M4S has officially been beaten without healers in week 2

[Ayche]

6.3 is when they removed the requirement that someone had to cast a heal to activate it though, so some sacrifice was required until 6.3. Now it's a free heal and shield. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I never actually minded that mechanic so much.
You could always hard cast one holy spirit to pop it yourself.

[Ozmandis]

On just the healing part: Division of power. If all the healing potencies were converted into pure shielding, both Divine Veil and Shake it off would be huge, and they were even more powerful. But tbh they would feel more boring since filling health bars feels better. If we had to live without the healing power all together ... well the entire button would feel worse and less impactful all together and like a wasted effort. I doubt a 10% hp shield would be enough to save most dire situations at all.

I have always felt that people do not press addle or feint on their respective dps roles because they cannot see the impact. For the part of the community that does not enrage with mit schedules or combat readers, the imminent impact of the game is what drives behavior.

Recovering dire situations is what healers are for, not tanks.

[Chiru_Kai]

I think it would be better if certain tank and DPS abilities were changed into giving heal potency buffs for healers.
So that most healing or shielding is still coming from the healer class, but as a tank and some DPS you can buff their healing strength.

So kinda like Krasis from SGE (im sure other healers have similar abilities, I'm just not familiar with them yet):

Increases HP recovery via healing actions for a party member or self by 20%.
Duration: 10s

Replace any tank or DPS abilities with that effect if said ability currently applies heal, regen, or barrier.
Possibly add in a new modifier that is like "Increases barrier HP application from a party member by 20%" or "Increases Healing Over Time application from a party member by 20%"
Change percentages and durations as needed depending on how long the cooldowns are.

What it does is simple: instead of doing the healer's job, tanks and some DPS now buff the healer job of healing.
Still would result in some whiny healers going "but then i still have to heal less, booooringgg". But at least it's better than completely taking away the need for a healer to heal.
What it also does is, if all healing/shielding skills are replaced with the heal buff, then there will be absolutely 0 party healing going on if there is no healer. Then the "cheese compositions" will at the least use 1 healer and probably optimize buffs around that. But hey, at least you NEED a healer.

For tanks, usually their 1-2-3 combo also heals them. I'd say remove that, it's not necessary whatsoever if there is a healer around to pay attention to them.
Possibly a tank/DPS can give a partywide buff that is like "increases MP recovery from actions by 50%" or something. It wouldn't affect passive regen, but it would affect healers to receive more MP from, say, consuming Addersgall. Instead of 700 MP you get 1050 MP. Astro card draw gives 3000 MP instead of 2000. Etc. Percentage is just an example, 50% would probably be too much, but just an idea that as a tank you can affect the healer's MP. Then add in more demand for GCD healing and you get a decent balance and interconnection of class mechanics

[Remember_The_Name]

That's what you get when you give everyone so much sustainability for free.

There is so much of it on non-healer jobs. I am all up for some extra shields, mitigation, healing received buffs, regens. But they are supposed to be supplementary, not replacing the healers primary function. A little "extra" to tide the party over the hardest attacks.

I would agree with non-healers having personal or party wide STRONG sustain, but if it comes at the cost of doing damage/using big cooldowns that could've gone into doing damage. But all of it is given for free in the fight design that has a strict scenario for incoming attacks with no randomization (no crit, no mini tankbusters, no sudden change of attack pattern).

And it also proves that healers has no other agency in the fight except filling others HP bars. There are NO debuffs to cleanse, not enough strong attacks to warrant healers ever-available healing spells, no strong buffs available to healers only to make them desirable in the party comp.

This is just sad...

[Nadda]

MMO players, by nature, tend to gravitate towards the most efficient methods to tackle content, optimizing group compositions to meet the demands of high-end challenges or simply to clear content faster. In FFXIV, the flexibility to switch between all jobs on a single character offers a unique advantage in adapting to changing metas.

