Cap'n Kobold
Hero
No, I think that there is a middle ground between rocket tag and non-threatening combat, rather than just those two extreme positions.The problem is that a game where healing is good universally ends up with either rocket-tag, or non-threatening combat.
The suggestions already mentioned of adding Temp HP, or allowing the recipient to spend some of their hit dice fall into that middle ground.
The discussion is about moving pre 0HP healing from "almost always a waste" to "a viable option to spend resources on", and so prevent the "whack-a-mole"/"yoyo" issue.
No-one is talking about trying to sustainably negate all of the damage the party is taking from a level-appropriate encounter.
The issue is that in most cases, healing someone before they go down doesn't work as an "emergency thing". Burning an action and a high-end resource on healing often won't give a fellow party member more survivability, until after they are on the ground.Rocket tag is when the only way to kill a PC is to take them out before healing can land. You can see this in a pile of games.
Non-threatening combat is when damage does nothing but drain the tank of the healer. Taking damage isn't a threat, it is just a resource drain on the healer. When the healer runs out of oomph, the day ends.
Both of these where true in 3e. Healing could outpace damage, healers had far more healing resources than warrior types had HP, and a real threat either wiped a target's HP out in one blow or bypassed HP entirely.
4e moved a huge amount of a healer's power budget to the target PC. Running out of HP was a single-encounter thing mostly, and the daily resource drain was on daily powers and healing surges.
5e, at least initially, moved to a model where running out of HP and HD is a daily resource drain. A melee type can contribute more HP than a healer can over an adventuring day, and the use of healing was more of an emergency thing than anything. Spell slots where better used in ways besides healing.
Currently in-combat healing is most effective when applied to someone who has already gone down. We're looking into ways of making healing useful before that happens, so DMs don't feel the need to push the players towards a 5MWD, by attacking characters that are bleeding out or introducing mechanics that punish dropping to 0HP without addressing the systemic issue.