levels of play is tedium and a lack of agency."
-> "Well then surely anything added, even as it would decrease tedium and increase agency, would overstress the role!"

???

if healing stresses out a healer in what universe does it make sense to also add more when they can't even manage their primary task?

[Shurrikhan]

if healing stresses out a healer in what universe does it make sense to also add more when they can't even manage their primary task?

Except that's your argument, not anyone else's.

Healing doesn't stress out healers.

Being a "healer" stresses out healers when there is so little to do that makes use of their kit and so few ways by which for that kit to contribute.

[Lilapop]

Except that's your argument, not anyone else's.

Healing doesn't stress out healers.

Being a "healer" stresses out healers when there is so little to do that makes use of their kit and so few ways by which for that kit to contribute.

so you're saying having nothing to do is stressful? i must be missing something... because how? find it boring, mundane, and unnecessary, sure. but stressful? if they're unable to contribute at all with their current kits that is on them not utilizing it to the proper extent.

[Shurrikhan]

so you're saying having nothing to do is stressful? i must be missing something... because how? find it boring, mundane, and unnecessary, sure. but stressful?

You say that like frustration can't contribute to stress...

______________

"The party's life is in your hands."

But, beyond the rare AoE oGCD heal, that really just means you are responsible (since surely you've nothing else to do with the 3/4s of your kit) for undoing individual mistakes, which occur sporadically and rapidly stack in intensity.

You have 28 buttons. 2, your pure mitigation CDs, are on cooldown. Your DoT is up. The remaining 25 buttons amount to choices which mostly push out one another, and about 7 of which are utterly traps. Between the lot of them, you essentially have two choices, (A) Overheal or (B) spam Dosis more.

As you contemplate how any kit could actually be so wasteful, little Timmy takes an avoidable goop-bath. Then a few more. Finally, you have a point and purpose to your presence if only if he'd take another in the near future, which you can help him survive. But wait, if takes one more, he'll be one-shot on the next regardless.

You've a wasteful number of tools, yet none of them empower you to really deal with the situations on which your ability to even use more than a handful of those skills depends in the vast majority of content.

The less a kit is able to be leveraged in multiple, seemingly integral and/or intended ways, the more context seems to determine the whole of said kit. Rather than "How can I best contribute?" the more pertinent question seems to be "Do I really even have a job?" And that's not something the player can decide beyond choosing to go into particular fights that might actually give it something to do vs. experiencing the other 99.9% of the game. Which, yes, is frustrating, sometimes to the point of stress.

[Nizzi]

that's stressful? it's stressful for healers to... heal in dungeons? and yet healers want... more things to do to stress them out even more when their primary goal is a stress factor? confusion. maybe if... teamwork... was applied to keep the healer alive, this wouldn't be a problem. this is a foreign concept in this game for some reason. don't see why healers are expected to be dps/support/with enough hp to practically tank all in one? there are too many healer buttons, which is about the only thing in this little chunk that makes any sense. if you see someone telling one of these "bad habits" why don't you step in and correct them, then? though personally, i haven't seen anyone say "oh just curespam the tank and they'll be fine" at all. anyone who is curespamming simply isn't aware of how to utilize the rest of their kit and figures that they can barely get by with it, and they can. so why would they change if its working for them? there's no motivation to do so.

I have never seen someone so brazenly miss the very obvious point of a post and then try to argue something it isn't saying. I'm not going to enact the Sisyphean labor of trying to explain what it's saying to you, but you can continue to argue with phantoms if you wish.

[Lilapop]

I have never seen someone so brazenly miss the very obvious point of a post and then try to argue something it isn't saying. I'm not going to enact the Sisyphean labor of trying to explain what it's saying to you, but you can continue to argue with phantoms if you wish.

considering i acknowledged the point and provided a counter, whether you choose to accept it or not isn't really relevant, fact being noticed the very obvious nonsensical point, but suit yourself.

[Nizzi]

considering i acknowledged the point and provided a counter, whether you choose to accept it or not isn't really relevant, fact being noticed the very obvious nonsensical point, but suit yourself.

Again, you have no clue what the very obvious point is and I'm not going to bother arguing whatever nonsense you're trying to act like I'm saying when you won't even attempt to read and understand what is being said. Not worth my time.