A summary of healer issues

[Sloprano]

OP, that's a well thought-through list, in any sensible existence something like this would garner the eye of the supervisors, in where they realize basis for any relationship is talking to each other, an actual community manager would materialize to share their thoughts, drag in the healer designer to defend their design decisions and invite discussion so we might understand where they come from and where they are going, and in return they understand our want to be able do more like any other job in game with scripted sequences. In where we find common ground that would ultimately find it's way into the game.

Ah, to dream the impossible. To reach the unreachable stars. Where things isn't hold back by risk-free design by commitee.

So what constitues playinger a Healer for me?

Gave it some thought and for me it's:

Pacing, tension and validation.

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First up: Pacing is the highs and the lows. The bitter struggle and the sweet release. The frantic and the calm. The ramp up and slow fall down. Dungeons has this down to an exact science: Pack Pack Boss, Pack Pack Boss, Pack Pack Boss, We will We Will Rock you. Where difficulty goes a bit up, peaks at boss, then goes pause and repeat. Then closer each encounter has it's pacing with it's tankbuster, unavoidable and avoidable slash mechanic: When boss telegraphs like Cooke and Wheatstone you move or resolve it then we enjoy a small break for a snickers and some free shots at kicking their shins. Now these scripted hallways has been like this since forever. To alliviate repetition, you have paced skillsets, or rotations.

We don't have any. We are stuck spinning our wheels, rotating at a speed of two and a half seconds. Only ramp up I have is the Fey Gauge and you can't release your sticky green load all over the mobs for a thrilling conclusion. It just sits there squatting at 100% on your HUD like a roommate who never gets a job.

An actual spread skillset with interesting abilities you can bounce of each other or paradigm shifts like Cleric Stance lends itself to a dynamic difficulty, which was very welcome since as we've established every fight will always be the same, this lends itself to a kind of tension.

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Now Tension lives next door to Pacing and sometimes jumps the fence to help with DIY projects. While mostly found in horror games, I had the same sensation from walking the streets of Silent Hill 2 to both when creeping around the corners at Floor 187 or when both Alliance A and B, my cohealer and my four dps all die in Ridorana. When I was learning Twintania and learning to time Cleric Stance and place Eos to help out where I could, or when the level 45 Scholar, ink still wet on their codex pages went boldly into Garuda normal and had to hardress dps and tank something like six times and still pull through somehow.

Heart beats faster, your senses are heighting, you go on instinct and skill alone. Shoulders tense up, eyes bulge. You are in the zone and you manage to keep the party together long enough to win. Then you settle down and relax.

That is exciting. That is edge-of-your seat without falling of, because I believed in my skills, and neither the game suddenly rushing to my aid and just auto-resolve everything that pushes my buttocks so far back into the seats the chair explodes.

Before, it didnt matter and I didnt care at all the mobs followed the script to a fucking tee. Because my job had unlimited potential the way of a built-in difficulty slider: I could go in, only do the bare necessities and get my tomes without any fuss. Then when I wanted to have fun and grow as a Scholar I pushed myself to manage dots, manage the fairies, use Selene and stay in Cleric Stance long as possible. You could say this was thinking like a dps, which lended itself to a sense of Validation.

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Validation. Or even purpose. Right now, what is our purpose? To press a cooldown after the boss telegraphs. And just like tanks, seems to only exist to check if we're awake. And like a snooze button, is completely trivialized with the press of a button. And late for work.

Of course, there's when everyone mucks up and dies like flies. Ive read several voices that are similar to my own: When shit hits the proverbial fan and that shit murders all your party you finally get a chance to use all of these skills, both on the hotbar and inside you. But I don't believe SE is sharing that sentiment how they are using that one savage-looking basket they put all their job focus eggs.

A usually timid WHM friend admited they enjoyed E5S a whole lot more when things were going wrong: Someone get serverticked on the horse charge, someone might have their little toe in an aoe or just one inch too close to the wrong player during chain lightning. That meant he had stuff to do. The absolute awful part about all this is that he puts himself on the line: Spends swiftcast, stands still for eight seconds to ress, spend all that Glare-MP on getting us all up and trucking again and the game just spits in his face for it when we JUST barely recover from all the deaths, scramble into the dance-routine mechanics and then still wipes at 2.1%.

SE, you loveable pinhead, here someone is playing your beloved "HEALERS ONLY HEAL"-stereotype, bringing everyone back from the brink and you fuckers ignore all his effort. Remember tension above? The worst you can you do in a tension-heavy game is to kill the player, because then all tension is lost. In the same way, what gives me tension as a healer goes against the set script of the game. So when during general rehearsal, one actor fumbles their line, the director caps them in the knee and when I break character to go and help them up before going back on script the very same director just drops the stage lightning on top of all of us.

In short: Nothing we do as healers are confirmed as helping in the same place we are balanced. It's such a put-on-brain-the-wrong way in the morning kind of approach to dealing with this kind of encounter. If we chose to defer from just pressing cooldowns or not jumping the moment someone dies then we are somehow playing it wrong. I don't feel validated when all Im here for is to press a cooldown the exact same time every time, something that could easily been replaced by buffing Second Wind to 2000 potency and lower cooldown.

In summary: Pacing of a job lends itself to an increasing amount of tension. The tension and dealing with tension lends itself to a feeling of validation. The validation leads to job satisfaction.

Right now only place I feel validated is when everyone around me dies and the very same fights the jobs now are balanced for does not recognize this work in any way.