Healer design is still terrible and I'm tired of apologizing for it.

[Rilifane]

Some people play to legit just get higher numbers? Not get the gear and get out? WTH are you serious?

Yes, why not?
There are 3 things about raiding that are fun for me: first week/ early tier blind prog, doing alt class runs and trying to perform well on them and mid/ late tier optimization with uptime strats, "how low can we go?" and so on. That whole "steamroll boss while netflixing to get shinies" is completely irrelevant and not fun for me. The kill itself isn't fun for me, it's just a result that happens eventually, depending on how well the party performs. Gear itself also doesn't mean much to me and I always willingly go last in every static because I know it has more impact on dps and even tanks and I don't want to get better numbers by having better gear but by playing better.
Getting a slightly higher parse through gear alone doesn't mean anything to me, getting that GCD in I kept dropping does even if my parse didn't increase at all.
Everyone is capped at BiS and I will catch up eventually and then I can put all that practice to good use and see what gear and improved gameplay results in and go for log runs.

[Leigaon]

For the life of me, I can't fathom why SE would design the healing role around being completely unnecessary if the tank is pressing 1-2-3 correctly. It's like SE is so frightened about having any healers (or tanks for that matter) be required to play their role they balance group content around 75% of people being afk, all for what? Appease those who would rather stare at pretty particle effects instead of playing a videogame? It feels patronizing, quite honestly...

25+ pages to scroll through but I tried. What would you do differently? If you could create a meaningful healer gameplay..pick whichever healer you'd like for the example. Keep in mind all content and their difficulty. Curious to see where certain people like to go with their ..ideas.

Or if this was answered in the lost pages, let me know where and I'll take a look.

[ForteNightshade]

I can only agree for Ex1 since there is zero reason to learn that fight. Just pop expedient and follow the triangle.

In other words, get carried by someone else. Remember when you asked why statics want to see parse logs. This is precisely why. They want to know they're getting someone who actually put in the time to learn fights and apply their kits accordingly, whether it be to ease further success or optimize their respective performances in lieu of someone who has no idea what's actually going on and just follows everyone else. So when things go awry, they have no way of recovering.

[OtakuSempai]

I like healers as they are right now, minor dps, and multiple heal options. Only just wish scholar got a summoner treatment because i dont even bother having energy drain on my bar.

Funnily enough, this is why I think energy drain is good design.

It lets people who would rather waste resources on overhealing and are just in parties to collect tomestones and glam do what they want while being functional, but also let players who have fun optimizing get something more out of it.

[OtakuSempai]

25+ pages to scroll through but I tried. What would you do differently? If you could create a meaningful healer gameplay..pick whichever healer you'd like for the example. Keep in mind all content and their difficulty. Curious to see where certain people like to go with their ..ideas.

Or if this was answered in the lost pages, let me know where and I'll take a look.

Well meaningful healer gameplay to me is well, healing. I don't really do a lot of it in this game if I'm performing well, which funnels me into a loop of spamming 1 button for dps.

I would like to see more healer checks in the game in general that required me to flex my knowledge of the kit. Or barring that, something more engaging in my kit then simply a clone of whm where I'm just spamming 1 nuke.

I actually find SCH the most enjoyable to play right now, only because I have an alternative avenue for dumping resources. The rotation is not even more complex than other healers but the fact that I can manage my resources in alternative ways lights my brain up in ways other healers don't. Why not add more resource management to healers?

[ASkellington]

25+ pages to scroll through but I tried. What would you do differently? If you could create a meaningful healer gameplay..pick whichever healer you'd like for the example. Keep in mind all content and their difficulty. Curious to see where certain people like to go with their ..ideas.

Or if this was answered in the lost pages, let me know where and I'll take a look.

Honestly?

- Either up the CD timers of abilities or increase raidwide/unavoidable damage so I am not using the same CD for everything.

