Has anyone quit healing?

[Renathras]

...

BEFORE READING THE HIDDEN BLOCK BELOW:

Note that if you had just said "OHHHH, I see. You aren't saying what I thought you were. You're saying what I believe is true as well. Cool, we're on the same page. Now we can move the discussion forward because we're in agreement - ARR was designed for Healers to be Healers, but with an option/freedom to DPS if the situation allows for it, but not a requirement to do so.", my reaction would be entirely conciliatory. If you went on to say, "While the game has changed, I understand some players from that era understandably feel 'grandfathered in' to the game they signed on to play back then, and it does make sense to, in at least some ways, ensure that the game allows for them in some way.", I'd be (figuratively) kissing you.

Instead, you chose to go the route of "You're wrong, you need to admit and accept you're wrong, and what you're wrong about, is that everything you said...<mumbles>isactuallytrueandIagreewithitbutI'mgoingtosayyou'rewronganywayandclaimyourpointwasmypointtheentiretime</mumbles>"

Maybe you don't feel that's what you did...but that's what you did. You hopped into a conversation in progress, brought up the CNJ questline, expected everyone to shift to talking about the topic in your terms, didn't realize you misunderstood them, and then insisted they were wrong while saying (as if it was your argument the entire time) the same thing they'd been saying the entire time.

And yes, you misunderstood me when you entered into the conversation - and still do:

Why do you think I asked you to tell me what you think I'm arguing/saying? Because it was clear to me that you didn't get what I was saying - and by this post above, you still don't. If you did, you wouldn't have restated my own premise while saying I'm wrong. You clearly don't think I hold the same premise despite me having said so, even as a bullet point, pages ago.

Oh, that explains why you're so wrong.

Translation: "Oh, I see, Ren. You're talking about something different and I misunderstood you. You're actually right about what you're saying. But I don't want to admit it, so I'm going to say you misunderstood me, even though you pointed out several times that I was talking about a different thing than you, even though you asked me to tell you what I (Ty) thought you (Ren) were saying since it seemed clear to you I was misunderstanding you, and even though you were right about what you said - I'm going to say you're wrong anyway. Not just 'wrong', but 'so wrong', to save face and try to make you look weaker/bad so you'll cow down deflated."

And you wonder why I get frustrated with you.

You completely misinterpreted what I was saying since the beginning. I never said the design team balanced content around healer DPS. ARR didn't have modern enrages, and while it did feature some DPS checks, it was certainly balanced without healer DPS initially.

This is literally what I've been saying for the last three pages. Welcome to the discussion. You can't say I'm wrong when I've been saying literally this same thing you realize is true. The issue here is you were misunderstanding me this whole time. Remember: This discussion branch started with me saying I'd play Healer as long as they weren't made into mere DPSers, someone asking me if they weren't that already, and someone saying they always had been that way. I was contesting that, using the above as my logic for why it was not always that way.

The discussion wasn't just you stating a position (you weren't even the one who initially said it that I was contesting! I was arguing with someone else and you jumped into our ongoing conversation) or people misunderstanding you or not. In effect, you jumped into our existing conversation and misunderstood me. The onus was on you, as the newcomer, to understand the conversation ongoing, not for everyone else to stop the conversation they were having and engage in the one you wanted. While you can contribute to steering an active conversation, you cannot claim ownership of it nor that people not talking about specifically what you were thinking (but obviously not stating clearly) makes them wrong (when they were right on the facts of their argument) because you wanted to talk about something different...

I was talking about the general gameplay loop the design team was crafting--something where healers had the freedom to attack, and would do so at times, and this extra damage would be a bonus, not the standard. That was definitely a part of ARR design.

No, we were talking about the Devs' design intention in ARR and whether they were designing Healers to be "Green DPS" (a term meaning "expected to attack" not "freedom to attack if they want") as part of the encounter design. You're now implicitly saying my position here was correct ("freedom to attack" is not "requirement/expectation/or onus to attack"), so while saying I'm wrong, your on statement is saying I was not.

