Please Make Healing + DPSing More Engaging

[Rasikko]

I wish they did something to make simply being a healer more desirable..

[Sloprano]

I wish they did something to make simply being a healer more desirable..

In a weird sense, I think that is what they were hoping to achieve with the 5.0 changes: To make more people pick up the role to make up for the lack of a new healer job in four years by making the existing ones more desirable. From reading here only thing they achieved was making SCH and AST have the same problems WHM have been dealing with for years: Stuck with 1 nuke/1 dot and very few other options when no healing is required.

Maybe it was to streamline everything to be balanced around the <1% of content or bring new players in, but I thought they dropped that latter way of thinking when they introduced Dark Knight to help tank queues and only saw people who already played WAR/PLD picked up DRK.

[Hysterior]

I think WHM is going in a good direction with some of its design (not quite there yet but the idea is there)
- Have healing skills that stack to build a powerful DPS skill
- Have dps skills that can also build up to a powerful healing skill

Instead of the WHM healing bar filling by itself overtime, why not associating it to a dot where each tick is filling the bar to encourage healers to keep there dps dots on?
More skills should be like assize and have a dps and healing element to them.

[Side-Eye]

Since it seems we're going to be stuck clicking and targeting our wrists to death with the current card system, I think one thing that would provide a little relief would be to change the AST nuke (and maybe DoT too) so that if we're targeting a player character, the damage spell would automatically land on our target's target.

[Rolder50]

More skills should be like assize and have a dps and healing element to them.

I see one glaring problem with this; the meta will become to only use the healing + dps skills for the dps component, kind of like how Assize is right now where you just pop it on cooldown. It may as well not even have a healing component.

[Urthdigger]

As someone mentioned earlier, PvP does kinda do a few things right as far as making healing exciting. Part of it is of course the random nature of incoming damage that keeps us on our toes, but let's ignore that for now because I doubt people would like wipes in PvE because a key DPS got burst down suddenly.

First and foremost, your DPS spells also provide support in a way. Whether that's helping your later healing (broil giving aetherflow and fairy gauge for instance) or helping your party with damage (glare's vulnerability up for instance), your DPS spells in PvP still manage to evoke that healer "support" flavor. This also encourages players who may wish to support the party solely to use their full kit.

Secondly, your basic attack is free. One of the issues with healing and dpsing is that they share a common resource. A common mindset I see new players get into is feeling like they can't afford to waste any mp on non-healing stuff. After all, what if they need it? Still, even at a high level I feel making at least the more basic parts of dpsing free (or even if they restored MP as one of their "aiding healing" bits) would help reinforce that they are there to be used.

Now, that all said, my ideal version of healer would have some complexity to it akin to a DPS, with support functions on the combos. Think something like how samurai or monk can keep a damage buff on themselves by returning to a given combo every so often, or Monk's greased lightning for minimizing downtime, or Ninja's huton gauge... Except instead of aiding one's personal damage it provides some sort of defensive buff to the party and/or provides resources for later healing. Heck, gunbreaker's main combo gives a shield why can't we have ours shield the enemy's target? You're still dpsing during downtime, but with a more complex version than what we have now and with the added benefit of being prepared for the damage when it does come.

[LariaKirin]

Part of it is of course the random nature of incoming damage that keeps us on our toes.

That's the entirety of it.

[GrimGale]

Give healer secondary identity more weight in their design.

WHM: Nuker. Let them weave oGCD heals with GCD damage and viceversa. High personal dps and healing.
AST: Buffer. Let them throw cards more often and let them extend, spread or ugrade buffs.
SCHebuffer. Let them weaken enemies with debuffs, weakening their attacks and exposing their weakpoints for increased damage taken.

WHM could use a more complex dps rotation they could weave with healing.
AST doesnt need more dmg spells rather having more options to work with their cards.
SCH doesnt need more dmg spells rather having more options to work with their debuffs.

There, solved healer identity without messing balance. The three can now contribute to group dps with either personal dps that doesnt stall healing, buffing teammates or weakening enemies.

[LariaKirin]

There, solved healer identity without messing balance. The three can now contribute to group dps with either personal dps that doesnt stall healing, buffing teammates or weakening enemies.

It's those silly professional devs who have been grappling with the balance problem for years who don't know anything about it. But we here on the forum, we know better. Balance is easy.

[RealHounder1971]

Well, how about balancing the healer based on class concept. Example, a white mage is supposedly about nature and balance. So, add a component based on the black mage idea. But, make it more numerical based, with a healer side and a dps side. As you heal, you gain dps value, if the dps value goes too high, then it starts weakening your heals, so you have to use a dps move to lower it. Same applies the other way around. To make this more useful, new attack type spells can be developed, with each spell usable at certain "dps" levels. Using the ability helps clear the excess. You could also include abilities that are usable if both the heal and dps values are within certain ranges together, giving a combo-spell, like Assize. This system would allow you to tailor your tactics based on how the fight is going. Less heals needed? Then you ahve more dps options. More heals needed? Then heal away, and you might still be able to toss in a touch of dps.

I don't have any real experience with the other healing classes yet, but I am sure that there are options available, just got to think the right way.