One reason often given for the disparity in raw damage output between ranged and melee dps is that ranged players are able to attack from a distance, which presumably implies safety. Melee trades up on raw output and down on safety. However, healing in New World is designed so that, in expeditions at least, this “benefit” from range is completely reversed.
Sacred ground is easily the most powerful healing ability in the game and part of every healer’s kit without exception. The dynamic of priority healing for tanks and the prominence of sacred ground creates a zone of collateral safety around bosses and mobs for melee dps, effectively nullifying the positional benefit of ranged dps output.
In fact, in an expedition group with only 1 healer and because of the dominant power of sacred ground and the relatively low number of cooldowns available compared to other MMOs, it actually becomes a hinderance on a healer’s output. If their main priority is keeping the tank up, healers don’t want to have to burn one of their other 2 cooldowns to heal a ranged dps that isn’t taking advantage of the sacred ground beneath the tank.
The result is boring, static gameplay where the most effective form of dps is melee left click spam, soaking attacks even from expedition bosses without any real concern. Until mechanics and splash damage matter more, I don’t believe there is any upside to playing ranged dps in expeditions.
I am no genius game designer so by way of suggestion for improvement I would only offer something like scaling sacred ground healing based on armor and/or max HP rather than flat healing to all targets equally, and potentially compensating with a boost to other healing abilities. Just nerfing sacred ground is not the answer anybody wants, least of all tanks and healers.
This is my perspective from mostly playing mage or healer. I’m curious to know what other people think.