Latest Official Developer Statements About Healer DPS?

[Aravell]

Yeah, right. From what I have seen many healers in ultimate PFs are barse-brains and do the least amount of healing needed. If party is "griefing" them they kick offenders or leave, and since they are the most demanded role they are kings.

The only way to give healers DPS rotation is by moving ALL healing to oGCDs so it won't affect damage, otherwise the toxicity in PFs will skyrocket. In other words, mirroring tank design.

Have you considered that catering the role more towards the preferred playstyle of these "barse-brained" people would only serve to increase the amount of those types of people? I remember back in the earlier expansions where people rightfully called out healers who blamed the people that died from damage.

If we want healers that can prioritise the duties of their role over their funny log numbers, it needs to be harder to do damage, not easier. And if it ends up chasing away the people who care more about numbers than a smooth clear? Well, can't say I would miss them.

Of course, if someone wants to barse, they should shut up and join a barsing PF, instead.

I of course hate when someone joins a non-logging PF to boost their logs because they usually will wipe the party for a single GCD. But I also can't really blame them for doing that, because most log parties nowadays require people to have 80+ or something, have to get that somewhere. It's still a rude thing to do, but I can also understand why they do it.

[ForteNightshade]

I mean… isn’t that what ShB pruning and EW simplification had done? Moving and adding a lot recovery potency to oGCD/DPS neutral options so that you don’t need to lose DPS?

Where does that take us now if it’s not pairing us with those very same ‘barse minded’ healers you see?

This correlation is what far too many people fail to realize. Speaking for myself, I optimize healing to the point of trying to zero GCD PF not for a parse but because it's legitimately the only way I find the role fun. When I figured out how to slide cast through Acts 1 and 2 of P4S without needing anything but Sprint and Phlegma, it was oddly exhilarating if only because I needed to be precise spots and do very quick movement for it all to work. In retrospect, it's sad that was the most fun aspect of playing a healer in that fight... not the actual healing. Granted, getting Act 4 down to where I wasn't touching a GCD was also fun.

Point being, if parsing magically disappeared tomorrow, I'd still prefer playing healers like that for the most part because otherwise the role is incredibly boring. Give me a genuine realize to use my healing GCDs and I'll drop the Dosis casts without much thought. Trying to salvage a near wipe can also be exhilarating but it's often not worth the effort.

[Somnolence]

Have you considered that catering the role more towards the preferred playstyle of these "barse-brained" people would only serve to increase the amount of those types of people? I remember back in the earlier expansions where people rightfully called out healers who blamed the people that died from damage.

If we want healers that can prioritise the duties of their role over their funny log numbers, it needs to be harder to do damage, not easier. And if it ends up chasing away the people who care more about numbers than a smooth clear? Well, can't say I would miss them.

And how does this help with healer shortage? Remember, we need 1/4 of PF population to use that role.

Only two ways:

* Encourage casual healer players to do harder content
* Encourage DPS players to switch to healing

For the latter its unavoidable that most of the players that were DPS mains but switched to healing "due to necessity/help friend static" are not interested in healing challenge, therefore they will inherently want to maximize DPS. To cater to such players improving healer DPS options is necessary to keep them engaged.

For the first option the problem is that casual healing is very different from endgame raid healing.

[Somnolence]

I mean… isn’t that what ShB pruning and EW simplification had done? Moving and adding a lot recovery potency to oGCD/DPS neutral options so that you don’t need to lose DPS?

Where does that take us now if it’s not pairing us with those very same ‘barse minded’ healers you see?

All existing oGCD options are timed/resource based. There is no spammable oGCD heals. This means that if the party is taking enough damage replacing glare with GDC heal becomes unavoidable. This is big healer design flaw that must be addressed before healer DPS rotation can be implemented.

[Aravell]

And how does this help with healer shortage? Remember, we need 1/4 of PF population to use that role.

The healer shortage would be fixed by restoring the healer role to a state that is enjoyed by the old healing veterans once again. You do not fix the healer shortage by endlessly catering to DPS players and hoping that they'll make the switch permanently. By gutting the healer playstyle into a form enjoyable by people that don't even want to heal in the first place, you are not increasing the healer population, you are simply replacing the existing healer population with a bunch of DPS players that don't have the proper mindset to play a healer, which will lead to more wipes and frustration due to their lack of recovery skills.

