Why is Blue Mage a more fun healer than WHM/SCH/SGE/AST

[Renathras]

If healers got more DPS spells...

Ultimately, a lot of healers don't like damage dealing. Some it's a mental thing ("Do no harm"), others it's just that they don't find consistent rotational performance engaging or fun. It's like contrasting a drummer or bass player that keeps a consistent beat and often pattern for a whole song to a lead guitarist, pianist, etc that will do solos where they just rock out. Even among DPS Jobs, there's a spread from the rock-rigid consistent DRG whose rotation is pretty much the same every time to the high proc DNC whose rotation between any pull and another will likely always be different due to the RNG.

For healers that don't care for DPS rotations, a consistent 1-3 button damage "rotation" is preferable, since they'd rather focus on the fight and healing. The problem is, the game doesn't have enough HEALING to make that really fun. This is the crux of the "more healing" or "more damage buttons" disagreement.

On the other hand, there are some healers that DO like damage rotations, but don't want to play DPS Jobs for whatever reason. I'm not saying they "aren't real healers" or anything, and their reasons can be varied. Sure, there's the "want faster ques" people, and there are people that prefer a more Support role to a Healer one and try to shoehorn healers into that in games that don't have a true Support role, but there are also some that do enjoy healing and aiding their allies, but also like damage rotations.

The issue is, if you change all healers into more damage button/rotation Jobs, then it alienates the former group in service to the latter. And if you don't, it alienates the latter in service to the former. It's one reason I support something I call the "The 4 Healers Model", which is basically "We have 4 whole healer Jobs, why not have some in column A and some in column B, that way everyone can pick the one they like?" Though that gets pushback from people who want EVERY Job to be for them, it's a pretty measured compromise.

But, ultimately, the problem is with encounter design (and to an extent, ilevel scaling). If encounters don't require healing, then everyone WILL be DPSing, like it or not. Even those content with the slimmed down DPS rotation are going to be somewhat bored because they really want to heal (the Sylphie "I just want to heal" isn't satisfied when there's little healing), and those who want more damage are bored because the rotation is boring.

But more damage buttons doesn't fix that problem. It only papers over it. A healer Job with a more complex damage rotation isn't changing the fact that the encounter doesn't require actual healing, it's just jingling shiny keys over to the side to distract you from it. And that distraction only even works on the people that want the more DPS buttons, so it double alienates those who want to do actual healing as their gameplay loop.

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Personally, I think just adding DPS buttons would ruin the Jobs AND the role, since it would mean we aren't going to address the actual issue (as I say here and in my post above). Worse, it makes the healers into DPS Jobs, and at that point, why even have healers? Just give RDM Vermedica and SMN permanent Everlasting Flight and make one of those two Jobs a mandatory party spot and you've done the same thing.

I think the solution is addressing the encounter design first, and secondarily, diversifying the healer kits. For example, WHM can work like it does today with less oGCDs and more focus on GCD heals (damage refunded by Misery for all their GCD heals would mean they can actually...you know, use them), SCH can have more damage buttons and have its oGCDs shifted to more abilities for Eos (so they're kind of a support team of damage SCH and healing Eos), SGE can have a lot more Kardia stuff and a damage rotation so that it's more like a Disc Priest or RIFT Chloromancer healing through dealing damage, etc. Then players can pick the one they like, and encounters will actually require using them.