Separating dedicated healers from DPS "off-healers"

BXR_Lonestar · August 2020

Over the course of the last few patches, the healer role has become more and more marginalized, and the two main drivers of this are 1) game mechanics, including overuse of one-shot mechanics, that favor doing overwhelming DPS over survivability and 2) the fact that healing scales off of offensive stats such that DPS off-healers have stronger heals than a dedicated healer due to having more spell power due to the fact that dedicated healers are less focused on building for spell power. Overwhelming spell power is simply not needed to make an effective healer because heals are already pretty strong.

I see a lot of post saying healing across the board should be nerfed, but that won't solve the issue because off-healer heals will still be stronger than dedicated heals due to the heals scaling off of offensive stats. However, if the combat system was reworked such that ability cost scaled up exponentially with the spell damage modifier, you could create some separation between the two roles. Sure, an off-healer would have stronger heals than a dedicated healer still, but they would incur more cost for healing than a dedicated healer would, which would reduce their offensive output. At that point, it becomes more valuable to have someone who can throw out heals constantly at a lower cost, allowing DD's to focus on their particular role.

Spell costs could then be tweaked such that DPS pay less of a penalty by using damaging abilities with high spell power than they would if they used healing abilities.

Its just a thought and one I think warrants at least some consideration. However, such a change may necessitate that they go back and do a pass on all ability costs, which Zos may not be inclined to do.

Danksta · August 2020

This would be terrible for PvP

zvavi · August 2020

If they do manage to make healers needed in dungeons, the forums will flood with "we wipe all the time because our healer sucks" and "I don't feel like healing anymore it is too much pressure" posts.

idk · August 2020

Danksta wrote: »

This would be terrible for PvP

It would be poor for the game as a whole and ESO advertised itself as a game where the trinity are blurred. So it would go against the foundation of the game. Something that, in a good way, separates it from antiquated games like WoW, FF14, and SWTOR.

BTW, the healer being marginalized is a very separate issue that OP is not really addressing. Regardless, outside of the most challenging content, we have not needed dedicated healers since the game launched. vDSA strat early on was a 50/50 healer/DPS. Even the last fight an early strat for the final vDSA arena was the healer tanking the adds while the tank moved the boss away. For years now that healer is now tanking the boss while the tank moves the adds away for that final round.

FrancisCrawford · August 2020

Dungeon groups have 4 or fewer players each. It's OK that their jobs be hybird rather than single-minded.

Healers heal and buff and debuff and DPS.
DDs DPS, do mechanics if any, and rez if needed.
Tanks taunt, position, and debuff enemies. Sometimes they buff allies as well.

There's much to complain about in the game, but I don't see what's wrong with that aspect.

p00tx · August 2020

Speaking as a healer main, I don't see a problem with the way healing roles have gone. I enjoy being both the full healer and being the debuff healer. Both roles are unique and a lot of fun, and I would even argue it's a lot more fun than having two dedicated healbots. I don't actually enjoy healing 4 person content and would rather just hop on a dps and offer a group oriented off-heal.

You can do whatever you want in your groups, but I'd rather not have the entire game rewritten to force people into one way of playing.

Taleof2Cities · August 2020

Danksta wrote: »

This would be terrible for PvP

Are you sure, @Danksta?

Spell Damage is only one component in PvP healing. You've also got Max Magicka, Healing Done, and Magicka Regen.

EDIT: I should add Crit Heals as well for the handful of PvP healers that build for it.

If healing cost increase were to scale with Spell Damage (as the OP suggests), you've still got the other three to output heals.

So, the OP's idea makes sense if the goal is to bring that extra pocket healer in your small group (or solo) ... and get PvP magicka DPS off of being reliant on spell damage for both damage and self-heals.

FrancisCrawford wrote: »

Dungeon groups have 4 or fewer players each. It's OK that their jobs be hybird rather than single-minded.

There's much to complain about in the game, but I don't see what's wrong with that aspect.

