Encounter Design needs to be overhauled at a fundamental level

[Barraind]

You forgot "dont get knocked off the platform lololol" on 90% of fights.

Because we fight almost everything on magical floating space platforms now, for reasons.


In terms of how you can work healers, its not all that hard.

Move towards more overall healing % being on GCD's at a lower power, then the OCD's are chock full of modifiers for those.

Use this cooldown to make your next heal add a regen component.
Use this cooldown to lower the cost of your next heal.
Use this cooldown to make your next heal crit.
Use this cooldown to make your next heal instant cast.
Use this cooldown to increase the potency of your next heal
Use this cooldown to deal damage equal to a cast of your GCD damage spell on your targets target.
and so on, based on the class.

Toss in a majority of their damage from OCD abilities with short to moderate cooldowns (bonus points if you code them like sympathetic spells in other games, where if cast on an enemy it hits that target, and if cast on an ally, hits their target) designed to be regularly weaved in, moving decisions towards "what am i weaving between casts next" and the generic stone/ruin used as a GCD filler spell when leveling or not having to heal.

[Kalise]

Move towards more overall healing % being on GCD's at a lower power, then the OCD's are chock full of modifiers for those.

The issue here is that simply moving healing throughput to GCD's doesn't really achieve much.

The game will still mostly be just "Boss uses Tankbuster" Healer presses ST heal skill to heal tank to full. "Boss uses Raidbuster" Healer presses AoE heal skill to heal everyone to full. The rest of the time will simply be "Keep Regen on Tank and mash nukes".

Since the issue isn't how much healing oGCD's provide, but how frequently damage is done that needs healing. With it basically being limited to "Buster" skills, especially due to how lethal avoidable damage is.

I agree with the observations but I would go the other way for adjustments.

The root problem is that healers are far too powerful, which means the only way, for the devs, to make players lose, is to use mechanics that healers can't act upon (= one-shot and vulnerability debuff). Encounters are designed with healers seen as a problem to circumvent.

Thus I would suggest to reduce healing potency, mana regen and enemy damage. Also add more diversity in healers toolkit.

Though, this would only really suffice for the avoidable damage. But if people are avoiding the damage (Which they should, as it's not too hard except in Savage+) then you're back to the same position of only having the core behaviour of the boss to deal with. Which is, only damaging attacks on set timers (I.e. "Busters") and fluff damage mostly if not entirely dealt with by rolling regens.

If you're keen to notice people complaining about their roles, you should be keen to notice people complaining about how hard savage is.

I see more people complaining about how easy Savage is than how hard it is.

I see more people complaining about how healing is only fun in Ultimate than how hard Savage is.

This is to say nothing about how Tank/Healer responibilities are merely being shifted away from "Muh DEEPS" into something actually appropriate for the role. DPS aren't being changed because "Muh DEEPS" is exactly what DPS should be prioritizing.

[linay]

This is to say nothing about how Tank/Healer responibilities are merely being shifted away from "Muh DEEPS" into something actually appropriate for the role. DPS aren't being changed because "Muh DEEPS" is exactly what DPS should be prioritizing.

Except doing damage is everyone's role. The first ability every job/class gets is a damaging ability. A healer is a DPS that specializes in healing while a tank is a DPS that specializes in surviving while a regular DPS is just a DPS that does not specialize in either of those two.

This isn't like WoW where every class has a spec for damage. Damage is baked in to the role itself as all jobs have only one role. And the point of every combat is to beat the enemy.