Make healers DPS with four or five healing actions

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Noumenon

Neuter healing, make healers into DPS with 4-5 healing actions and 4-5 support actions. It'll suddenly be 500% more engaging and you actually need to think about healing again, plus you now have a fun rotation in casual content where none of that matters.

---

I don't know if you're baiting but you basically described ARR scholar.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Noumenon

And give DPS and tanks massively buffed self healing

---

Just ask to remove healers then, why even beat around the bush lmao.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ReynTime

Unless they redesign combat from the ground up, DPS focus is the only thing that works in FFXIV. Tanks are already simply DPS with a couple damage mitigation actions and an aggro mode toggle.
Healer design is hot trash because they keep trying to give them excessive healing actions in a game that THEY turned into something that will never need it as far back as 2.0.

---

That's the issue though Healers kits are so bloated that it's never a choice between "dps or heal" it's both.

In general theirs many ways to actually fix healers kits to be more healing focused without drastically changing fights too much... also I don't think we should be looking behind to old content and trying to fix healer at this point for old content, Old content already isn't fun.

I actually do think they need to rework combat and healing & tanking to a degree, if they want the best player experience for those job types. All you would really need to add is more frequent small bursts of damage throughout fights, more aoe attacks ect, rougher autos, even on easier content this would by far make healers more engaging and fun, They dont need to change current fights or anything, they should focuse on the next expansion being a new starting point for all jobs, they should focus on taking more risks in general instead of playing it safe and copying shadowbringers style of combat.

Healers are clearly not fine as they are but making them "green dps" isn't the correct solution, I agree that healers to a certain degree should get a few more damage spells, but they need to look at healing, theirs so many ways it can be improved uppon and I personally don't think you need a complete redesign going into a new expansion, they need to cutdown on healing buttons while adding more general damage in future fights.

It's never a solution as "oh add this and healer is fine" It's multiple layers to healers core design that needs to be looked at, Slapping DPS buttons and full rotations on healers, not bothering to look into anything else, will not fix healer to be more fun or appealing to healer players, but adding extra damage buttons ontop of trying to improve how healing works in ff14 seems like the best way to go.

I can only imagine healers and tanks will likely get easier though in dawn trail with the way "balance" likes to be less and less about actually fixing anything and just making everything different flavours of each other.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ty_taurus

I mean, I'd say Macrocosmos and Haima/Panhaima are far more interesting ways to heal than just Helios or Eukrasian Prognosis. I like the ideas of new heals, but I'd want them to just replace the old boring ones instead.

---

Macrocosmos? The thing that can straight up delete several healing checks altogether, making it require absolutely zero effort?

Yes that's interesting in the way pressing an "I win" button is interesting.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Sebazy

What do you propose healers do when they don't have anything to heal? Solo content/downtime/casual content etc.

---

Obviously, they need to keep the DPS spells to do solo content, but make them insignificant for DPS checks while raiding.
The game should put you in a position where you have to reactively or predictively decide how you apply your heal kit on every GCD or OGCD.

In essence, I would rather be busy healing my group back up as filler than throwing a bunch of glares at the boss.
It ruins the job fantasy for me.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ZenoDiogenes

The game should put you in a position where you have to reactively or predictively decide how you apply your heal kit on every GCD or OGCD.

---

Never going to happen because they require Second Life keyboard-fumblers to get through everything under Extreme.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Noumenon

Macrocosmos? The thing that can straight up delete several healing checks altogether, making it require absolutely zero effort?

Yes that's interesting in the way pressing an "I win" button is interesting.

---

Even if the execution is flawed, that doesn't mean it isn't interesting. It's not like your only options are destroy it or leave it as is.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ZenoDiogenes

Obviously, they need to keep the DPS spells to do solo content, but make them insignificant for DPS checks while raiding.
The game should put you in a position where you have to reactively or predictively decide how you apply your heal kit on every GCD or OGCD.

In essence, I would rather be busy healing my group back up as filler than throwing a bunch of glares at the boss.
It ruins the job fantasy for me.

---

Well the thing is everything in this game is predictable. It's hardly every reactive. For one, fights are scripted and damage is scripted. Two, they've got on record for saying they don't want the healing to be too overwhelming for new players. This basically puts in a hard place because you have veterans clamoring for years for higher heal checks. heck we even gotten higher checks for Abyssos and look what happened. We had a healer shortage for the duration of that tier before they went easier for this tier.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ZenoDiogenes

The game should put you in a position where you have to reactively or predictively decide how you apply your heal kit on every GCD or OGCD.

---

Yeah, this can't happen, at all, not even in Ultimate.