Group Dungeons are only one (1) playstyle, @FrancisCrawford.

Don't get tunnel-visioned ... and consider the game as a whole with all playstyles (including PvP).

idk wrote: »

Danksta wrote: »

This would be terrible for PvP

It would be poor for the game as a whole and ESO advertised itself as a game where the trinity are blurred. So it would go against the foundation of the game.

I think the OP's idea would create the opposite, @idk. It would more clearly define the healer's role in the trinity.

The game's past history does not mean it cannot consider new ideas for the future.

p00tx · August 2020

I think maybe some posters are under some misconceptions about how a healer should build. We currently spec into spell dmg and crit to get these monster heals you mentioned, even on a full heal spec, so these proposed changes would actually hurt the healers who are currently building properly. Most pug healers or inexperienced healers tend to spec fully into sustain, and would not be touched or affected by this. What exactly would be the point then in changing all of this if the overwhelming majority of players wouldn't even be affected?

YandereGirlfriend · August 2020

This is not the way to solve the problem of marginalized healers.

To solve that, you need players to actually receive amounts of damage that only a dedicated healer can save them from, otherwise off-heals or sacking the healer entirely will continue to be the preferred strategy.

So just as there are hard DPS checks in many dungeons so too should there be dedicated healing checks.

I do, however, support de-coupling healing potency from Spell/Weapon Damage and increasing the values of Healing Done bonuses to make them more mandatory for obtaining strong healing. It is woefully poor design that the means of generating big heals is simply stacking damage stats the same as any DPS would.

idk · August 2020

idk wrote: »

Danksta wrote: »

This would be terrible for PvP

It would be poor for the game as a whole and ESO advertised itself as a game where the trinity are blurred. So it would go against the foundation of the game.

I think the OP's idea would create the opposite, . It would more clearly define the healer's role in the trinity.

The game's past history does not mean it cannot consider new ideas for the future.

[/quote]

I pretty much grasped what I said was the opposite of what OP was saying. It is why I brought it up.

Also, I never suggested things could not be changed. However, I will suggest what the change suggested in this thread is highly unlikely as it would be a major change to the foundation of combat. Zos recently acknowledged one area of combat in this game was a major factor that set this game apart from other games and is why many of us are here. The blurred lines of the trinity fall very close to that as well.

BXR_Lonestar · August 2020

idk wrote: »

Danksta wrote: »

This would be terrible for PvP

It would be poor for the game as a whole and ESO advertised itself as a game where the trinity are blurred. So it would go against the foundation of the game. Something that, in a good way, separates it from antiquated games like WoW, FF14, and SWTOR.

BTW, the healer being marginalized is a very separate issue that OP is not really addressing. Regardless, outside of the most challenging content, we have not needed dedicated healers since the game launched. vDSA strat early on was a 50/50 healer/DPS. Even the last fight an early strat for the final vDSA arena was the healer tanking the adds while the tank moved the boss away. For years now that healer is now tanking the boss while the tank moves the adds away for that final round.

I don't think this game was advertised as the trinity being blurred at all. You look at the dungeon finder and it is set up with a very rigid structure with 2 DPS, 1 tank, 1 healer. If it was intended for the lines between the trinity to be blurred, they could simply get rid of all of the requirements and simply make it 4 match-made players of any role. Taking it further, they could just design content assuming that you wouldn't have a tank or a healer.

As you said, you really only need the support roles towards the high-end of content, but that is because the content is so easy - designed that way to be more accessible to lower skilled players. That said, even in high-end content like vet DLC dungeons, you see people preferring to run it with 3 DPS rather than a dedicated healer which is a problem. The reason? DPS Off-healers help the DPS burn more than a dedicated healer and their heals are just as strong because damage spells scale on a similar level as heals do.

I actually think it would be GOOD for the game to lean more into the trinity by creating differences between the two roles.

BXR_Lonestar · August 2020

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

This is not the way to solve the problem of marginalized healers.

