I'm bored when I heal because I need more complex DPS rotations

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Originally Posted by Colt47

Basically, yes.

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Not to offend, but while I recognize that MP management underwent some tweaks, of all healer issues, it would not make make my top 10 list of issues to be addressed.

I would actually put MP management pretty high on the problems of healers because it’s literally a zero sum game, you know exactly how much MP every healer will get for the length of the fight and you know exactly how much damage is coming out so you know exactly how many (if any) GCD’s will be going towards GCD healing so you know what your MP drain is and you just counter that with the correct level of piety, the only thing that messes this is up is raise

On top of that is the fact that besides SGE it’s a DPS gain to do what generates mana for each healer (aetherflow/lilys/cards/dyne) and SGE it’s totally DPS neutral so there is never any sort of choice with mana generation

If generating MP was something that required skill (using an extremely basic example let’s say if you keep your DOT up for more than 45 seconds then each tick after that 45 seconds generates 300 MP) then you could tailor your skill level to your piety level to give you more expression in how you generate DPS rather than the current “well it’s a DPS and healing gain to press aetherflow so why wouldn’t I press it, the MP is just an added extra”

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Originally Posted by Supersnow845

I would actually put MP management pretty high on the problems of healers because it’s literally a zero sum game, you know exactly how much MP every healer will get for the length of the fight and you know exactly how much damage is coming out so you know exactly how many (if any) GCD’s will be going towards GCD healing so you know what your MP drain is and you just counter that with the correct level of piety, the only thing that messes this is up is raise

On top of that is the fact that besides SGE it’s a DPS gain to do what generates mana for each healer (aetherflow/lilys/cards/dyne) and SGE it’s totally DPS neutral so there is never any sort of choice with mana generation

If generating MP was something that required skill (using an extremely basic example let’s say if you keep your DOT up for more than 45 seconds then each tick after that 45 seconds generates 300 MP) then you could tailor your skill level to your piety level to give you more expression in how you generate DPS rather than the current “well it’s a DPS and healing gain to press aetherflow so why wouldn’t I press it, the MP is just an added extra”

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"If generating MP was something that required skill (using an extremely basic example let’s say if you keep your DOT up for more than 45 seconds then each tick after that 45 seconds generates 300 MP) then you could tailor your skill level to your piety level to give you more expression in how you generate DPS rather than the current “well it’s a DPS and healing gain to press aetherflow so why wouldn’t I press it, the MP is just an added extra”

Regarding this, having been in at least one game where in order to optimize my DPS (using an example of when my main was a BLM equivalent) , at one point it was absolutely required that I had my eyes glued to my MP gauge during the entirety of any encounter , I don't regard this as enjoyable. I would far more optimize mechanics, a rotation, healing, game puzzles, etc. In fact, the game that I was in that extra tight MP requirements ended up making them less stringent for all caster classes, including healers, since even they were quite strict at one point. I can understand that the opposite extreme in FFXIV could be seen as MP for AST being low/no cost, which could be adjusted somewhat (for example).

There's no agency in MP management. All the MP you can ever gain is controlled entirely by cooldowns. If you run out of MP, you have absolutely no way of trying to get it back, which means you cannot have ways of spending MP beyond what you generally naturally via consequence of your natural regen, cooldowns, and resources or the player is stuck in a hole with no escape rope. Your only method of influencing MP regen at all is Piety, a stat that is functionally useless. Yes, it gets you MP back, but if the MP generated through Piety was not necessary for you to clear content, as the MP you would've gained without it was enough to give you what you needed, then Piety has done literally nothing. And spoiler alert: You don't need Piety's MP regen 99% of the time, even if you aren't a highly skilled healing master. Because there's nothing to spend MP on. The only time you burn through MP is when the rest of your party is falling apart, which is the only time actually costly resources like Raise or spamming Cure III are ever a consideration.

If your standard spells had no MP cost, but you had a variety of more advanced spells that do, you would have the choice of how to spend you MP and on what. For example, rather than Afflatus Solace and Rapture being free heals available per lily use, why aren't they always available at a higher MP cost? You can heal without losing damage, but rely on it too much and you'll run your MP dry. Meanwhile, you can have a resource that restores your MP on the GCD, but that naturally costs you DPS, counterintuitive to reason you're spending MP on Afflatus heals to begin with. Manage your MP well, and you maintain your DPS output effectively while keeping the party healthy. Fly too close to the sun, and you have a way out, but you'll be undoing the efforts you had worked toward.

