A summary of healer issues

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Originally Posted by ForsakenRoe

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I am now reminded of meet the medic after reading this. Given how bloodthirsty healers in this game can be that seems appropriate :p

Actually medic's level of awesome and skill curve should be a core concept of what goes into a healer. It needs to be cool enough to draw new healers in, simple and approachable for the newbies to help out and clear, but has enough depth and synergy that makes masters of medic, or in this case sage/scholar/astro/white mage a force to be reckoned with.

Where do I get my ideas about healers? By playing the goddamn game myself and not listening to a bunch of trolls and whiners on Internet forums. SCH was my main job but I swapped to SGE at lvl 70. I only even ran RDM through the SB MSQ and rarely play it in multiplayer. I have the tanks for when they are getting the Roulette bonuses.

Reddit sucks. It is the worst place for anonymous brigades of groupthink asshats that has ever existed in the history of the Internet.

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Originally Posted by ChonkGoblinSuprem

Where do I get my ideas about healers? By playing the goddamn game myself and not listening to a bunch of trolls and whiners on Internet forums. SCH was my main job but I swapped to SGE at lvl 70. I only even ran RDM through the SB MSQ and rarely play it in multiplayer. I have the tanks for when they are getting the Roulette bonuses.

Reddit sucks. It is the worst place for anonymous brigades of groupthink asshats that has ever existed in the history of the Internet.

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So if you play healer decent and don’t struggle you can not deny that it is ultra mega boring if the rest of the party is also decent. Like I myself don’t find it interesting too spam 1 button over and over and over again. And imagine you do that stuff since almost 3 years. I have more fun copy and paste stuff for work 300 times per day and press 1 after work also 150 times per day. Like I never watched how much I pressed 1 in week 1 fights back in shadowbringer but I assume it was atleast 300 times per 5 hours raiding we did.

Sorry for another tangent, but a little before the "If you want engaging healing content, go play Ultimates" line I asked about the current state of healers in the JP forums, and one of the responses mentioned YoshiP's said they're trying to avoid making healer dps from having much variance as that can greatly affect content completion.

I haven't looked hard enough to verify the source, but at the time I thought he was doubting the players' ability to actually execute a complex dps rotation on top of a heal plan. Now I'm thinking it's more an issue with balancing the game since it'd make the amount of damage we deal wildly fluctuate based on how well the entire party is doing, even more so than it does now.

Like if we had some gauge that filled through executing a dps rotation, then we won't be able to fill it too well if the party's doing poorly and you'd do that much less damage. When the party's doing great you'd do that much more damage. This range gets even larger when ILs and level sync come into play.

It's far easier to measure how much damage a healer will output when it's largely just 2~4 moves that are disjoint from each other.

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Originally Posted by ForsakenRoe

This is an interesting aspect to consider. If we saw two SGEs in a trailer, one who's working overtime to heal people, and one who's using their nouliths in multiple ways, eg one is shooting enemies, one is drawing shields on someone as they charge in, and two are helping heal people in the back who are injured, multitasking all four at the same time... Which of the two SGEs is the 'better healer'? I'd argue it's the one that is keeping up with the healing, while also going on the offensive to prevent any more healing from being needed.

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This is also a note that board brought up; the ones that actually do chase the funny number will be even more likely to force the other healer in the party do all the work, which I sure have been on the receiving end before with.

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Originally Posted by Azurarok

Sorry for another tangent, but a little before the "If you want engaging healing content, go play Ultimates" line I asked about the current state of healers in the JP forums, and one of the responses mentioned YoshiP's said they're trying to avoid making healer dps from having much variance as that can greatly affect content completion.

I haven't looked hard enough to verify the source, but at the time I thought he was .**snip*

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If I can speak to this part "I thought he was doubting the players' ability to actually execute a complex dps rotation on top of a heal plan. Now I'm thinking it's more an issue with balancing the game since it'd make the amount of damage we deal wildly fluctuate based on how well the entire party is doing, even more so than it does now.

Speaking to this "they're trying to avoid making healer dps from having much variance as that can greatly affect content completion"

I could understand that if the overall DPS contribution that was necessary from healers in order to beat enrage was capped at a specific percent. However that is independent of

"I thought he was doubting the players' ability to actually execute a complex dps rotation on top of a heal plan. " The reason being that DPS can be contributed via a number of ways, which does not necessitate the complexity of the DPS jobs -as a number of people have argued it could closer to that of the tank jobs.

Regarding the next part "Now I'm thinking it's more an issue with balancing the game since it'd make the amount of damage we deal wildly fluctuate based on how well the entire party is doing, even more so than it does now." Well, yes the amount of damage could hypothetically fluctuate, just as per any job. The "wildly" is a matter both of the individual skill, the design of the encounter, and the job design - for example, what if some healing skills also dealt damage (like macrocosmos).

Finally "it's far easier to measure how much damage a healer will output when it's largely just 2~4 moves that are disjoint from each other." I would substitute "lazy" for easy. Basically it's no one who is a healer designer, just whomever draws the short straw.

On the topic of more explosive animations, I don't necessarily want our basic attacks to be extremely flashy. I'd rather have a more simple basic attack and leave the powerful-feeling, flashy attacks to the nukes. I'm really not a fan of the Sage bugzapper simply for how rigid it looks in repetition when I'd like to have a more fluid looking offensive gameplay aesthetic, but I like that it's relatively tame in contrast to the more bombastic Phlegma.

When you have a really bombastic attack that you just use constantly, it looses its sheen very quickly because you become numb to it.

