It's time to hire dedicated Tank an Healer devs!

[Sebazy]

<snip>

Consider it this way:

Let's say 6.0 lands, and Reaper has had a complete rework again for release.

It's now got a single GCD nuke and a GCD instant 30 second dot from the word go, a 2 minute self haste buff at level 30, a 30 second instant oGCD at 56, and finally a big nuke that needs to be charged during downtime at 74.

That's it. That's it's entire kit to grind through solo MSQ content with.

SE would get torn a new hole to breath through if they dropped the class like that. And yet that's precisely what healers have been reduced to in solo content now. Watch a commentary free stream of a healer playing at level 10 or level 80 and the gameplay is far too similar. It truly boggles my mind that people consider this to be acceptable irrespective of what angle you are coming at this game. Giving healers a more compelling gameplay loop in downtime isn't a raider centric thing by any stretch. It's every bit as bad for the newer casual players, it's just that they haven't gotten bored of it yet (and ironically, healing levelling dungeons whilst being under geared is arguably the most enjoyable and challenging healing content pre Extreme and Savage).

It's lazy design from a team that has demonstrated that it is capable of so much more.

As far as the solution goes. Honestly, SE have backed themselves into a monumental corner at this stage and unless they've taken steps to address the potency of our healing kits vs our HP pools with this stat squish, I'm honestly not sure they'll ever dig themselves out of this mess until the inevitable overhaul towards the end of the game's life whenever that may be.

You are correct about the success though, I suspect that SE do indeed see the current overall strategy as being a net gain even if it does equate to having the core gameplay loop treading the same water since 3.4. The influx of new players handily outweighs the burnout of jaded veterans.

[Melorie]

This really means nothing to me as I started after that. I've played MMOs for many years and the one big problem is communication from the players, not just in saying what they'd like, but listening and understanding what the devs communicate as far as limitations. A lot of what I see in this thread is either vague, in need of polish or just moot because 6.0 is likely to bring about these changes.

If you're a long-time player though, and specially a healer main, you already heard the "just wait for the expac drop" a few times, just to be disappointed over and over again. Then you hear "oh no, just wait for x.1!", after that it's "they'll fix next expac". So please, if you don't follow the discussion of this community over the years, I would get off your high horse. Many people here have their own reason to be a bit over-the-edge regarding healer issues.

I understand wanting tanking and healing to be more interesting...but why more complex?

I think that would be better suited for content, not Jobs.
Give tanks more responsibility, make healing more of an important or urgent matter. Again i can get behind making the jobs more interesting to play, but i think the bigger issue is the battle content

I also think that changing encounter design would be one way to deal with this - but this would only make these changes impactful on the newest content. What about the rest of the game? Why do I have to press one button forever while doing 60, 70 and 80 content? If you don't touch the job class itself, the people that don't actively prog or try extremes at launch will be left with spamming one button. The casual community isn't made of only people with a total lack of interest in getting better and feeling engaged by the combat of the game. Besides, changing encounter design is way harder than giving healers something to do, specially considering that in 1.x/2.x and even 3.x they had this.

Anyway, this discussion is really old and you had a lot of suggestions all over the place - more dps skills, mobs that hit harder, more "support" skills such as buffs/debuffs... And yet, here we are. Spamming glare.

[Baxcel]

Some say the pet is DRKs fun toy, but imo, theres nothing to do with it, and u cant use it when u want really. its just a DoT.
The only thing DRK has going for it, is its Aethetics. including the "DoT" i mentioned. its just a flashy DoT. (And imo Reaper has even better aesthetics/animations by a butt load)

It's not even a proper dot.. if the enemy moves or phase changes (ones where its not immune) the shadow can't deal damage like a normal dot.. making it much worse then a cast on target dot

[Jeeqbit]

So much this. There's a ton of armchair game dev going around when it comes to MMO players, and often the longer the player has played the game the more certain they are they that they know exactly how to fix the problems they perceive, without realizing that the developers have likely already thought of that and have chosen not to implement it for one reason or another (be it cost, resources, technical, staffing, intended impact, lack of player desire, etc.).

Exactly and I have watched almost all the interviews yoshi-p did in the media tour and he explained the reasoning including that some healers prefer just to heal and he doesn't want to pressure them, but he also agreed that sage will offer something for healers that want to DPS. More to do on healers would be nice like how astrologian is, but I do find a strange joy in spamming broil.