The amount of incoming damage needed for that would put so much strain on the average player that we'd have to force tanks and DPS to pick up the slack and also get them to perfectly mitigate and use their healing just to give the healers some room. What then happens if a healer slips up and casts the "wrong" healing GCD? Does most of the group suddenly drop dead because you used a single target heal instead of AoE? If there is some leeway to let you have a mistake or two, congratulations, you've now given a potential window to let us DPS again.

No MMO allows for healing to be THAT strict.

If the end result is just that you want healer DPS to never matter in a fight, such that you can beat enrage without casting a single DPS spell, well that still won't work because healers that do DPS still finish the fight faster, which in turn skips dangerous mechanics, which further negates the need to heal, and people don't appreciate having a team member who sits there near-afk for most of the fight because health bars were full. If you just want the DPS spells to be so negligible in content, then you in-turn make them useless in solo content as well unless you intentionally set healer-only rules like a solo-only buff. All this does is completely negate a playstyle that many enjoy (being able to risk doing damage as a healer to help finish a fight faster) to make another preferred playstyle the ONLY playstyle (hEaLeRs OnLy HeAl), when currently, outside high-end content, you can already do the latter without infringing on the former. We could have 50 extra DPS spells and it still wouldn't matter in casual content if you only ever wanted to heal.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by TheDustyOne

Yeah, this can't happen, at all, not even in Ultimate.

The amount of incoming damage needed for that would put so much strain on the average player that we'd have to force tanks and DPS to pick up the slack and also get them to perfectly mitigate and use their healing just to give the healers some room. What then happens if a healer slips up and casts the "wrong" healing GCD? Does most of the group suddenly drop dead because you used a single target heal instead of AoE? If there is some leeway to let you have a mistake or two, congratulations, you've now given a potential window to let us DPS again.

No MMO allows for healing to be THAT strict.

If the end result is just that you want healer DPS to never matter in a fight, such that you can beat enrage without casting a single DPS spell, well that still won't work because healers that do DPS still finish the fight faster, which in turn skips dangerous mechanics, which further negates the need to heal, and people don't appreciate having a team member who sits there near-afk for most of the fight because health bars were full. If you just want the DPS spells to be so negligible in content, then you in-turn make them useless in solo content as well unless you intentionally set healer-only rules like a solo-only buff. All this does is completely negate a playstyle that many enjoy (being able to risk doing damage as a healer to help finish a fight faster) to make another preferred playstyle the ONLY playstyle (hEaLeRs OnLy HeAl), when currently, outside high-end content, you can already do the latter without infringing on the former. We could have 50 extra DPS spells and it still wouldn't matter in casual content if you only ever wanted to heal.

---

Actually had plenty of times in older mmos where damage output was so high I had no time to do anything other than various heals, defensive buffs, and cleanses. But I agree combat hasn’t been designed for challenging healing here.

Admittedly, I haven't touched many older mmos, but from my very basic understanding of some of them, after healing was done you still had moments for MP to regen, which may as well be equivalent to our current DPS downtime. I'll let someone more knowledgeable about them speak instead of me.

But yes, doesn't negate that it wouldn't work with the game as it is now, not without redesigning 10 years of content.

There are many reasons why it's difficult to resolve this issue by trying to replace DPS spam with more healing instead.

1. There has been no notable change in the frequency of outgoing damage between ARR content and current content, or if anything, damage is sometimes less frequent than in ARR/HW content. Meanwhile, every expansion has not only added more healing resources to the healers, but every new resource added has been DPS neutral--either OGCD and thus weave-able, meaning it gives healers more DPS uptime, or GCDs that also deal the same damage as the healer's basic spell, or refund that damage via the blood lily. Meanwhile every healer attack spell has been streamlined to a 1.5 second cast time, meaning every GCD gives you room to weave any of these resources. We have more DPS uptime than ever before because of all these reasons.

2. Other roles have received increased levels of sustain, particularly Paladin and Warrior who are able to answer to the already diminished instances of necessary healing. As has been discovered, there's enough non-healer sustain that a healerless party was capable of clearing Ultimate. While that is not a normal expected playthrough, it speaks to the above points about how little healing is needed vs how much healing is available to use.

3. Consider that a player has the ability to cast a new spell every 2.5 seconds. If your goal is to rework healers to heal with their GCD more often than they attack with their GCD, how often do you think damage needs to be delivered to the party in order to sway healer gameplay away from DPS and toward healing? Consider points 1 and 2 as well. You would probably need raidwide damage every 3-7 seconds in all forms of content, even dungeons, to demand healers stop attacking and heal given our current resources.

