Developers : Healer design mentality needs to change

[linayar]

Tanks can dps/buff/dots/cure
DPS can dots/buff/cure/raise
Healers should just heal? wtf with SE

Wait, why are you framing it that way?

If you go by what you put for tanks and DPS, then more accurately:

Healers can dps/dot/hot/cc/shield/buff/cure/raise/troll people with rescue (or save them)

[Ultimatecalibur]

If there was a game mechanic that tied a percentage of your dps to your HP then keeping people topped off would mean everything. 100% HP means you do 100% DPS, and as you go down, you weaken.

Paladin does currently have this in a minor form. Spirits Within deals daage based on your current hp.

[ItMe]

I personally (in my baby-level opinion) would like to see the healing abilities get trimmed a bit.
It's quite awkward to intuitively see how one is supposed to use each and when... especially when you don't use most of them most of the time.
I dig where they're going with healers in PVP, and would like to see that direction influence how healers work in the rest of the game.

[Absurdity]

I personally (in my baby-level opinion) would like to see the healing abilities get trimmed a bit.
It's quite awkward to intuitively see how one is supposed to use each and when... especially when you don't use most of them most of the time.
I dig where they're going with healers in PVP, and would like to see that direction influence how healers work in the rest of the game.

That's why you take the time to analyze a fight and see where to put which heal to get the most benefit out of it, it's basically where the last resemblance of a skill ceiling is.


In over 90% of the content you do not need to intuitively see how you're supposed to use them, you just press any healing oGCD and you wil be fine.

[Semirhage]

That's why you take the time to analyze a fight and see where to put which heal to get the most benefit out of it, it's basically where the last resemblance of a skill ceiling is.


In over 90% of the content you do not need to intuitively see how you're supposed to use them, you just press any healing oGCD and you wil be fine.

This. Most of the edits to healers over the last two expansions have either deleted punishments for playing poorly or deleted incentives for playing efficiently. There are comparatively few downsides (in most content) to just barfing out whatever speedy single target/AOE heal you feel like and going back to spamming the 1 key.

[ItMe]

That's why you take the time to analyze a fight and see where to put which heal to get the most benefit out of it, it's basically where the last resemblance of a skill ceiling is.


In over 90% of the content you do not need to intuitively see how you're supposed to use them, you just press any healing oGCD and you wil be fine.

No, I mean I feel we have more abilities than we need. Even with planning I struggle to see where it's all supposed to go and why this one over that one.

[Loki]

Wait, why are you framing it that way?

If you go by what you put for tanks and DPS, then more accurately:

Healers can dps/dot/hot/cc/shield/buff/cure/raise/troll people with rescue (or save them)

dps? a single spell, fortunatly for solo stuff
dot/hot/cc(lol)/shield/buff/cure/raise/rescue = healer gameplay

Have we got dps/magic rotations? nope
Have we got some tanks skills? nope

But dps and tanks have some healers's gameplay, that's just what i wanted to put forward.

[Laphicet]

Besides the vuln up lasting over a minute, make getting hit by an avoidable attack also give a 30% damage down for 10 seconds. You'd lose more than an entire GCD's worth of damage if you get hit. That should incentivize even the turret mages to get out of the way.

What's funny is that Seat of Sacrifice EX does exactly this, if you get hit by certain avoidable AOE you get a vuln up and a brief stack of 50% damage down, that can stack twice for a full 100% damage down.

[Saefinn]

Wait, why are you framing it that way?

If you go by what you put for tanks and DPS, then more accurately:

Healers can dps/dot/hot/cc/shield/buff/cure/raise/troll people with rescue (or save them)

Well then you'd more accurately have for tanks:
dps/buff/cure/dots/mitigation/hot/etc.

But if we laboured on that then we'd miss the point.

The attitude seems to be:
Healers should heal not do anything else. The devs have made comments multiple times to reflect they'd rather healers to have more healing focus and have stripped our non-healing capabilities and added to our healing capabilities. And there is some level of community attitude that healers shouldn't DPS they should only heal, that's their job.

But the reality is, it's a team effort and jobs can contribute in different ways. As a Paladin, when a healer has struggled, I've helped with Clemency. In one particular case where the healer had connection issues, he offered to drop, I told him to carry on because I could help with the healing.
As an off-tank, if my main tank is struggling I can help mitigate damage.
As a tank if a DPS is taking incoming damage I can help mitigate their damage and also heal them.
As a RDM, if people are dying, I can help out the healers with raises. If it's really bad I can help with the Cures.
As a DNC/MCH/BRD I have skills that mitigate damage, not just the tank, which applies to the whole party.
As a SMN, I can also mitigate damage with the right pet.
Heck, if you sustain aggro, in an emergency you could technically off tank on MNK, which I've seen happen.
There's lots of ways people can contribute outside of the scope of their role and it's good to have, because it's more dynamic.

With healers it seems the attitude is for them not to?

Yet, they have the tools to do so, even though those tools are gradually being stripped, despite the fact we have this big gap where we can be using them and it's really unengaging to.

Whereas technically all a tank needs to do to be a good tank is take damage and keep others from being damaged. They could do have a simple "1, 2" DPS rotation and still achieve their duties. Yet, they get a more engaging set of DPS skills to work with, not as engaged as a full DPS, but tanks have focuses normally DPS's don't and I feel this is where we should be with healers. In fact, we /used/ to be there with healers.

[Morningstar1337]

To add, the other roles can potentially take the healing load off the healer. RDM's flavor requires it in fact (though it also requires it to be limited), and SNM, PLD, DNC, DRK, SAM, GNB and WAR have Raise or potent (self-)healing options. Even melee have Second Wind and Bloodbath.

For shields Tanks obv have more of that, but BLM also has Manawall, NIN has Shadeshift, MNK has Riddle of Earth (nerfed as that is). and SNM has Titan's stoneskin.

All of this and Healers having attacks at all means that every role has little bit of the rest. Now this is by design for the Solo experience, but it also means that this self sufficiency opens out ways for the Healers to stave off having to heal as much as possible.

Which means that if the devs really want to make pure healers, they have to scrutinize their decisions with the quest design since ARR and the other roles. And that they would have to remove turn DPS into Glass Cannons, Remove damage form all Tank attacks (effectively making them the equivalent of showboating attention hogs) and obviously remove damage spells from the Healer kit. And from there change the quests (and Leves/FATEs) so that people can still clear them without having to deal damage for Tanks and Healers or survive the encounters as a DPS (prolly by adding NPC allies)