To solve that, you need players to actually receive amounts of damage that only a dedicated healer can save them from, otherwise off-heals or sacking the healer entirely will continue to be the preferred strategy.

So just as there are hard DPS checks in many dungeons so too should there be dedicated healing checks.

I do, however, support de-coupling healing potency from Spell/Weapon Damage and increasing the values of Healing Done bonuses to make them more mandatory for obtaining strong healing. It is woefully poor design that the means of generating big heals is simply stacking damage stats the same as any DPS would.

What you say about players receiving damage is true and that is another component of resolving the issue, but the problem is until you create a way for dedicated healers to outperform DPS off-healers ability to heal without speccing themselves to be similar to a DPS player, changing how incoming damage works would only exacerbate the problem.

The key here is to figure out how to make a dedicated healer, who generally builds for sustain and support rather than pure spellpower/damage to outheal a DPS who is specced purely for max damage and spellpower. In most cases, a healer with around 2500 spell power and 40K magika is going to have enough healing power to get you through most any content, and thus, if you made it where spell COST scaled off of spell damage, then a dedicated healer would out-perform DPS off-healers, especially in content where all players are receiving constant damage.

BXR_Lonestar · August 2020

p00tx wrote: »

I think maybe some posters are under some misconceptions about how a healer should build. We currently spec into spell dmg and crit to get these monster heals you mentioned, even on a full heal spec, so these proposed changes would actually hurt the healers who are currently building properly. Most pug healers or inexperienced healers tend to spec fully into sustain, and would not be touched or affected by this. What exactly would be the point then in changing all of this if the overwhelming majority of players wouldn't even be affected?

I'm not sure what guide you are following, but I have two healers and am a healer main and I don't spec for spell power at all. In fact, I've solo healed several trials and I've only got around 1700 base spell power, around 2500 self buffed, and around 40K magika, give or take depending on what helms I wear. My heals are PLENTY strong to get my group through all kinds of difficult vet content. My setups stress pure team support, meaning I have very little investment in spell damage. And increasing my investment in that department wouldn't give me any gain because heals are already strong enough to get through content. You build too heavily for spell damage and you get into territory where your overhealing and your "big" heals aren't doing any good because most players don't need to be healed that much.

I stack several HoT's and so long as the DPS stay within the area, they're not going to die. And BTW, I can still heal the tank for 40K if need be.

The problem is because heals scale off of offensive stats, a mag DPS backbarring a resto staff with only a couple of HoT's and a burst heal could do the job just as well and have more group utility due to increased DPS, which just shouldn't be the case.

Atherakhia · August 2020

Forgive me for being ignorant, but I'm not even sure what the issue this change is attempting to solve? Is the argument that the healer role isn't important enough and people who aren't pure healers are no more valuable than people who simply put on a restoration staff and heal on the side? Because if so, that seems to be less of a problem with how DPS and Healers share a stat line and more to do with the fact that how the classes themselves are designed?

By that I mean a more straight forward solution would appear to be to remove heal skills from the game and make skills have heal morphs and DPS morphs? I mean that's the argument here, right? That a DPS can take off a DPS skill and replace it freely and easily with a heal? Take for example Dragon Knights and Ash Cloud. That skill has a clear DPS and healer morph. As such, a Dragon Knight cannot effortlessly swap between healer and DPS. This is clearly a bad example because Cinder Storm is awful and numerous other AE heals are available but was simply trying to get the point across.

Is this what we're trying to 'fix'?

Radiance · August 2020

I'm not certain of the subject here but getting Random Qs more often with DPS that have absolutely no business Quing for that role or dungeon difficulty level and I end up doing 50%+ DPS of Group damage as a Healer and it's not me neglecting my Role, it is done out of necessity or we would otherwise be there for hours and most-likely be incapable of completing.

