Is the "healing portion" of healers hitting a wall in EW?

[Semirhage]

Yeah, and they've always been overpowered in the hands of anyone reasonably competent too. 3.0 Cleric/Druid? Absolutely gods. 3.5? Little better, but still gods. Pathfinder? Yup, still gods.

I'm in a game right now where our party's cleric shucks out 100+ Damage a round, is basically untouchable AC wise by anything other than the nastiest of nasty's primary attacks, and can handle anything else the party needs. Is this a compelling game experience for anyone? No. And we're already talking about how to reign in this crap for the next adventure path we do because people are sick of it.

That has nothing to do with them "having too many damage skills" and everything to do with the many, many exploitable loopholes in the rules of those games. I've always been drawn to healing classes because they're often designed as competent multitaskers who support the party when needed, heal when needed, and attack/debuff when needed. Attacking is always needed. With the exception of special encounters that require you to NOT attack something or survive until the scripted cutscene saves you, that's how you beat 99% of encounters.

Downtime where you attack things will A L W A Y S be a thing. Always. Even -more- so in a multiplayer game, and even *more* so in a multiplayer game with developers insistent that content be clearable by a wide range of skill levels. What's the high skilled ultra efficient healer going to do when you hit Grand Canyon-sized buffer put in place for the healer who's never played a video game before? /dance? Overheal for fun? Sleep?

The downtime kit will always be the endgame for any healer who wants to increase their competency. That's why we "evil pretend DPS healers" are focused on it, and why we roll our eyes when people say "No! Only increase the healing complexity! Healers should heal only! It's in the name! Only heal!"

Because it's unbelievably shortsighted and unrealistic to think that making the healing kits and the healing kits alone the source of the fun on the healer jobs is going to cut it.

[Nizzi]

Ew.. No it didn't, and if they add multi-dots back in I'm out. I'll never touch healers again and I know plenty of people with the same mindset. I would argue multi-dotting is a playstyle only a niche level of players enjoy to begin with given you don't see it all that often in MMOs, and we can already see a clear trend of DOTs being the first thing on the chopping block when they need to reduce button bloat (shadow fang) or update jobs (summoner). I'd be willing to bet in the preparation for the next xpac and it's abilities, that cutting goring blade has been discussed many times.

You could just not play Scholar then, why does something SCH players enjoyed from ARR to SB have to die because you don't like it? You could've played anything else. Now all of the healers play exactly the same and they're all boring as sin and the thing we liked is gone. Good for us, I guess, that you can now casually enjoy healers at the detriment of SCH mains losing what they enjoyed?

[Striker44]

You could just not play Scholar then, why does something SCH players enjoyed from ARR to SB have to die because you don't like it? You could've played anything else. Now all of the healers play exactly the same and they're all boring as sin and the thing we liked is gone. Good for us, I guess, that you can now casually enjoy healers at the detriment of SCH mains losing what they enjoyed?

That's the amazing thing about opinions - everyone can have their own. Me? I LOVE the current SCH. It's become my main healer. Why does something other people have enjoyed playing for the past several xpacs have to change back just to suit you? You can play a different class, right? And all the healers play VERY different imo. There's a reason I mainly play SCH, occasionally play WHM, and almost never touch AST or SGE. They all play differently, and I enjoy them to different degrees as a result.

[Nizzi]

That's the amazing thing about opinions - everyone can have their own. Me? I LOVE the current SCH. It's become my main healer. Why does something other people have enjoyed playing for the past several xpacs have to change back just to suit you? You can play a different class, right? And all the healers play VERY different imo. There's a reason I mainly play SCH, occasionally play WHM, and almost never touch AST or SGE. They all play differently, and I enjoy them to different degrees as a result.

Okay where's the DoT pet healer in this game then? I'll just swap to that- oh wait! It's not in the game anymore!

Also lmao yeah they totally play differently dude! It feels so different to spam Dosis as opposed to spamming Broil! Hitting Energy Drain 3 times a minute really is enough to make it feel fantastically different! WHOAH THE ANIMATION IS DIFFERENT TOTALLY DIFFERENT EXPERIENCE :O
And it sure doesn't seem to matter to you that people lost what they liked, so I'll feel exactly the same way when you lose what you enjoy.

[Renalt]

Okay where's the DoT pet healer in this game then? I'll just swap to that- oh wait! It's not in the game anymore!

Also lmao yeah they totally play differently dude! It feels so different to spam Dosis as opposed to spamming Broil! Hitting Energy Drain 3 times a minute really is enough to make it feel fantastically different! WHOAH THE ANIMATION IS DIFFERENT TOTALLY DIFFERENT EXPERIENCE :O
And it sure doesn't seem to matter to you that people lost what they liked, so I'll feel exactly the same way when you lose what you enjoy.

You forget...when us Scholars touch grass...people die. That's still neat.

[Silver-Strider]

It was dying because players killed it it off.

Holy's existence made "not DPSing=Bad". Shadowflare and its slow effect made "Not DPSing=Bad".
Spamming Heals was cost ineffective because healing spells cost more than DPS spells and when you ran out of MP, you were labelled bad for spamming heals.
Your best method of healing back in ARR as a WHM was good Regen uptime and spamming heals on top of a Regen when a Stoneskin would suffice was wasteful.

