SE Why are you so bad at making content fun for healers?

[Chasingstars]

Because no content can actually fix healers because their gameplay isn't changed. Healers just frankly need a rework and be redesigned as a dps that can heal.

[YovelaLindswood]

Because no content can actually fix healers because their gameplay isn't changed. Healers just frankly need a rework and be redesigned as a dps that can heal.

Honestly yeah. Give an interesting simplified dps rotation and condense the healing toolkit. Healing feels like crap anyway since everything is either designed to give you a generous window to heal up after raidwide damage that brought you to 10% or just one shots you. Since theres no recovery healing only raising most of the toolkit just feels bad. Pressing two aoe heals between mechanics and pressing one condensed stronger heal are the exact same gameplay imo.

[Carighan]

Because no content can actually fix healers because their gameplay isn't changed. Healers just frankly need a rework and be redesigned as a dps that can heal.

Interesting, I'd say the opposite. You can't fix healers on a class design level, you need the game around them to change. Fights need to actively desire active (GCD-based, spammed) healing for healers to feel relevant. Their design might also need some changes, but comparatively speaking this is the smaller (and minor) problem. The big thing is that the central tenant of their role ("heal") does not exist in the game, it's all just a sideshow. I get what you're saying, "Embrace this", but we have too many DPS already, adding 4 more intentionally-designed ones on top... would not really work well.

[YovelaLindswood]

Interesting, I'd say the opposite. You can't fix healers on a class design level, you need the game around them to change. Fights need to actively desire active (GCD-based, spammed) healing for healers to feel relevant. Their design might also need some changes, but comparatively speaking this is the smaller (and minor) problem. The big thing is that the central tenant of their role ("heal") does not exist in the game, it's all just a sideshow. I get what you're saying, "Embrace this", but we have too many DPS already, adding 4 more intentionally-designed ones on top... would not really work well.

The problem is you need something to engage you at all levels of content. Like one of the biggest complaints about the healer strike is not necessarily that we don't have enough healing but there's nothing to do. The reason that almost ever other mmo out on the market has a dps rotation on healers is so you can provide a baseline engagement level of all content which only goes up as the healing requirements change. In wow most tanks are largely self sufficient and need very little input from the healer but healers have a great time since we all have an engaging rotation for when we don't need to heal. The balance of maximizing damage and ensuring the team gets the required healing to clear the content is what makes wow healing so fun. In GW2 your healing is baked into your damage toolkit. Like my burn applicators and strikes on my scourge almost all apply barrier too. My rotation pulses out pad healing consistently. Heck my big defensive cooldowns apply burns or convert buffs to debuffs on the target. Also classes like guardian where your weapons do little for healing and you just have a strong rotation of damage and open your tomes to spend your pages(gauge) on either offensive, defensive, healing, or utility actions. The problem with healers is the mental downtime you have spamming one for 99% of all fights. Even ultimates don't change the formula and once you get the dance down its all just following a mit plan that really never changes.

[Carighan]

I think I'm showing my age there, because I am used to MMORPG healers sitting down staring at their spell book when not actively healing (damn those were the days... >.>). As in, the UI element would need to actively fill your screen for your manaregen to kick in. You only had the chatbox to tell you what was going on.

Jokes aside, you are of course correct. I'd however ideally want this to be very much a sidegame, and/or only meant to "feed" into the healing element. The alternatives (and both are valid!) would be:

* The GW2-route: Everything is DPS-and. There are no healers. There's DPS that also cause some healing. There are no tanks. There's DPS who have some tools to keep the enemy's attention (mitigation isn't even a thing, everyone has that, since lacking dedicated tanks everyone might get punched at any point in time). There aren't pure DPS either, everyone brings some parts of utility. It's all "DPS, and..." .
* Everything is a hybrid (not the same as the previous). There are no pure roles, but they are cleanly delineated. Nobody can be a pure healer, because nobody is a pure XYZ. Difficult to achieve with classes such as the Black Mage in the game and with the erosion of the Debuffer role as a functional piece of design in modern MMOS, but doable. Say a Sage is a "Healer/DPS". A Red Mage is a "DPS/Healer". Maybe a Scholar becomes a "Healer/Tank", using a tank fairy pet to draw aggro and giving it commands while also healing both their pet and the group. A Paladin could be a "Tank/Healer", while a Dark Knight is a "Tank/Debuffer" and a Gunbreaker is a "Tank/Ranged", etc etc etc.

