The last change the healers, as far as I'm concerned, is a move in the wrong direction. There are always three archetypes of tanks, damagers and healers in this genre of games, everything else is optional (all kinds of buffers there, etc.) these three roles are the basis of any game of this genre.
I've been playing for the healers all my life, and I don't like playing for the damagers. The situation when they start making half-magicians/half-healers out of healers and I am actually forced to inflict damage in the "intervals" between treatment is a depressing situation.
Greetings, thank you for your feedback.
The aim of the druid (and priest) changes was to give you, as a player, options. We've tackled many issues plagueing the healer archetypem including, but not limited to, a hard time levelling, very little agency in instances, inability to do content other classes could, limited usability beyond one healer regarless of raid or party content. For that reason alone it was imperative we get rid of some limiting factors for the healer archetype (namely the removal of must-own gear to be considered useful).
We're going to continue smoothing out gameplay as we go.
In fact, from my point of view, druid is starting to get upset about these changes, because despite the fact that in the notes to the change of priests it says: "at the moment, priests are superior to druids in many situations", but what do we see in the druid's changes? the healing of basic skills (Restore Life life and Mother Earth's Fountain) has been reduced, the generation of the Nature's Power has become more complicated, and the power of nature itself has become almost an unnecessary thing from Heal's point of view (except for the Druid/Priest due to the recycling of the Savior of Light and the normal generation of the Nature's Power). If you think that the healers need to be diversified, then it's better to do this through separate damage bundles or other changes that will add usefulness to the class (if you don't like that the healers are "useful" in your opinion only because of the auras).
As you correctly deduced, gaining nature's power has been made more complicated. This is a theme that goes throughout these changes, where players main complaint about the archetype of pure healers was a lack of excitement. The word "boredom" has been thrown around a lot when gathering feedback, especially when there was more than one heal present, regardless of the content being played.
While the nerfs to healing skills seem harsh, their real effect were less than 8%. If this seems like too low of a number to be true, you can try this for yourself by using a spell at skill level 1 and with the same gear, use the spell at level 105. The difference of healing done is marginal.
The removal of Pure Healing (and for that matter, Faith), was simply to offset the rework of the Gloves of the Enchanter, which were on average passively taking away around 26% healing done.
Druids then got something which Priests didn't: up to 30% healing done with nature's power. Druids are vastly more powerful in terms of healing than before, even though the patch notes might not indicate that right away.
In total, you're doing about 20% more healing than before the patch as a druid.
If you want to play a druid that doesn't interact with monsters at all, there are still very good class combinations for you to explore.
I don't even want to talk about changing gloves for healers, people who love and play with healers and only healers have spent time, effort and resources in order to make them, and as a result they are giving damage now... As an healer, I don't need these gloves anymore, I can basically throwing them away. This is not good, they would have been converted into something useful for HEALING, and the gloves of Darkness and Light would have been converted for damaga.
I hope my opinion (which may be supported by other players) will help you return to the direction when the heal is primarily the heal.
The choice to change the Gloves of the Enchanter into one that serves the heal-dps hybrid was made with the utmost care to ensure it would not be to the detriment of the player. Namely, the swap to gear score meant that average buffs (except for the super top end) are now slightly higher than before, healing done has been slightly increased overall (if your gloves were >tier 13).
In addition, players wanting to try the new archetype don't have to build any new gear to do so.
Gloves of the Enchanters old effect simply had to go from a gameplay perspective. While a fun idea in it's conception, it led healers down a very narrow path: Would you be the one with the highest buffs, your only choices of class were to play druid/priest or priest/druid to ensure your party was as strong as possible. Choosing any other class was akin to griefing your party.
Being a newer player with lower buffs also meant that parties were hesitant to take you as a heal, often times delegating these players onto support roles with even less agency. We would see a pattern of these players either outright quit or swap to a different gear type altogether.
In short: You're healing more, you're buffing more and if you want to heal even more, you're free to build the set gloves. Even If you don't, you're very likely still stronger than before.