4. FFXIV healing has vastly more accessible forms of AoE healing than WoW does. Generally, party damage can almost always be resolved in 1-2 GCDs ignoring all of the OGCD healing resources at our disposal. WoW does have AoE healing, but far more often has to rely on single target healing because their AoE healing doesn't have the same power and availability as FFXIV AoE heals.

5. If you want to change the the environment for healers to prioritize healing over damage, you're going to need to make some drastic changes to a combination of both healer kits and fight design. This would inevitably require reworking every single fight in the game to ensure the new model for healing encourages healing over DPS, and is also doable with whatever changes the healers receive to their resources, even if that's just rebalancing HP to account for considerably less healer DPS. It should go without saying that this is a truly monolithic task and would be incredibly time consuming and expensive to accomplish.

The truth is that FFXIV has always been an environment that promoted a very offensive healer playstyle--more combat medic if you will. Whether intentional or not, it has also only ever continued to feed into that environment with every expansion. Constantly providing more and more free healing, incredibly powerful AoE healing, faster DPS cast times that enable weaving, and more non-healer sustain than the game has ever had before. All things that lend themselves to maximizing the time healers get to spend DPSing instead of healing.

I would rather to see...

• targeted increases to relative healing requirements (the amount of incoming damage relative to available "free" sustain resources, such as tank miti and healer oGCDs) by increasing frequent damage to tanks and random targets, in less predictable timings that nonetheless are not too closely placed to existing damage bursts,
  
  
• nerfs to inflexible and/or time-insensitive tank sustain (Brutal Shell, Aurora, Heart of Excog; Divine Magic heals, lv82 on-demand HoT; Equilibrium trait HoT, Bloodwhetting healing per-hit instead of based on damage; etc.),
  
  
• nerfs to AoE heals (and to intensive back-to-back AoE damage as not to thereby break encounters) so that they don't so often eclipse all other options with their up to 10x the healing or 8x the MP efficiency,
  
  
• and maybe even trim a couple of our long CDs while...
  
  
• making the GCDs heals themselves more prevalent/useful and MP more of an actual/compelling mechanic, and
  
  
• improving our downtime kits by 2-4 actions, rather than making us outright DPS w/ oGCD heals.

I'm all for having far more complexity available to our downtime, but let's also do what we can for the healing part of healers.

There's no reason to mistake an outcome that is basically a result of sabotage with a fundamental issue; healing can be interesting. It's just that no system will be more interesting than its context allows and, right now, that XIV's contexts of/for healing are pretty awful.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ZenoDiogenes

Obviously, they need to keep the DPS spells to do solo content, but make them insignificant for DPS checks while raiding.
The game should put you in a position where you have to reactively or predictively decide how you apply your heal kit on every GCD or OGCD.

In essence, I would rather be busy healing my group back up as filler than throwing a bunch of glares at the boss.
It ruins the job fantasy for me.

---

If they make the dps irrelevant not only solo instances become a slog but it would also hurt the skill growth of players since their optimization would not be impactful

The game already puts you in a position where you choose wether use oGCDs or GCDd already by using precisely the dps as bait. Its that dps lure that puts brakes to the mindless heal GCD spam, its the dps lure that make healers focus on how much they can squeeze out of their healing cds and ultimately is that dps mindset that make healers triage wether a heal is necessary or not. Healing is about efficiency, not hps, and dps is a key part of that.

The filler wont ever be healing because there will always be downtime, its ingrained in the nature of the game due to gear scaling and healing optimization, thats also why dps actions are so important. This is a lesson mmos have known for years but XIV devs somehow forgot

I honestly think a good solution would be, since we are going to 100, take the median level 50 and bring all the healing skills from now and slotting them to be replacement upgrades (or consolidated buttons [1 button 2 skills]) for old healing skills (prob around lvl 30-60) while also bringing down the older skills to be learned much early on. Then just introduce more dps\buff skills that contribute to damage while also amplifying these existing healing skills from 50+. It makes healing more complex by removing options, helps the healers learn their job by teaching them that dps skills are okay, gives them more options if they are having difficulty healing in general early on, and it gives a feeling of job progression (the more you level the less reliant you are on your healing). After 50 you should know the premise of your job, what healing skills do what. And after 60, you should start learning to intergrate what you learned so when you do get to max level you have been taught how healers work in this system. Obviously some skills will need some potency changes.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

I would rather just see...