I want agency. I want to have ways that I can be greedy with my MP, ways that can result in my success or failure in regards to my DPS output. My ability to keep the party alive and healthy is unaffected, but my ability to do so while maximizing my DPS is affected.

At the very least I’d even take some diversity in the way MP is generated even if they refuse to remove the attachments to CD’s

SCH has literally one button that’s not lucid dreaming to generate MP and that button you are pressing on CD anyway, it’s not much but at least WHM has 3 MP generators that are not lucid

It’s not remotely close to though but god Damn why is SCH so boring on every front

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Originally Posted by Supersnow845

At the very least I’d even take some diversity in the way MP is generated even if they refuse to remove the attachments to CD’s

SCH has literally one button that’s not lucid dreaming to generate MP and that button you are pressing on CD anyway, it’s not much but at least WHM has 3 MP generators that are not lucid

It’s not remotely close to though but god Damn why is SCH so boring on every front

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This, I can understand .

A part of me wonders if they’ll just remove MP altogether. That seems to be their way of addressing something that doesn’t work. Abandon it and move on. If it weren’t for Black Mage, I doubt we’d still have MP at this point anyway, but you could just make MP a gauge specific to Black Mage, and revamp Paladin’s and Dark Knights’ gauges to function like their current MP. Not like they’re using their current gauges for anything interesting as it stands anyway.

EDIT: Every time I post on my phone, typos are through the roof.

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

A part of me wonders if they’ll just remove MP altogether. That seems to be their way of addressing something that doesn’t work. Abandon it and move on. If it weren’t for Black Mage, I doubt we’d still have MP at this point anyway, but you could just make MP a gauge specific to Black Mage, and revamp Paladin’s and Dark Knights’ gauges to function like their current MP. Not like they’re using their current gauges for anything interesting as it stands anyway.

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I can see that. And because it's SE, they'd also overlook the fact that Piety is made redundant as a stat because of the change, and then one patch later remove that too

I play a healer precisely because I suck at complex dps rotations. I can perform at a mediocre level as dancer or red mage, but beyond that, no, I'm bad at dps. If healer dps rotations became more complex, and I was expected to perform at a certain dps level as a healer, I could no longer play FFXIV. I don't want my healer dps rotation to become more complex. If anything has to change, I'd prefer healing itself become slightly more challenging (emphasis on the slightly). If you want complex dps rotations, there's a plethora of dps jobs that can provide that. Healer's may be capable and expected to provide dps, but that's not their primary role, and complicating their dps will just reinforce the idea that healers are just green dps. That's not a notion I think should be reinforced.

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Originally Posted by Nicodemus_Mercy

I play a healer precisely because I suck at complex dps rotations. I can perform at a mediocre level as dancer or red mage, but beyond that, no, I'm bad at dps. If healer dps rotations became more complex, and I was expected to perform at a certain dps level as a healer, I could no longer play FFXIV. I don't want my healer dps rotation to become more complex. If anything has to change, I'd prefer healing itself become slightly more challenging (emphasis on the slightly). If you want complex dps rotations, there's a plethora of dps jobs that can provide that. Healer's may be capable and expected to provide dps, but that's not their primary role, and complicating their dps will just reinforce the idea that healers are just green dps. That's not a notion I think should be reinforced.

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so you get to have 4 jobs and we get to have 0? sweet dude
i'm sure glad scholar had to be gutted to appeal to people who don't even want to try at all!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

btw i can't keep my 1 gcd rolling but i could cope with increased healing difficulty. healers are like, meant to heal btw!!!!!!!

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Originally Posted by Nicodemus_Mercy

I play a healer precisely because I suck at complex dps rotations. I can perform at a mediocre level as dancer or red mage, but beyond that, no, I'm bad at dps. If healer dps rotations became more complex, and I was expected to perform at a certain dps level as a healer, I could no longer play FFXIV. I don't want my healer dps rotation to become more complex. If anything has to change, I'd prefer healing itself become slightly more challenging (emphasis on the slightly). If you want complex dps rotations, there's a plethora of dps jobs that can provide that. Healer's may be capable and expected to provide dps, but that's not their primary role, and complicating their dps will just reinforce the idea that healers are just green dps. That's not a notion I think should be reinforced.

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The only person telling you that you can’t play FFXIV if you can’t perform well in a job like Red Mage or Dancer is yourself, and no one else. The game isn’t telling you that either.

When you played as Dancer, did you win? Did you clear the dungeon? The alliance raid? The normal mode boss? The variant dungeon? That’s called winning. You win, “mediocre DPS” regardless.