Despite ongoing debates about the necessity of healers or their supposed redundancy, traditional party structures continue to dominate, suggesting that healers still play a crucial role in the game’s ecosystem. You will still find Two Tanks, Two Healers (1 Pure/1 Shield), and Four DPS (2 Melee, 2 Ranged) to be the norm. This consistency raises the question of whether the concerns about healers and their place in the game are truly warranted. The answer appears to be a definitive no.

If healers were in as poor a state as some suggest, we would likely see a shift away from traditional norms, as the nature of gaming often prioritizes efficiency over everything else. The fact that the game offers accessibility to alternatives while maintaining viability in traditional roles indicates a balanced system that encourages creativity.

In discussions about the "Healer Strike" or similar threads, I often see healers expressing boredom and a desire for a more robust DPS rotation. Simultaneously, videos showcasing exceptions to the traditional setup are treated as the rule. This is puzzling because if you seek more engaging gameplay, experimenting with a healer-less meta might provide that experience. As a White Mage main, I would alternatively play Summoner if it was the path of least resistance.

I don’t believe healing is in a bad state. The composition of player groups reflects this stability. If healing were indeed suffering, we would see a noticeable change in group dynamics, which simply hasn’t happened.

[Shenlao]

They should nerf healer dmg and give dps more healing skills. Healers are still too relevant in this game for them to change cause we have too many clowns still playing them. It's only when the state gets so bad that even the clowns stop playing the role then maybe actual good changes can happen.

[Aword3213]

I don’t believe healing is in a bad state. The composition of player groups reflects this stability. If healing were indeed suffering, we would see a noticeable change in group dynamics, which simply hasn’t happened.

I think the reason non-healer comp isn't popular is that players generally just stick to the default party composition set by SE. I'm from other MMOs. In an enivronment where there's never a default party compostion, the playerbase ALWAYS strive to minimize the number of healers in parties. Once people found an optimial way to survive boss mechanics, healers are always the first one to let go. In FFXIV, I believe healer slot still exist in PF because it's protected by human tendencies to comply with default option, if there's any.

See Default Effect

[Nadda]

I think the reason non-healer comp isn't popular is that players generally just stick to the default party composition set by SE. I'm from other MMOs. In an enivronment where there's never a default party compostion, the playerbase ALWAYS strive to minimize the number of healers in parties. Once people found an optimial way to survive boss mechanics, healers are always the first one to let go. In FFXIV, I believe healer slot still exist in PF because it's protected by human tendencies to comply with default option, if there's any.

See Default Effect

I don't think you can use something like the default effect when that's contrary to our gamer nature. Players especially in highest-end content in MMOs will min-max to achieve their goals and the social expectation to play the most efficient way will become the default.

Your point about the default effect is interesting, but I believe the sustained use of healers in FFXIV is driven more by the game's unique design and the culture of min-maxing in gaming. Players often focus on optimizing their strategies to overcome content most efficiently. In FFXIV, this optimization has consistently included healers, as the game’s mechanics demand the reliable healing and support they provide.

Even though the game allows flexibility in job selection, groups still rely on traditional setups because they’ve proven to be the most effective. If healer-less compositions were genuinely more efficient, we’d see the min-maxing culture push players toward them. Instead, the dominance of traditional setups suggests that the game’s mechanics are well-balanced around the intended roles, making the healer’s place not just a default option but a deliberate and optimal choice.

[Ozmandis]

MMO players, by nature, tend to gravitate towards the most efficient methods to tackle content, optimizing group compositions to meet the demands of high-end challenges or simply to clear content faster. In FFXIV, the flexibility to switch between all jobs on a single character offers a unique advantage in adapting to changing metas.

Despite ongoing debates about the necessity of healers or their supposed redundancy, traditional party structures continue to dominate, suggesting that healers still play a crucial role in the game’s ecosystem. You will still find Two Tanks, Two Healers (1 Pure/1 Shield), and Four DPS (2 Melee, 2 Ranged) to be the norm. This consistency raises the question of whether the concerns about healers and their place in the game are truly warranted. The answer appears to be a definitive no.

