Healers need an overhaul

[VentVanitas]

Rolling my eyes every time I see a suggestion to keep WHM as it is. You wanna know why so many WHM players loved Afflatus Misery so much that it became a meme right before Shadowbringers launched? It's because the idea of White Mage getting a high potency nuke was bloody cool. I'm sure many of you can already figure out why no one was making memes out of or getting hyped for Lilybell or Plenary Indulgence. A lot of forum users against the idea of WHM having any sort of identity truly underestimate just how much people like the job getting, you know- actually cool things?

[Raven2014]

Rolling my eyes every time I see a suggestion to keep WHM as it is. You wanna know why so many WHM players loved Afflatus Misery so much that it became a meme right before Shadowbringers launched? It's because the idea of White Mage getting a high potency nuke was bloody cool. I'm sure many of you can already figure out why no one was making memes out of or getting hyped for Lilybell or Plenary Indulgence. A lot of forum users against the idea of WHM having any sort of identity truly underestimate just how much people like the job getting, you know- actually cool things?

I've only read a bit of this thread, and I'm definitely not reading the whole thing, but I wanted to chime in regarding YoshiP's statement that healers should go play ultimates if they want engaging content.

I'm a sage main, I'm currently doing ultimates. Sure, the fights are "engaging", but it has almost nothing to do with being a healer. Some of the mechanics are fun, but that's more regarding actually dealing with fight mechanics and nothing to do with healing or dpsing. The comment he made is so disingenuous it's unreal.

To answer both of these posts:

The new savage is pretty engaging, for healers. Lots of heal, lots of mit, lots of mechanic to solve. But Healer pop take a deep.

Face it: "we want it to be more engaging", "we want it to be more cool" are nothing but window dressing excuses for people who want nothing more but to play a green DPS with big fat numbers. In short, the majority of healers complain stem from the group of people who subconsciously don't want to play traditional healers to begin with, period. I enjoy the healing of this tier, but I can tell I'm in the minority. You said Yoshi's comment is so disingenuous it's unreal ... well, I have the same impression on the comments made by community.

But, you are correct in saying Ultimate is more engaging but it's not due to healing. Comparing to this tier savage, healing DSR was a disappointment.


This is by large SE's fault, since 3.0 in the last 6-7 years they have ingrain the players with the mentality of DPS is king and nothing else matter with their raid design. I applaud their attempt to walk back on it now and I think that's the right direction. But I also admit they're trying to move mountain, and wish them luck.

[Maltothoris]

The problem here is that air eyes everything did hit harder. However, once you get the gear, it’s back to business as usual. This will never change. Much like in how the fights are still scripted and the damage is still scripted. They would have to go through years of encounters to try and make a more healer centric style to the game. Not to mention that the heals themselves are uninteresting themselves as many of them are just x potency heal.

[flowerfairy]

Face it: "we want it to be more engaging", "we want it to be more cool" are nothing but window dressing excuses for people who want nothing more but to play a green DPS with big fat numbers. In short, the majority of healers complain stem from the group of people who subconsciously don't want to play traditional healers to begin with, period. I enjoy the healing of this tier, but I can tell I'm in the minority.

Such a gaslighting argument. "You don't want to play healer if you want interesting filler rotations, you're just a green DPS. You're not a real healer."

You're right, nothing but DPS matters in current raid design. They would have to uproot the entire scripted and predictable mechanics design and go for more sporadic events.

But changing up their raid design now will only affect future boss fights.
Normal trials will still be boring on healers. Dungeons will still be boring on healers. Solo quests will still be boring on healers.

Moreover, DPS will always be the most important factor of killing a boss, no matter how many more healing checks you bring in. You can't change that.
Stop ignoring that downtime exists. Stop ignoring that when we aren't healing, we're spamming 1 button, and it's boring AF.

Tell me, what is a traditional healer? And tell me, has that ever existed in FFXIV ARR? Was there ever a point in time that a healer that did nothing but spam Cure was more useful than a healer that was able to bring both healing and DPS?

[Raven2014]

Such a gaslighting argument. "You don't want to play healer if you want interesting filler rotations, you're just a green DPS. You're not a real healer."

If it walks like a duck, look like a duck and whack like a duck, then it is a duck. You call it gaslighting, I call a spade a spade.

But changing up their raid design now will only affect future boss fights... a healer that was able to bring both healing and DPS?

Did you miss the part I said the fault inherently lie with the developers that pushed and ingrain this style of play to the community for YEARS? You also putting a bunch of random crap that I never said, so who gaslighting who?

Tell me, what is a traditional healer?

Pardon me for playing MMO way before FF14 itself exist. I remember the days when playing as healer I:

- Have to spam heal to keep the raid alive.
- Have to make judgement call between fast or slow heal or else someone end up death.
- Have to manage my MP or I may OOM before the fight is over.
- Have to prep party in advance for incoming damage.
- Have to precast heal in advance to get enough raw out out in time.

While FF14 itself may never have every item on the list, at some point it had a few, and like I said over the year they had tripped away the healing identity to replace with the DPS's one, and here we are.

I also remember the day healers compete each other on healing amount vs overhealing and that's how you rank good vs bad healers. I am sorry you find the term "Green DPS offensive", but in a game where:

- The main metric used to judge healer are their DPS,
- High healing number actually frown upon on
- The healer's supposed main 2nd stat (Piety) is a waste stats no one want,
- Healers are encouraged to stack Direct Hit which has nothing to do with heal

... Healers in FF14 is a GREEN DPS. If saying that is considered gaslighting the community then so be it, I am gaslighting you, because the alternative would require me to lie ... and I hate simply hate lying.

