Quote Originally Posted by Cynfael View Post
Many games have moved away from the pure healer model. The games I remember playing with dedicated healers who couldn't so much as solo a field mob had extremely small healer populations, most of which were boxed since a live healer was necessary only for PvP and maybe the odd raid. Healers who only heal in these games are either playing whack-a-mole nonstop while everyone else takes it easy or they are bored off their asses because they barely need to heal and can't damage anything.

FFXIV at least has a viable hybrid model where healers have useful actions to perform when healing requirements are low or intermittent. Increasing the damage inflicted on players would not make the game more engaging or fun from a healing perspective since the game itself is extremely choreographed. If the mob damage output were increased to the point where healers truly needed to heal heavily and frequently, fatigue would set in; hitting Cure twice as often is not any more enjoyable than weaving it with DPS.

SE could provide further options for healers by introducing a larger variety of powerful support skills, provided that they are at least comparable in benefit to the DPS option. I do agree that there is opportunity in deepening the gameplay from a supporting role perspective.
I would be happy if they chose to do that but the way they are talking about it that isn't what we are getting, with WHM at least. Ironically new healing spells is the last thing WHMs need now. How am I supposed to get excited about a new flashy heal if I have more heals than I need with the list I already have? Combined with just removing Cleric stance and its pushing WHM in the complete opposite direction to the one you are talking about.

They need their design philosophy to match their game design and currently it doesn't. No wonder they are having problems balancing healers if they haven't noticed that issue yet. It is extremely frustrating, especially after all their talk on putting extra effort into balancing tanks and healers. At least PLD seems to be heading in the right direction.