Use the scroll wheel to select defensive heal in your group. As for healing people not in your group, when does that ever come up? Not really important.
Only time that matters to me at all is healing survivors slightly during the intermissions, and at that point targeting isn’t a problem. I have my thumb button programmed for selecting friendlies.
In Raids? in World boss? in ungrouped content?
Raids can use the scroll wheel too.
For world boss you just use AoEs (anima canister, etc), not targeting healing. People get healed or not… their problem.
If you insist on using single-target heal to heal a rando, then group with them. It’s not like you’re going to be able to watch their health bar and monitor them well without grouping with them anyway.
I agree, I was just pointing out it was easier with tab targetting. 
EDIT: sorry, in my mind tab targetting = point and click (in opposite to reticule targetting).
Well, easier with point and click targetting, which was formerly an option. Now you only have tab targetting for healing.
I miss tab/click targeting for two cases that make up a significant portion of my SWL play time. Parties and holiday events.
Tab or click and then “Hi %t” like I still do in AO and TSW is much quicker and easier than trying to get a good look at the nametag of a moving target and then try to spell it right before they give up on waiting to see if the dancing people are NPCs or AFK or just crazy and zoom off. It’s also nice to trade with someone you’ve selected instead of hitting F and Trade and /then/ checking who in that crowd was closest to your reticle at that instant. Of course, in SWL, you have to be so close to someone to trade, there’s not much room for dance moves to throw it off.
Back when TSW had events, I used to use my healing deck for holiday bosses and golems and such, because I could hardly hit or damage them, but glancing was enough to charge up heals for Target’s Target. I tried to do that when Flappy came to SWL. It didn’t work. I tried area-effect heals with Hel, but I don’t like the way grenades work. Fortunately, she didn’t really require that much healing. Hel was a boring fight, but I hope the next event boss isn’t so exciting the tank needs more than their own team or raid healing them.
For single-player content when I actually have a little time to play regular missions, the reticle is fine.
While it would be nice for every summoning group to pack a tank and a healer, that doesn’t always happen. If some tank steps up and isn’t geared so highly that they can live off their own heals, then it’s everyone’s problem.
Which brings to mind, has anyone ever gotten “Assist Target of Hostile Target” to work?
Firstly: I was listing differences between SWL and TSW like the threat states. This was what was asked for.
I know the mechanics, thank you very much.
Glad you can live without it. Again, I was pointing out differences between the two games and in the old one, I found it easier to target whoever I just wanted.
Yup and I have a key for the friendlies, too.
Within your designated group, yes.
I don’t use rifle, but I do use “Eldritch Scourge” when an event boss is up. If people get healed or not is indeed their problem. In SWL I had to change my thinking in that regard, too, but I don’t like being that “self centered”. Every time when I was picked up by a random heal, I was rather grateful.
Yeah, nothing better than struggling with your HP and an enemy in your face and then that invite pop-up locks your buttons. Again, I don’t insist on anything and never did. I just found clicking less complicated and a nice thing to have.
No, and that is not necessary. You simply pick them up, shoot their target and move on. Just some random act of kindness or convenience or however you may call it. I liked it.
Unfortunately not 
But I would be really happy to get that back.
And the other group too.
Any ungrouped content like World Bosses/Mega Bosses. I imagine that when/if Fusang ever relaunches, scrolling through 25 or 30 people to get to the person you actually want to heal will be a friggin’ nightmare. I imagine this is not an insignificant reason why Fusang is missing.
If in such a situation a healer actually cares about people who can’t dodge bad things, then they can be gracious and put a Wild Surge on the floor. If that’s not enough, then people need to “l2p” or something.
Semantics. Assuming the golem event is (mostly) unchanged from it’s previous incarnations, the lava golem in SD has a damage reflect. You can’t dodge that. That’s just one example.
Don’t argue semantics, the point is, in large scale content where people are ungrouped, it’s impossible to pick out and heal any one person directly. That’s the point.
On the subject of healing others not in your group - in group surroundings (i.e megabosses)
I use tab targeting for selecting nearest friendly, (i don’t know why they can’t have the same for the opposing tab enemy out of a group of enemies) i had to key bind it so it didn’t stupidly want to use two fingers to press an action when it simply only needs one. (i use only keyboard to play)
However it does not always pick the nearest, it will cycle through people, very annoyingly as i am standing in front of the person who needs a heal and can’t select them, i can’t even offer out a spam aoe heal to people like shelter used to do, since the one aoe heal i have is mostly on CD after using it on a group of fellow players who have tried in avoiding either Hitodummys huge moving aoe or say the poison waters of crab guy, either way there is a lot to be said for healing having a better flow and use for it in situations people take for granted.
I can see who needs a heal and always at least attempt it, by moving around the players, who are often always standing still, their health bars show up and i can see who needs healed, or some green numbers will pop up over somebody from feral regrowth and i’ll go check them out and see if they’re ok, i hate it when i see people die when i could have helped them. But i don’t like the fact that the role of healing has been diminished to a level where the general consensus is “it’s not needed” - i think it is.
Oh, then there may have been something wrong on my end in the last couple of raids. I kept scrolling but it wouldn’t switch group. As soon as I manage to get into the next raid, I’ll try again and see if it is a prob on my end. Thank you for letting me know.
Edit: But to be fair and honest: I still find scrolling okay if in a group of max 5 bees. For everything else it just takes too much time and focus 
Yes, and that’s why you have AoE heals, the Unveiled Essence heals, etc. Even in TSW it’d be a fools errand to use single-target heals to try to keep anyone but the tank alive. for that event it was always AoE heals.
Probably they were too far away. The scroll only works on people within a certain range.
Again, you miss the point. That’s fine, though. Bury your head and assume all is fine.
I really appreciate your thoughts, Jack. Thanks for this in depth comparison 
Granted we have much less/no spontaneous content like the wandering zerg bosses of old and the seasonal ones hit like babies but previously you could just go up in tank mode and start smacking Mr. Worldboss in the face with a hammer and one (or more) of the guys running heals would start tossing heals your way without being grouped.