Healing MSQ Duties Is Incredibly Dull

[Rydia_Misuto]

The first time I did the solo instance at the end of Endwalker, it was incredible. I had a blast. Constantly darting around, using a complicated DPS chain, managing gauges and juggling when I could attack with when I needed to defend, or use self-healing options.

I did it as a Reaper, and anyone who has played any amount of time as a healer in this game knows I wasn't describing a healing role. On two of my alts, I went through the game again as a white mage, and as a sage (and sometimes astro), and in both cases every single solo instance is miserably boring. I appreciate the 'role-playing' system means there's variety, but any time I'm forced to control my own character and playing a healing role, any of the healing roles (since in solo content they play completely identically), it's completely miserable.

I'm curious, has anyone first-time healed these things and felt like it was really fun to press a DoT and then mash a single target damage button for 30 seconds and then press a DoT and mash the single target damage button for 30 more seconds, and now the fight's over, hooray?

[Azurarok]

I started this game during ShB as CNJ/WHM. Stuck with just it up to HW patch content, and unsurprisingly I didn't think the battle system was particularly fun until then. In hindsight it's kinda distressing to think about how happy I was when I learned Assize.

Still do MSQs with it most of the time since I just associate my WoL with it now though.

[Alice_Rivers]

Fun? Not especially. But I would rather have a requirement for my healing kit in content than a dps rotation, I am supposed to be a healer after all and healers should heal.

[Silver-Strider]

Fun? Not especially. But I would rather have a requirement for my healing kit in content than a dps rotation, I am supposed to be a healer after all and healers should heal.

Except the overwhelming amount of content doesn't even let you be a healer. You're nothing but a weak DPS with healing utility and it's been that way for years now. It's boring and trying to do any MSQ solo instance as a healer is akin to getting your teeth pulled, slow and painful

[AnotherPerson]

Except the overwhelming amount of content doesn't even let you be a healer. You're nothing but a weak DPS with healing utility and it's been that way for years now. It's boring and trying to do any MSQ solo instance as a healer is akin to getting your teeth pulled, slow and painful

Then in Dawntrail, instead of improving the healer solo instance, they removed most solo instances entirely for every role. Instead, now you get to stand there and watch someone die as the cutscene happens. So much for the job fantasy as a healer. Glad I swapped over to DPS/tank, even though those cutscenes weren't much better.

But hey, at least I get to have more fun in party content and the overworld now.

[Alice_Rivers]

Instead, now you get to stand there and watch someone die as the cutscene happens. So much for the job fantasy as a healer.

That raises another thought: Notice how in every cutscene that any healing happens, it's always someone else who does the healing (usually Alphinaud), never is it the WoL even if they're a healer? But no, as we know, the canon WoL is everything BUT healer.

[Supersnow845]

That raises another thought: Notice how in every cutscene that any healing happens, it's always someone else who does the healing (usually Alphinaud), never is it the WoL even if they're a healer? But no, as we know, the canon WoL is everything BUT healer.

Nah there is also many times (like when that guy who was the pretender sartrap dies) where the WOL could have intervened successfully as a ranged or a caster

Like meteor himself the devs just seem to consider all cutscenes from the perspective of assuming that your own personal WOL is a melee

[GrimGale]

That raises another thought: Notice how in every cutscene that any healing happens, it's always someone else who does the healing (usually Alphinaud), never is it the WoL even if they're a healer? But no, as we know, the canon WoL is everything BUT healer.

I could swear there was a couple of scenes in Endwalker/Shadowbringers where if you're a healer, you actually look to alphinaud and nod then you help him heal the character in question. But it happens like twice in several expansions.

[wildvenonat]

It's hilarious and I have a blast. I threw rocks at someone and this is the best fight they've had in ages. I love it.

[ConantSivrha]

Though I’m not a healer main, I sometimes play parts of the MSQ on healer jobs. I learned very quickly to always switch to a non-healer job before going into solo duties.

Healer is the only role that feels truly incomplete outside of multiplayer duties. This is an MMO, but the MSQ is a lengthy solo experience placed between players and those multiplayer duties, so it doesn’t seem right that one role feels this bad to play alone. It’s like they think everyone who plays healer does it as a side job, and it never occurred to anyone that a player might think of their character as a healer and want to play through the MSQ as one. Even the way other characters perceive and talk about the WoL implies that you’re “supposed to” primarily associate your character with a DPS or tank job.

“I’m glad the game sometimes removes me from my character and makes me play another character with a different job, and I don’t like it when I’m ‘forced’ to play my character and the job I chose” is a sentiment that crops up nowhere else. At the very least, challenges that need to be overcome with healing should be added to solo duties if you enter them as a healer, but I think the main problem is the design of healer jobs themselves.