Ex: I stated earlier I can use Exaltation 100% over Celestial Intersection for tank busters in just dungeon content alone because they come ~ every 60. If Exaltation was every 90s I'd instead use CI. Conversely if another tank specific attack happened in the same fight in under 60s that would make better use of Exalt (perhaps a short heavy bleed) I'd use Exalt there and cover the next TB with CI because the shielding was better.

- Prune redundant abilities by making them into upgrades at higher levels while still keeping them at lower levels.

Ex: There is no better example than Benefic and Cure 1 to Benefic and Cure 2. The trait for it would be hard to place, because I believe WHM has some issues with Cure 2 straight up overriding Cure 1 in some situations... but that is something that better skill leveling touches imo.

- Allow parts of our kit to play more with one another than just X

Ex: Good one for AST is Synastry. I love the ability. It only works for Benefic why? Instead of two CI charges Synastry can be used for it to place CI on both Tank/other target along with ED, A.Benefic and pretty much anything but the cards if its single target (unless you want it to also work with cards and/or Astrodyne and deal with the rebalancing headache that can cause)

- For a more opinionated take: Make healers actually diverse.

Ex: Shield and Pure healers have abilities that overlap for imo no good reason. AST can be a regen healer just fine. Make it one please.

[EaMett]

I guess I see your point. It still feels a bit elitist to me but I can respect they might think I’m iron trying to pretend to be diamond.

It's not elitist, it's honestly much simpler. It's the same reason anyone wants to get better at anything. You don't even need an outside incentive, it can be its own reward. Substitute any other skill and the reasoning would be similar.

[Deceptus]

In other words, get carried by someone else. Remember when you asked why statics want to see parse logs. This is precisely why. They want to know they're getting someone who actually put in the time to learn fights and apply their kits accordingly, whether it be to ease further success or optimize their respective performances in lieu of someone who has no idea what's actually going on and just follows everyone else. So when things go awry, they have no way of recovering.

Other than proper uptime there's not much to "learn" in that fight.

Don't blame players when they come up with an optimal strategy. Blame SE that the Trial is designed in a way that the optimal strategy is literally, follow the Dorito.

[Puc]

Funnily enough, this is why I think energy drain is good design.

It lets people who would rather waste resources on overhealing and are just in parties to collect tomestones and glam do what they want while being functional, but also let players who have fun optimizing get something more out of it.

When you put it that way then, yeah I can see it being a positive, but it would turn into a "you're trolling if you dont use the dps spells" because dps is still the name of the game.

[Nizzi]

When you put it that way then, yeah I can see it being a positive, but it would turn into a "you're trolling if you dont use the dps spells" because dps is still the name of the game.

Anyone who is serious understands the value of a heal saving the party/ensuring a party member doesn't die won't say you're trolling for using Aetherflow on healing. I've played SCH for 2+ years, creeping on my third and not once have I had anyone get mad that I healed over using Energy Drain. What OtakuSempai said about Energy Drain, I feel the same way. Aetherflow and Energy Drain are my favorite parts of SCH's kit, and part of the reason I enjoy SCH the most out of the healers. It's very nice being rewarded for using my faerie properly and not needing to dip into Aetherflow heals more than needed, and the benefit of that is that you're rewarded with extra DPS before Aetherflow comes off CD. It's fun and offers some level of optimization within SCH's kit because Soil is still ridiculously good and you'll not always want to just spam the crap out of Energy Drain, especially if you're not comfortable with an encounter/your cohealer is slacking etc.

If you don't like being "punished" for healing, there are other healers that don't have that and are less interesting than Scholar, IMO. The problem with continually complaining about one job not being able to perform everything the same way every other job can is that we end up getting everything stripped out with no level of complexity returned, and Aetherflow/Energy Drain "optimization" isn't even complex. Scholar minimally represents a playstyle for those who like knowing when to "properly" use things and to get rewarded for it through Dissipation/Energy Drain. We really don't need to make every healer play the same even more than they already do.

Honestly though, I was fully expecting Energy Drain to have been completely removed in EW, because it's clear that SE wants to move away from "punishing gameplay", which Dissipation/Energy Drain definitely represent if improperly used.