Both would be retoolings of the class space that feel more like something a FF17 as the next MMO in the serious would do. Though I'll be honest beyond superficial changes I feel any serious attempt at re-tooling healers as a role would similarly be of the scope that you'd want to do it in the next game, not this one. Still, could be fun. I had ideas in an older thread about pretty moderate retoolings for more offensive gameplay without requiring more buttons for the DPS gameplay, and that was fun to envision.

[Rein_eon_Osborne]

Honestly if you want to see what happen if you just tune up all the damage to a stratospheric degree, the most recent example is in Occult Crescent. Specifically speaking: the gold farming parties. The AA damage per mob are so high it will one shot any non-tanks while tanks themselves can only take 2-3 of them raw before warming the floor. If they're solo pulling for the party, sure... but anything beyond that, you're back to spamming 1 button - your GCD healings. Even then, what we end up doing instead is to either kite or to invuln against multiple of mobs at the same time, both of which completely eliminates the need for GCD healing half of the times. Worse, what we do instead is to sub in Cannon to join the bombarding instead of... full time healing... lol.

I don't think that's the kind of healing situations everybody would like to have at every given moment.

[Carighan]

I don't think that's the kind of healing situations everybody would like to have at every given moment.

Yeah usually when you say that actual GCD-based healing is needed, the assumption is that it's not about tanks dying in 3 hits, rather it's about the gravity of the HP lost. Say you have 200k HP, and each autoattack hits you for 10k every 1.5-2.0 seconds (you survive 30-40 seconds). Thing is, that's quite substantial if you have 0 recovery, it assumes you can use your mitigations to drag out combat long enough for you to kill things first. Likewise a healer would not need to be spamming 60k++ heals constantly, but if their heals only healed 25k for the biggest heal and that casts 3.5s, then using mitigation to reduce that 10k autoattack hitting you all of a sudden becomes very important. HP should not evaporate, rather it should drain steadily, and refilling it should not be a thing of a single oGCD, but of 4-5 GCDs invested and substantial amounts of mana.

[ThurinTurambar]

The only content i found healers to be really fun is when i hold aggro. Mostly deep dungeon scoring runs, where you got to balance how many mobs you can handle to maximise your damage output. On my whm potd clear i felt really good about doing 'double shift' pull tactic (basicly you pull more mobs when old ones become stun resistant, basicly doubles your aoe capacity). Things you do on astro just to clear are ridiculous and fun.
Soloing regular dungeons would also be decent fun for me, if not for bosses taking ages to kill.

So both of those situations share the fact that there is a constant stream of high damage coming your way. I think that while it would be more fun for experienced healers if SE made dungeon mobs and bosses hit much harder and do more party damage, it would also make it really hard on less experienced healers.
One solution that comes to my mind is dungeons that are less sanitised - you decide if you want a 2 trash pack pull or if you wanna go balls to the wall Mt Gulg style, not an arbitrary wall that conveniently dissapears.
Raids are a bit harder to crack, especially that i have less experience in those

[Valence]

Because no content can actually fix healers because their gameplay isn't changed. Healers just frankly need a rework and be redesigned as a dps that can heal.

Remove what's left of the battle system to fully embrace the DDR?

[Nero-Voidstails]

Because no content can actually fix healers because their gameplay isn't changed. Healers just frankly need a rework and be redesigned as a dps that can heal.

if they do that honestly I will be leaving the game without hesitation. I always have played healer and what I think healers are lacking isn't healing nor DPS. But!!!! buffs and debuff a other thing they could also do is rather stupid but demon/undead enemy could be damaged by healing skills to.


those unique interactions made some fight interesting while still making healing useful in more situations. I think this is what the healer gameplay is missing overall