If healers were in as poor a state as some suggest, we would likely see a shift away from traditional norms, as the nature of gaming often prioritizes efficiency over everything else. The fact that the game offers accessibility to alternatives while maintaining viability in traditional roles indicates a balanced system that encourages creativity.

In discussions about the "Healer Strike" or similar threads, I often see healers expressing boredom and a desire for a more robust DPS rotation. Simultaneously, videos showcasing exceptions to the traditional setup are treated as the rule. This is puzzling because if you seek more engaging gameplay, experimenting with a healer-less meta might provide that experience. As a White Mage main, I would alternatively play Summoner if it was the path of least resistance.

I don’t believe healing is in a bad state. The composition of player groups reflects this stability. If healing were indeed suffering, we would see a noticeable change in group dynamics, which simply hasn’t happened.

It's because the player base is not skilled enough to play without healers, that's all. I'm playing with hardcore players and if we don't need a healer, we don't bring one. We're tagging every normal content with 1 tank and the rest DPS because even when there is a double TB, the tank can protect the DPS most of the time with a little bit of added party mitigation. By doing so you are cutting 30% of the duration of a fight and at least we have a somewhat "challenging" experience doing our roulettes. And like, it's not very difficult to do so, not at all. We're simply using every tool the game is giving us and that means we have to press one ot two more buttons per minute than an average player. Damage is such a joke that except some niche mechanics such as 1hp doom check (and even then we have cheese strats to pass them) your passive regen is pretty much all you need to survive as long as you don't take avoidable damage. Sure you are not at 100% health but why should you care ? As long as you have 30% hp pretty much nothing unavoidable can kill you.z

On another note, you all need to stop thinking it is hard to do in savage/ultimate. You vaguely press one button that you should be pressing anyway in the first place every minute or so. How is that hard ? You think planning it is hard ? You can litterally ask a computer to make the mitigation/healing plan for you and if you don't, it's gonna take at most 1h to do it...

The situation is so bad that I know some week1 static that have seriously considered to go with no healers for their kills and seems like one of them did.

[Ramiee]

It's because the player base is not skilled enough to play without healers, that's all. I'm playing with hardcore players and if we don't need a healer, we don't bring one. We're tagging every normal content with 1 tank and the rest DPS because even when there is a double TB, the tank can protect the DPS most of the time with a little bit of added party mitigation. By doing so you are cutting 30% of the duration of a fight and at least we have a somewhat "challenging" experience doing our roulettes. And like, it's not very difficult to do so, not at all. We're simply using every tool the game is giving us and that means we have to press one ot two more buttons per minute than an average player. Damage is such a joke that except some niche mechanics such as 1hp doom check (and even then we have cheese strats to pass them) your passive regen is pretty much all you need to survive as long as you don't take avoidable damage. Sure you are not at 100% health but why should you care ? As long as you have 30% hp pretty much nothing unavoidable can kill you.z

On another note, you all need to stop thinking it is hard to do in savage/ultimate. You vaguely press one button that you should be pressing anyway in the first place every minute or so. How is that hard ? You think planning it is hard ? You can litterally ask a computer to make the mitigation/healing plan for you and if you don't, it's gonna take at most 1h to do it...

Yep this is it, people can say healers are in a good place but they aren't its a lie.
Content can be cleared without them so if people get good enough to remove them from play they will because healers aren't efficent, if removing a healer cuts of minutes from a fight people will do it and people will learn that strat. Healers need to be necessary for them to survive, the exact same thing would happen to tanks if they were able to be removed from play. People want more damage, they never want more healing or tanking above whats necessary to clear an encounter.
Think I am wrong? Current BIS for healers has a crafted piece on it because it has no piety because piety doesn't provide damage, people do not care about anything but damage.