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Originally Posted by Nicodemus_Mercy

I play a healer precisely because I suck at complex dps rotations. I can perform at a mediocre level as dancer or red mage, but beyond that, no, I'm bad at dps. If healer dps rotations became more complex, and I was expected to perform at a certain dps level as a healer, I could no longer play FFXIV. I don't want my healer dps rotation to become more complex. If anything has to change, I'd prefer healing itself become slightly more challenging (emphasis on the slightly). If you want complex dps rotations, there's a plethora of dps jobs that can provide that. Healer's may be capable and expected to provide dps, but that's not their primary role, and complicating their dps will just reinforce the idea that healers are just green dps. That's not a notion I think should be reinforced.

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Then don't engage that 'complex dps rotation'. It's that easy. Why do you care about the 'expectation to perform at certain dps level as a healer' if you want to heal?

Oh that's right~ Because today's 'dps rotation' for healer is so braindead easy people start expecting us to actually dps. It's easy, right? So how do people even mess that up?!

Now what if the rotation is harder... maybe people wouldn't bat an eye if we make a mistake... yeah... those times existed... :rolleyes:

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Originally Posted by Rein_eon_Osborne

Then don't engage that 'complex dps rotation'. It's that easy. Why do you care about the 'expectation to perform at certain dps level as a healer' if you want to heal?

Oh that's right~ Because today's 'dps rotation' for healer is so braindead easy people start expecting us to actually dps. It's easy, right? So how do people even mess that up?!

Now what if the rotation is harder... maybe people wouldn't bat an eye if we make a mistake... yeah... those times existed... :rolleyes:

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If we look back at Cleric Stance days, there was a legitimate argument about whether or not a healer should DPS, and people not wanting to, but a large portion of the "I don't want to DPS" crowd, were not antagonistic sylphies, but people who were afraid to use Cleric Stance because it was a requirement to contribute any amount of DPS. Many would chime in with something to the effect of "I don't mind doing a little DPS, but I want to make sure I know the fight first." or "I don't want to cause my team to wipe if I use Cleric Stance at the wrong time." And I still think those were valid concerns and a justification as to why Cleric Stance was to be removed. But that was never who the players who promoted healer DPS were arguing against. It was the people who didn't want to touch DPS buttons on principle, because what that meant was players idling for more than half the fight doing nothing not because they can't, but because they won't.

And that's the core distinguishing factor between what DPS is expected of a healer and what isn't. What's expected is that you'll actually try--put any amount of effort into always trying to help the party regardless of whether healing is needed or not. In other words, they just want you to do your best, not freeload off the rest of the party. Very few people actually care how good of a job you do as long as you're trying. And that's true of other roles too. Once you start getting into Extreme and Savage content, you are required to have some level of competency with your job enough to meet the DPS requirements of actually clearing the fight, but few people care whether you're parsing grey or parsing pink. People care more that you're doing the mechanics correctly, because if everyone's doing the mechanics correctly, the DPS check is rarely an issue.

I really don’t want to be agressive here because I think we are cultivating the wrong attitude at this point but I also don’t get why we have to have all 4 healers be equally boring

Casters have BLM, melee have MNK, tanks have GNB and phys ranged have BRD, why do healers get 4 flavours of SMN

I’d be genuinely interested in looking at if they decided to revert SCH whether it would become more or less popular (even reverting it to SB)

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

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Tbf, it was merely an assumption made from reading old iteration of these jobs & their intricacies without firsthand experience, so I might not be making a good judgment.

Looking back at old SCH, (CMIIW) they had Bio I at 18s, Bio II at 30s, Miasma at 24s, crossed Aero I at 18s, and Shadowflare at 30s. On top of that, those were the time when Cleric Stance merely swaps INT/MND back & forth (to my understanding), which means any dps spells cast not under Cleric would’ve just tickle the boss. After that, I took a brief look on how HW encounters looked like, I’m like… “Unless I’m seeing a live recorded gameplay, I will never believe anybody who claimed they can play this old SCH ‘perfectly’ consistently all the while responding to random mistakes.”—because I think that seems impossible to pull off.

Will I blame them for messing up their dps rotation? No, I can’t—I won’t. That monstrosity of a rotation is just unrealistic to pull off. I will not ‘expect’ them to even dps ‘decently’ either because how punishing mistakes were. I find such concern that scares healers from even turning on their Cleric Stance is such a valid, very relatable concern. Not to mention the Trashologification of nuke cast time never existed back then, we all had to sit still and cast for 2.5s!!

And that’s where I think where the beauty lies: because it was impossible to perfect, it turns into “I will try my best to mitigate any potential losses and see where this will take me.”