• targeted increases to relative healing requirements (the amount of incoming damage relative to available "free" sustain resources, such as tank miti and healer oGCDs) by increasing frequent damage to tanks and random targets, in less predictable timings that nonetheless are not too closely placed to existing damage bursts,
  
  
• nerfs to inflexible and/or time-insensitive tank sustain (Brutal Shell, Aurora, Heart of Excog; Divine Magic heals, lv82 on-demand HoT; Equilibrium trait HoT, Bloodwhetting healing per-hit instead of based on damage; etc.),
  
  
• nerfs to AoE heals (and to intensive back-to-back AoE damage as not to thereby break encounters) so that they don't so often eclipse all other options with their up to 10x the healing or 8x the MP efficiency,
  
  
• and maybe even trim a couple of our long CDs while...
  
  
• making the GCDs heals themselves more prevalent/useful and MP more of an actual/compelling mechanic.

I'm all for having far more complexity available to our downtime, but let's also do what we can for the healing part of healers.

There's no reason to mistake an outcome that is basically a result of sabotage with a fundamental issue; healing can be interesting. It's just that no system will be more interesting than its context allows and, right now, that XIV's contexts of/for healing are pretty awful.

---

What I've said before is I would like to try and go back to needing to bounce between attacking and healing on the GCD at frequencies that we used to, such as during Stormblood. But that will only get us so far, of course, which is why we also need to address the DPS side of the equation.

The problem should be approached from all angles, not just one angle.

I'd love it if we just cut out like 90% of our oGCD heals in favour of a handful of DPS actions. Not only does it give us the hotbar space for a small rotation, but now we actually have to choose when we need to stop damaging to heal, instead of slapping on an assize or tetra and calling it a day.

Ideally I'd like for every healer to have a lily-like system where the healing spells meaningfully and uniquely interact with our DPS spells (like maybe having AST heals proc a powerful buff instead of a DPS bomb like Misery, SCH having a strong DoT on shield break, etc.), but still, baby steps.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Niroken

Increasing DPS variety is far more beneficial then adjusting all encounters to require more healing.

-Solo content that requires DPS would be improved
-Healing downtime interaction would be improved
-Situations where your party is overgeared, better skilled or both would be improved
-Healer combinations that reduce the need to heal as much (or in some cases not at all *cough24mancough*) would be improved

---

Our job quests, quests and instances specifically and exclusively designed for healers, have us spamming our 1 dps spell more than healing anything most of the time. That's how bad the situation is.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by TheDustyOne

I'd love it if we just cut out like 90% of our oGCD heals in favour of a handful of DPS actions. Not only does it give us the hotbar space for a small rotation, but now we actually have to choose when we need to stop damaging to heal, instead of slapping on an assize or tetra and calling it a day.

Ideally I'd like for every healer to have a lily-like system where the healing spells meaningfully and uniquely interact with our DPS spells (like maybe having AST heals proc a powerful buff instead of a DPS bomb like Misery, SCH having a strong DoT on shield break, etc.), but still, baby steps.

---

Ideally, would all healers want that? Personally, I would rather them just make things unique (still focusing on the damage aspect though). I understand the whm philosophy is alright but for all healers they should all excel in something the other doesn't. For whm that would be bursting, sge maybe dots, ast buffs, sch debuffs? Maybe.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Niroken

Increasing DPS variety is far more beneficial then adjusting all encounters to require more healing.

-Solo content that requires DPS would be improved
-Healing downtime interaction would be improved
-Situations where your party is overgeared, better skilled or both would be improved
-Healer combinations that reduce the need to heal as much (or in some cases not at all *cough24mancough*) would be improved

---

Please note that the item "people who enjoy playing a more supportive role can enjoy the game more" is conspicuously absent from the list.

None of these 'improvements' apply if I'm indifferent to DPS buttons and only hit them out of obligation. I want to heal more with my healer. And this is not an uncommon opinion. It's like the dominant opinion on the JP side.

And it's not necessary to adjust all encounters. Just do the ones going forward.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Raiya

To be fair its not that some skills should be removed but that they should be reworked into upgraded versions of earlier abilies adding more effects as you reach higher levels and engage stronger enemies.

---

Part of the problem is that enemies don't become stronger as you reach higher levels. The ARR Coils raids still deal the most incoming damage relative to max HP totals, and it's not close.

By level 60, any gaps in the healing kits have closed up unless you're counting Divine Benis and Neutral Sect which used to be available in ARR/HW and were taken away, and there's not really any natural gameplay niche left to add new heals into anymore. You just get crap like Liturgy of the Bell that doesn't do anything that Asylum+Medica 2 couldn't.

