Please Make Healing + DPSing More Engaging

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Originally Posted by Gemina

To say that the three healers play the same way is erroneous. Their DPS kits have been homogenized, but each has a core mechanic the other healer does not. Whether or not you enjoy these individual mechanics is not really relevant. What matters is that WHM and SCH isn't spreading dmg buffs and working towards Divination. AST and SCH are not watching Lilies to hit mobs with Misery. WHM and AST are not primary shielders, and do not manage a fairy. While a lot of that management has gone away. Proper placement and utilization of Lilies abilities are important to optimizing the SCH kit - as it always has been.

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The main reason I argue that things like healing are homogenised is more to do with how they are balanced and to do with encounters. So much ends up being used in the same way and you can say list the AST and SCH equivalents of each core WHM skill. It ends up feeling very similar unless you're being pushed to properly use your toolkit.

And where different jobs had strengths and weaknesses over each other over time has blurred. Taking what I've said in another thread, I'd rather the idea of balance being about making what's strong about a job more worthwhile over what is weak and having means to compensate weakness through skill. Rather than having a level playing field of balance.

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Originally Posted by Gemina

Again, to focus on the DPS kits of our healers is to miss the mark with what's wrong with healing entirely. No matter how we do it, DPSing during combat is filler during downtime. I hate to say it, but if you want a more complex DPS rotation then play a DPS job. The glairing issue is the downtime. If healers are DPSing the majority of an encounter due to their design, predictability, lack of threat etc. this is a HUGE problem; especially if SE wants to go the direction of healers being more like healers.

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I kind of agree with this, but I also have reservations.

On the one hand, yes, I'd like it if there was less downtime. (At least during boss fights; trash fights can be pretty intense already, but that's obviously dependent on how much the tank pulls.) I really like Ser Charibert and the Mist Dragon.

That said, I still want a fair proportion of downtime. What I like about healing is being able to fix things that go wrong. If the fights are to be designed without downtime for healers, that means giving healers just enough heals to get by in a normal situation. Which means if something does go wrong, it can't be fixed, and all you can really do is start over.

So, in summation: I want downtime to be substantially reduced, but to still be present. Say, maybe half the downtime we have now?

As for increased complexity of DPS kits, I wouldn't say no to the buffing-and-debuffing stuff people keep proposing for scholar. But honestly, I'd be happy if I could just get another DoT and bane back. (Even if it means losing art of war; I actually kind of like the idea of SCH having DoT-spreading where other classes have nuke spam.)

Can we go back to having like 7 DOTs on Scholar that was a lot of fun at least for me

I will say that I really like the approach PvP has taken to healer’s DPS abilities.

Broil and Aura Blast gives Aetherflow and Fairy Gauge which can be used on Chain Stratagem / Seraph respectively, and Biolysis reduces the amount of HP healed.

Dia increases damage taken by the target, Afflatus Misery silences the target.

Combust has a Slow effect, while Malefic reduces the recast time of Minor Arcana.

Obviously they couldn’t just copy and paste these effects into PvE, but I feel like giving healer’s damage spells these kinds of additional effects make dealing damage feel much more worthwhile to do since it’s serving more of a purpose than just filling downtime because there’s nothing better to do.

Personally. and especially as a Scholar, I think I’d rather have two low potency DoT with additional effects than four normal potency DoTs that are just direct damage. Don’t think many others agree though, so it probably is more likely we’ll just see more direct damage spells

I wonder if Miasma II will ever be returned to SCH, as the numbering still hasn't been updated for SMN so it jumps from Miasma straight to III with II nowhere to be found for either jobs. It would be nice for SCH to get a dot aoe again, Art of War just feels lackluster, and the animation doesn't appear all that tactical but that's just me.

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Originally Posted by Kurando

I wonder if Miasma II will ever be returned to SCH, as the numbering still hasn't been updated for SMN so it jumps from Miasma straight to III with II nowhere to be found for either jobs. It would be nice for SCH to get a dot aoe again, Art of War just feels lackluster, and the animation doesn't appear all that tactical but that's just me.

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Yet Art of War is the equivalent to Miasma II, given its potency is more upfront rather than a DoT.

I argue that less healing downtime will not make for more interesting healing. If we change spamming Glare, Malefic, Broil or Holy, Gravity and Art of War by Cures and Medica's equivalents it still as engaging as what we have now. (Maybe even less considering would be just dealing with playing whackamole with HP bar rather than managing both healing and damage. )

If you are going to reduce healing downtime you have to remove blanket aoe healing. Medica II, Succor and Helios need to be changed. Reduce potencies, increase mana costs. Make it so you can't just blanket the raid with an AoE heal and move on.

Make triage a thing. That also means slowing and reducing incoming damage but making it more constant. For healing to work as a stream, damage needs to come in a steady stream too.

I think largely Healers just want more to do - they don't really care what manner that comes in, whether it's a deeper DPS rotation, or more mechanical healing or some kind of proactive support/utility gameplay. The TLDR basis is that as it stands, healing is seriously boring. I prefer Scholar over Astrologian but I play AST more purely because I felt like I had more buttons to press and a higher APM style of play like for example during sleeve draw instead of just knowing what shield I need to prep or what cd I'm going to insta to heal everyone up and then go back to spamming broil.

Secondary healer identity.
WHM Nuker: Make Fluid Aura into a damaging oGCD with short CD that they can weave between Glares with the added effect it fastens lilly generation. Make afflatus abilities into oGCDs for better healing and damage weaving.

AST Buffer: More options to spread enhance and extend buffs. Shorter CDs on draw.

SCH Enfeebler. Use AF to use draining skills on enemies, weakening them and charging your Fairy's fairy gauge in the process. Use stratagems to extend and expose said weaknesses. Use FG for indom, sacred soil and aoe heals in general.

I agree. I tried leveling first toon to 80 as scholar but it was boring quite honestly, I ended up not doing that. I also know a couple of guildies who were sprout healer mains and started playing when ShB dropped. Only one of them (AST) made it to 80 on healer starting from level 1. The other four are either taking a break from the game (stopped playing) or continued leveling with other jobs and dropped heals. After talking with them on discord the general consensus among ourselves is MSQing on healer is slow and boring. Unless you have a friend leveling and doing the overland content with you, it's tiring the same thing over and over again. At least with a friend you can heal the friend while pressing the same dps buttons. They should do something to make healing more interesting and engaging. I liked how scholar used to play, I think it's still fine atm honestly from a healer perspective but there's less to do dps wise than before. AST has more busywork with cards but it doesn't feel worth is to play AST when you can WHM and spam glare to do wayyy more damage. WHM also has an easier time than AST as a pure healer, I feel like I run out of mana particularly on nocturnal sect and the potency of the heals don't seem as good. I guess that's the tradeoff with having the card buffs but idk, people seem to be bringing double WHM.