Rungar · August 2020

I would rather they changed the healer role to more of an offtank healing support role.

stpdmonkey · August 2020

Over the years I have gone from mainly a tank to dps to healer. My healer is my most ran toon right now. I have been extremely frustrated with the changes that have come over the last year or so. But I do not want any more changes to healing. I agree heal needs to somehow be separated from your damage stats. Tanks have their own stats to look at and so does dps. Healers have to base their healing potential off of dps stats. Trying to adjust cp or gear or skills to create bigger heals can be a major headache especially for new players. There are very few guidelines to understand what you are doing and how your setup affects your heals.

Athan1 · August 2020

I think that healing works fine as is. You can heal, debuff, then dps if necessary. Also overland content ia easy for healers since they already have high offensive stats. It's more frustrating for tanks that have to respec when doing overland since tankiness doesn't have damage output.

YandereGirlfriend · August 2020

Regarding having to spec specifically for healing, you could make some modest changes:

No longer scale heals with Damage OR Max Stats (unless it is a designated health-scaling tank morph), this de facto means a reduction in baseline healing power for most builds.
Greatly increase the scaling of the Healing Done Champion Point star to something like +100% Healing Done, thus requiring a large investment in order to generate worthwhile heals.
Greatly increase the magnitude of Healing Done items and class/racial bonuses.
Introduce two new stats and Champion Point stars, Critical Healing Chance and Critical Healing, that are used for heals, this forces yet another choice and an opportunity cost for players building to heal rather than to deal damage.

And then you introduce the "All players in the group take much more, unavoidable damage" mechanics than only a dedicated healer can save them from.

BOOM--problem solved!

karekiz · August 2020

Bring back Classic good ol'Magblde DPSHeals

AcadianPaladin · August 2020

I am a huge fan of the synergy between heals and damage that spell power provides. Without it, healers become too specialized, soloing for them becomes not fun, their numbers go down, their willingness to do pugs goes down. . . in other words, they become as rare as tanks. I have a dedicated main tank that is fully retired - overspecialized/not fun unless with a pre-coordinated group in voice comm. I don't recommend sending healers down the same path. My dedicated healer - if faced with the loss of spell power boosting both heals and damage will retire from healing and focus on solo only.

Dungeons? I don't see any problem with four sturdy, self-healing characters who can all deliver reasonable damage. Fun in dungeons and fun when solo.

YandereGirlfriend · August 2020

You shouldn't be balancing a role in an MMO based upon niche gameplay (soloing) nor for the worst-case scenario when using the Dungeon Finder (inept DPS who takes aeons to kill bosses).

If a dedicated healer becomes more mandatory to clear content then your queue times as a healer will get even shorter, approaching the tank queue time of being nearly instantaneous.

maxjapank · August 2020

I love healing, but only because I love the hybrid role of healer/dps. That's one of the differences that ESO offered that wasn't in other games I played. I don't do trials, but I hear that is the place for dedicated healers/support.

universal_wrath · August 2020

BXR_Lonestar wrote: »

Over the course of the last few patches, the healer role has become more and more marginalized, and the two main drivers of this are 1) game mechanics, including overuse of one-shot mechanics, that favor doing overwhelming DPS over survivability and 2) the fact that healing scales off of offensive stats such that DPS off-healers have stronger heals than a dedicated healer due to having more spell power due to the fact that dedicated healers are less focused on building for spell power. Overwhelming spell power is simply not needed to make an effective healer because heals are already pretty strong.

I see a lot of post saying healing across the board should be nerfed, but that won't solve the issue because off-healer heals will still be stronger than dedicated heals due to the heals scaling off of offensive stats. However, if the combat system was reworked such that ability cost scaled up exponentially with the spell damage modifier, you could create some separation between the two roles. Sure, an off-healer would have stronger heals than a dedicated healer still, but they would incur more cost for healing than a dedicated healer would, which would reduce their offensive output. At that point, it becomes more valuable to have someone who can throw out heals constantly at a lower cost, allowing DD's to focus on their particular role.

