Dear SE, I am a Healer

[TaranTatsuuchi]

The problem with this is, it is literally the exact.same.reason we were given on why there was no new healer in SB. We will see what happens, but right now it seems like a blow-off since they have had 2 years to balance it, but by their own comments have failed to do so. Why should we believe another 2 years will help anything?

Pretty much.

I guess we are just supposed to take on faith that they are really really truly really very really going to balance them this time.

I can only hope that they tried to balance the healers in the current design and failed in these past two years...
And now they're looking into the core encounter design to see what lead to how healers were designed to begin with.

Hoping for good news with may's live letter.

[Aramina]

I can only hope that they tried to balance the healers in the current design and failed in these past two years...
And now they're looking into the core encounter design to see what lead to how healers were designed to begin with.

Hoping for good news with may's live letter.

I am hoping so as well, and I will be the first to cheer them if they *are* trying something different, and even more so if it actually balances stuff. I am just still in a fool me once shame on you, fool me twice.... I will have to see it to believe it.

[Tlachtga]

why is whm horrible? i am curious, i though it was capable of healing the hardest content available? How much worse is its performance compared to the other two?

Saying WHM is horrible is a massive overstatement. It's behind SCH and AST but its not to the point where its a detriment to your raid group like PLD in HW was.

[BroodingFicus]

WHM isn't 'horrible' per say. It certainly can heal the hardest content in the game as far as it, by the numbers, has more than enough healing potency to do so. The issue is more to do with what comes after the healing. All healers have to be able to heal the highest content. They couldn't make one that isn't capable of doing it. So to be competitive, a healer needs more than that. WHM lacks in that arena due to the teams hope of keeping them a 'pure healer' in identity. They don't have cards or great utility to offer when you get past the fact that everyone can heal anything in game so long as they're geared. Even less so once people know the content. So while they aren't a horrible job, they'll never be picked over the other two so long as they don't have something unique of their own to offer that isn't just straight healing.

I think a lot of the fear right now is the Square is in denial about all that and isn't going to make any massive changes to WHM that will make them competitive again. Well that or they'll nerf other healers to try to even them out when flat nerfs won't solve the balance issues either. In order to really address it, they'd probably either need to look at stripping out a lot of the WHM and SCH kit from Astro and focus on making them a unique class rather than a hybrid or giving up on the pure healer fantasy and giving WHM a more distinct identity of its own. You really can't have a class that can functionally heal as well as a WHM and have party buffs if all the WHM has is healing so something has to give. There hasn't been a lot of indication what the healer balancing push is going to look like or what they're going to be getting come the release that's going to both address balance and satisfy a part of the player base that isn't getting a new job to play with. It's a tall order and if they don't get it right, people aren't really going to cut them any slack. It's been two years spent fixing the mistakes of SB for healers with band aids and we're really not much better off than we were before. I'm just hoping at this point they've been brainstorming some great plan that really needed an expansion to implement and aren't expecting a hand full of nerfs or buffs or carbon copy abilities to fix all this.

[Ceasaria]

The problem I foresee is SE have to balance Tanks (DRK, GNB + the fact they want MT/OT), Ranged DPS (MCH, DNC) and Healers (WHM + the fact they want to do something about pure healer / shield healer).
Can we believe they will succeed in 5.0 ? Probably not when you have to think there are Melee DPS and Caster DPS to look after too.
And my fear is with the adding of tank and ranged dps, they messed completely one of this role (because they have problems already) and will need to take all their ressources balance on it, which mean less attention to the healers or others (who are fine but need some attention too) for several patches.
And, same excuse for 6.0 for not adding a healer because they didn't have time/ressources to balance well the healers.
But I agree that if we had a healer instead of tank or ranged dps, the story would be the same.

[ikoshiki]

Hello! First thank you for posting this it’s really explain some the frustration we have as healer main
And imo dnc could have been a healer because iirc ff11 he had some healing abilities and stuff besides DRk was dps before and now a tank so that’s is proof they can do it with dnc, after all that I’m ok now mostly but I’m not ok if we are not getting new healer in total 6years waiting with the same excuse, is it really ok for a role to wait 6 years total to get something fresh? To enjoy a and experience?
But for the rework they can make ast either Regen or shield not both and add what left to make them 2 shield and 2 Regen, it’s just 1 idea I’m sure most ppl have great idea then this,
And I hope they give healers some love like Achievement Mount only like tanks have
This is my idea, suggestions and my imo hope everyone understands what I’m saying and please don’t copy dev words and reply it on because I already answered,
Have nice day everyone!

[Truen]

+1 to the OP.
Signed.

And, what did they do to fix healers? THEY MADE THEM BASICALLY THE SAME CLASS minus a few differences. One could argue that cosmetics are the biggest difference between the three roles after 5.0. Talk about lazy and uninspired design choices, sheesh. My personal favorite change belongs to the SCH. Instead of fixing Selene they turned her into EOS...if I wasn't angry because I liked the healing role I'd be laughing at the ridiculousness of these changes.

[Anatha]

It's called balance. Clearly shows that isn't what healers want.

[Melorie]

When OP made this topic, I had faith that SE would try to fix healers. That SE would bring something interesting for us. I was okay with not having a new healer because I had this feeling that they knew the problems, they would fix them.

Ohhh boy was I wrong...

[Starflake]

I too wish to express my disappointment in the current state of healers and I understand the fury of healers world wide. You deny them a new healer class for 6 years. Then, instead of spicing healers up a bit, you make them all almost exactly the same! Who makes these decisions? Who thinks this is okay? I am also frankly insulted by the further simplicitation of healers. Simplication in MMO RPGs means one thing primarily and that is to bring it down to the level of the playerbase is deemed at. Does SE think of us as simpletons? I want to hear their motivation as to why we are evolving from nice, engaging healing kits with engaging DPS to ONE DOT AND ONE DPS spell. Hello? It's outragous if you ask me. I hope you healer mains let your voices be heard. Do not let them dumb down your classes, do not let them destroy the diversity of healers and mask it as balance. It isn't.