Should Cleric Stance be disabled in party instances?

[Ilenya]

If we were to take all risk away from healers, then I guess we should also give all tanks a passive 20% damage reduction with no effect on damage dealt, and give all DPS a 10% damage increase with no increased damage recieved... because you know, we wouldnt want people to think about their choices, we just want them to put their face on their keyboard, and just hit buttons.

Wouldn't this just give an excuse to make fights harder?

[Thunda_Cat_SMASH]

Wouldn't this just give an excuse to make fights harder?

That would be the first step, yes. Making heals more reasonable in line would be another. I've always wondered why people find it important their strongest heal recovers 2/3 of a tanks HP on crit.

[Rawrz]

That would be the first step, yes. Making heals more reasonable in line would be another. I've always wondered why people find it important their strongest heal recovers 2/3 of a tanks HP on crit.

Its more like half when buffed (14k Benefic II's when in Noct) ;c Lustrates (for example) usually crit for about 1/3 (11k) though.

[Thunda_Cat_SMASH]

Are you sure...? I've gotten 18K plus Cure 2's on my sword Oath pld, and I find it hard to imagine I270weapons healing only 3K more than my I230 whm, when with Divine Seal up I've crit for 14K+ using the Padjali staff.

2. Incoming damage is not only increased in potency to "balance" the strength of existing healing abilities, but the frequency of hits is increased while mobs use more abilities that randomly damage party members other than the tank. This rewards twitch healing skills and smart resource management, but I don't think this game and most of its healer base are well-suited to this. Encounters are obviously designed so that anyone can succeed if they learn the patterns and choreography. If some healers think they have it bad now with the occasional pushback from players who perceive them as slacking because they wait around to heal, imagine the outcry when they have to heal multiple targets nonstop and do it while managing aggro and MP. This is not going to happen.

Personally I'd enjoy such a healing predicament!

[Cynfael]

Someone's going to be unhappy no matter what.

This is mostly a retread of earlier discussion, but consider a couple of scenarios and their possible outcomes:

1. Heal potency is decreased while content design stays roughly the same = players have to heal more for the same benefit; they necessarily have less time to DPS because they need to cast more heals to keep up, but their playstyle has become more repetitive, not more engaging or rewarding of skill. This is similar to what happens if incoming damage is increased while heals stay the same.

2. Incoming damage is not only increased in potency to "balance" the strength of existing healing abilities, but the frequency of hits is increased while mobs use more abilities that randomly damage party members other than the tank. This rewards twitch healing skills and smart resource management, but I don't think this game and most of its healer base are well-suited to this. Encounters are obviously designed so that anyone can succeed if they learn the patterns and choreography. If some healers think they have it bad now with the occasional pushback from players who perceive them as slacking because they wait around to heal, imagine the outcry when they have to heal multiple targets nonstop and do it while managing aggro and MP. This is not going to happen.

[Ghishlain]

18K sounds right with Divine Seal + Conv on PLD + Crit for i230. I do 15K crits with Divine Seal on i244 WHM w/ Hyperconductive Relic weapon. Conv would push that to 19.5K.

My Noct AST crits 12.5K with the same gear setup. That would be about half the HP of my non-Defiance i230 WAR w/ Sophia Axe (25,246 HP w/ not Vit party bonus).

[EDIT] Rawr's 14K crit would be less than 1/2 the HP of my current Savage tier tanks (DRK / PLD = ~32K, WAR = 33.7K w/o Defiance)

[Thunda_Cat_SMASH]

I feel There's better ways to balance risk vs reward than having enemies tickle players with feather dusters.

[Neophyte]

That would be the first step, yes. Making heals more reasonable in line would be another. I've always wondered why people find it important their strongest heal recovers 2/3 of a tanks HP on crit.

Because good healers don't heal before tanks drop to a certain value anyway.
And switching CS off, Regen+Tetra(crit) lets you switch back to CS again with one less heal GCD. Also crit best dps off-stat (after acc).

[magnanimousCynic]

Since people seem to want to keep this thread alive for whatever reason I'll just give my opinion on the matter. DPS as a healer is Vital. Take away the option to DPS and you get slower runs and very angry people. And OP's first post, troll that he likely is, doesn't make any factual points.

Now if cleric stance is disabled in PvE dungeons/raids (like in PvP), the issue of people complaining you are not dpsing enough will dissipate, possibly.

No they won't. What will happen, besides making a lot of healer mains very angry, is you make running content slower. With your changes, getting a random party of 4 healers in PotD past floor 30 would be impossible to clear.

Yes you can still dps, but just not as much.

"Not as much", he says while not actually showing the difference. As we go higher in levels, the DPS gap between Non-Cleric and Cleric increases drastically. Depending on how good your weapon and gear is, the more DPS Cleric gives you. Without Cleric Stance, my Stone III's hit on average for 380-410. Once I put Cleric Stance on the average changes to 2700-2950. That means that using Cleric Stance increased my DPS by over 700%. Trying to DPS without Cleric Stance on is a waste of MP.

...I feel like in cleric stance, I can dps more than the casual dps, which means I am fulfilling two roles, healer AND dps. Which is not the intention, I believe.

That's the DPS's fault, not the healers.

This is only in the standpoint of game design,

I REPEAT, STOP FEEDING THE GODDAMN TROLL AND HIS ZERO-DPS HEALER 'FANTASY'.

[Cynfael]

Personally I'd enjoy such a healing predicament!

Probably a little bit of yes and a little bit of no.

I played a game like that for years, where even in some PvE farming you needed to be able to react very quickly and be on top of your cooldowns and resources.

The upside is that you technically almost always have something to do as a "healer." You are also among the few and the proud if you are good, because most players don't want the chronic work and responsibility.

The downside is that other roles get to roll their faces across the keyboard because there are few patterns to observe and few practical ways for them to avoid damage, so they pew-pew knowing that it's entirely up to the healer to keep them alive.

Again, if players can't handle stance-dancing in choreographed fights, there's no way they will tolerate that model.