It's all been bloat and duplicate abilities for 2-3 expansions, so much so that what damage we do get is fixable instantly for free, which means the enjoyable healer minigame of 'reaction, triage, resource management' is gone. And that sort of bad healer design also has knock-on effects in the encounter design. Since you basically can't meaningfully pressure healer resources anymore (not that they're even trying to), mechanics have to have truly awful-feeling penalties like instadeath/twice-come-ruin, damage down, and bodychecks/raidwipes for enforcement, because if you ever took anything as simple as straight damage from a failed mech, the healer would top you up instantly with one of his free oGCDs that wasn't going to get used anyway and it would be like it never even happened.

To get it back to where healer kits are actually fun and not having a toxic knock-on effect on encounter designs, healing abilities need to be culled, or they should be made weaker across the board and then given interplay and conditionals that need to be fulfilled to get the full benefit you used to get for free by just hitting the button.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by vetch

Please note that the item "people who enjoy playing a more supportive role can enjoy the game more" is conspicuously absent from the list.

None of these 'improvements' apply if I'm indifferent to DPS buttons and only hit them out of obligation. I want to heal more with my healer.

---

Because it would remain the same as it is now so there would be no need to add it to the list. Adding additional DPS spells does not force you to use them, it just gives you additional options. We already have more healing spells then we would ever need.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Niroken

Because it would remain the same as it is now so there would be no need to add it to the list. Adding additional DPS spells does not force you to use them, it just gives you additional options.

---

Yes, it does force me to use them, because I don't like being a non-contributing member of the group. It is very much not optional; there is no such thing as an optional DPS button in this game. You either press your buttons or you're not helping as much as you could be.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Niroken

We already have more healing spells then we would ever need.

---

Thanks for reading my whole post.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Niroken

Because it would remain the same as it is now so there would be no need to add it to the list. Adding additional DPS spells does not force you to use them, it just gives you additional options. We already have more healing spells then we would ever need.

---

It's a multiplayer game, adding additional damage buttons or a rotation to healers would very much force every healer to use it and change their playstyle. Otherwise they get yelled at in content for mostly healing or doing the wrong rotation.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by VerdeLuck

It's a multiplayer game, adding additional damage buttons or a rotation to healers would very much force every healer to use it and change their playstyle. Otherwise they get yelled at in content for mostly healing or doing the wrong rotation.

---

Removing them from the healers very much forced every healer to change their playstyle as well, so why is this a concern now? If someone is harassing you in content for how you're playing, you can report them as that's TOS breaking.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by VerdeLuck

It's a multiplayer game, adding additional damage buttons or a rotation to healers would very much force every healer to use it and change their playstyle. Otherwise they get yelled at in content for mostly healing or doing the wrong rotation.

---

How does it force you to? Does a hand appear from your screen and hold you at gunpoint? Will your computer or PS5 explode if you don't use an attack spell within a certain number of seconds? Does Yoshi P hold your family hostage until confirming that you parsed purple or higher in your expert roulette?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by VerdeLuck

Otherwise they get yelled at in content for mostly healing or doing the wrong rotation.

---

I've seen plenty of DPS and tanks hit the floor, and not once have I seen them get yelled at for doing their rotation wrong. After all, while I could be mistaken, I'm willing to bet that "fail mechanic and die" is not a part of any job's rotation.

And yet, we're somehow worried that healers will get yelled at for anything short of perfect DPS execution? :confused::confused::confused:

I would like if they leaned more into pushing healers to use the right tools for the particular mechanic. More party wide DoTs to force healing over time, some mechanics that require burst healing, some mitigation intensive ones, more use to delayed/compounding heals Astro has, etc. At present, shield healers are outclassing regen healers in every way and we have a ton of healing buttons that never see use.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by vetch

And it's not necessary to adjust all encounters. Just do the ones going forward.

---

It would still need to be a substantial amounts of encoutners early on because you need to build that mindset early on. Look at what happen with Abyssos and the healer shortage, the higher end groups really didn't complain because most of them had done ultimate and therefore they were prepared. The more midcore and causal groups struggled because it was a jump that they were not prepared for at all. So with just saying starting from Dawntrail, imagine going 90 levels of lets say 80 percent dps and 20 percent healing and now they suddenly switch it up. This would likely lead to the same thing that we had happen in 6.2 and 6.3.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Niroken

Because it would remain the same as it is now so there would be no need to add it to the list.

---

It wouldn’t quite be the same though, because a ‘supportive role’ literally doesn’t exist in ffxiv yet: Healer can’t do anything to actively support their party right now outside of spamming dps skills or (unneeded) healing, because anything that does support the party is either 120s or pure healing/mitigation (which again is uneeded).

The closest we have is either Dancer or Astrologian, and even then both are designed around hitting their support buttons as sparingly as possible (i.e it’s all ogcd cooldowns), specifically so they can still focus on personal dps.

