Dear SE, I am a Healer

[Reiryuu]

Already your cookie analogy is off because you're throwing DPS all together so you're not persuading someone like me who doesn't subscribe to that. And you're trying to persuade the devs who do not subscribe to that. I agree that at this juncture you were the ones left out of getting a cookie, but someone would have not gotten a cookie no matter what. So definitely be pessimistic, definitely be upset, but the fact that they've given explanations already shows they recognize you exist. We will see in May how they fix you. I'm assuming the WHM comment of them being "easier" might be them trying to change roles to being like SCH and AST are more complex and WHM is the easy to approach job, something like that, but there's no reason to get up in arms about a translation yet.

I mean, isn't that exactly what they said a day or two after fanfest? Like stage time is limited but they immediately had dev panels and interviews that addressed healers.

Again, we can argue about whether we should be addressing DPS as a whole or DPS by sub-role until both of us are blue in the face, but with such a limited cookie as a job, it feels wrong to say "we get 3 times as more chances of getting a cookie than you do and that's fair." Should healers now say, "Wait, we have 3 ranged/caster healers, but we have 0 melee healers and 0 ranged physical healers. We demand 6 new jobs to fill these!" I think we can both agree that's quite ridiculous, but you think that's OK for DPS. *shrug* That is my way of thinking, you have yours. The devs have theirs. I'm not trying to persuade you or them of anything. You asked a question of not understanding. I am trying to offer you an answer. But the fact is that with the resources they diverted, the time they wasted in 4.0, etc. They could very well have fixed the healers or given healers a job in this expansion as well instead of releasing BLU. They chose not to.

[cicatriz313]

Again, we can argue about whether we should be addressing DPS as a whole or DPS by sub-role until both of us are blue in the face, but with such a limited cookie as a job, it feels wrong to say "we get 3 times as more chances of getting a cookie than you do and that's fair." Should healers now say, "Wait, we have 3 ranged/caster healers, but we have 0 melee healers and 0 ranged physical healers. We demand 6 new jobs to fill these!" I think we can both agree that's quite ridiculous, but you think that's OK. *shrug* That is my way of thinking, you have yours. The devs have theirs. I'm not trying to persuade you or them of anything. You asked a question of not understanding. I am trying to offer you an answer. But the fact is that with the resources they diverted, the time they wasted in 4.0, etc. They could very well have fixed the healers or given healers a job in this expansion as well instead of releasing BLU. They chose not to.

Well, like I said, be pessimistic and upset. I don't agree that 4.0 was wasted time or resources were diverted away from working on white mage either. First of all, 4.0 had plenty of attempts to make those 3 jobs work and for the most part they do. Now they're trying to rework them in a way that changes the paradigm (possibly to allow for more reasons for new types of healers?) Also if you're also saying that because BLU came out that healers didn't get love, you don't know that, and I don't believe that considering we already know that BLU was worked on mainly by one dev. Like they took a guy who does ultimate fights and relic grinds and let him make BLU. And yeah, your idea of separating healers is ridiculous because healers largely play the same. The jobs that exist do not. If you don't see that, you're purposefully not looking at it. Who knows though, maybe that's how they'll change the job.

[Deceptus]

Well, like I said, be pessimistic and upset. I don't agree that 4.0 was wasted time or resources were diverted away from working on white mage either. First of all, 4.0 had plenty of attempts to make those 3 jobs work and for the most part they do. .

They didn't at 4.0 release and WHM is still messed up to this day due to the terrible lily mechanic. But if you actually played a healer, you'd know this.

[cicatriz313]

They didn't at 4.0 release and WHM is still messed up to this day due to the terrible lily mechanic. But if you actually played a healer, you'd know this.

I get that lilies aren't GREAT but you can't say they're unplayable. They're just something not worth thinking about. WHM isn't "messed up" they're perfectly viable. People tend to just not play WHM because SCH and AST have more utility. Honestly every tier some groups would start with WHM to progress easier, so I think they do actually work in the current paradigm but they want to change it up now.
And I've played all the healers. Not in savage or ultimate, but I doubt many in here do that either.

[Paladinleeds]

I get that lilies aren't GREAT but you can't say they're unplayable. They're just something not worth thinking about. WHM isn't "messed up" they're perfectly viable. People tend to just not play WHM because SCH and AST have more utility. Honestly every tier some groups would start with WHM to progress easier, so I think they do actually work in the current paradigm but they want to change it up now.
And I've played all the healers. Not in savage or ultimate, but I doubt many in here do that either.

I think that's why it's such a sting for WHM. Lillies aren't really worth the time and effort. Astrologian's was about putting the cards information into a job gauge, ok not great, but thay already had it, and they added the Crowns to it. SCH got a very useful Fey Gauge (except when your alliance isn't main tanking, so situational but can still be useful)... but Lillies feel very undercooked, and we're that "Pure healer" still. So I'm skeptical. I hope they can do something about it and rework AST into not just being a shields/regen hybrid with cards. Give it a unique way of healing. There's still the issue of WHM needs some utility though. But I worry that SE are gonna fluff it again. I will reserve judgment for now though and give them a fair shot.

