Quote Originally Posted by Renathras View Post
You may not recognize it (somehow?) but it's been true for 20 years, if not longer; as long as the Trinity has existed (which is from AT THE LATEST 2004) it's been true in some form or another. Even before then, before there were clearly defined roles in gaming, there were often setups that had leanings. Baldur's Gate in the 90s, for example, often would have people specialize in healing since it was strictly necessary to have available.

And what do you do when not casting heals? Well, in Baldur's Gate, Clerics and Druids would use Slings. You would...literally be autoattacking, with your autoattack being throwing stones. In Everquest, you'd /meditate (/sit, basically). In WoW you'd basically always be casting a heal - Holy Paladins in Wrath would Beacon one Tank, target the other, then spend the next 10-20 minutes pressing Holy Light, breaking it up occasionally to use Judgement of Light/Wisdom if in 10 mans. In 25 mans, you'd usually have a Prot and Ret Paladin doing both of those for you, and the other Judgement (the one that did a heavy or stun or whatever) was useless.

I think the issue is more you're used to games where Healers aren't all the same (and often where they had customization - in BG, for example, you had the choice of spells to use from your spellbook in your various slots, and in BG2, you had Kits, or basically specs), so you could pick one that was more support and combat focused. In other words...my "4 Healers" idea you constantly attack because you want what it offers, in effect, but you want it for the one Healer you suspect would be the one that wouldn't have the gameplay you wanted.
What are you talking about? Baldur's Gate required healing? Clerics and druids sat around with slings when not healing? Did you even play that series? You can solo the hardest difficulty on any class. ANY. Yes, even the ones that have access to the single Cure Light Wounds you get from plot progression. Clerics and druids had access to incredibly powerful attack and disabling spells too.
Holy Word? Nature's Beauty? Flamestrike? Entangle? Glyph of Warding? Storm of Vengeance? Call Lightning? Insect Swarm? Summon Deva? Iron Skins? Righteous Magic? Hold Person? Command? Prayer? The entire Turn Undead mechanic? I remember memorizing *maybe* one healing spell per spell level. If it had one, and if it was a useful upgrade.

Baldur's Gate attrition healing, that's funny.

There's a theme here though. If you know how to play a game efficiently or skillfully, you notice your outgoing healing goes down. I happen to dislike attrition healing models, because I think they lean too hard into Spamming Healing Is Good. IMO it's okay for games to tacitly acknowledge that healing requirements vary widely with player skill levels by giving people something to do when they've finished healing for the moment. Whence comes this intense requirement that the reward MUST be spamming Glare? No additions, anything more is too much!

There's a rich history of RPG clerics with a whole lot of strong, fun spells you just glossed over in favor of "lol slings", because that's what clerics do at low levels. And what do you know, FFXIV healers play like level 2 clerics too! Your "4 healers" idea leaves one of them playing a lot like a level 2 cleric, because....reasons. Hey, you know what's weird? In those games where you could customize classes, none of them stopped their leveling progression early on just because some players "would like being SiMpLe"

Attrition healing is part and parcel of the history of World of Warcraft, not "MMO history". I've never played an MMO where I didn't spend around half my time buffing, attacking, throwing out debuffs, etc. And that's quite fun! When the downtime activity is actually varied, and not sleeping on the Glare key, because healers that frankly aren't skilled enough to handle it are mad at any reminder they're not that good at healing.