Healing is not hard

[IckeDerTyp]

Skill issue.

As in "how much skill does the game want you to bring".

Am sure ya know the answer

[Zolvolt]

Healing in general isn't difficult no, there are situations that are difficult to heal though. Usually when everything is on fire.

[Averax]

Stop booing them, they're right!

Seriously, the only time a healer gets to heal meaningfully is when content is new and people are getting hit by stuff.

[Raikai]

Stop booing them, they're right!

Seriously, the only time a healer gets to heal meaningfully is when content is new and people are getting hit by stuff.

To me is funny that is true... however this doesn't really feel that good to me. I mean, I am healing, but knowing that what is coveted for a healer - their spammy dps - is being traded off, makes me feel bittersweet about doing 'the job'.

That's probably why healing in WoW (my only other good reference) feels rewarding. Outside of very specific runs, healers aren't expected to weight in a lot of dps, and so, released from that burden, keeping people alive feels great.

[HappyHubris]

It's frustrating, because Square Enix has gotten half of healing absolutely perfect: the class "feel" and aesthetics. Playing a white mage is just bliss from an aesthetics standpoint, and the spell toolbox is pretty solid.

But then the other half - content to heal - just feels bad. The binary nature of damage and how over-provisioned healers are for incoming damage output means that that healing kit lays fallow, as I play the "heal as little as possible game" and spam glare over and over and over and over and...

This is a problem with any MMO to some extent; as your group gears up and learns mechanics you have less and less to do, potentially swapping out healers when content is on farm. But FFXIV takes it to the next level by giving everything a giant telegraph and whittling down the unavoidable damage to almost nothing.

So I end up in the following cycle every expansion:
1. OK I'm going to ignore WHM and play a nice damage dealer this time.
2. Ooo, but I remember WHM being so damn aesthetically awesome!
3. Level level level.
4. Oh yeah, there's nothing to heal.

[Rithy255]

I think the issue isn't healer is not hard it's just not Fun.

Healer needs to be changed Imo, It creates issues with how other jobs are designed also, what's even the point of strong utility from a ranged/tank job (or any other) when it doesn't save a GCD because healer already has way too many ogcds.

Personally I'd want some decrease in OGCDs, healing potency (this applies to tanks aswell, esp AOE healing), fights with more AOE damage, allow tanks to pull more ect. So healers have to spend at least a good amount of time GCD healing, obviously I'm not against healer doing damage but doing damage as a healer should be a optimisation not something you can have 100% uptime on.

[Absurdity]

Simply making healers heal more is not going to solve the problem either because if you take a really hard look at the healing toolkit it is, while incredibly overloaded, utterly bland.

Outside of a few interesting effects like Lillybell, Macrocosmos and maybe Haima/Panhaima they are bog standard "make HP or eHP bar go up by X" spells. They have barely any interaction between each other and are more often than not just fire and forget skills.

So all that would happen when you increase the consistently incoming damage, and bring it closer to WoW's attrition healing, would be that you replace 80 of the 130 boring Glare casts with equally boring Cure/Cure 2/Cure 3/Medica casts.

[Rithy255]

Simply making healers heal more is not going to solve the problem either because if you take a really hard look at the healing toolkit it is, while incredibly overloaded, utterly bland.

Outside of a few interesting effects like Lillybell, Macrocosmos and maybe Haima/Panhaima they are bog standard "make HP or eHP bar go up by X" spells. They have barely any interaction between each other and are more often than not just fire and forget skills.

So all that would happen when you increase the consistently incoming damage, and bring it closer to WoW's attrition healing, would be that you replace 80 of the 130 boring Glare casts with equally boring Cure/Cure 2/Cure 3/Medica casts.

Healers should heal more, healers job shouldn't be 100% DPS uptime.
I'm not saying healers should only use heals, they should be actively switching between damage and healing, which would make healing alot more fun (along with more buttons). At least to me fitting in as much damage as possible while also keeping people alive is fun. (while casual healers can just heal lots, so it wouldn't even be a hard role to get into).

But just giving healers more dps kits doesn't actually "fix healers" it just turns healers into DPS roles. Although not to say adding DPS is bad, just that they need to actually let healers be healers first and foremost

[HappyHubris]

Simply making healers heal more is not going to solve the problem either because if you take a really hard look at the healing toolkit it is, while incredibly overloaded, utterly bland.

Outside of a few interesting effects like Lillybell, Macrocosmos and maybe Haima/Panhaima they are bog standard "make HP or eHP bar go up by X" spells. They have barely any interaction between each other and are more often than not just fire and forget skills.

So all that would happen when you increase the consistently incoming damage, and bring it closer to WoW's attrition healing, would be that you replace 80 of the 130 boring Glare casts with equally boring Cure/Cure 2/Cure 3/Medica casts.

I would disagree. Even in other MMOs with simple healing spells (e.g., Vanilla WoW), the challenge was in the triage and resource management, without skills being whiz-bang intricate game design capstones. Do you risk a slower, more efficient heal or drop your fast inefficient heal to avoid a tank staying in the death zone? Is your MP consumption sustainable? Are you standing in the optimal place for AoE heals to be effective? How long can you save your emergency cooldowns, in case there is an error? Some of the "simple heals, high skill ceiling" concepts like cancel-casting big slow heals isn't really feasible with FFXIV's engine and game design, but you absolutely will be stimulated if enough incoming damage hits to where healing requires strategic choices.

I agree that FFXIV throws too many tools at healers, and some of these options should be swapped out for mitigation cooldowns. But don't knock triage without trying it.

[Rein_eon_Osborne]

Give them both.