Player mentality played a part in the DPS mindset but there were several very clear factors alongside that to support that mentality.

Why try to support it? Because again, the current trajectory is unsustainable. Let's give you your way - they add healer DPS abilities. How many expansions can we go of them doing this before they're indistinguishable from DPS classes except for healing cooldowns instead of damage cooldowns?

This is the problem with your argument. You assume people only want DPS spells. We don't. We want engagement. We want our Toolkits to be well thought out so that everything actually matters instead of having a toolkit of oversaturated crap that even if you ignored half of it, you would still end up overhealing. What I want isn't just more DPS spells. What I want is for Healer Gameplay Loops to involve a healthy coupling of DPS and Healing to support one another, which SE has already started on a path towards with skills like Macrocosmos, Pneuma and the Lily System but obviously it's too few for my liking

I posted this elsewhere but this is what I've been musing on for SCH

GCD healing:
As already stated, Addlo could be given a damage reflection element to it. It wouldn't build up the Fairy Gauge and is merely a means of refunding the DPS lost from missing a Broil cast but with the added benefit of Broil granting Fairy Gauge, would that be enough? You're still healing the target so it's not as though you're losing Healing or DPS but it is limiting the Fairy Gauge from building so how to rectify that is still something I have to work on. I don't want to pull a Toxicon when Addlo breaks but making Ruin 2 turn into Ruination that matches the potency of Broil but offers 10 gauge instead of 5 when Addlo breaks is an option I've been considering.

Succor could be used for both healing and to refresh/extend SCH's DoTs. Since DoTs do help to build the gauge, being able to refreshing them wouldn't have the same problems as Addlo does and since Healer DoTs only cost 400 MP now, the true cost of the ability comes down to 200 mp as you save 800 from not having to recast Bio and Miasma.

Physick I am at a loss. Upgrading it to Addlo at level 30 is an obvious solution but then there's also the option of just making every healer's Cure 1 equivalent skill have an Esuna effect added to them. You remove 1 skill either way so they both work.

DPS:
Broil and Ruin 2 now offer 5 Fairy Gauge. I'm not 100% on the Ruination thing for Ruin 2 but that's still an option.
Miasma returns and stacks with Bio with both having a 50% proc to grant 5 gauge per tic.
Shadowflare returns as an oGCD DoT that lasts 15s on a 60s CD but instead of a Slow effect, it grants the Protraction effect to any ally that enters the Dome for 10s. This way, it can remain useful for all content since most bosses are immune to the Slow effect and it would normally be centered on the Tank since that's where the enemies generally are so that they can still receive the benefits of Protraction.
Art of War gains the effect of spreading DoTs but to keep the Fairy Gauge from overcapping, only the initial target of the DoTs count towards the Gauge generation.
Bane is added as a 15s DoT on a 60s CD that doesn't build Fairy Gauge but turns the ability into Fester. Using Fester causes Bane's DoT to expire but reduces the damage the Target does by 5% for the remaining duration of Bane's DoT timer upon use.

Aetherflow: I am honestly completely stumped here.
Indom is in contention with Fey Blessing and Succor now so would we really need it? Either Indom or Blessing would need to go but I'm more invested in keeping Blessing than Indom since otherwise it becomes harder to balance the Fairy Gauge unless I add a new Fairy Ability, which defeats the purpose of reducing the over abundance of oGCD healing tools.
The can of worms that is Energy Drain is also something that I can't really think of what to do with. SCH should have plenty of DPS tools now that it wouldn't really need it and if we're reducing oGCD healing tools, we might need to use more Aetherflow abilities more often.
Sacred Soil, Excog and Lustrate are fine as is.

Fairies:
Eos
Whispering Dawn now lasts for 15s with a cure potency of 120. 60s CD remains unchanged.
Fey Blessing CD reduced to 30s
Fey Illumination now provides a 15% Healing buff with 8% mitigation on a 60s CD
Selene
Whispering Dawn now lasts for 24s with a cure potency of 75. 60s CD remains unchanged.
Fey Blessing CD reduced to 30s. Provides a 380 potency Shield instead of a heal.
Fey Covenant provides a 15% mitigation effect with a 8% Healing Buff on a 60s CD.

Fairy Gauge:
Starts off at 100 upon entering an instance.
Whispering Dawn, Fey Blessing and Fey Covenant/Illumination cost 25 gauge.
Aetherpact costs 50 gauge and summons your unused fairy to the target to provide healing for 15s. This way you can use your other fairy skills without needing to worry about the tether turning off.
Seraph costs 50 gauge but Angel's Whisper, Consolation and Seraph Illumination can be cast without cost.

Misc:
Dissipation no longer dispels your fairy nor grants Aetherflow but instead allows the use of 1 fairy ability with no cost.
Alternatively, Dissipation and Recitation could be reworked to allow 1 free Aetherflow or Fairy ability usage with 2 charges, Recitation just allowing the skill to Crit over Dissipation.
Expendant is also something I hesitate to touch since it's still useful, even after the nerf but with the buff to Covenant/Illumination, do we need it?

