Healer role design change?

[Shurrikhan]

I'm not advocating for removing the tools that tanks have, they also want an evolution of their kit and feeling like they're becoming stronger, that's fine.

All good and fully agreed, then. I was just worried by the framing of your Changes (removal of ghost AAs and crit AAs*; addition of on-demands and more tank self-healing) -> Problem (too little to heal) earlier.

*I have no memory of TB crits unless counting individual attacks in a flurry as collectively a TB or if old Raw Intuition was facing the wrong way, and most threads from ARR-HW, too, point out that crit TBs were not a thing. A TB being capable of critting simultaneously with a 'ghost' (no animation) crit AA would have essentially left survival --even from tank stance and stacking defensives as much as possible over a fight-- purely up to luck given their relative power at the time.

Personally, I want more frequent interaction with mitigation tools --both in terms of what's worth defending against and how frequently they'd be available-- rather than simply a scheduling of Defensive A for Tankbuster A, and so on.

Large amounts of self-healing I'm less sold on outside of perhaps WAR and DRK, because I think its being less sensitive to content/timing just puts it at a disadvantage in gameplay value relative to mitigation, though I appreciate it when a given kit is tailored well to it.

TBF, Defiance back in ARR/HW just increased the WAR's Health/Healing received and didn't have the same mitigation as PLD/DRK did so the self healing was just a means of offsetting that lack of mitigation as opposed to now where it's thrown on top of the mitigation.

Aye. Which would have been fine... if it actually gave comparable eHP. Instead, Shield Oath was a net increase of 25% increased eHP and heal-efficiency from both spells and abilities, while Defiance was only a 20% eHP increase and merely up to a 20% healing increase from spells only (no effect on abilities, though at least healing all ability healing in ARR outside of Whispering Dawn was %HP-based, making the matter moot until HW).

Actually that gives me an idea for WAR: imagine every '% mit' CD is instead retooled to a Thrill style HP boosting effect. Yes, this homogenizes them with Thrill, BUT! It un-homogenizes WAR from the other tanks. So where a PLD would put up all these %mit effects, to reduce the damage through martial prowess/defensive skill, taking a 200k TB because they're able to block the brunt of the damage with their shield technique, the WAR aesthetic is 'I can take this 200k TB because I'm so pumped up on adrenaline I'm at 250k max HP'. Basically, a combo of Bear and Blood DK, big lifesteal, big HP pool. 2.0 WAR sucked because it didn't have enough mit, sure, but that's because instead of Sentinel's 40% mit, it had 0% mit from Vengeance. Instead, I'd propose making it 30% (or 50% why not let's go crazy) Max/Current HP boost.

A 25% mitigation buff and a +25% max and current HP buff differ in more than just flavor. They're the difference between something like Rampart and something like The Blackest Night; the first increases the relative efficiency of any HP gained prior and consumed over the buff, while the second simply adds a flat amount of sustain, with both able to regenerate max eHP chipped away over the buff until that buff has ended.

The first is superior past a given balancing point (say, where 100% of HP would otherwise be consumed over the buff's duration), the second superior up until that balancing point.

Giving WAR solely flat sustain (which would scale only with their gear, not with the content) would run the same problem for which WAR was changed, rather than merely duly buffed, back in 2.1: it'd be underpowered until progression point X, and overpowered thereafter.

That might not ultimately be a huge issue, but it's something worth thinking about.