So many replies! I can’t get them all individually but I would like to say that this isn’t from a purely pvp standpoint like a lot of people seem to think it is. That is obviously one aspect because it’s a part of the game, but this is a game that is much larger than that one piece of the whole.
I would say that my feelings on the matter comes from a combination of having played the game for a long time and watching how it has changed and evolved over the years and through the expansions and also my own predisposed ideas of rpgs from classic archetypes of the genre.
I agree with the “jack of all trades master of none” ideology when it comes to these types of things.
I like Tyrantides post as they seem to have put some thought into it.
- My intital reaction to this question is it doesn’t stop you from doing it as a healer but it would be the much more painful option. Now, before more people jump on the “you just want to ruin other peoples solo experince” bandwagon, if you look at why I said above I have these feelings on the matter it partly answers your question because why would a healer want to be doing damage to begin with? There is a lot of reasons for people to want to pick a class or spec, they like the look, they like the playstyle, the fantasy appeals to them personally (which I think is the hardest to argue a lot of how classes have become), etc.
If I play a rogue, as an example, for most solo leveling/questing there are a vast array of quests I simply can not complete on my own because I am not tanky enough or can’t heal myself enough so if it doesn’t die within my cooldowns then it doesn’t die. Now on the one hand your inital reaction might be “well yeah, they’re a leather class and aren’t a tank or healer so of course they can’t lol” but then why should a healer be able to do those same things more efficiently? With nerfed damage they might still be able to do it but it would take much much longer and be a harder fight but might be still doable and yet the rogue will not be able to unless they outlevel the mob/quest/zone or get someone to help.
So the arguement works one way but not the other? Make rogues tankier or give them much better healing right? But then that likely breaks pvp in some way so people don’t want to do that. (Rogues specifically are a whole other can of worms though that I’d love to make another thread about at some point) A lot of that is tied to class archetypes/fantasy though and I think it’s a little backwards to apply it one way but not the other as an argument.
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As the only healer you bring healing and whatever utility your class brings that isn’t healing, but while damage could be considered a utility I don’t think that it is within the scope of this discussion because you have classes that are meant to be bringing the damage and some that don’t have the utility to equate what a healer bringing damage is. So to me when you say what do you bring as a healer you bring healing plus any utility your class has that isn’t damge - whether that is a battle rez, bop, roots, soothe, freedom, stuns/fears, etc. There is a lot of utility in the game that is not damage.
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A large part of 3 is the idea of “same-ness” but even if all healers did the same HPS they bring other things (as mentioned above) that means that damage is not the only thing that makes them different. In a very narrow view like the race to world first where they are trying to squeeze out every single damage point they can, yes, if one healer does a bit more (or a lot more like paladins) then that clearly makes for an uneven playing field - and usually not to the enjoyment of even the RWF people (I don’t remember them being thrilled will paladins all expac).
This has been largely focused on healers since the post I’m mostly responding to was mainly aimed at that aspect but it’s not only healers and I don’t have anything against them specifically.
I think someone mentioned about back when the hybrid tax was in that people barely played those classes which isn’t entirely true. You did take less of them quite often to cover the niches that they filled but I don’t think buffing their damage or healing without removing utility to balance that out was the right answer. Hybrids have very much moved more towards the “Jack of all trades and master of all” instead and I don’t think it has helped the game. Maybe the hybrid tax before was too harsh, I’m not saying if it was or wasn’t, but even if it was then swinging the pendulum in the complete opposite direction isn’t any better and I don’t think they’ve tried to fix that because everyone wants their numbers to be high and taking things away does feel bad so they’ve just kind of kept going making sure hybrids do as much as everyone else to the detriment of pure classes and, in my opinon, the game overall.
Sorry for the wall of text, I was trying to cover as much as I could from the replies and it just kind of got away from me.
Also I do think some people have misunderstood my option #2 but I don’t want this to be any longer!