Today? See those “Why do you cast Medica II???”-meme. See those 1 2 1 1 1 ‘rotation’. It’s so easy that we went toward “How do you even mess up a 1 button rotation???”. Unsurprisingly, we’re also seeing similar phenomenon on today: BLM & SMN. BLM messing up and making mistake? ”That’s fine, they will learn, they had it hard”, etc. SMN make mistake? “How do you mess up with 89% mobility per minute? How can you even miss casting Addle with that many weaving space/instants/not much to weave? Etc.”

I’m not even asking for ‘red dps complexity’ rotation or wanting the janky cleric stance back. But I also don’t want this craptastic 1 2 1 1 1. I want the middle ground.

There is 100% something to be said that people were less likely to flame someone from doing bad on a healer when it was much harder to actually do anything on a healer

These days you actively have to choose to do nothing and not even throw your nuke out when there is no heals so there is really no defence, back then if you really struggled nobody really called you out for it, you just tried your best

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Originally Posted by Rein_eon_Osborne

I’m not even asking for ‘red dps complexity’ rotation or wanting the janky cleric stance back. But I also don’t want this craptastic 1 2 1 1 1. I want the middle ground.

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Literally no one is, which is why it baffles me every time someone breaks the damn door down and sprays spit yelling at everyone how DPS rotations that are as complex as DPS jobs will ruin healers.

And yeah, if you casted your DPS spells outside of Cleric Stance, the damage was so low that it wouldn't be worth the MP you spent. Hop on Summoner and heal with Physick. Those are the kind of numbers you'd be seeing with healer DPS outside of Cleric Stance back then. Inversely, when you were in Cleric Stance, that's the kind of healing you'd put out if you were healing in that stance. It was an OGCD action in an era with very little weaving windows. Like I think the only way White Mage could weave it without clipping was through casting Regen first, but it didn't actually take a weave slot to drop the stance. You just had to not be casting and it would fall off without animation. That said, once you entered Cleric Stance, it had a cooldown of about 10 or 15 seconds I think (I don't remember exactly) before you could remove it, locking you into DPS for that period, but there was no cooldown after you ended the stance. You could very easily double-cast it, dropping the stance and then immediately restart it without meaning to, if you clicked it more than once, which given how much laggier the game used to be was also quite scary.

This is why it was ultimately removed and healer DPS was changed to scale off Mind instead. Which was the only change they really needed to make to end the conflict. Even with the healers having almost as many DPS spells as they had in Heavensward, suddenly there were far less arguments about healer DPS.

Well, Dark Knight and Paladin have to worry about their MP management. though for paladins, it basically just means you can't Requiescat right after a revive, or after spamming six clemencies.
Healers, Red Mage, and Summoner all have to worry about their MP as a way to mitigate how many revives they need. (also, even when you're just using your normal damage rotation, you can run out of MP by just not hitting lucid dreaming. It takes a while, but it adds something else to weave occasionally)
For Healers especially, their powerful GCD Heals (Cure 2, Adlo etc) take much more MP than the weak single target heal. Weak 1 Abyssos, I was just running out of MP at times because I just had to do so much healing.
It makes me wonder what they've got planned for Pictomancer. I'm hoping it's got something to do with it's MP bar since it doesn't have a res.

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Originally Posted by GartredZW

Well, Dark Knight and Paladin have to worry about their MP management. though for paladins, it basically just means you can't Requiescat right after a revive, or after spamming six clemencies.
Healers, Red Mage, and Summoner all have to worry about their MP as a way to mitigate how many revives they need. (also, even when you're just using your normal damage rotation, you can run out of MP by just not hitting lucid dreaming. It takes a while, but it adds something else to weave occasionally)
For Healers especially, their powerful GCD Heals (Cure 2, Adlo etc) take much more MP than the weak single target heal. Weak 1 Abyssos, I was just running out of MP at times because I just had to do so much healing.
It makes me wonder what they've got planned for Pictomancer. I'm hoping it's got something to do with it's MP bar since it doesn't have a res.

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The problem is that a gauge like that should be more than a “how much can I correct the party messing up gauge”, like why is MP not a way to express skill considering that piety is already the safety cushion

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

Literally no one is, which is why it baffles me every time someone breaks the damn door down and sprays spit yelling at everyone how DPS rotations that are as complex as DPS jobs will ruin healers.