You can already clearly see this happening if you PF a lot, you see people dying because SGEs and SCHs refuse to mitigate, you see people dying to damage because WHM players say they don't have lilies, you see people dying to damage because AST players use Earthly Star purely for damage and they decide to only use an unprocced Horoscope to heal. I'd rather see the healer role have a lower population of competent players than watch parties wipe because my cohealer is incompetent and only wants to spam Glare.

[Supersnow845]

All existing oGCD options are timed/resource based. There is no spammable oGCD heals. This means that if the party is taking enough damage replacing glare with GDC heal becomes unavoidable. This is big healer design flaw that must be addressed before healer DPS rotation can be implemented.

Spammable oGCD healing would send the skill ceiling hurtling through the floor so quickly it could sink a ship

[Somnolence]

The healer shortage would be fixed by restoring the healer role to a state that is enjoyed by the old healing veterans once again.

Given many healer threads I do not see any consensus on that, since clearly there are people that play healers for different reasons and prefer different playstyles.
Even splitting current 4 healers into 2 playstyles would not be possible as it would result in balance whine.

And encounter design will never be changed.

[Somnolence]

Spammable oGCD healing would send the skill ceiling hurtling through the floor so quickly it could sink a ship

Skill ceiling would be purely about dps then, like for tanks where mitigation and aggro management is braindead.

[Eastwall]

The healer shortage would be fixed by restoring the healer role to a state that is enjoyed by the old healing veterans once again. You do not fix the healer shortage by endlessly catering to DPS players and hoping that they'll make the switch permanently. By gutting the healer playstyle into a form enjoyable by people that don't even want to heal in the first place, you are not increasing the healer population, you are simply replacing the existing healer population with a bunch of DPS players that don't have the proper mindset to play a healer, which will lead to more wipes and frustration due to their lack of recovery skills.

You can already clearly see this happening if you PF a lot, you see people dying because SGEs and SCHs refuse to mitigate, you see people dying to damage because WHM players say they don't have lilies, you see people dying to damage because AST players use Earthly Star purely for damage and they decide to only use an unprocced Horoscope to heal. I'd rather see the healer role have a lower population of competent players than watch parties wipe because my cohealer is incompetent and only wants to spam Glare.

Heal with unprocced horoscope? Lol. Makes me feel better about my grey tea Clear because l decided to heal and do mechanic So We don't wipe

[Aravell]

Given many healer threads I do not see any consensus on that, since clearly there are people that play healers for different reasons and prefer different playstyles.
Even splitting current 4 healers into 2 playstyles would not be possible as it would result in balance whine.

And encounter design will never be changed.

You say differing playstyles would not work and give no reason aside from "but balance".
You say nothing but the current playstyle taken to the extreme would work and give no reason other than "the healer role needs DPS players to pad it out".

First of all, balance is not my concern. I'm on the forums to give feedback on the type of healer playstyle I would like and that I hate the current healer playstyle, that's it, balance is not my job to figure out, the dev team can figure that out themselves.

Second of all, the current playstyle isn't the only one that can work because the healer role has had a very different playstyle before ShB that puts a lot more emphasis on GCD healing. The current playstyle only benefits people who don't want to actually play a healer.

You also have not addressed the fact that the current playstyle pushing more "barse-brained" players into the role, which is resulting in more frustration and wipes in PF than before when the people playing healers were more interested in recovery and clearing. Plus, you think it's a good idea to cater even more to these people by pushing the current playstyle to the extreme and flood the role with people who only care about numbers and not focus on recovery (recovery being the only reason the role exists in the first place), this is a good idea.....why? You think more frustration and toxicity in the PF is a good thing as long as the green slots get filled?

Heal with unprocced horoscope? Lol. Makes me feel better about my grey tea Clear because l decided to heal and do mechanic So We don't wipe

Yes, I was trying to get a week 4 clear for my alt in Abyssos and ran into an AST that told me I wasn't healing enough for NA1 in P8S P2, my friend told me that they only used an unprocced Horoscope and Macrocosmos for the entire mechanic.

These are the types of healers that are getting more numerous by the day because a lot of old healer veterans have finally started leaving the role after Asphodelos.