Developers : Healer design mentality needs to change

[Anhra]

The problem with skill tress is unless they basically become different specs in disguise someone will map out the most optimal for dps/whatever is needed and people will either run that or be shunned. As has been said in this thread, they could reduce the dps spells to 10 potency and people would still use them over anything else if it gave them the most dps.

Skill trees would just shift the problem from how you play your class to how you build them, the community will still have a "right" and "wrong" way of doing things, it'll just extend to this as well.

That's often what it comes down to, DPS, they could give people the choice of "This talent gives your healer a full DPS rotation, with skills and procs and the whole nine yards." Vs "Increase Glare potency by 500%" People would still spam the one button if that's where the most DPS is. Poor example I know, but it's just to illustrate what I've seen in every game I've played with a skill tree. You can give people the most interesting and fun customisation for their character, but most would still chose the "Increases dps by 1,3,5,8,10%" If it lets them clear faster.
The worst case I've seen in my recent gaming is Warframe, where the community are hell bent on finding any way to get the game to play itself where they could just tape a button down and walk away, all in the pursuit of "efficiency."

That's just dry theory you're spouting there friend, potency changes are always manageable. Many MMORPGs including WoW btw, implimented it successfully without having too much of a powergap that isn't unbearable. If for example, one of the healing braches of a skilltree specializes in doing direct damage to a target, another branch that excells in supporting with buffs, could easily make up for it by having crowd control effects with debuffs or flat out increase the damageoutput of someone else. Would that make any difference which one to choose? Mathematically speaking not really, but the way the job plays would and a change of pace is one of the things the combat system really needs.