Spell costs could then be tweaked such that DPS pay less of a penalty by using damaging abilities with high spell power than they would if they used healing abilities.

Its just a thought and one I think warrants at least some consideration. However, such a change may necessitate that they go back and do a pass on all ability costs, which Zos may not be inclined to do.

Every play style have pros and cons. When I play with main healers, i'm more focused on doing highest dps I can do, and I don't have to worry about sustain. Playing with off healers gives me anxiety, they focue on doing more dps than healing. Sometimes teamates die before off healers realize that theur teamate was lossing HP and subsequently dies.

Some dungeons require dedicated healera as supposed to off healers, like scale caller pear where lots of mechanics involve heal8ng debuffs and resources depletion, as well as AOE dots in some boss fights, off healers will not be able to be effective as much because they would need to focus on healing more while their toolkit is geared more toward dps. In some achievement runs on DLC dungeons, people prefer main healers as supposed to off healers, mainly no death runs ans some hard modes.

Taleof2Cities · August 2020

universal_wrath wrote: »

Some dungeons require dedicated healera as supposed to off healers, like scale caller pear where lots of mechanics involve heal8ng debuffs and resources depletion, as well as AOE dots in some boss fights, off healers will not be able to be effective as much because they would need to focus on healing more while their toolkit is geared more toward dps. In some achievement runs on DLC dungeons, people prefer main healers as supposed to off healers, mainly no death runs ans some hard modes.

But as I mentioned above, @universal_wrath, group dungeons are just one (1) playstyle in the game.

You have to look at all the game's playstyles together to really see the extent of where dedicated healers are actually used.

Which isn't a lot.

In your example, there are only a handful of DLC dungeons where dedicated heals are really useful.

In PvP, raid groups will have one or two dedicated healers (or more) depending on the size of the raid.

That's about it though.

4 elite DPS can breeze through Scalecaller with no trouble.

There was even one time that I PUG grouped Scalecaller HM as a healer with 3 DPS ... and they told me they wished I had a better ultimate to use than Nova.

idk · August 2020

BXR_Lonestar wrote: »

idk wrote: »

Danksta wrote: »

This would be terrible for PvP

It would be poor for the game as a whole and ESO advertised itself as a game where the trinity are blurred. So it would go against the foundation of the game. Something that, in a good way, separates it from antiquated games like WoW, FF14, and SWTOR.

BTW, the healer being marginalized is a very separate issue that OP is not really addressing. Regardless, outside of the most challenging content, we have not needed dedicated healers since the game launched. vDSA strat early on was a 50/50 healer/DPS. Even the last fight an early strat for the final vDSA arena was the healer tanking the adds while the tank moved the boss away. For years now that healer is now tanking the boss while the tank moves the adds away for that final round.

I don't think this game was advertised as the trinity being blurred at all. You look at the dungeon finder and it is set up with a very rigid structure with 2 DPS, 1 tank, 1 healer. If it was intended for the lines between the trinity to be blurred, they could simply get rid of all of the requirements and simply make it 4 match-made players of any role. Taking it further, they could just design content assuming that you wouldn't have a tank or a healer.

Considering one player can do more than one role on the same character at the same time it would seem rather obvious the lines of the trinity were blurred. Back before power creep had a chance to be a thing I DPSed and healed dungeons on the same character at the same time.

In the first year of this game being live I healed vDSA leaderboard runs often. That meant I was a 50/50 heal/DPS through the first nine arenas and added tanking in the last arena. Let us not forget that there is no reducing to DPS when healing nor is there a reduction of healing when doing damage.

The fact of actually how the game has played for the entire time this game has been live speaks for itself, loud and clear. The trinity is in fact blurred and always has been.

Grianasteri · August 2020

Healing is a complex topic.

It is worth remembering that the actual game play experience, is rather different depending on the level (and experience/competence) of the player and indeed upon the content engaged with.

