Quote Originally Posted by Jojoya View Post
They've told us many times that they don't include healer DPS when setting boss HP values. If your party needs the healer DPS to get the kill instead of just speeding up the kill, something else is going wrong.

That aside, they do recommend that healers DPS when they can squeeze it in between heals. The better your party plays, the more opportunities the healer will have to DPS. The worse it plays, the more the healer will need to heal instead of DPS.

I think that's where they run into problems with the role design. The skill range between groups doing content is going to vary. Do they design healers around the groups that are less skilled and taking more damage so more healing is required or do they design around the more skilled groups where less healling is required? They could add more DPS abilities but how to make those abilities interesting to those playing with the skilled groups but non-penalizing when healers can't stick to a DPS rotation because they're with a group that is less skilled?
Well, no. The part where they said they don't include healer DPS when setting boss HP values? That was already proven false when the top parsers who play perfectly in the encounter still cannot beat the boss before enrage because there's still a big HP gap that can only be met with healer DPS, regardless of how much more they try to optimize. The gap gets closed with increased gear ilvl, but because it originally exists without the increased ilvls, it means healer DPS is essential to the clear at min ILVL, regardless of party skill level. The only difference is the amount of healer DPS required varies more significantly the worse the party is. Even if the healer heals more because of less skilled players, every party member still have to meet the DPS check to beat enrage. In other words, it doesn't matter if the healer needs to heal more, because after a certain point, healing cannot contribute any more than delaying enrage (hard skill cap), which sets a certain level of expectation for a healer's gameplay to go.

The problem they have with role design is that there will be varying skill levels of players, but because the highest level of skill requires healer DPS, that means even if gear ilvl increases and it becomes easier to meet the DPS & healing requirements, the amount of time less skilled healers can find time to DPS only increases further because it becomes easier to heal - not shorten. Therefore... having more time to DPS only makes healers more visibly bored when they press the same 2 buttons over and over again. If they want to make it easier for less skilled groups, then they shouldn't be including healer DPS into the fight at all -- but that would just make the encounter absurdly more easier for players who already have high DPS uptime as a healer. *shrug*