And yeah, if you casted your DPS spells outside of Cleric Stance, the damage was so low that it wouldn't be worth the MP you spent. Hop on Summoner and heal with Physick. Those are the kind of numbers you'd be seeing with healer DPS outside of Cleric Stance back then. Inversely, when you were in Cleric Stance, that's the kind of healing you'd put out if you were healing in that stance. It was an OGCD action in an era with very little weaving windows. Like I think the only way White Mage could weave it without clipping was through casting Regen first, but it didn't actually take a weave slot to drop the stance. You just had to not be casting and it would fall off without animation. That said, once you entered Cleric Stance, it had a cooldown of about 10 or 15 seconds I think (I don't remember exactly) before you could remove it, locking you into DPS for that period, but there was no cooldown after you ended the stance. You could very easily double-cast it, dropping the stance and then immediately restart it without meaning to, if you clicked it more than once, which given how much laggier the game used to be was also quite scary.

This is why it was ultimately removed and healer DPS was changed to scale off Mind instead. Which was the only change they really needed to make to end the conflict. Even with the healers having almost as many DPS spells as they had in Heavensward, suddenly there were far less arguments about healer DPS.

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Cleric Stance would lock you in for 4 seconds, so it was a commitment to DPS during that time. That was largely what made it so dang fun; you had to think about when to use it, and it came with the risk of you using it at the exact same time some party members made mistakes. You could still Raise just fine with it on, and Benediction. Certain other actions like Aquaveil would've been great to use as well since they just use damage reduction % independent of your own stats, but it was gone well before then.

I really enjoyed Cleric Stance (and tank stance) stance dancing, it was some of the most fun I've ever had in any video game ever. Instead of removing it, they should've just made it less clunky. That 4 seconds of commitment isn't much different than you doing RDM sword combos currently; there's a large time window between you doing damage and being able to use Verraise viably, doubly moreso now that the sword combo is a lot longer and you do 3 of them at a time sometimes. It makes for very interesting and fun decisions that are dynamic per fight based on your party members, which is even more variable in DF/PF.

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Originally Posted by Nicodemus_Mercy

I play a healer precisely because I suck at complex dps rotations. I can perform at a mediocre level as dancer or red mage, but beyond that, no, I'm bad at dps. If healer dps rotations became more complex, and I was expected to perform at a certain dps level as a healer, I could no longer play FFXIV. I don't want my healer dps rotation to become more complex. If anything has to change, I'd prefer healing itself become slightly more challenging (emphasis on the slightly). If you want complex dps rotations, there's a plethora of dps jobs that can provide that. Healer's may be capable and expected to provide dps, but that's not their primary role, and complicating their dps will just reinforce the idea that healers are just green dps. That's not a notion I think should be reinforced.

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If you can clear content as a healer, you can most definitely clear content as any other job in the game. Healers are harder than PLD/DNC/RDM/SMN. In the end, all DPS rotations are just understanding concepts, building muscle memory, and slight variations on a per fight basis. It's not as difficult as healing. If you perceive it as easier, it's due to an illogical belief that DPS is scary for some reason. Which I mean is your thing, but that doesn't mean healers shouldn't have more complex DPS rotations anyway. Your illogical trauma or whatever it is shouldn't define how everyone else is forced to play the game.

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Originally Posted by Rein_eon_Osborne

Today? See those “Why do you cast Medica II???”-meme. See those 1 2 1 1 1 ‘rotation’. It’s so easy that we went toward “How do you even mess up a 1 button rotation???”. Unsurprisingly, we’re also seeing similar phenomenon on today: BLM & SMN. BLM messing up and making mistake? ”That’s fine, they will learn, they had it hard”, etc. SMN make mistake? “How do you mess up with 89% mobility per minute? How can you even miss casting Addle with that many weaving space/instants/not much to weave? Etc.”

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It's always funny to me that people who dislike doing damage will always oppose more damage options even though having a more in-depth damage kit would make it so less people will expect you to be perfect at it. It's easy to be perfect at current healer damage kits, it was not at all easy to be perfect back in HW.

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Originally Posted by Nicodemus_Mercy

I play a healer precisely because I suck at complex dps rotations. I can perform at a mediocre level as dancer or red mage, but beyond that, no, I'm bad at dps. If healer dps rotations became more complex, and I was expected to perform at a certain dps level as a healer, I could no longer play FFXIV. I don't want my healer dps rotation to become more complex. If anything has to change, I'd prefer healing itself become slightly more challenging (emphasis on the slightly). If you want complex dps rotations, there's a plethora of dps jobs that can provide that. Healer's may be capable and expected to provide dps, but that's not their primary role, and complicating their dps will just reinforce the idea that healers are just green dps. That's not a notion I think should be reinforced.

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Just don't use it man, And hold the loot so you can't get kicked out for "play style difference".

