It's time to kill the argument that DPS abilities keep healers from healing.

[Sebazy]

I'm all for challenging combat, myself, but healers are supposed to struggle in solo content and only be of moderate assistance in damaging a boss. Otherwise there would be no appeal to playing a DPS class. It's lore correct that way; the bread and milk that formed group gaming as we know it today, and my fear is that players (well-known for their this-is-never-enough attitude towards any and all classes) will continue to drive towards the same sort of changes that made WoW's dungeons and raiding so terribly hectic and strange, which is why I'm glad that SE has put their foot down and so NO to yet more damage or more distracting combos.

I'm curious about how you feel that this is lore correct?

From the angle of in game lore, the White Mages of Amdapor went toe to toe with and beat the Black Mages of Mhach, the fall out from which was destructive enough to cause the fifth umbral calamity.

It's not even much of a Final Fantasy trope. Healing focused roles in classic FF games have historically done just fine on the offence, usually being defensively frail rather than offensively inept. FFXI is a notable exception but then the same can be said of just about any job that isn't the right job for the situation, it just kind of ran away in it's own direction with Nin tanks leading the charge.

As for other MMOs. Claiming that this is somehow 'the bread and milk that formed group gaming as we know it today' is just laughably misinformed. Have you ever watched an Everquest Druid soloing drakes in Cobalt scar? 4 at a time btw.... If you looked down below the cliffs, you'd see a Shaman killing a raid boss called Kelorek Dar. Solo.... The irony is that if you actually go back to the game that stamped the MMO trinity that we have today, tanks and pure melees were the helpless ones that needed ferrying around, not healers

So where does this come from? It feels like you're just taking the word 'healer' literally and assuming that the job should have no other facets or depth to it beyond that?

Because they seem to understand that for those asking it'll never be enough. This reminds me of early tanking in the game, way back when they gave players attribute points to use and the option of equipping accessories of the players choice and any tank that didn't assign every last bit of strength that they could to their character, even at the cost of mitigation, was considered an idiot. I can see healers suffering the same fate, if in a different way, where it has become all about optimizing DPS over heals, because it's never enough and NEVER WILL BE ENOUGH.

What? At what point are you referring to? Nobody really understood the game in any real depth in ARR. Coil DPS checks were rare and mostly lenient. The only people who I ever saw get called out were those that genuinely did stupid things like melding or pointing a stat that they genuinely couldn't get any value from. If you're referring to HW with Gordias and to a lesser extent, Midas I can appreciate your point more. Gordias was a *HUGE* shock in terms of the DPS it expected from players, especially after Final Coil. People who were stepping into Savage needed every bit of DPS that they could get their hands on, healers included. ThordanEX was a bit of a wrecking ball as well, so yeah, I can well see this spike in damage requirements filtering down out of the raid scene in the same way that the whole 'Exclude WHM' thing ballooned way out of control in patch 3.5.

Hamstringing an entire role just because certain aspects of the player base are idiots isn't a particularly sound design choice for the long term.

The only acceptable change I could get behind is some other form of entertainment available during the supposedly loathed downtime, but not MORE damage and certainly nothing that will pull attention from healing because healers are coerced into feeling that if they can't squeeze out a full combo then they must be a failure at healing; a mentality that is sure to arise from any sort of combo that effects damage.

Again, this is why I keep preaching that SE should take AST's buff system much further. Let them spend GCDs on cards and balance it from there.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but WHM at least has five abilities at lv 80 that do direct damage and 10 (11 if you count asylum) that do direct healing. Despite people's complaints about healers being stuck with the 11111 damage rotation, WHM already has half as many damaging abilities as it does direct healing. Sure, you're gonna use glare the most, especially at lower levels, but there's a darn good reason the game doesn't want healers committing to combos.

It's not the number of abilities that's the problem here, it's the fact that we press 1 of them routinely 200+ times in a single fight.

I'd be saying exactly the same thing if we were pressing Cure 1 as frequently.

That's why I will never be convinced that healers should get more in the area of DPS, because I KNOW that however hard and desperately players cry for a bit more, something, anything, from SE to make healers more fun to do things other than heal with, it won't be enough. And worse, if SE finally caves and for some reason gives the DPHealers more sparklies to fling at bosses and trash players will promptly rejoice and sigh saying, "It's about time. They DO listen"

and then

say

"Well, actually. This could use a buff, it's still not enough. It's still pretty weak. This combo is pretty short. I STILL have wasted downtime. Can we get better DoTs? What about more CC?"

Because, for players, it's never going to be enough. DPS abilities are like crack for players. One taste and they gotta have more, and better, and more.

*Dave Chappelle at the window* "Ya'll got any more of them DPS abilities?"

God forbid we expect SE to actually improve our little corner of the game. God f**king forbid.