[flowerfairy]

snip

Oh no, I don't find "green DPS" offensive. I understand that's what healers are and have always been. That system you say developers have been pushing for years was already ingrained since 2.0. They purposefully shifted away from slow menu-flicking gameplay in 1.x because they tried to appeal to a larger player base.

What I have doubts about is what a traditional healer is supposed to be. Almost everything in that list is already the trait of a healer in any game. You heal only what's necessary, you need to choose the appropriate heal to avoid the death of someone, you sometimes have shields or defense buffs to apply before damage goes out, and sometimes you precast heals to immediate cover the damage that's about to go out (though not as common since we have an abundance of instantaneous heals.) Overheal is also avoided in this game. The only thing that isn't common now is MP management through avoiding casting spells, because a majority of players don't like sitting on their hands with nothing to do.

Basically, a healer can have tools to do all of that, and have better filler rotations. I don't see why asking for both makes you a fake healer. If healers got half of their oGCD heal bloat chopped off and it was replaced for filler rotations, wouldn't that make healing way more interesting since you don't have a bunch of OP cooldowns that come back really quickly?

[Liam_Harper]

The new savage is pretty engaging, for healers. Lots of heal, lots of mit, lots of mechanic to solve. But Healer pop take a deep.

Face it: "we want it to be more engaging", "we want it to be more cool" are nothing but window dressing excuses for people who want nothing more but to play a green DPS with big fat numbers. In short, the majority of healers complain stem from the group of people who subconsciously don't want to play traditional healers to begin with, period. I enjoy the healing of this tier, but I can tell I'm in the minority. You said Yoshi's comment is so disingenuous it's unreal ... well, I have the same impression on the comments made by community.

Absolute nonsense.

I'm definitely a green dps and I've had zero issues healing this tier. The fights are fairly easy, except p8s part 2 which I think is great. I'm optimizing every oGCD and when I need to GCD heal I will. Basically what I do in any raid fight, utilize my full toolkit.

"Traditional healers" have been quitting non-stop because they didn't want real damage. What they really wanted was to be able to blindly spam GCD heals and be given the illusion they're great players because no one died. That's not working any more. They need to plan their tools, deal damage, use their full toolkit and actually contribute to the team and they hate it.

The green dps are doing just fine, thanks.

[Raven2014]

Oh no, I don't find "green DPS" offensive. I understand that's what healers are and have always been. That system you say developers have been pushing for years was already ingrained since 2.0. They purposefully shifted away from slow menu-flicking gameplay in 1.x because they tried to appeal to a larger player base.

What I have doubts about is what a traditional healer is supposed to be. Almost everything in that list is already the trait of a healer in any game.

If you want to simplified it down to the core ... sure. But in 2.0 DPS and Healing was still a choice. You have cleric, which makes DPS very in-efficient outside of it. You had MP management, meaning going all in on DPS would leave you short of MP for actual healing. And they have tripped away even what little there were since. Remember at the beginning of 6.0 where Lily were a DPS loss? God, heaven forbid you to heal with Lily - which is your supposed free heal - which is the reason why your MP regen is lower than other healers ... community cried about this "bad MP economy" because of a self-created MP crisis over some small potency loss. It's always DPS DPS DPS, if healing means loss DPS than people refuse to heal.

Basically, a healer can have tools to do all of that, and have better filler rotations. I don't see why asking for both makes you a fake healer. If healers got half of their oGCD heal bloat chopped off and it was replaced for filler rotations, wouldn't that make healing way more interesting since you don't have a bunch of OP cooldowns that come back really quickly?

Ok, you wrote that and you still don't see why I said what I said? Like ... you're suggesting remove HEALING ABILITIES and replace them with "interesting DPS options" on Healers ... and me saying people just want to play green DPS considered gaslighting?


Uh ... how about making fight where you actually need to utilize the entire kit and even more? How about oGCD is the extras you need for extra oohm and MP economy instead of your bread and butter. How about something like bleed an permanent ambient damage tick instead of something happens occasionally? (btw 2.0 had that). How about tank buster coming harder and more frequent that are beyond the healer oGCD's capacity? How about the damage output usually seen at the end of the 4th floor be used more consistently throughout entire fight instead of being treated as soft-enrage mechanic?

And before you said that is too hard or they have to redesign the game blah blah blah ... like ... look, I already admitted they're moving mountain if they want to retrain the community's mentality at this point. I'm simply telling you my preference because you asked, I can't lie to myself what I like.

[Raven2014]

I'm definitely a green dps

So am I. Your point being? The difference, I'm a green DPS because that's what the game want me to be, that's not what I like to be.

and I've had zero issues healing this tier.

Neither do I. Your point being?

"Traditional healers" have been quitting non-stop because they didn't want real damage.

And you get that from ... ?

What they really wanted was to be able to blindly spam GCD heals and be given the illusion they're great players because no one died.

As oppose to greedy healers who let people dye on their watch? Is this what people call gaslighting?

The green dps are doing just fine, thanks.

Eh what you gonna call the people who claim they are fine yet constantly complaining? I have some idea but saying the words probably gonna earn me a forum ban ... so I won't.

Also ... so fine that in a tier that finally have some heavy healing, the population of healers just drop off a cliff? Like ... my dude. I have 4 chars, I main a healer for my static, and play a range, a melee and a caster in PF. That was the plan at the beginning of the tier at least, but now I basically had converted all 4 into healers because I don't want to seat for hours in PF waiting for healer to show up. Like ... I love P7 and P8, make me feel alive as a healers, but I can also understand why a lot of people don't want to heal it.

[Semirhage]

Jesus wept the Sylphie HeALeRS shOuLd HeAL oNLy camp never has anything new, compelling, or interesting to say. It's the same smug, self-satisfied "I'm a REAL healer because I HEaL!" horse manure over and over again.