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Originally Posted by Nicodemus_Mercy

I play a healer precisely because I suck at complex dps rotations. I can perform at a mediocre level as dancer or red mage, but beyond that, no, I'm bad at dps. If healer dps rotations became more complex, and I was expected to perform at a certain dps level as a healer, I could no longer play FFXIV. I don't want my healer dps rotation to become more complex. If anything has to change, I'd prefer healing itself become slightly more challenging (emphasis on the slightly). If you want complex dps rotations, there's a plethora of dps jobs that can provide that. Healer's may be capable and expected to provide dps, but that's not their primary role, and complicating their dps will just reinforce the idea that healers are just green dps. That's not a notion I think should be reinforced.

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Oh man, could you imagine if this mentality was taken to it's absolute, but inevitable conclusion?

How is any job, never mind healers, supposed to actually evolve overtime if the developers are being hamstrung by players who can't be "expected to perform."

It doesn't even fundamentally matter if you are bad, the content, nor the wide playerbase even cares. You could be dead on the floor for the entire fight, and no one would bat an eye, because it's irrelevant in sub-extreme. But that is no reason to limit both the players and the developers by forcing a low-skill ceiling unilaterality, because some players aren't content with being mediocre or more importantly, with a complete lack of engagement in the core gameplay loop when merely standing up slams their head into the roof of their job's skill expression.

If you suck, okay, whatever. I don't have to play with you. But if you suck, why do other people have to have restricted future job development and worse gameplay experiences in general because of it? Haven't you guys taken enough away from the combat as it is?

This is kind of selfish, honestly.

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Originally Posted by Nicodemus_Mercy

I play a healer precisely because I suck at complex dps rotations. I can perform at a mediocre level as dancer or red mage, but beyond that, no, I'm bad at dps. If healer dps rotations became more complex, and I was expected to perform at a certain dps level as a healer, I could no longer play FFXIV. I don't want my healer dps rotation to become more complex. If anything has to change, I'd prefer healing itself become slightly more challenging (emphasis on the slightly). If you want complex dps rotations, there's a plethora of dps jobs that can provide that. Healer's may be capable and expected to provide dps, but that's not their primary role, and complicating their dps will just reinforce the idea that healers are just green dps. That's not a notion I think should be reinforced.

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I think the best part about this stance is that I (and others like me who have done theorycrafting of how to add more damage buttons) have actually considered this POV, and implemented countermeasures to my theorycraft to reduce this issue, yet it would still likely get naysayed by a player such as this, just because of the principle of 'no dont add more damage buttons to a healer, they're meant to heal'. With the WHM idea I theorycrafted for example, and the potency values I came up with, you could play either 'optimally' or 'like you do now' (aka, refresh DOT when it falls off, spam Glare), and the difference in damage between the two would be 2%. You'd also have more ways to preserve your damage, given that you would use the DOT more often, and the new damage button (Water/Banish) would be an instantcast too. This means losing less damage to interrupting Glare casts due to movement. Additionally, you'd have access to another healing tool which is damage neutral, meaning you would preserve even more damage in the situations where you have to heal

Bad news for you, if you can't keep up with a slightly more involved damage rotation, you are not going to keep up with a more stressful healing paradigm. Difference is, messing up at the damage rotation would cost you a variable amount of damage (again, could be as low as 2%). Messing up due to not being able to keep up on healing required means potential deaths or even a teamwipe. You're not going to be forced to 'quit the game' if we went back to SB's level of complexity, where WHM has a shorter DOT duration and one extra damage button (back then it was another DOT to track the timer of too, Aero3) please don't be so melodramatic

Oops, I accidentally bumped.

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I play a healer precisely because I suck at complex dps rotations. I can perform at a mediocre level as dancer or red mage, but beyond that, no, I'm bad at dps. If healer dps rotations became more complex, and I was expected to perform at a certain dps level as a healer, I could no longer play FFXIV. I don't want my healer dps rotation to become more complex. If anything has to change, I'd prefer healing itself become slightly more challenging (emphasis on the slightly). If you want complex dps rotations, there's a plethora of dps jobs that can provide that. Healer's may be capable and expected to provide dps, but that's not their primary role, and complicating their dps will just reinforce the idea that healers are just green dps. That's not a notion I think should be reinforced.

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I'm going to be a bit dry, so I apologize in advance. But three things:

- If you can't manage any of the dps rotations in this game, then there's definitely a bit of training involved (barring special cases, like a serious physical handicap). The majority of jobs can be played at a decent level with simple repetition. Here, rather than declaring that you're no good: go to a pole, take a guide, and repeat the rotation until it becomes almost automatic.