It's okay though, now that you know why you're wrong

...while you keep saying I'm wrong - almost like you can't admit defeat or let it go - your own statements are literally what I've been saying all this time. Meaning I'm right. You can't reword what I've been saying this whole time and say that makes me wrong. You're literally making the argument I've made this entire time:

1) For that era, Healers were given a handful of damage spells for soloing content but weren't expected to use them in Raids (this was also largely true of most Healers in WoW during that same timeframe, which was Wrath of the Lich King, I believe, where WoW Healers had likewise very skimpy damage rotations; Paladin famously only had 2 DPS buttons, Judgement and Holy Shock, 3 against Undead since you could add Exorcism once every 30 seconds or so)

2) WHM was never designed to play as a DPS Job. We even saw this as late as SB, and really even as far as 6.0 (Lilies not being DPS neutral because the Devs felt that DPS shouldn't be the focus of the Job). In ARR, the only WHM oGCD heal was Benediction once every 6 minutes or so. There was no way you were healing a raid with one cure every 6 minutes. WHM was very much designed from the ground up for GCD healing. Even moreso if you look at 1.0 as its proto-type. 1.0 WHM was...well, I'll let this video speak for itself:

Note that no where in this premise did I say "healers were designed where they had no freedom to DPS if they wanted to.

Note the first phrase I bolded, specifically two words: "expected to".

I didn't say they weren't allowed to.

I didn't say they were only allowed to heal and nothing else.

I didn't say no one very casted any damage spells (and said the opposite on a number of occasions).

My contention has always been they had the freedom to - a freedom which was chiefly used by SCHs from very early on - but not the requirement to.

A position you now are stating while insisting I'm wrong, even though you're saying my argument!

My contention has only ever been the encounters were not designed to require them to.

...which is literally what you're saying now:

ARR didn't have modern enrages, and while it did feature some DPS checks, it was certainly balanced without healer DPS initially. I was talking about the general gameplay loop the design team was crafting--something where healers had the freedom to attack, and would do so at times, and this extra damage would be a bonus, not the standard.

THIS IS LITERALLY MY ARGUMENT AND HAS BEEN THIS ENTIRE TIME.

You cannot present my argument in different words and then say I'm wrong when you're saying the exact same thing now that IS what I've been saying this ENTIRE TIME.

and you can accept that, I think we could move on to a more fair discussion, yeah?

You need to apologize now before we can "move on to a more fair discussion". Because not only have you lied (as I said previously), now you're lying more, and you're saying I'm wrong while simultaneously (now) making the very argument I've made this entire time and acting like that makes you right and me wrong. Incorrigible...

THAT.
SAID:

I also think AST is the right healer to move forward with a healer who disguises their DPS contributions as healing. I've done no shortage of pondering over how exactly to get it just right. I think I have a good core concept, but the details are always finnicky. It's a tough concept to work out on paper without having access to a build to test any ideas in.

This I agree with. I think the trick is removing the RNG, or at least reducing it. Bole and Ewer (SB) could be good cards...but only if they came up when you needed them. If a Tankbuster was coming up and you got Bole, it was useful. But if you got it when no Tankbuster as coming up, you'd generally rather have Balance. I'm not sure how to do this without exploding their hotbar, but imagine an AST with the SB buffs, but they were on a shared CD and you could choose to use any one of them every 20 seconds. This way, AST could be an actual buffer, as it could use buffs based on the situation instead of 4-5 times out of 6 drawing a buff that doesn't fit or isn't needed in the situation. And just like I think HoTs with interesting interactions are good, I think buffs with interesting interactions are good. SB AST's ability to modify buffs on a CD to do things like make them AOE or extend their durations are all really cool ideas that would be nice to see come back as an integral part of their gameplay.

Buffs by their nature need some level of certainty. As much as RNG is AST's aesthetic, RNG is why their buffing game didn't work as much as anything else.

Also, I wasn't trying to lie. I hadn't seen your suggestion of that previously.

I don't know that you were, and I live by several paradigms, one of which is a quote (probably wrongly) attributed to Gandhi:

"Do not assume malice when ignorance is a possible explanation; Humans are far more often stupid than they are evil."

Which...is less contingent on the "stupid" part (personally, I'd prefer being stupid to being evil), but the point of "People often don't intend to do bad things, so don't assume they are". I'm willing to let it go if you'll...just stop doing it.

.

But it's frustrating when you're so desperate to save face you can't just say "OHHH, I see. Yeah, you're right. We agree on that."

We'd be having a far healthier conversation if you could just say that. It doesn't even require you to admit fault! All it requires is for you to not attack me.