Zatox wrote: »

On the other hand, I really dont like a concept of healers in MMOs.

[...]

... buff self-healing and nerf group-healing ...

Do you, by any chance, work on ZoS' staff? Because you all seem to have a lot in common.

I wish this type of thinking would remain confined to games like GW2. You don't have to play a healer to still allow us a space in the game. Most support mains play support because we genuinely enjoy supporting our team in group play, not because we want to be "kinda nice to have at some specific moments in time, but in the end basically so minimally helpful that they're pretty much irrelevant in the long run" as you suggest above.

Healing endgame PvE does require skill. It requires a lot of skill. A lot of micromanaging. A lot of multitasking. A lot of knowing fights so you can preemptively set up your group for needed buffs, debuffs, and heals. A lot of theorycrafting of our own to address every new change, because we react not only to changes in healer skills, but changes in the skills and mechanics of all the people we support as well.

If you've never done high-end healing, you really don't get to tell us how much skill is or is not required. I could just as easily accuse DDs of being parse-bots, who require no skill to fire off memorized rotations, who could just be automated by a literal bot and do just as well -- except I won't say that, because I know it is not true, and see no need to put down other players and their style preference just because it isn't my own.

Despite what you may think, based on the sordid amount of DPSes in the game, there are a lot of players who prefer the support role. While the lack of competent tanks and healers may sometimes be frustrating, I personally think the answer is to make tanking and healing more appealing, not irrelevant. Lessening the impact of healers (which is low enough as is in most content) and making everyone a tank seems a lot closer to eliminating the idea of roles than anything else, which I could get on board with were it not for the fact that content is designed around the existence of roles, and doesn't appear to be changing any time soon.

ATreeGnome wrote: »

Zatox wrote: »

I see a lot of people are really upset about these changes because they love a healer role. So I'm really curious, do we have some people who like these changes?

As a DD I really love vMA playstyle, or 3 DDs dungeon runs (especially DLC) - it's like "keeps yourself alive or die".
On the other hand, I really dont like a concept of healers in MMOs. For me, healer it is a support role, that provides some tiny extra heal and extra buffs, so its good to have one, but not necessary. But right now, the game is forcing me to have a healer in trials.
Besides, i have seen an unhealthy situation in BG's. A group with a healer is always stronger than a group without a healer. So for me, buff self-healing and nerf group-healing is the answer.
I really enjoy the idea to rely less on healers. For me, these changes are very intriguing.

P.S. I'm not elite gamer, and I never did anything harder than DLC HM dungeons or non-HM Trials.

There is already a lot of content on live that can easily be done without healer. If that's how you like to play, that's fine, but that doesn't mean that there shouldn't be plenty of content where healers are better and/or required.

Right now, trials are the only place in PvE where a healer is really needed and the PTS changes will greatly reduce that need if not eliminate it entirely. Do you really think it's fair to effectively eliminate a role from the game that has been reinforced as a core game play element and that many people enjoy? How would you feel if tanks and healers could suddenly do more DPS than DDs, just by slotting 1 skill, and it was decided that a 2 tank 10 healer comp was the best way to do a trial? Or 1 tank 3 healers for a dungeon?

^ exactly.

To everyone saying boo hoo too bad for us healer mains, please try to imagine having the shoe on the other foot. You wake up tomorrow to find that all DPS has been completely nerfed into the ground, it is literally impossible to do more than 1.5k DPS, but the encounters all remain identical.

Now, you have two long-cast spells and a single DoT to keep up. Every other skill on your bar is now defensive and healing. Your available trial slots have been halved, because it's infinitely easier to run multiple healers instead of your flimsy, irrelevant DPS as compared to our utility. You can either become half-healer hybrid, or you can compete for the single available pure-DPS spot remaining on your guild's roster.

Boo hoo, too bad for you. Find another game that appreciates your leet deeps better. DPS made it way too hard to heal people in PvP anyway.

(See how that feels?)

CyberSkooma wrote: »

Everyone who thinks healing requires nothing except healing springs spam needs to go ahead and go do some actual high-end content and stop running Fungal 1. Thanks.

For the record, Healing Springs spam (with maybe a Combat Prayer and class ability thrown in every now and then) is quite acceptable for an off-healer. These nerfs might significantly affect healing, but they affect builds that aren't fully dedicated to healing arguably more. Same thing with Templars. Yeah, they might make it out fine, but what about Nightblade healers, who rely on the nerfed abilities to make up for their deficiencies in class abilities?

Marginis wrote: »

CyberSkooma wrote: »

Everyone who thinks healing requires nothing except healing springs spam needs to go ahead and go do some actual high-end content and stop running Fungal 1. Thanks.

For the record, Healing Springs spam (with maybe a Combat Prayer and class ability thrown in every now and then) is quite acceptable for an off-healer. These nerfs might significantly affect healing, but they affect builds that aren't fully dedicated to healing arguably more. Same thing with Templars. Yeah, they might make it out fine, but what about Nightblade healers, who rely on the nerfed abilities to make up for their deficiencies in class abilities?