- What you're really asking is that healers be used as a niche to mask your real level as a player. If you really know you're a very bad player, for whatever reason, not taking advantage of a healer's dps rotation... will make you a bad healer. And it will be "fair" in relation to your overall level as a player. It doesn't matter btw. In casual content, everyone is welcome in my opinion, as long as the effort is made. I played last time with someone who was a retiree. He had the reflexes that went with it, but nobody minded because in the content we were doing, he had his place.


- It's quite possible to imagine a rather "easy" healer (WHM?), while the others would be more complex. No one would mind. What's much more questionable is asking everyone to get bored in order to adapt to your level. Is a player who finds raids too complicated, when the majority find them just fine as they are, allowed to ask for all strats to be simplified?

Gonna post this here as well.

Could dual cast or some other mechanic like it work for WHM? Like, WHM gets dual cast, and it also gets chunky stone, and aero spells to use it on -- they could even give them cleave to be hotbar space efficient. Or casting Glare grants stacks of Tranquil Hearts or something which reduce the cast/recast time of specified spells like the previously mentioned aero, and stone spells as well as healing spells. I've mentioned this in an other 'boring healer DPS' thread, but I feel like if there were any jobs that WHM could take inspiration from to create a potential DPS rotation they would be either RDM or BLM.

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Originally Posted by mallleable

Gonna post this here as well.

Could dual cast or some other mechanic like it work for WHM? Like, WHM gets dual cast, and it also gets chunky stone, and aero spells to use it on -- they could even give them cleave to be hotbar space efficient. Or casting Glare grants stacks of Tranquil Hearts or something which reduce the cast/recast time of specified spells like the previously mentioned aero, and stone spells as well as healing spells. I've mentioned this in an other 'boring healer DPS' thread, but I feel like if there were any jobs that WHM could take inspiration from to create a potential DPS rotation they would be either RDM or BLM.

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Nice idea, and it's always good to get a new perspective (even though, personally I would find a skill name like "tranquil hearts" somewhat too sweet for words, could just imagine like little hearts floating up over a lala) .

However, just pointing out, it's not exclusive to WHM, all healers are affected by this.

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Originally Posted by mallleable

Gonna post this here as well.

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I've always been a big fan of WHM getting Thundercloud style procs on a dot, IMO your dual cast idea with a tweak could play quite nicely into that as well...

Don't just make make a plain dual cast effect, make the second fast cast an actual fast GCD. Like DNC step speed GCD.

I think the kit would need filling out a little to provide depth to this effect (Eg give us back Aero 3 but it has a super long cast and we want to Dual Cast it, then give us a bonus if we can combine that with a thundercloud proc) and IMO it would need to have some kind of cooldown on the dual cast effect, like 1 dual cast for every 3 Glares or something to stop it getting monotonous. IMO a sporadic shift in pace to the GCD would do *WONDERS* for breaking up how mind numbing WHM currently feels if you're not being pressured.

On a mildly related note, SE really really should look into enabling hold versions of abilities. I've mentioned Genshin before, but Io in Granblue Relink so far is supremely fun as a caster and brings a lot of depth to the table despite basically playing around 4 buttons and a modifier. A big chunk of that is how button holds form such a key part of her gameplay.

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Originally Posted by Merrigan

- If you can't manage any of the dps rotations in this game, then there's definitely a bit of training involved (barring special cases, like a serious physical handicap). The majority of jobs can be played at a decent level with simple repetition. Here, rather than declaring that you're no good: go to a pole, take a guide, and repeat the rotation until it becomes almost automatic.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogCRNvghbiw

It all boils down to being willing to put the effort in.

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Originally Posted by Sebazy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogCRNvghbiw

It all boils down to being willing to put the effort in.

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https://media1.tenor.com/m/o7X4kJAcI...-surprised.gif

That is...incredible. That said, it doesn't make me feel lazy or stupid for not spending the time to 'git gud', that person is just incredible, period.

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Originally Posted by Boblawblah

https://media1.tenor.com/m/o7X4kJAcI...-surprised.gif

That is...incredible. That said, it doesn't make me feel lazy or stupid for not spending the time to 'git gud', that person is just incredible, period.

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Somehow I get the feeling that they're probably one of the more helpful mentors too.

Just messing around with the PVP version of AST on a striking dummy, and Double Cast is neat ability that could be utilized to create an actual damage rotation for AST. I hope it shows up in the rework.

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Originally Posted by Sebazy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogCRNvghbiw

It all boils down to being willing to put the effort in.

