Thread: Healers in 5.0

Between no male Viera, no new healer, and this 5.0 healer redesign situation I dont know if I even want to get Shadowbringers... Normally I would have pre-ordered a long time ago, but the devs just keep disappointing.

As many have mentioned in this thread, it truly comes down to two points:
1) Slimming DPS skill set makes healer job boring.
2) Complexity reduction of the job.

The issue arises now since slimming down the dps skillset creates a void, and the solution that the devs have proposed is to increase incoming damage. Here is where the true disappointment arises from us healers.

As a healer our job is to manage a resource which is the HP pool of your party. You will balance then the incoming damage and outgoing heals, and as a filler you will be dpsing, which will be your last priority. Promoting more pure healer, by increasing overall damage, simply means that more spamming of heals will happen. Hence, we are becoming healbots, reducing the complexity of managing both healing and dps aspects of our job.

An interesting change that I would have preferred to see, is to have different types of incoming damage, where certain heal abilities/skills are effective. This will introduce a complexity to healing and engage us more in our healing aspects.

Originally Posted by Lastsaltimo

As many have mentioned in this thread, it truly comes down to two points:
1) Slimming DPS skill set makes healer job boring.
2) Complexity reduction of the job.

The issue arises now since slimming down the dps skillset creates a void, and the solution that the devs have proposed is to increase incoming damage. Here is where the true disappointment arises from us healers.

As a healer our job is to manage a resource which is the HP pool of your party. You will balance then the incoming damage and outgoing heals, and as a filler you will be dpsing, which will be your last priority. Promoting more pure healer, by increasing overall damage, simply means that more spamming of heals will happen. Hence, we are becoming healbots, reducing the complexity of managing both healing and dps aspects of our job.

An interesting change that I would have preferred to see, is to have different types of incoming damage, where certain heal abilities/skills are effective. This will introduce a complexity to healing and engage us more in our healing aspects.

They're going the same route WoW did with BfA, which destroyed enjoyment for not only myself:

• Homogenization of classes: the abilities of tanks/healers/dps are mostly the same, just themed differently, so everyone can do everything - and obviously it's a cheap workaround for class balance, because if everyone does the same you just need to adjust 1 global value instead of actually having to work through a lot of data to get every classes as balanced as humanly possible in terms of output
• Lowest common denominator scope: throwing every complexity and choice out of the window in favor of making it so simple you could play it on a mobile device by pressing a very small amount of buttons, thus increasing your potential customer pool exponentially, but with the obvious drawback of people getting vocal/leaving because they want complexity and choice

I'd really want to hear an official opinion as to why the removal of healer dps options combined with an increase in incoming damage, thus forcing a turret spam-healing playstyle, is not considered utterly bland and boring.

I'm reserving my judgement over the reworked healing jobs until I play them myself, but I can't say I'm not disappointed after seeing a breakdowns of each of them from the NA event.

I'm mainly just worried about players dropping healing jobs at this point. And the emphasis on "pure healing" has me worried for the fun of playing a healer now. I, at least, enjoyed playing AST cards as optimally as I could even if I didn't get Balance. At least from the information we got, I'm not sure I like the new AST cards system. It doesn't seem as fun to me, but I could be wrong of course since I've yet to get my hands on it.

And the general dumbing down of several functions of roles/jobs/abilities has me worried too. Healers especially appear homogenized because of the pure healing emphasis.

I've been an AST main since 3.0 (WHM main in 2.0) and I have to say I'm very disappointed right now. My opinion might change once I actually try out the changes for myself, but as of right now they seem like a big step backwards. What made AST so engaging for me was the problem solving and decision making involved. It was very satisfying to use typically "bad" cards like Spire to restore TP to party members that didn't have any left. An extended Bole helped me deal with newer Tanks without having to over-exert myself on healing. Arrow helped me heal quicker, and I know Bards appreciated Spear cards. I liked using Time Dilation to increase a buff on a party member I thought was doing well, it was a really great way of giving a particularly good DPS positive feedback without saying anything. I don't understand why the time extension skills had to be removed. It was a large part of what made AST interesting and gave it its own unique identity along with the card mechanics.

I don't think SE should be catering to the ASTs who only fished for Balance. I feel a bit left behind as somebody who was actually using each card properly. The new system feels extremely watered down and mindless, and will not help the fact that I have (somehow) even less DPS capability than I did before. The complexity of the cards before helped balance out the downtimes between healing and spamming Malefic/Gravity. I will still main AST due to my attachment with it but this update seems like it will only make that decision harder, especially now that Dancer seems like the far better option for people like me who want to support other party members.

Originally Posted by Ayer2015

Between no male Viera, no new healer, and this 5.0 healer redesign situation I dont know if I even want to get Shadowbringers... Normally I would have pre-ordered a long time ago, but the devs just keep disappointing.

Pretty much exactly this... I already had to stomach the bad decision of not including male viera that this is making it even harder to justify my preorder. I really hope they get it together and fix these issues (bad healer changes, no male viera, no new healer) down the line because this is a major step back in so many ways.

I LOVE Dia and Glare, away with CNJ.

They optimised every job and roles, it feels like a simplified homogenisation but I'd wait for the actual game to come out before complaining too much about identity and gameplay because it doesn't necessarily mean they will feel the same.

I wouldn't jump to conclusions that there will be a lack of healers, I personally like the WHM changes and for now that seems the job could be liking more. Furthermore as a whole healers have a larger healing kit which could mean that the damage received from enemies will be larger as well keeping healers busy with a bit more healing and less downtime to use on DPS.

I'm holding my reservations until the expansion comes out but if they ruined Scholar I'm quitting to play another role. Half the fun of Healing was also dps'ing which has been neutered.