Quote Originally Posted by Kabooa View Post
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It's irrelevant because players never see 'true damage' prior to filters of stats and gear. The numbers and scaling can be whatever you want them to be.

Gear progression can be inconsequential or impactful. What does matter is when a player picks up that piece of gear and has a sense that they're actually hitting harder and that their actions are having more of an effect. That's a subjective experience that you can't math out, yet has a much bigger impact on player engagement than whether or not NF provides 12.3% more healing than Bloodbath. When dps gear upgrades consistently feel like they have impact, and tank and healer gear upgrades consistently do not, then your tank and healer numbers decline. Again, this is why listening to your playerbase's feedback is important, especially the roles that you are having difficulty retaining.