A summary of healer issues

[Renathras]

And yet here we are discussing why there aren't Healers doing Ultimates. So where is this "Great Many"?

In simple terms?

Not playing Ultimate and/or not looking for groups for Ultimate.

Also "great many" isn't hyperbole. The majority of the playerbase are casuals doing casual content, where there's no great shortage of Healers. Tank is still AIN almost all the time outside of 24 mans (which only have 3 Tank slots to fill), where it's often DPS (DPS are also frequently AIN for Trials for whatever reason, but I've noticed Trial ques are almost instant no matter what role I que for them as...)

The long form Reddit survey had a lot of people saying they really wanted more healing requirements from the encounters, not more damage, they would just accept more damage as a band-aid fix, but it wasn't their first choice/desired outcome. Not sure about the majority on Ty's, though a lot said they want more support actions, not more DPS actions.

In fact, what I noticed the most from the long forum Reddit responses were people saying they DID want another DPS ability or two, but wanted them to be situational, not part of a standard rotation or used on CD situation.

The other part of the answer is this:

Hell, it could just be because we're in a content lull and everyone is just not logging in as often as they used to.

We're in a content lull. Most people that wanted to do the content (Ultimate, Savage, even Ex5) have already done it to death and are waiting for the next content drop. This isn't just Healers, this is also true of Tanks and DPSers.

Something else worth mentioning is that not all of the responses I receive on the healing end are scored low, and there are many examples of players scoring the healers higher, or at least in the 7/10 vicinity, that are still asking for more attack options. It's a little difficult to read through longer answers here, but if you check out the data tabs, you can also see what individual scorers are asking for more of or less of.

Probably because a lot of healers, even ones who want 'healers should heal' style design, would be up for having Purgation from PVP in their kit for example. 'Big laser go ftwooom' is a cool feeling even for someone who 'doesn't want to do damage', like they could attach 'party wide regen' to it like it has in PVP and it'd be considered both a damage and healing tool. Does anyone who 'hates how healers are forced to do damage' have an issue with Pneuma's damage conditional?

The most frequent request for WHM seems to be Aero 3. Purgation as an upgrade to Misery would be hilarious, though. I do love hitting Purgation in PvP. Much more than stupid Seraph Strike, anyway, which is just "I want Protect and Cure 3 and have to put up with this button not just being the thing I actually want". I think Seraph is the button I use the least in PvP and the first one I'd change. Honestly I'd tie it's effect to Misery. Get rid of the dumb gap closer - seriously, who thought "healer runs into melee" was a smart idea??