Has anyone quit healing?

[ty_taurus]

At the end of the day - and why I asked Ty why this mattered so much to him - it doesn't exactly matter. All it means is the "Green DPS" crowd cannot appeal to tradition or history for their arguments. They can (and rationally should) appeal to the game as it is today. But attempting to preempt the discussion with a sort of "I was hear first" argument doesn't work when actual facts negate it.

I mean, the first thing I posted that started the spiral was not meant to be an appeal to tradition. All I said was what seemed to be how the train of thought regarding healer DPS changed from how it started to where we are now--that I think the design team is traumatized by the schism created by old Cleric Stance. If the history isn't important as you say, then why bother trying to correct it anyway regardless of who's right or who's wrong?

That said, the reason why I do think it's important to recognize that healer DPS gameplay was a part of ARR and HW is because the way fights are paced is relatively the same. There are different mechanics now, and things are generally less quirky or weird, but the pacing of outgoing damage, mechanics, and break periods between hasn't really changed. It doesn't matter what a community of fresh-faced players largely assumed would be the way to play the role due to former experience with other 2000s-early 2010s MMOs like WoW and FFXI. That had no bearing on the design and development of ARR fights and job design.

And the thing is, while I do want to see healer DPS made engaging and given the respect it deserves like every other job, that doesn't mean I don't like the idea of non-attacking or minimally attacking healers as long as they're fun. I loved HW and SB AST for example. I didn't mind that your rotation was just Malefic and Combust because the card system made up for it. As has been pointed out previously, this doesn't exactly resolve the issues of AST's very dull and slow solo experience from that era regardless of its card system. It would be nice if AST was a job that wasn't a self-inflicted punishment in solo Deep Dungeons as well. But regardless, my point is a job doesn't need specifically DPS to be fun. It just needs a solid gameplay loop that is always applicable regardless of whether or not healing is needed.

DPS is the most straightforward and easiest to balance solution for this but there are no shortage of posts I've made on the forums about wanting a healer whos DPS contributions are disguised as support. Would you as someone who gains no pleasure from attacking enemies not appreciate a healer who sets up healing and buffs for future use while passively generating damage that other players activate for you?