They could give healers actual gcd buffs, debuffs, utility spells, ways to break up the constant downtime that aren’t just direct damage buttons or more 30s set-and-forget DoTs. And that doesn’t mean they can’t also have more damage, or that every healer needs to suddenly become a buffer/debuffer.

But I’d like to see a healer that focuses more on the supportive role. Like, weaker personal dps and healing than the other jobs, but making good use of buffs to compensate for that weakness (i.e 2.0 Scholar, at least in theory lol)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by AmiableApkallu

I've seen plenty of DPS and tanks hit the floor, and not once have I seen them get yelled at for doing their rotation wrong. After all, while I could be mistaken, I'm willing to bet that "fail mechanic and die" is not a part of any job's rotation.

And yet, we're somehow worried that healers will get yelled at for anything short of perfect DPS execution? :confused::confused::confused:

---

IDK where you play but I have seen plenty of players yelled at for doing suboptimal rotations on DPS and some on tank. It's not incredibly common but it's disingenuous to say that messing around with healer and requiring more dps won't affect people outside of raiding. It absolutely will.

I don't really see where anything would be added either, DoTs are on their way out due to how jank the engine is with them and debuffs, and you can't have a rotation for healers when at any minute you could be expected to drop the rotation and heal.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by PercibelTheren

I would like if they leaned more into pushing healers to use the right tools for the particular mechanic. More party wide DoTs to force healing over time, some mechanics that require burst healing, some mitigation intensive ones, more use to delayed/compounding heals Astro has, etc. At present, shield healers are outclassing regen healers in every way and we have a ton of healing buttons that never see use.

---

A really big problem I feel is the disparity between how healing resources are used in normal content vs hard content. I mentioned this earlier, but in normal content as a Sage, I heal almost entirely with two buttons plus the free healing from Kardia: Kerachole and Ixochole. These cooldowns are so short, and Addersgall is generated at such a rapid pace that fight design cannot keep up. I waste more Druocholes on myself just to regain MP than I actually heal with Kerachole and Ixochole. The entire rest of my healing library is almost completely ignored--reserved only for mistakes that I can't resolve with Kerachole and Ixochole, and even then, we're talking about a single Physis II or Pneuma on rare occasions. Then if we look over to savage, you will use at least most of your healing resources regularly and potentially push you to use GCD healing on occasion.

These two experiences feel like different games, when it wasn't always like that. Because we weren't drowning in healing cooldowns once upon a time, it felt like even though normal content would demand healing at different frequencies than harder content, both created environments where the majority of your healing had a place. You'd have a few healing cooldowns, but you'd need to rely on healing spells as well even in normal environments. You'd heal with them less than you might in savage, but every tool had a purpose. Now, we're swimming in healing cooldowns and DPS refunds.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by vetch

Yes, it does force me to use them, because I don't like being a non-contributing member of the group. It is very much not optional; there is no such thing as an optional DPS button in this game. You either press your buttons or you're not helping as much as you could be.

---

Then it is similarly not optional to perfectly optimize your DPS uptime / perfectly minimize your number of GCD heals.
You either press your DPS button at every opportunity theoretically possible under optimized play, including whatever opportunities have to be made per fight-specific memorizations, or you're not helping as much as you could be.

(Which, btw, will tend to be more impactful than the use of those new tools.)

If you aren't getting berated/scorned/kicked for using an occasional GCD heal, you aren't about to be scolded for frequently forgetting about those additional tools.

Especially if they're on the GCD and therefore come at cost to filler damage, the margin is pretty small compared to the optimizations available already / even without them. AST has two attack Spells, and still gets ~90% of its damage even when sticking to just a single button among that Spell damage kit (Fall Malefic). That's all of some 1.5% of raid dps, less than the damage margin from a standard deviation of Crit/DHit.

Inb4 "they need more than Malefic for 90% of their damage."...

Spells = GCDs. Spell damage = Damage available via GCDs.
Abilities = oGCDs. Ability damage = Damage available via oGCDs.
CD Damage = Damage available from anything with a CD on it, GCD or oGCD.
Magical/unaspected damage = damage that is magical/unaspected...

Anyone who has read a caster tooltip or three should be familiar with this nomenclature.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Connor

They could give healers actual gcd buffs, debuffs, utility spells, ways to break up the constant downtime that aren’t just direct damage buttons or more 30s set-and-forget DoTs. And that doesn’t mean they can’t also have more damage, or that every healer needs to suddenly become a buffer/debuffer.

