Why is the healer class basically a one spell dps class?

[Deceptus]

I always find this "no reduction in healer mains" thing funny to read because it'd take literally zero healers queuing for anything before parts of this community will admit healer design is terrible.

We had close to that in SHB launch. Healers were in extremely short supply.

[Reksanden]

We had close to that in SHB launch. Healers were in extremely short supply.

The lack of a new healer at the time was also a pretty strong gut punch.

I started as AST back then but couldn't stand the ShB launch state of it, and swapped to WHM... And had an "ehh" experience overall, sans the story blurring my memory of how not-fun playing it was. And I can guarantee that even without the times that I didn't queue with friends, every single queue was still instant.

Overall, their state is roughly better (poor SCH), and AST was a complete turn-around from 5.0 and it's actually somewhat enjoyable to play these days - but god I miss HW and SB AST so bad it hurts

[Truen]

Yah SCH plays so boring now...I actually hate it. Went from my favorite to worst. The ridiculous notion of a "pure healer" needs to go away forever. We waited. We tried it. It sucks.

[Melorie]

Yah SCH plays so boring now...I actually hate it. Went from my favorite to worst. The ridiculous notion of a "pure healer" needs to go away forever. We waited. We tried it. It sucks.

Being a pure-healer sucks. Unless I'm trying to do an ultimate or a particular unknown extreme/savage, 99% of the game is a snooze fest. I'm so tired of this. Give me something else useful to do instead of spamming 1 skill 1 dot or change design encounter. it doesn't NEED to be dps, stop giving utility to DPS classes instead of us. I don't even care if now everyone is "balanced", of course they're balanced, they're BORING.

[Semirhage]

We had close to that in SHB launch. Healers were in extremely short supply.

Oh that's because there was a new tank, you see. Nothing to do with terrible healer design or anyone quitting. Healers dropping the role? Preposterous. Low-skilled Sylphies and AFK Netflixing DPS moonlighters replacing the ones sick of it? Trick of the light. Not happening.

[NYCLouisGamer]

AFK Netflixing DPS moonlighters replacing the ones sick of it? Trick of the light. Not happening.

I enjoyed that

[Lyth]

There will always be a relative shortage of tanks and healers. These are team-focused support roles. People pick these roles so that they can have an impact.

You don't need incentives to get people to play DPS. There's just less hassle, and you can play it like it's a single player game. The problem is that because the majority of the playerbase plays DPS, that's where the majority of the focus and effort goes. You want to have impact? Play DPS. You want to have first dibs on gear upgrades? Play DPS. You want job variety? Play DPS.

You're not really giving up that much control over how the fight pans out, either. Bosses move and position themselves, so tanks don't really tank anything. Outgoing damage completely scripted, so your healers aren't reacting and making critical saves so much as they are following a set of timestamps. Anything interesting in gameplay just comes down to dps, and as we've seen in the past two expansions, there's a widening gulf between 'support' roles and the main stars of the show. Why wouldn't you play DPS? It seems obvious, in retrospect.

[Semirhage]

There will always be a relative shortage of tanks and healers. These are team-focused support roles. People pick these roles so that they can have an impact.

You don't need incentives to get people to play DPS. There's just less hassle, and you can play it like it's a single player game. The problem is that because the majority of the playerbase plays DPS, that's where the majority of the focus and effort goes. You want to have impact? Play DPS. You want to have first dibs on gear upgrades? Play DPS. You want job variety? Play DPS.

You're not really giving up that much control over how the fight pans out, either. Bosses move and position themselves, so tanks don't really tank anything. Outgoing damage completely scripted, so your healers aren't reacting and making critical saves so much as they are following a set of timestamps. Anything interesting in gameplay just comes down to dps, and as we've seen in the past two expansions, there's a widening gulf between 'support' roles and the main stars of the show. Why wouldn't you play DPS? It seems obvious, in retrospect.

Tangent supporting point: I played a terrible pay to win MMO long ago that followed this pattern exactly. As time moved forward, classes became stronger and less reliant on one another. You could play it like a single player game for the most part. Shockingly, it meant fewer people played tanks or healers. The problem here is that healers could heal through harder stuff and had 6+ massive stat buffs that lasted half an hour that provided a significant boost to performance. Players started to complain that they couldn't get steady access to healer buffs or a healslave. They had to roll alts and level them up just so they could log, buff a friend, then have that friend do the same. The solution? The game added pets with more powerful heal spells than the healer classes and dropped NPCs in major towns that would just put all of the support class buffs on you for a minimal fee. No I'm not kidding. To hell with making healers and tanks relevant or fun to play, just reduce their jobs to NPCs. Trusts are a less-offensive extension of the same thing after all.

DPS are always center stage in the end.

[Roeshel]

There will always be a relative shortage of tanks and healers. These are team-focused support roles. People pick these roles so that they can have an impact.

You don't need incentives to get people to play DPS. There's just less hassle, and you can play it like it's a single player game. The problem is that because the majority of the playerbase plays DPS, that's where the majority of the focus and effort goes. You want to have impact? Play DPS. You want to have first dibs on gear upgrades? Play DPS. You want job variety? Play DPS.

You're not really giving up that much control over how the fight pans out, either. Bosses move and position themselves, so tanks don't really tank anything. Outgoing damage completely scripted, so your healers aren't reacting and making critical saves so much as they are following a set of timestamps. Anything interesting in gameplay just comes down to dps, and as we've seen in the past two expansions, there's a widening gulf between 'support' roles and the main stars of the show. Why wouldn't you play DPS? It seems obvious, in retrospect.

I play DPS. I enjoy it but I avoid playing as dps because of long queues. Not to mention, dps players have no say in how much the tank should pull, if both the healer and tanks want to do baby pulls they can only leave, while if I am a healer I can pressure the tank into doing his job.

[Lyth]

...

No. The fact that there is always fewer players willing to play tank or healer than are needed in an MMO is essentially a tautology. People don't go out of their way to prove the obvious. Any official census numbers that we've gotten to date support the fact that we're not at the desired 1:1:2 ratio, which is what translates into your queue times. And that's going to be true even when you're encouraging players to pick those roles.

People will play what they find most personally rewarding. DPS is the lowest commitment role. Find 3-7 other players, jump in, and play your single player game. It will always be high value in terms of reward vs. effort. Healing and tanking can be extremely rewarding, both from a skill and community perspective, but the dev team has to give value to the odd player who goes looking for that sort of supportive playstyle with their game design.

...

It's amusing that the greatest variability in tank/healer performance comes out in dungeons. Even this seems to be more standardized than ever, given that they won't even let you pull more than two sets before you hit a wall. I daresay you could contribute just as much if not more on DPS by simply being able to burn things down faster than the average player. If not, you could always run a tank for your roulettes and then main whatever you like for content that matters.