Latest Official Developer Statements About Healer DPS?

[Sebazy]

You "proved" a point not contested - that Cleric was changed then - and you proved a point I've long said despite your typical posse here harping on me for it - that Cleric was a bad ability not good game design (my typical wording is "the single most rose tinted goggles ability in all of MMO history" or similar).

Uhuh

Didn't expect this big a change to cleric, let alone switching our DPS abilities over to MND (Finally omg), colour me impressed.

Gonna assume that healer DPS will take a blanket hit in the process of switching over to MND, but making Cleric an optional ability for a bit more oomph on openers and such is a nice call I think.

It's amusing that my group knows as well as I do that this change is going to suit me to an absolute T, I'll get to be cautious and conservative but also keep dots up np <3

Sorry, what were you saying again?

I've been healing in mmos since 1999 (Or even longer if you count anatomy in UO!) and I honestly can't think of another mmo that is so deathly afraid of healer DPS as this. That coupled with what I suspect is a lack of coordination and communication amongst the various content teams handling things. PvP being such a miasma of additional changes and abilities is a prime example of this.

My co healer is going to hate me for this, but personally I think EQ and WoW had healers (on healer specs of course) pegged at about the right level relative to to their DPS brethren, I was linking videos guides here in the early days of 3.0 on how to do 1000+ sustained dps as a SCH in the dungeons which was very competitive with highly competent DPS players which is too much. On the flip side healer single target dps is more in the right sort of territory.

IMO SE need to be a little more shameless and look afield at other mmos that have done a good job of not only enabling healers to do more than just heal, but in some cases actively embracing it. WoW is obviously the biggest yardstick, but for all it's faults I'd say Warhammer Online is a good one to look at with several of the healing classes actively having to get involved in combat rather than merely staring at health bars and working out windows for cleric stance. AST was both a mistake and a missed opportunity imo.

Oh and yes, cleric stance should go, healer DPS abilities should be based off MND and IMO damage should be tuned somewhat downwards in the case of aoe potential. Yes it's a very fair argument to say that it removes some of the skill element from healing, but it'll open up and streamline the job for the masses. Lets be honest now, those that are doing the best numbers with cleric stance as it is will likely still be doing the best numbers with it gone. Removing it would go a long way towards narrowing the gulf in between. Isn't that one of the main aims of 4.0?

Future Seb checking in.

Personally I think Yoshi's team has been hugely uninventive with healing as a whole, cleric stance is just the most immediately obvious example to anyone.

Cleric Stance was a lousy horrible ability taken in isolation. It was a crutch, a bandaid and shouldn't have ever have needed to have existed. I've always been perfectly clear and open with that view.

However there's also no denying that it was enjoyable to work around in it's own twisted way. It was like healer Parkour, 'pointlessly taking risks' that would potentially leave you incapacitated on the floor if you got it wrong. But when you got it right, it was oh so glorious even though it really shouldn't have been.