A summary of healer issues

[Post]

Mobs in HW were dangerous at the time; in general they made the overworld a lot tougher. Pulling and trying to kill 3 would be death for non tanks or healers usually; I remember fresh 60 BLMs struggling to kill their B rank weekly hunt solo before getting some gear. This was something they did intentionally because the playerbase asked for more danger in the overworld, but it was dialed back in StB upon reflection by the devs.

Players spent half the leveling of HW going in N Thanalan grinding FATEs because they could do them much faster and safer with their 130 vs 49ish expected ilvl instead of Coerthas Western Highland's expected 115 ilvl anyways.

But, as with many things, I think they overcorrected because HW rotations were not just complex, they had lots of ramp up time with so many DoTs, and cooldowns frequently locking out your core rotation, like MCH's (quick) reload, DRG's 1min Blood of the Dragon and BLM's 1min Enochian refreshed only via Blizzard 4. These actions did not fit very well for jobs roaming around the map and fighting shorter battles with enemies that wouldn't survive entire DoT durations and were spread enough that you'd lose your rotation buff.

So, all that was part of the perceived difficulty under which they made their decision to keep things much easier going forward, but as job design also changed, it's another example of them throwing the baby out with the bathwater.