Since the release of the latest expansion Stormblood, FF14 has been hit with a decrease in healers - at least visually. Strolling around cities and out in the world, I have noticed that there aren't as many White Mages, Scholars, or Astrologians as usual. It doesn't mean that they aren't there. I'm still able to queue in duty finder as a damage dealer and get a party in 20 minutes or less - which is about average for my server. PVP is easily 5 minutes. But other servers have reported 40+ minute waits for a healer; an unusual length of time when you have cross-server population pools to utilize, What happened with this expansion to cause the healer population to drop? (Note: I've been playing FF14 for 2 and a half years, mostly as a healing job. The following are my personal observations and experiences may vary from server to server, and game to game.)
First off, the battle mechanics completely changed. Stormblood brought in a whirlwind of new changes to better balance out the combat so as not to overpower the newer jobs that would be introduced. White Mage (WHM) took a major hit and was stripped of 15 abilities - now no longer able to offer some healing alternatives, it's main priorities are Cure 2 and Stone. Whoopie. Scholars (SCH) and Astrologians (AST) also had some abilities removed, but not as severe. They also gained new abilities, including different healing tactics. SCH and AST are now the go-to for raid healers, offering better party balance compared to WHM. Many people who were WHM's are giving up the job to move to another healer. But as I've found out with WHM, to go from a simple job to one that's incredibly complex like AST is enough to turn some people away.
Adding on to that, one of the favorite abilities for healers was 'Cleric Stance.' This allowed you to flip your Mind and Intelligence stats around so that your few damage spells could do actual damage. This was an ongoing ability and allowed you to swap back and forth between healing and damage with a short cool-down. Now, it only gives you a minor spell "boost" for damage and healing for a few seconds and a 120 second cool-down. In the game right now, it sucks to try and dps on a healer when you have to solo content.
Next, Stormblood introduced two very long awaited job classes: Red Mage (RDM) and Samurai (SAM). The population flocked to them. Samurai is now the DPS darling with a lot of damage output in a short time. It also looks really flashy. Red Mage is a good balance of DPS magic and can take down enemies quickly, while being able to manage themselves to not need a tank/healer to support their efforts. It also looks really flashy. I personally like how RDM was designed. It's got sprinkles of FF11 involved, but it's a job that requires tenacity and ingenuity to play. I still enjoy AST, but if given a choice, I'd go RDM first. It's a more fulfilling role then AST.
Third, people are a-holes to healers.
That is a universal truth. World of Warcraft, League of Legends, Guild Wars, Overwatch, Team Fortress - if it's an online game that includes a healing class, you will be blamed for any and all mistakes if you play a healer. I wish I were joking, but it's sadly true most of the time. It doesn't matter if the team dies because the tank didn't hold hate, or if a DPS didn't follow the boss mechanics, or if the "right" gear didn't drop from a mob - it's always the healer's fault.
That is a horrible situation to be in: instantly blamed for any and all errors that are outside of your control. And when it's just a game that you want to have fun, why put yourself in that position? So instead of healing, people play other jobs where they don't have that burden placed on their shoulders. It doesn't matter how amazing you are at healing, you will still be blamed. The only exception I have found to this rule is that if you are with a stable group/guild/linkshell. Then they tend to put the blame on the people that caused the problem. Randoms outside of your group? Good luck dealing with them.
Fourth, not all healers are created equal. There's a high expectation when playing a healing job to already know what to do right off the bat. The reality is, you don't know until you go in and start playing! With FF14 in particular, each dungeon has a different approach for healers. It's fun and frustrating. Sometimes you can play DPS and rarely heal. Other times you can only AOE heal and spam it until you run out of MP. It can also vary depending upon your tank and if they decide to take it slow, or try to train the whole dungeon. When you are a first time healer, it can be intimidating to jump into healing with a group. With virtually all games, your first handful of levels are done alone. You learn the game mechanics, pick up a few quests, and get a feel for the content. With DPS, it's pretty straight forward. You punch/stab/slice mobs until they die. When you are a tank or a healer, you don't get the chance to try our your intended job roles until it's dungeon time.
Good parties will take the time to help healers learn what they should and shouldn't do. Most parties don't care and just want to get the dungeon done 'now.' Even in these instances, I try to help out healer's who seem to lag behind. They may not know how to run the dungeon, it's their first time, or they may not be experienced with this tank's style. But still, it takes time. It's all a learning process. Like #3, people expect healer's to already know what to do. The reality is we don't. Not until we get into a dungeon and start playing with you. Unless it's a group we've worked with before, we don't know how you play. We have to accommodate our style to you so people don't die. While it's a fast way to weed out the good healers from the bad ones, it's also a quick way to discourage people from continuing to heal.
It's not just FF14 with a lack of healers problem. It's all MMO's. Until developers can get on the ball with making the jobs fun, flexible, and able to provide DPS support that's reasonable, the issue will get worse. I wouldn't be surprised to see raid groups start camping out healers on other servers, trying to entice them to swap over to their side for perks.
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