Oh and for clarification... in Deltascape and Sigmascape Savage, I played WHM.

[Deceptus]

I get that lilies aren't GREAT but you can't say they're unplayable. They're just something not worth thinking about. WHM isn't "messed up" they're perfectly viable.

First of all, I never said they were unplayable, and I'd appreciate it if you didn't put words in my mouth.

Second, an added mechanic that is "just something not worth thinking about" is my personal definition of a messed up mechanic.

Anything added to a job should add value and if not it was a waste of development resources.

If they had gone this way during fan fest:
"We know that players were expecting a healing job for ShB, but we decided to go for a rDPS , because we aren't happy with healer balance right now and there will be a major rework for the healing jobs in 5.0! There will be more info on that in our live letter in may, please be patient."
I think the whole discussion would be a lot different!

Spot on. Anyone who knows anything about marketing, communications, or public relations knows that expectation management is absolutely a thing.

That said I would love to see a physical ranged healer maybe healing with magic arrows like Viola in eternal sonata however I don't know how you handle melee healer in this game because usually melee healer means healing by hitting ennemies but it doesn't feel like you are a healer. The other way would be to target party member to heal them at melee ranged but it would be very hard to heal ranged dps but in a melee comp it can be very nice.

If you want an example of a dps healer (not melee) look no further than the Chloromancer of RIFT. They basically can put a buff on any party member they choose and their damage actively heals that target. They also had plenty of group based healing because a little of their heals went to near by party members. They were great off healers and supporters.

Which is the exact type of healing this game drastically needs.

[cicatriz313]

First of all, I never said they were unplayable, and I'd appreciate it if you didn't put words in my mouth.

Second, an added mechanic that is "just something not worth thinking about" is my personal definition of a messed up mechanic.

Anything added to a job should add value and if not it was a waste of development resources.

You didn't say lilies were messed up you said WHM overall was messed up. WHM is more than just lilies. No reason to get all uppity. I already agreed lilies wasn't a good mechanic, what exactly are you replying to me about? Lilies does add value, not job changing value but it adds value. It's not a waste of resources, it was a mistake. They've already said they're looking at finding another route to take.

Half the problem isn't just the design of the classes but all the design of healing itself in this game.

At this junction, definitely true. And I think they are realizing that as they stated in the MrHappy interview. Hopefully they can come up with different ways to differentiate healing to make them have other things to do than just heal/dps, kind of like AST has card maintenance. I personally hope they don't go the route some people are wanting of having healing be more important, but I'm definitely interested in seeing how far they change the identities of every job in 5.0.

[OcieKo]

At this junction, definitely true. And I think they are realizing that as they stated in the MrHappy interview. Hopefully they can come up with different ways to differentiate healing to make them have other things to do than just heal/dps, kind of like AST has card maintenance. I personally hope they don't go the route some people are wanting of having healing be more important, but I'm definitely interested in seeing how far they change the identities of every job in 5.0.

You'll probably find few like me who wouldn't mind 70%+ of my time being healing, but realistically I think most people are looking for Healing to be at least 40-60% of what we do no matter what. At the moment its more like 10-40% depending on encounter and how much you can outgear it. If encounters get any easier to heal, giving RDM an AoE heal would could potentially eliminate the need for at least 1 green icon. Pretty sure its already a thing for single healer challenge runs.

Blue DPS/Green DPS are a meme because of how little the Tank/Healing aspects of a job are needed, trying to get them up to parity at least with their DPS aspects makes sense to even continue using the trinity system. But like what the person you quoted was pointing at, it has more to do with the enemies than the players.

[Fland]

And yeah, your idea of separating healers is ridiculous because healers largely play the same. The jobs that exist do not. If you don't see that, you're purposefully not looking at it. Who knows though, maybe that's how they'll change the job.

If we hypothetically have melee healers and physical ranged healers then no, they won't be played the same. Just like those sub-types of DPS.
If healers have 10 different jobs with physical and magical type, melee and range, then I bet you SE will divide them as well into sub-types just as DPS.

However, in the end they all will be filling a healer role in party, just like a DPS filling a DPS role in the party, no matter the sub-types.

[Sesera]

If we hypothetically have melee healers and physical ranged healers then no, they won't be played the same. Just like those sub-types of DPS.
If healers have 10 different jobs with physical and magical type, melee and range, then I bet you SE will divide them as well into sub-types just as DPS.

However, in the end they all will be filling a healer role in party, just like a DPS filling a DPS role in the party, no matter the sub-types.

Except there is no "melee" and "ranged physical" healer fantasy like there is one for the archer, the mage, the fighter, the healer, the protector.

And she said "healer" not "subrole healer" implying a melee/ranged healer still appeal to the healers which is not the case when we're talking about "DPS"

But hey what about magic melee dps and ranged tank?

See you can't just come up with weird subrole that make no sense whatsoever.


Also someone who doesn't like healing or tanking will not like it more if it is a melee one or a ranged one. However someone who doesn't like melee and caster might like ranged.