Low level, low CP players, who have less experience or ability, are likely to benefit from a dedicated healer, or off healer, in a great deal of content. I remember well really struggling with some world bosses, with some normal dungeons, and finding many veteran dungeons nigh on impossible.... even with a healer.

Fast forward to 810 CP and another few years experience... I can solo those veteran dungeons, never mind the normal ones. That's a massive massive difference in the dps I am kicking out and the survivability and therefore difference in need for heals.

Really the only content I benefit from a healer now, is the more difficult DCL veteran dungeons, and veteran trials - the content a LOT less of the player base actually engage in regularly.

Let us also not forget that healing should more accurately be called, supporting. Its a support role, healing is the core responsibility but not the only one, buffing and debuffing are also key to carrying out the role effectively, particularly in the Vet DLC and Vet Trials. An off healer is unlikely to be providing the level of support generally expected from an end game healer. But outside of that end game content, the off healer is going to do very well indeed, be it a tank or dps healer. That I guess is my feeling, rather than well evidenced finding.

Its also impossible to consider healing witout recognising and taking account of the fact that dps creep continuing to go ever higher, ends up meaning more and more content can just be burned through rapidly without heals.

After rambling with all that, I don't really have a solution, other than to stop creating content with so many one short mechanics, and instead create content that has mechanics that NEED a sufficient level of consistent healing, to survive.

I love healing, lets make healing great again Zos. Right now, my guildies and I basically don't use healers unless its real Vet end game content, even then, we can manage a lot of the vet dlc dungeons without a healer and it actually goes faster with an extra dps. That is not a healthy state for the game to be in.

4 dps (x2 with Thrassian Stranglers) in Vet Unhallowed Grave was great fun, but it should not be possible.

I'll stop rambling.

universal_wrath · August 2020

Taleof2Cities wrote: »

universal_wrath wrote: »

Some dungeons require dedicated healera as supposed to off healers, like scale caller pear where lots of mechanics involve heal8ng debuffs and resources depletion, as well as AOE dots in some boss fights, off healers will not be able to be effective as much because they would need to focus on healing more while their toolkit is geared more toward dps. In some achievement runs on DLC dungeons, people prefer main healers as supposed to off healers, mainly no death runs ans some hard modes.

But as I mentioned above, @universal_wrath, group dungeons are just one (1) playstyle in the game.

You have to look at all the game's playstyles together to really see the extent of where dedicated healers are actually used.

Which isn't a lot.

In your example, there are only a handful of DLC dungeons where dedicated heals are really useful.

In PvP, raid groups will have one or two dedicated healers (or more) depending on the size of the raid.

That's about it though.

4 elite DPS can breeze through Scalecaller with no trouble.

There was even one time that I PUG grouped Scalecaller HM as a healer with 3 DPS ... and they told me they wished I had a better ultimate to use than Nova.

It is somewhat possible to do most dungeons with full DD group, but you already said that you need elite players to do so. Dungeons is but 1 part of the game, and for most players, it is better to have a dedicated healer around because some do not know what is a self heal is. If you can do tge dungeons with 4dds, go for it, but sometimes you need to do stress free run.

You also said dedicated healers in raid groups of both PvE and PvP are already at work.

Last point, make sure you have warhorn as a healer for boss fight support purposes, nova is great for clearing trash.

I'm not really sure what are you trying to point out? Are healers not important? You can make similar claim about tanks, since you already finished some dlc dungeons on HM without a tank. Also in PvP raids group are almost non exsitant. Maybe you are trying to point out something else, but I'm confused.

Taleof2Cities · August 2020

universal_wrath wrote: »

I'm not really sure what are you trying to point out? Are healers not important?

The point is I support the OP's idea.

Having a healing cost increase that scales with spell damage would effectively divorce magicka DPS from using high spell damage for self-heals/healing support ... and bring a healer instead.

Rungar · August 2020

I would of prefered that the healer design was closer to an off tank than a dps. That way more heals would have a health component which would negatively impact dps healing but positively impact healer and tank roles.