Healers need an overhaul

[GrimGale]

Everquest does this, or at least it did last time I played. It's been a while so I am not sure what state it is in now, but most healing classes didn't do a lot of damage, and in the case of cleric at least you did none since your damage options were not worth the mana you would spend casting them. They had a lot of hybrid classes though, and classes that offered a myriad of buffs as well as heals or debuffs and DoT options.

The thing is, if you design classes that can both heal enough and deal damage, they will immediately outclass anything that only heals. If you then design encounters that have very high healing requirements that only that superspecialized healer can deal with then you make that class mandatory and that is not good either.

Also, again, healers are not asking to make healers themselves deal more damage, they just want more interesting downtime where there is nothing to heal or nothing to warrant immediate healing.

[SieyaM]

The thing is, if you design classes that can both heal enough and deal damage, they will immediately outclass anything that only heals. If you then design encounters that have very high healing requirements that only that superspecialized healer can deal with then you make that class mandatory and that is not good either.

Also, again, healers are not asking to make healers themselves deal more damage, they just want more interesting downtime where there is nothing to heal or nothing to warrant immediate healing.

Everquest didn't have such a hyper focus on balance, and having a Cleric along provided numerous benefits that other classes didn't have. Cleric's were also the only class that had a resurrections spell that would restore nearly all of your lost EXP. That was a huge deal before guild halls and res NPCs.

[ty_taurus]

The thing is, if you design classes that can both heal enough and deal damage, they will immediately outclass anything that only heals. If you then design encounters that have very high healing requirements that only that superspecialized healer can deal with then you make that class mandatory and that is not good either.

Also, again, healers are not asking to make healers themselves deal more damage, they just want more interesting downtime where there is nothing to heal or nothing to warrant immediate healing.

Although if they continue making content deal so little damage that tanks can heal and thus healers are irrelevant for farming, perhaps healers should be doing more damage to justify existing in content. Prior to shadowbringers, I didn't have DPS or tanks leveled. It would be really crappy to not be able to join groups farming certain content because farm parties star barring healers from joining. I've already been told to switch to DPS or leave once in a treasure map party of all things.