But I’d like to see a healer that focuses more on the supportive role. Like, weaker personal dps and healing than the other jobs, but making good use of buffs to compensate for that weakness (i.e 2.0 Scholar, at least in theory lol)

---

This deserves to stay on the current page and is IMHO the solution SE have been overlooking pretty much since AST didn't go further down the buff rabbit hole after HW.

I still think the simple act of taking a healer's DPS potency, packing it up in buff form and then being able to slap it on someone else is the party trick that would solve a bunch of issues all at once. There absolutely has to be a way to do that in a manner where it doesn't spiral out of control with buffs any more than existing 2 minute buff windows already do.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Sebazy

This deserves to stay on the current page and is IMHO the solution SE have been overlooking pretty much since AST didn't go further down the buff rabbit hole after HW.

I still think the simple act of taking a healer's DPS potency, packing it up in buff form and then being able to slap it on someone else is the party trick that would solve a bunch of issues all at once. There absolutely has to be a way to do that in a manner where it doesn't spiral out of control with buffs any more than existing 2 minute buff windows already do.

---

That's what I've been saying.

The trick is not relying on % boosts to the target's damage, or stats like critical hit. It's creating flat potency damage that technically comes from the caster, but is executed by the target, and to make the job functional in solo, that target can also be the caster. I've beaten my engine building concept to death, but how about a slightly different example.

What if Astro had a spell that summons six stars around the target of the spell. Each time that target attacks an enemy, a star is consumed to deal a 100 potency attack that technically comes from you; this can occur once per 3 seconds. You can only apply this buff on 3 characters at a time. Something like that would make a lot of your GCD gameplay build around targeting other players instead of enemies, and you could try and build on that concept more. Because replacing Malefic spam with this doesn't fix the problem, it just redirects it, so you'd want some other support to give more variety to your gameplay, but that could be a place to start.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Katish

Ideally, would all healers want that? Personally, I would rather them just make things unique (still focusing on the damage aspect though). I understand the whm philosophy is alright but for all healers they should all excel in something the other doesn't. For whm that would be bursting, sge maybe dots, ast buffs, sch debuffs? Maybe.

---

I'm sure not every healer would want that, it's moreso a personal preference since it puts more emphasis on the GCD heals in the kit instead of the oGCD heals. Every healer of course should go about it differently, and should also have a different emphasis on healing styles, like SGE being the 'damage healer', AST being a 'delay/over time healer', WHM a 'burst healer', and SCH a 'mitigative healer', or whatever people find more compelling. At least, that's how I'd handle it, and their lily-like systems reinforce their different ways of dealing damage, WHM bursts with Misery, SCH could get a big DoT, AST could get a party buff, and SGE just deals the damage with the heal similar to current Pneuma. It doesn't have to be a full refund of the damage either if we want healing to have some cost associated with it, making optimized damage an actual risky venture, also any refund mechanic like lilies would need to be time-gated in some way, back-to-back Misery-like attacks would be a nightmare for encounter designers and would encourage heal-spamming rather than thoughtful heal usage.

That said, I just want downtime broken up more often, and for downtime to be more interesting than Glaroilificosis spam. oGCD heals just exacerbate and encourage the spam while making the other half of our kit gather dust most of the time.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ty_taurus

That's what I've been saying.

The trick is not relying on % boosts to the target's damage, or stats like critical hit. It's creating flat potency damage that technically comes from the caster, but is executed by the target, and to make the job functional in solo, that target can also be the caster. I've beaten my engine building concept to death, but how about a slightly different example.

What if Astro had a spell that summons six stars around the target of the spell. Each time that target attacks an enemy, a star is consumed to deal a 100 potency attack that technically comes from you; this can occur once per 3 seconds. You can only apply this buff on 3 characters at a time. Something like that would make a lot of your GCD gameplay build around targeting other players instead of enemies, and you could try and build on that concept more. Because replacing Malefic spam with this doesn't fix the problem, it just redirects it, so you'd want some other support to give more variety to your gameplay, but that could be a place to start.

---

That... honestly sounds far more dull even than basic single-target damage buffs?

If I deal flat potency each time a target ally attacks, that has no reward for knowing the output dynamics of my team. That seems even less "support"-like. It's like Brotherhood, but without actually getting to actively do anything with the resources the party produces.

And if there's no CD on the star-summoning, then it just gets incredibly spammy if it includes oGCDs, or if triggered by GCDs only, then your choices just become MCH w/ Heat > MNK > NIN > BRD during Paeon > SAM > BLM w/ Lines > the rest.

I'd honestly take a more powerful GCD Draw over that.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

That... honestly sounds more dull?

