I mained a cleric on raids for a couple years, I've played other classes as well. For me raiding really isn't very different from grouping, once something is farm status most of the year is easy and if you look at raiding purely from a content perspective I don't think it's any more fun than grinding exp (as in it's not fun in itself) For me the fun part of raiding or grinding exp or doing what ever in everquest is doing things with my friends and working towards progressing my character or facing new challenging events and completing those events with my friends.
Raid healing is fun until its not. Like others have said, everyone assumes success so a win is not going to garner much in the way of gratitude at times. A failure? Yah, you are first in line for the rations of blame. Raided a cleric main from Luclin until Underfoot. Was completely re-rolled to a DPS by VoA. There were definitely some fun moments and really no regrets but after a number of years it can burn you out.
I too enjoy raid healing but not group healing in EQ. On Shaman and Druid. I have not played a cleric in raids. Clericing in groups is devastatingly boring to me. Group healing on Druid for me is unfulfilling and I have no complaints for group healing as a shaman. As someone else mentioned, I also enjoy raid healing in FF14, as a white mage. It’s not much different in FF aside from small differences in what the spells do. Also though, mana/resource management for healers in FF14 is a very significant thing, unlike in EQ. Rezzing during raids in FF14 is much harder as in many cases you really need to have swiftcast up (next spell cast is instant, 1m or so reuse). Because without it rezzing is such a long cast time that you can miss heals for the raid while trying to Rez someone. The other differences is that your *group* healing is not limited to a 6 party group, your “group heals affect the entire party regardless of size. Each group or raid also builds up a one-use-for-all limit break which is a different affect depending on the class/archetype that uses it. If you are close to the end of fighting a boss and things go south and the raid is wiping and the limit break is available a live healer could choose to consume it to instantly Rez everyone. The affect is different if a tank were to use it and different as well for if a dps were to use it.
Better DPS just means you need to be healing for a shorter time but generally the amount you need to heal over time stays the same.
As part of that team, I appreciate you too As a side note, healers, find a guild who doesn't blame the healers each time a wipe happens or crap goes sideways. This is a nice touch.
It's a team effort. You need the tanks picking up whatever they need to (or healers/dps or other tanks die when one tank is tanking everything - nobody can heal that). You need dps getting things dead (dead mobs can't hurt me). And you need healers keeping people alive to make all the tanking/dps actually happen. Fastest way to suck at dps is to die.
I loved it. The best part, as a cleric, is working out how much panic you can create in the MT by understanding how late you can leave a heal when HP is at 1%
I see you commented in the past tense. Modern EQ is so fast-paced reactive tank healing makes a dead raid, and seeing any obvious tanking damage is akin to a tank being near death unless they get immediate and continuous healing. I remember the days of my three second cast time DA being able to save people. In current raids even fully geared tanks can die in a couple seconds if unlucky, even to non-boss adds, hence the accurate whack-a-mole comment made in this topic.
I stopped raiding as a cleric on the crossover of TBL and ToV.And gave up raid leading at the same time. I play dark elf. I know the dangers of wiping a raid and having poor healing performance... Maybe, just maybe, it wasn't a serious post that didn't warrant analysis. (I also played cleric back in the days of Final Door on Stromm, just an aside for you playing on Luclin in merged guilds)
I main a raid cleric. As stated, in that environment its fun to play, but you need to challenge yourself along with ensuring versatility in your role. If you are in the main boss tank group, align your abilities along with the other clerics to ensure maximum mitigation all time and overheal when needed. (I.e. spires , heal burns, etc.). Provide coverage for add tanks who are spiking because they have extra mobs on them. Help rez. You are typically tethered to the boss more in this role, but will provide value to the other groups based on how hard you push it. Primary Healing of add tanks has you floating a bit more and needing to be even more situational aware, so its a good balance to do all the roles and get good at them and not get pegged into a single role (unless you enjoy that). Clerics are probably the easiest class to "easy mode" it on. You can do a third of what other clerics do and because of the cumulative impact the class has, you can fly under the radar. Parses are tough to quantify a cleric's performance on as you do trivial DPS even when trying and cast counts can be highly subjective based on the event and your role at that time. Its up to you to not fall into this, and hold yourself accountable. The best raid clerics are ones that have pride and drive to extend beyond what they need to do. They excel when things are about to go bad to ensure they dont go bad. Others might not always know it or appreciate, but you will when its done. For the group game - best advice I can give is box a tank.
A good raid Healer and a good Raid DPS have something in common; they know the event ad nauseam therefore they know when to use their skills or when to push buttons harder or when not to burn. This fact makes healer and dps as hard to master on a raid; they are on the same dimension! By knowing an event you can achieve things like this: And knowing your class enough to master it and master each event, is what makes Raid healing fun for me. Improving each day by learning from your class mates and from your mistakes; that's priceless as a raid healer.
I'm not sure posting a parse where you are completely operating under a GINA time based splash response to AE damage is a good way to make a case for the class to be fun. You clearly have skills, and I agree with the rest of what you said.
It's like Whack-A-Mole *if you're blindfolded*. Is that fun? Why are we answering questions with questions? What do i do with all these tickets? Why does the 7-foot stuffed dolphin cost 1 million tickets? What do you mean i cheated at Skee-ball?