In the live letter he acknowledged some people want 3.0 class complexity but said they are keeping it in the direction 5.0 went because it has made them playable by a lot more people. When the classes are easier the mechanics can be harder too.

[ItMe]

There was a quote somewhere and I'm paraphrasing from memory:

A complaint is an extremely important thing. People who are upset and don't care just walk away angry. If someone is willing to give constructive criticism, it shows they still care about the product.

Are you sure you meant to respond to me?
I don't understand how this is a... response(?) to what you quoted.

To chop the convo down to a few sentences, someone said:

most players hate the current setup.

I said

"Most players" are silent on the issue and we cannot speak for them.

Yeah, people often complain because they care... but how is that relevant? You offer that like it refutes something.

[Sebazy]

Exactly and I have watched almost all the interviews yoshi-p did in the media tour and he explained the reasoning including that some healers prefer just to heal and he doesn't want to pressure them, but he also agreed that sage will offer something for healers that want to DPS. More to do on healers would be nice like how astrologian is, but I do find a strange joy in spamming broil.

In the live letter he acknowledged some people want 3.0 class complexity but said they are keeping it in the direction 5.0 went because it has made them playable by a lot more people. When the classes are easier the mechanics can be harder too.

That's a very fair stance and I'm actually onside with that.

The ideal solution is where the different jobs within the role should be used to offer a choice of truly distinct play styles. The issue with that is that it requires a lot of tuning and testing to get the balance right to avoid a repeat of AST in 3.0 or WHM in 3.4/5. Arguably more time than SE are willing to commit to the role unfortunately

[Deveryn]

If you're a long-time player though, and specially a healer main, you already heard the "just wait for the expac drop" a few times, just to be disappointed over and over again. Then you hear "oh no, just wait for x.1!", after that it's "they'll fix next expac". So please, if you don't follow the discussion of this community over the years, I would get off your high horse. Many people here have their own reason to be a bit over-the-edge regarding healer issues.

How am I the one on a high-horse, when you're the one citing your time playing? You're the one dismissing an opinion. Like I said, I've played these games enough. I've also had a lot of good discussions about development and gained a lot of insight. Just because I wasn't here the whole time doesn't give you the right to act that way. Miss me with that elitist bs.

'm just saying I need more context for your side to make any kind of sense to me or even some of the team.

Yeah, people often complain because they care... but how is that relevant? You offer that like it refutes something.

When you care, it's more of a constructive feedback that time is put into assembling. These are complaints because people have been around and feel entitled to something.

[Caurcas]

I understand wanting tanking and healing to be more interesting...but why more complex?

I think that would be better suited for content, not Jobs.
Give tanks more responsibility, make healing more of an important or urgent matter. Again i can get behind making the jobs more interesting to play, but i think the bigger issue is the battle content

I disagree. I adored HW era tanking, its was both complex and interesting. You had to properly prep tank swaps, juggle your stance and combos while watching your resources and dealing with encounter mechanics. The skill ceiling to it was the by far the most fun it ever was, and ever since each xpac has stripped back more and more layers and it has made the role supremely boring outside of dps optimization.

[ItMe]

When you care, it's more of a constructive feedback that time is put into assembling. These are complaints because people have been around and feel entitled to something.

Yeah, complaints have value.
But that doesn't mean the conlmplainers can pretend theirs is the voice of the majority. Citing discord groups as one of the primary sources should have been the first red flag that the sample is flawed.

[Absurdity]

I understand wanting tanking and healing to be more interesting...but why more complex?

I think that would be better suited for content, not Jobs.
Give tanks more responsibility, make healing more of an important or urgent matter. Again i can get behind making the jobs more interesting to play, but i think the bigger issue is the battle content

Because adding complexity to content restricts it to that content only and it usually means "add more complexity to Savage and Ultimate".

Problem is that Savage and Ultimate content make up maybe 5% of the game. You will never have complex design in 95% of the game's content, for the same reason that the story mode now has easy and super easy options, which also means you will be bored out of your mind in 95% of the game.

So if I don't want to fall asleep while playing the game it means I have to spam the same 4 (sometimes 5) fights for up to 6 months, that's not a solution.