If I deal flat potency each time a target ally attacks, I'm no longer rewarded for knowing the output dynamics of my team. That seems even less "support"-like. It's like Brotherhood, but without actually getting to actively do anything with the resources the party produces.

---

Then you have 3 spells, one that does more damage when the target inflicts melee physical damage, one for physical ranged damage, and one for magic damage.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ty_taurus

Then you have 3 spells, one that does more damage when the target inflicts melee physical damage, one for physical ranged damage, and one for magic damage.

---

But that's still timing-insensitive. It's just yet another wonky Ranger/Caster-Healer/Rest distinction. Except, since it's based on the damage type instead of the job's type, it then penalizes any hybrids (DRK, RDM, NIN, PLD, etc.), especially if there's no CD on the star-summoning or they're only active for a short time.

I just don't get how a turret-aura would feel "Support"-like in XIV, regardless of whether that it only fires when an ally does. It's less intuitive despite having a lower reward ceiling for knowledge/awareness than just plain %Damage, %Haste, etc. buffs.



Before attempting turret-reloading GCDs or the like on AST, I'd far rather just revert Cards to a better-balanced version of their Stormblood design concept and then empower them a bit further in compensation for putting Draw (not Play) on the GCD. Buff Astrodyne's output and functionality a bit to make up for the lost APM, with Royal Road, Spread, and returned charges to Redraw (not merely a proc from Draw) taking up the rest.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

That... honestly sounds more dull?

If I deal flat potency each time a target ally attacks, I'm no longer rewarded for knowing the output dynamics of my team. That seems even less "support"-like. It's like Brotherhood, but without actually getting to actively do anything with the resources the party produces.

---

I saw it more as a core mechanic than being the actual ‘rotation’ itself. But using the same scenario there could be things like buffs that only affect the ‘Astrologian-dancer-partner’ targets, mitigation/shields/regens associated with the ‘ast/dance-partner’ buffs to balance out spamming it on dps, increased or adjusted card effects based on who has the buff. Plus they could do things like having each consumed ‘star’ give a stacking buff to the Astrologian for ‘big potency attack’, and possibly a competing ‘big potency heal’ (not that we need any more lol).

It’s not much so that simple buff/debuff/utility skills themselves can make healers enjoyable, it’s the way in which they could be utilised to create a healer contribution that ends up more ‘support’ oriented than the ‘direct personal damage’ we have now. Essentially, moving healer dps (in various aspects depending on which job etc) from being less oriented on personal damage output and more on managing party damage output (rDPS?). This is assuming an ideal world where things aren’t ruled so strictly by the ‘120s burst cycle’ and so there’s more freedom in choosing when to leverage things like party buffs

It adds skill expression as it requires situational awareness that isn’t as necessary when output is focused purely on personal dps. And arguably you could even say it raises the skill floor, as having situational awareness is already something any healer is going to possess (albeit in varying amounts lol). But since it still calls on situational awareness over rotational / mechanical awareness, I’d argue it’s easier for healers to adjust to that style than one that’s more dps oriented, if not just because you’re looking at similar things (I.e party list, where they’re positioned, which attack is coming next etc). Plus, rewarding that situational awareness also gives people an incentive to indirectly improve their healing skills too, since ultimately good healing is about not just being able to react to set rotations but adjust healing as necessary depending on the situation (including minimising it)

And as aforementioned, none of that precludes any healer from also having interesting and fun dps options. Especially for Sage, which naturally falls into the ‘more dps oriented healer’ category for players who’d rather play a more ‘selfish-dps’ style healer. The current iteration doesn’t exactly fit what they set out to do but it could easily be adjusted through things like aoe Kardia, varied Kardia effects, more dps options between Phlegma/Toxicon/[Eukrasian] Dosis, and generally more of a ‘rewarded for aggressive play’ style

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

But that's still timing-insensitive. It's just yet another wonky Ranger/Caster-Healer/Rest distinction. Except, since it's based on the damage type instead of the job's type, it then penalizes any hybrids (DRK, RDM, NIN, PLD, etc.), especially if there's no CD on the star-summoning or they're only active for a short time.

I just don't get how a turret-aura would feel "Support"-like in XIV, regardless of whether that it only fires when an ally does. It's less intuitive despite having a lower reward ceiling for knowledge/awareness than just plain %Damage buffs.

---

Then you have a spell that puts the symbols of the Twelve on the ground, and whichever one you stand on, your buff enhances the damage dealt by any players who's patron deity matches that symbol. So if for example, two players have the patron deity of Rhalgr in your party, standing on the symbol of Rhalgr will make your spell stronger on those two characters.