Paired Threads: What would it take to make Heaker kits "complex/interesting"?

[Renathras]

No, no one suggested there shouldn't be downtime with nothing to heal. Downtime is a necessary component to making fights flexible and giving brevity to healers or else their MP bottoms out ASAP.

Actually, quite a few people in the survey results are making this argument - that healing should be continuous through the encounters with more unavoidable damage and more "mini-spot-tankbusters" striking non-tank party members. Quite a few people in the survey seem to want more healing requirements, and more consistent healing requirements, filling that "downtime" with healing.

Right now, we get LARGE spikes (often several in quick succession) of healing, then nothing for 30-60 seconds. The result is we use several oGCDs to deal with the spikes that come back to back, then a slow burn long solution (HoT ticks) so that everyone's restored by the next wave. This further results in us having the 111211111 rotation for 80% of the encounter time.

While the universally desired solution here on this forum is to fill that downtime with damage, the generally held solution per the survey respondents seems to be they want more sustained, unavoidable damage during that intervening time so they have reason to fill that time with GCD heals instead.

The problem is that downtime is too prevalent -- to the point where you can go upwards to over 80% or 90% casting your GCD damage skill.

Agreed.

In normal content,

The prevailing view seems to be that NORMAL content shouldn't really be touched, or if it should, it should be more healing, not more damage dealing. A lot of people seem to be complaining the issue is Tanks are too sustain heavy (especially WAR - you didn't mention which Tank you took, just curious, was it WAR?), and Tank sustain needs to be brought down.

especially when you compare healing to ARR dungeons where you definitely did need a healer to clear the fight.

It's so weird when I do a Leveling Roulette and get an ARR dungeon because I'm using GCD heals. It's almost like if we had no oGCD heals, healing would be more engaging...

And the problem with increasing the amount of healing was that... this was already suggested, and it backfired.

The respondents to the survey talk A LOT about this, too. The prevailing view is that the more healing was A GREAT IDEA, and THEY LIKED IT.

The problem, almost universally, is people saying that Healers had to rely on Tanks and DPSers to use mitigation, and if they didn't, it made the encounters murder on the Healers, who were also blamed for wipes. So the universal solution proposed is to keep the Abyssos damage, but shift most or all party mitigation tools to the Healers exclusively so the Healers are in full command of the damage profiles of the encounters. This seems to be by FAR the desired change to encounter design post-Abyssos.

In fact, it also dovetails with a LOT of Healers wanting more non-damage/non-healing support tools, and considering mitigation to be a some of what they want.

I haven't seen a single response yet saying they want to revert to pre-Abyssos levels of healing and get more damage buttons. Even the people wanting more damage buttons haven't been saying that. It seems the Abyssos healing requirement was actually a hit overall.

The universal opinion about MSQ is to make it accessible. Accessibility does not directly make one role feel unneeded... or only to be there "as an emergency". That's pretty much the problem with healers right now in normal content.

The problem I have with this argument is it's true of every role. You can do most dungeons with 1 Healer + 3 DPS. Or 1 Tank + 3 DPS. Or 2 Tanks + 2 Healers. Or 4 Healers. WAR can solo pretty much every modern level cap dungeon. It's not Healers aren't needed in normal content, it's that literally ANY role isn't needed if you have either a Tank or a Healer. DPS are the most superfluous, as you don't actually need them at all. DPS do nothing but speed up the time to clear the dungeon, but they aren't required. On the other hand, having 4 DPS might be difficult to clear encounters unless you have a RDM/SMN/DNC for healing the party and a RDM/SMN for reviving people. 4 Healers could clear all modern dungeons doing single pulls. Solo Tanks can do the same thing.

This suggests it's actually DPSers that are unnecessary in modern content, though you could clear with 4 DPSers if you had the right mix of healing and revival tools.

You offering me the chance to walk it back is truly touching. I am deeply humbled that you would offer me such charity out of the goodness of your heart. Honestly, I am undeserving of such grace.

Yeah, I thought so.

Three times. Now I'm just going to hang that over your head from now on. Good job, friend.
Naaah, I'm just going to ignore it for the most part, since it's par for the course. But it proves what I said once before: That you cannot admit when you're wrong.

At least we both know you realize you were wrong, you just can't actually bring yourself to admit it due to immaturity or...something. (If you DIDN'T realize it, you'd have contested the point, but even you know there's no grounds for you to defend yourself on the claim.)

You did exactly what I said you would.

I wished I was wrong about that...oh well.