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

[ASkellington]

The devs want healing to be widely accessible without realizing the problems of doing so:

The enjoyment of the healing role thrives on punishment aka resource management.

Used all of your CDs incorrectly, you'll be punished (nothing for the next TB or raid wide).
Used burst healing here when you could've regen'd instead, you'll be punished (no mana).
Got too greedy and dps'd here instead of healed, you'll be punished (death/wipe).

Its strange, but this is something we actually enjoy. We like having to choose the right cooldowns, and manage our mana and squeeze as much dps as we can while keeping the party properly healed.

The lack of punishment not only makes the role unfun, but it doesn't let newer healers learn and it also locks the devs into making the current content we have in normals and all the "difficult" content in extremes and savages.

I didn't get to where I am as a healer through hand holding. I got here through massive pulls I wasn't prepared for, undergeared tanks, dps who stood in fire, wipes, deaths, OOMs, nonexistant cohealers, and me hard carrying a run as if I was Atlas holding up the world.

Did I get salty on the way? You bet your gil I did! But I also learned and had fun doing so.

[Laerune]

Instead of more Dps skills give healers more utility skills, reduce damage, increase dps,spells or skillspeed. Make ranged full dps and give their buffs + old Ast cards all healers.

[Allegor]

If this is the mentality how are they supposed to finish the MSQ on healers?

Can't kill mobs with healing.

You're not, apparently - they must be in the thought that no one in their right mind would play a healer outside dungeons and raids.

Me: did the entirety of the MSQ, most side quests, Hildy, beast tribe quests, Eureka and Bozja as a WHM

[Anhra]

Instead of more Dps skills give healers more utility skills, reduce damage, increase dps,spells or skillspeed. Make ranged full dps and give their buffs + old Ast cards all healers.

As things currently stand, Healers have way too many raw healing abilities (14-18, iirc). A CNJ alone with cure1&2, as well as medica 1 (and rescue) are already enough raw healing potential to cover EVERY Dungeon this game has to offer. If those Skills could be reworked in a way that it works in savage raids as well (lets say were being generous and keep 1-2 Healing Spells from the ones i havent mentioned), it would leave us with 9 "empty slots" on average which should be more than enough room to give healers both the utilities and dps skills they actually deserve.

[Ilyrian]

Make ranged full dps and give their buffs + old Ast cards all healers.

I actually don't think this is a bad idea. Would need consideration but in theory it's not a crazy place to start from.

[Liam_Harper]

Instead of more Dps skills give healers more utility skills, reduce damage, increase dps,spells or skillspeed. Make ranged full dps and give their buffs + old Ast cards all healers.

I never understood why people love this idea so much. Healers are too simple so we simplify Ranged dps and turn healers into the current AST (which people are complaining about)?

I'm all for healers getting more utility but:

1. Why on earth rip it away from ranged dps? We're complaining healers aren't engaging, so we want to ruin another role to make ours better?

2. Why should utility be instead of dps? Why not both. The biggest issue with utility is that it's nearly impossible to design a system where it fills all your downtime. Damage reduction and such is only useful in certain situations. Dps buffs generally have set durations and aren't spammed. Look at AST, even with buffs you're still spamming Malefic over and over and over. Especially if you put that utility on the oGCD (but if you made it GCD we'd ignore it for dps).
Dps works as downtime filler because it's always useful. It contributes to the group and the more you use the better. It can be designed to flow and compliment your toolkit.

So while I feel more utility would be great, improving the dps toolkit and making it more engaging absolutely needs to happen too.

[NYCLouisGamer]

The devs want healing to be widely accessible without realizing the problems of doing so:

The enjoyment of the healing role thrives on punishment aka resource management.

Used all of your CDs incorrectly, you'll be punished (nothing for the next TB or raid wide).
Used burst healing here when you could've regen'd instead, you'll be punished (no mana).
Got too greedy and dps'd here instead of healed, you'll be punished (death/wipe).

Its strange, but this is something we actually enjoy. We like having to choose the right cooldowns, and manage our mana and squeeze as much dps as we can while keeping the party properly healed.