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Originally Posted by IDontPetLalas

I could understand that if the overall DPS contribution that was necessary from healers in order to beat enrage was capped at a specific percent.

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Not beating enrage may not be that much a concern but I also don't think they really want a good team to beat content far faster than what they expect. It could also lead to a larger chunk of the playerbase to complain they made things too easy.

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The reason being that DPS can be contributed via a number of ways, which does not necessitate the complexity of the DPS jobs -as a number of people have argued it could closer to that of the tank jobs.

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I did say at the time, so I don't now. Don't quite understand what else you're trying to say here.

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The "wildly" is a matter both of the individual skill, the design of the encounter, and the job design - for example, what if some healing skills also dealt damage (like macrocosmos).

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That's why macrocosmos is just the same potency as malefic, and pneuma the same as dosis. They're barely different from just having yet another oGCD heal (outside them being a gain against large pulls).

To be clear I'm not saying it's okay that things are the way they are, but I sure would like to understand what their reasoning is if there are other things than just "they're lazy".

I'd say obstinated to be more accurrate than lazy tbh

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Originally Posted by Azurarok

I haven't looked hard enough to verify the source, but at the time I thought he was doubting the players' ability to actually execute a complex dps rotation on top of a heal plan. Now I'm thinking it's more an issue with balancing the game since it'd make the amount of damage we deal wildly fluctuate based on how well the entire party is doing, even more so than it does now.

Like if we had some gauge that filled through executing a dps rotation, then we won't be able to fill it too well if the party's doing poorly and you'd do that much less damage. When the party's doing great you'd do that much more damage. This range gets even larger when ILs and level sync come into play.

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So, these things can actually work completely the opposite to what you might imagine, depending on how the design is made. As an example, movement. If you have to move, as a WHM now, you have to sac 310 potency per GCD, because you cannot cast Glare while moving. Maybe you get lucky on some, and have a spare lily to burn on overhealing to stay damage neutral, Dia needs refreshing at that moment, you can blow Misery there if it's ready, or you can swiftcast if you really have to. But, there are some instances where you're just gonna have to suck up the damage loss. However, if the rotation was changed to how I'd personally like to see it, that is, Dia shortened to 12s (potency rebalanced to compensate) and a new 15s instantcast GCD added, then the issue of 'mobility' is actually easier to solve, not harder. You are more likely to have to refresh Dia at that point, because it's got a shorter duration, and the new move might be up. Even if it's not up, you could hold it to use it for mobility, at a damage loss in the moment yes, but as a damage gain because you filled a GCD that would otherwise be empty.

On which note, leading onto the other point: Damage gains of 'full rotation' do not need to be miles ahead of the current spells, contrary to what SE would have you believe with their Communios and their Double Downs. As an example again, I could (and did) suggest that the 15s CD's potency be 350, where Glare is currently 310, or probably 320 next expansion. So, ignoring that new spell completely, for an entire minute, would lose you 4 uses, a total of 160p (or 120 next expansion). About half a Glare per minute, or less. Optimizers don't always optimize because it's a massive gap in damage (see: Energy Drain), they do it because it's just simply 'more damage'. It could be a gain of 50 potency a minute instead of 160 and they'd do it. As long as potencies are balanced well enough, and the DPS check is balanced around 'the current kit' and not 'the extra 5-10% you can eke out by optimizing', then the 'enrage issue' isn't an issue. As long as the player uses something in that GCD, it wouldn't matter what, from a 'trying to clear the content' perspective. 'Doing it right' would just grant a little bit of leeway, not make-or-break the enrage check (ideally)

Also you're right on 'gauge that is filled through executing DPS rotation' to an extent, however A: the gauge I suggested is for a healing skill that is damage neutral (like how Lilies pay for themselves via Misery's refund), and is damage positive only by spending the refund skills in buffs ala Misery (since the refund is tied to casting Glare/Dia/the other one, this would mean using the gauge at X:58, else you'd have to AFK til the buffs go out), and B: I rewrote it to also include non Lily heals, such that if there's a hard HPS check (Harrowing Hell for example), the player can still build gauge, because it seemed silly to be locked out of building towards a healing tool because you were too busy healing. I wouldn't want to have a gauge spent entirely on 'damage positive skills' on a healer. Rather, I think the way to do it would be what I went for, a gauge that gives access to more healing or mitigation tools, that, if used well, can increase the player's DPS indirectly by removing more 'damage-loss GCD heals' like Medica 2. Well, at least for WHM

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Originally Posted by Azurarok

That's why macrocosmos is just the same potency as malefic, and pneuma the same as dosis. They're barely different from just having yet another oGCD heal

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Pneuma's tagged as a spell (and therefore on the GCD) so it can benefit from Zoe, and probably also cos the devs wanted to give it a cast time so it could have a cool animation. IDK what Macro's deal is, but I sure would appreciate it if it were able to put up shields via Neutral Sect, if it's gonna remain on the GCD (that might be too op though)

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Originally Posted by Azurarok

To be clear I'm not saying it's okay that things are the way they are, but I sure would like to understand what their reasoning is if there are other things than just "they're lazy".

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I don't think they're lazy, I just think they're designing healers from the perspective of a DPS player. If you look at the changes made from the start of SB until now, you can see them very slowly removing anything that can distract us from healing while giving us more and more healing tools. There's no nice way to say it, they're designing heal bots, not an actual enjoyable role.

The cynical part of me had a thought, Mortal Flame on BLU might be a test to make healer DoTs into a permanent duration so it's just set and forget. This would further their mission of making healers as fail-proof as possible by making them always ready to heal and never having to delay heals by having to refresh a DoT.