Couple of thoughts that may drive healer engagement, and/or fix a few issues with rated PVP:
(To preface; game feels better than it has for half a decade imo. Nice)
Remove healers from being a mandatory requirement in solo’s. Promote an alternative meta to 3’s which solo queue is aimed at in principle anyway, triple DPS being the likely norm given the population of healers vs DPS - quick queue’s, quick games, alternative playstyles. We have to accept that many of those not playing a healer now, won’t play a healer in future unless sweeping, core design changes happen - the population of healers is simply lower in comparison to DPS, little is going to change that at a macro scale in the short-medium term.
Dramatically reduce the amount of defensive CD’s open to all DPS specs, move these to, or improve healers’ current defensive CD kits. Permits an even more utilitarian gameplay attractive to many who play healers in that you’re not just a +missing HP bot, you’re providing more impact on the result of a game on enemy team go’s, allow more of these selected defensive healer CD’s to be used while CC’d (but in moderation). Feedback I’ve seen is that healing just isn’t “fun” in solo’s for many reasons, but one of which being just watching DPS die with all defensive’s available & not able to impact games enough. Appreciate fun is subjective, but this has been a common theme/comment line. Putting defensive CD capabilities more in the hands of healers will reduce the amount of one shot in a stun/GCD scenario also which imo is positive for the game.
EDIT: One I didn’t mention, but to a lesser degree & isn’t specific to healers or solo queue - reduce the amount of micro-CC’s in the game, loss of control from proc-based CC’s is not fun & engaging imo.
Have thought about a few smaller things, but these to me provide the largest benefits.
Remive healers, why, cuz ur inapt and cant play a healer?
Not only , you only dps players beg for healers and have 0 intention of playing one, now you want them removed so you can play you”te lower skillcap floor dps role
Really braindead take, I can only imagine you’re 11 years old or have trouble breathing through your nose. You might not be able to comprehend this, but not everyone wants to player a healer regardless of incentives. I will never play a healer, because I don’t enjoy the playstyle - its “inept” by the way, not inapt.
EDIT: Also, liking your own comments is mad cringe.
Removing healers from shuffle would destroy completly whole solo shuffle. Noone enjoy mindless 30sec mordor. Make for healers enjoyable play this burst fiesta pvp.
In what way would it destroy shuffle? It’d only be mindless DPS spree in lobbies with no healers, healer games would still be the “same” as they are now, but allows variation of games & fixes the queue problems.
You can try all you want, but there is no silver bullet to making content more enjoyable for healers when not all players want to play healers in the first place. Perhaps try for next expansion, but this isn’t going to change in this one imo.
Agree this cant be fixed via one patch when they gradually destroying healer pvp experience last 2 expansions. But who will play 30 sec mordor when they remove that restriction. Whole Solo Shuffle become total random mess.
They definitely need to make the healer experience better for players who enjoy the playstyle, or want to enjoy the playstyle but can’t because of the current healer gamestate blockers, but I would say even more players would play shuffle with this change, because its detached from rated 3s in the same way that rated 2s is - there’s double DPS in 2s and that hasn’t died a death. Shuffle isn’t being played atm because nobody wants to wait 20 mins > hour for a game, if queues are 2 mins engagement in shuffle will blow up as its more accessible to all, especially new players who just want to drop in and go ham.
Why would I play games I don’t enjoy instead of one I do because of a comment about healers being mandatory in one specific game mode? What about the other 99.9% of the game? Pretty stupid comment.
How exactly would removing defensive CD’s from DPS classes remove the need for healer specs? It serves the opposite if anything, meaning you benefit from having healer specs with defensive CD’s? 2 for 2 on pretty stupid comments.
They just gotta buff other healers to be on the same level as evoker. Then more will queue…
I only played evoker on beta, it was doable but I hate the visuals of the class.
But being able to kite on your own, have massive instant healing and some decent cc immunities makes the experience a lot better already.
I played rdruid and priest on retail and have totally shelved those for now. I even see there are rdruid nerfs incoming while evoker is untouched…
There’s just no point in healing on anything else than evoker and they need to fix this before more healers will queue.
Participation of healers in solo Q will not rise by unorthodox measures.
Majority can easily identify the issue; playing a healer is not fun atm mainly due to the amount of oppressive specs (fury, dh, assa) + specs that burst in a very short window (ww).
Then it becomes clear as to why healers dont prefer to play ranked 3v3 or solo shuffle; dealing with 2 DPSes with people that may not peel becomes extremely annoying to play.
That is why when solo “shuffle” idea was brought out some people like me insisted that;
Dont make it a “shuffle” system,
Apply this for 2v2, not for 3v3.
Both the shuffle and 3v3 components of the system goes against the very core reason of why this was asked in the 1st place; a ranked system we could spam, play a few rounds in chill mode, not lose time, then leave.
But with the way it is; it requires 3 people instead of 2, with the shuffle system and the Q time its almost a 20-30 min. investment (and when someone leaves all of that is wasted), and when its a 3v3 it makes the healers’ lives more difficult compared to 2v2 (lets remember that dampening works differently too).
So there are fundemental issues that makes the new solo shuffle and ranked pvp (particularly solo shuffle though) hellhole for healers.
For me the best solution would be making this a 2v2 and removing the shuffle component.
Otherwise, as we get more deep into DF q times will hit 25 mins and eventually it becomes an LFG-like experience.