You do know I agree, right? Maybe how I typed that was confusing. my "2nd main" is a Nightblade healer. Trust me, I'm aware.

Blinkin8r wrote: »

IMO healers now require some skill rather than just spamming one or two abilities. I know PVE required more skill but pvp is for the longest time has just been stacking healing springs.

Yeah, except now it's going to be "roll a stam healer, hit vigor, hit circle of protection, toss an orb, chill until it's time to do it again. Sweeeet". How is that skill?

Only a percentage of healers do the constant Springs spam that everyone tries to define the whole role by, yet everyone assumes healing is easy and one dimensional because there are a handful of really lazy, bad healers (mostly DDs who find themselves with a full set of a healing set and decide they can now heal, even though they [generally] don't have the first idea what it actually entails). Just because you can, doesn't mean you should. Stacking springs is necessary for some fights (in the game's current pre-patch iteration), even on the best, most diligent healers who do FAR more than hitting one button the entire fight. You guys just killed an entire play style to punish a few bad apples. That's pretty messed up.

In my opinion the biggest problem with the healers is that damage and heal scale from same stats. It allows DDs to self heal better than some healers will. At this stage of the game nobody will change core stats, because it will change all: food, item sets, attributes, some buffs, and it will be too big change, that will push away old players.
I can see the only way changes to damage/heal could be done, is by item sets adjustments. Must be less pure stats, and more %healing/%shield done, %damage done, weapon/spell damage just for damage abilites, weapon/spell damage just for healing abilites, and if it is pure stat then it must be lower than specialised stat. So if you want to go damage + self heal you can do it, but your stats will be lower than specialized DD or healer build.
ZOS says that they will be revise sets in upcoming updates, so it may be a good opportunity to fix this problem.
Maybe this is not very suitable thread to post this, but i don't want to make another, so if you like the idea you may make one.
@ZOS_Gilliam @ZOS_BrianWheeler

@ Community: the OP is suggesting that the changes are good because they are making healing less relevant. Hey, at least it's out in the open. But ZOS needs to sit up and pay attention if that wasn't the intent because now even the pro-change folks are saying it.

@ OP:

1. Yes, some people are for these changes and but many are against. I suggest perusing the polls linked in my signature, and reading through the commentary in the PTS sub forum for more info.
2. The majority of folks that are in favor of these changes either are into PvP, where some kind of change is clearly necessary and is likely the primary reason behind these changes, or incorrectly (imho) believe that all PvE healers do is spam Orbs and Springs, because these are our most visible abilities, and for some classes are the only real abilities that can be relied upon.
3. It seems that you've done 3DD DLC runs, but yet you are suggesting that the game is too reliant on healers to support your play style. These two thoughts are somewhat conflicting. The fact that you've been able to participate in DLC runs without a healer shows that we already are not very reliant on the healer role for the large majority of our content, and technically there are no requirements to have players in a healer role to complete a trial. So the fact that the "meta" is to bring two healers isn't really the game "forcing" you to bring healers to trials if it doesn't even check. In other words, you've proven that it's possible to get around the healing role via your own actions which means we don't need changes to be even less reliant on it. If you don't like running with a healer, keep doing what you're doing. :P
4. I hear where you are coming from in that I am 100% in favor of trying to tackle content in unique ways. I enjoy soloing or duo-ing content, and trying different combinations of classes and roles to find creative ways to handle mechanics. But you only have to go as far as trying Group Finder for dungeons to see that having a healing role is required and clearly meant to be a core part of the game. Yes, this game is "play the way you want to play" but the healing role is formally acknowledged and it shouldn't be eliminated just because you don't like it. Don't want to run with a healer? See my third bullet.
5. I also hear your point about BG's but it's really more about pre-mades vs. random groups than groups with vs. without a healer. A healer isn't going to necessarily turn the tide against four coordinated cloaking, stunning NBs, or a bunch of "un-killable" tanks. There are so many hybrid builds and ways that four roles can be matched together in BG's that your opposing group having a healer when you don't doesn't always cause a loss.
6. Honestly curious... why do you dislike healing but seem OK with tanking? Wouldn't you prefer it even more if you could run DLCS and trials with all DD's, then?

Basically, I respect folks that enjoy a "survivalist" play style and always support avenues in the game where we as a community can try handling content with an atypical group but in return I'd appreciate being respected for enjoying the healing play style. I am willing to listen to those of you that like the changes but please don't support them because they eliminate a key role that a good percentage of the community enjoys playing. Sheesh.

From what i've heard, there was a recent stream where a high-end group with Gryphon Hearts couldn't even heal through vHoF HM on the pts, so the only people who are excited for the healer nerfs are the ones who only run normal non-dlc dungeons and don't even heal. The healer nerfs are explicitly because of pvp crying. I could wear heavy Seducers with Troll King and spam springs on myself while 2-3 people struggled to kill me, which is apparently against the unwritten rules that state everyone should be easy to kill except for tanks.