I added 3 DPS skill in total but those 3 spells allow me to build a gameplay loop between DPSing and Healing that should feel more engaging than Broil Spam into Energy Drain.

[IDontPetLalas]

That's the amazing thing about opinions - everyone can have their own. Me? I LOVE the current SCH. It's become my main healer. Why does something other people have enjoyed playing for the past several xpacs have to change back just to suit you? You can play a different class, right? And all the healers play VERY different imo. There's a reason I mainly play SCH, occasionally play WHM, and almost never touch AST or SGE. They all play differently, and I enjoy them to different degrees as a result.

see this is interesting. i don't see big differences in the current healers in pve. sure when you first touch them they appear very different, but if you're familiar with sch, then i would expect that picking up sge is fairly easy - aside from all the blue buttons and the skill names - whomever is in charge of ui, what were you thinking?

aside someone else mentioned, we had that decision to split into pure and barrier healers - that should have really impacted healer playstyles- but has anyone really noticed a dramatic impact? i don't think so. now if you look at pvp- there the healers do play very differently and it is really fun to switch between them and feel that you can make a difference accordingly.

[Atma]

You could just not play Scholar then, why does something SCH players enjoyed from ARR to SB have to die because you don't like it? You could've played anything else. Now all of the healers play exactly the same and they're all boring as sin and the thing we liked is gone. Good for us, I guess, that you can now casually enjoy healers at the detriment of SCH mains losing what they enjoyed?

The death of SCH had nothing to do with me or my wishes? I never actively advocated for that, certainly at least not to my recollection. I just stopped playing it. If I had to guess it got reworked because so did a lot of other people. And revised SCH is presently my favorite healing class so I mean, dunno what to tell you. It brought me back to healing. The removal of dot management and Expedient seeming like the most interesting of the 90 abilities caused me to pick it up again, there's nothing else like it in the game and people love you for it in the final boss of Aglaia during orbs.

[Atma]

We want engagement. We want our Toolkits to be well thought out so that everything actually matters instead of having a toolkit of oversaturated crap that even if you ignored half of it, you would still end up overhealing. What I want isn't just more DPS spells. What I want is for Healer Gameplay Loops to involve a healthy coupling of DPS and Healing to support one another, which SE has already started on a path towards with skills like Macrocosmos, Pneuma and the Lily System but obviously it's too few for my liking.

I want engagement as well, and I did earlier on state that I thought that the Lily system and Afflatus Misery were examples of the types of DPS abilities I could support, things driven off of healing. Again, I simply think asking for DPS spells is capitulation that will lead to years more of the problem going unaddressed, I don't think they'll do it anyway (past comments about abilities being culled, not added, being the present normal), and yes - my past engagement with elements of the healer community and what I shall call, for lack of better terms, "DPS first healing second" mindsets have led me to become very jaded on this topic. There is, right now, a 180+ page thread about this topic that's pretty much arguing with a strawman of what was actually said.

So, I am inherently wary and suspicious of anyone advocating to add more DPS because my experiences with it have been unpleasant. I consider even the concept of talking about DPS uptime, and "this ability is DPS neutral", etc as a healer to be anathema. I am not necessarily opposed to the idea of healers throwing DPS during gaps in healing, but the mere notion of these being active considerations serves to me as a horrifying illustration of how far this role has strayed and how much further it could go. Some of it's the design (honestly probably most of it) but some of the design is informed by player attitudes and mindsets.

As for your suggestion list etc, I know it wasn't written with myself or this conversation in mind. For the substance, I'll be completely forthcoming - you lost me at "add back Miasma" and you especially lost me at "make bane yet another dot on top of that." I've made my opinions on multi-dotting relatively clear. I most assuredly, 100%, am not playing a healer to play a miniature version of an affliction warlock, absolutely not. The class concept you have presented is something I wouldn't touch with a 11 foot pole. Again, it's nothing personal or intended as a slight against you in any way, just can't stress enough how much the idea of ever managing multiple dots again chafes at me the wrong way.

[Nizzi]

The death of SCH had nothing to do with me or my wishes? I never actively advocated for that, certainly at least not to my recollection. I just stopped playing it. If I had to guess it got reworked because so did a lot of other people. And revised SCH is presently my favorite healing class so I mean, dunno what to tell you. It brought me back to healing. The removal of dot management and Expedient seeming like the most interesting of the 90 abilities caused me to pick it up again, there's nothing else like it in the game and people love you for it in the final boss of Aglaia during orbs.

You would guess wrong! Yoshida explicitly said they did it because "SCHs DPS too much leaving the WHM to heal" when the reality was the opposite. And SCH is still the second least popular healer, imagine that. If you enjoy 1 button spam so much, you can still enjoy that and ignore the DoTs. Everyone wins!
Also it's weird that SCH is somehow your favorite healer when it has Energy Drain and is the only healer left that doesn't actually want to heal, but I'm sure you have some take like "delete Energy Drain" so whatever.