The lack of punishment not only makes the role unfun, but it doesn't let newer healers learn and it also locks the devs into making the current content we have in normals and all the "difficult" content in extremes and savages.

I didn't get to where I am as a healer through hand holding. I got here through massive pulls I wasn't prepared for, undergeared tanks, dps who stood in fire, wipes, deaths, OOMs, nonexistant cohealers, and me hard carrying a run as if I was Atlas holding up the world.

Did I get salty on the way? You bet your gil I did! But I also learned and had fun doing so.

Everything you just said is admirable. But what you described is not at all the majority of the player base. The gritty & exhilarating challenge that you mentioned would make about 80% of new players bounce off this game.

The problem is the same one that every MMORPG has. Do we want to make a bunch of high-level content that 90% of the player base will never see? Will we dumb it down to increase participation?

[NYCLouisGamer]

A CNJ alone with cure1&2, as well as medica 1 (and rescue) are already enough raw healing potential to cover EVERY Dungeon this game has to offer.

I have thought about that for years. Do we need 10-14 spells that all boil down to "HP goes up"? Instead of splitting hairs to create new healing spells along the lines of "HP goes up a lot and then a little" vs totally different /sarc "HP goes up a little and then a lot", it could be just like you said. After the 5-6 crucial healing spells, the rest of the spells could be utility & dps.

[ASkellington]

Everything you just said is admirable. But what you described is not at all the majority of the player base. The gritty & exhilarating challenge that you mentioned would make about 80% of new players bounce off this game.

The problem is the same one that every MMORPG has. Do we want to make a bunch of high-level content that 90% of the player base will never see? Will we dumb it down to increase participation?

I've said it before, I'll say it again - counter argument: Mt. Gulg and Amurot. Both required MSQ dungeons that are still decently difficult even now with certain pulls (minus boss fights) and are arguably harder than any other lv80 dungeon we've gotten thus far. Could've easily made all 80 dungeons around Amutot's difficulty, but didn't. Why is anyone's guess.

Also, we have all of these healing tools as healer and quite frankly don't even need half of them.

I can count on hand the amount of times I actually needed ES, Horoscope, Neutral Sect, and Collective Unconciousness in anything (read dungeons). If I wanted I could literally use nothing but Celestial Opposition, Essential Dignity and Helios for most content (and probably have more fun doing so). We have too many healing tools.

They have options to fix this: up the difficulty in content so we actually use them all (which they can do without making things impossible for players to complete), remove some of our heals (and replace them with utility or dps), or if they want to keep all of these abilities change their mana consumption and lengths of cool down (make piety actually useful!).

[Grimoire-M]

I never understood why people love this idea so much. Healers are too simple so we simplify Ranged dps and turn healers into the current AST (which people are complaining about)?

I'm all for healers getting more utility but:

1. Why on earth rip it away from ranged dps? We're complaining healers aren't engaging, so we want to ruin another role to make ours better?

2. Why should utility be instead of dps? Why not both. The biggest issue with utility is that it's nearly impossible to design a system where it fills all your downtime. Damage reduction and such is only useful in certain situations. Dps buffs generally have set durations and aren't spammed. Look at AST, even with buffs you're still spamming Malefic over and over and over. Especially if you put that utility on the oGCD (but if you made it GCD we'd ignore it for dps).
Dps works as downtime filler because it's always useful. It contributes to the group and the more you use the better. It can be designed to flow and compliment your toolkit.

So while I feel more utility would be great, improving the dps toolkit and making it more engaging absolutely needs to happen too.

Theoretically, if SE actually wanted to fix the core problem, they could add more non-DPS ways to interact with an encounter. Adding more forms of crowd control and cleansable debuffs and Dispels (for removing buffs on enemies) allows for that. The problem is SE and to some extent DPS-focused mains of any role do not like it when their script gets broken, but that’s an engine issue. With charges and raid actions in the game now I think they should be pushing for this more, considering they can then assume people will make the effort to juggle their cooldowns to better fit cc and burst where it’s needed, provided they build that flexibility into the rotation.

Other RPGs might use terrain manipulation to get that job done, but imo those best fit as Raid Actions.