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That's an interesting video, but this is not my job. I shouldn't be required to get better to enjoy the game.

It is not a job, and you are not required to be good to enjoy the game, indeed.

That’s why vote dismiss & reporting under the pretext of ‘lethargic play’ exists.

You're also not required to improve at the game to enjoy it. MSQ dungeons and trials are basically free.

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Originally Posted by mallleable

Just messing around with the PVP version of AST on a striking dummy, and Double Cast is neat ability that could be utilized to create an actual damage rotation for AST. I hope it shows up in the rework.

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In all seriousness, the only thing I'm expecting is for them to dumb down the card mechanics even further by stripping the RNG away entirely.

...Though if that means AST would have an additional offensive button it can access reliably, I'd probably end up liking that more then fishing for seals to maximize buff output.

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Originally Posted by KageTokage

In all seriousness, the only thing I'm expecting is for them to dumb down the card mechanics even further by stripping the RNG away entirely.

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the RNG IS the AST identity though, making it 'predictable', even as much as they have done so far with SB > SHB changes (removing unique effects for cards, replacing with 'they all give more damage'), has gone down pretty poorly with a lot of players. The 'predictability' of the damage is nice, sure, and I imagine that it's great for the devs in terms of making job balancing easier, but I'd expect that if they want to 'dumb cards down' more it'd be by using the same thing we saw as Urianger in the finale of SHB patch quests: AOE card effects. Changing the cards from 6% on correct/3% on incorrect roles, to 'it's AOE, and is 2% on correct/1% on incorrect', making the card effects able to stack and not overwrite, and then moving down to having only, say, two cards per burst window, would make the APM much lower, while keeping the cards as having relatively the same impact as currently (given that they're now AOE), going from 6% on one person to a total of 12% split across all 8 players (and only two of those will be 'correct DPS', 2 melees or 1ranged/1caster, the other 'correct targets' would be tanks or healers who naturally deal less damage)

Ironically, I think making the cards have any AOE was the reason they couldn't be balanced in the first place. Trying to make a 10% damage buff for one person compete vs, say, 20% mitigation, or a GCD haste buff or crit rate, it's a lot easier to balance that, compared to '5% damage for everyone in the team, vs 10% mitigation on everyone' when it comes to damage output. It's literally like asking 'okay which would you rather have, Embolden or Magick Barrier', of course it could not be balanced. So instead of 'dumbing it down' even further, and driving away people who enjoy AST for what it is/was, a faster paced APM healer with a decision-making process for their 'system', the cards, I'd rather they just add unique effects to the cards again, while keeping them single target. The 'big burst window' can still be Divination, but the cards themselves I'd like to see recapture the 'I can choose to use this in a nonconventional way to aid the team better, even if it seems 'suboptimal' to do so' perspective.

To which end, this is something along the lines of what I'd like to see:

Major Arcana: now autodraws one card every 30s. If you have one already and a second 'recharge time' is completed, the second card will be placed in 'the Spread', to use a pre-SHB term. 'Play Major Arcana' will always play the Drawn card first, then the Spread card afterwards. If you have a card both Drawn and Spread, the timer pauses. This is intended to make the 'Spread' feel more like a 'leeway' to prevent overcapping. For optimization, you can dump two cards at 1min, then two at 2min in raidbuffs if you so wish

Minor Arcana: now draws a Minor Arcana every 15s. When you have a Minor Arcana drawn, the timer completing a charge again will 'Spread' a second Minor Arcana card. If a Minor Arcana card is both Drawn and Spread, like with the Majors, the timer to generate a new Minor Arcana will pause. Unlike Major Arcana, where the effects are strong enough to justify pooling for the burst window, the Minor Arcana is not that big a jump in potency (hopefully) to be worth delaying until raidbuffs, as the short recharge means you will likely lose a use if you delay too much

Playing Major Arcana is still OGCD, but Minor Arcana are GCD. A Major and a Minor effect can be on the same player at once, but not two Majors, or two Minors at once. EG, you can have 'the Balance and 'the Cups', but not 'the Cups' and 'the Pentacles', as those are two Minor Arcana. The Burst Window (tm) would essentially be Divination, Minor Major Minor Major. You would be able to delay a little between card uses by filling with a Malefic, to buy time to consider your next Card target. Because of Minor Arcana moving over to be GCD, the intention would be that it would both help to break up the Malefic monotony outside the burst window, and simultaneously free up some 'required double-weaves' into single-weaves, reducing the reliance on Lightspeed for the burst window's execution (allowing it to be used more for mobility)

Additionally, Sleeve Draw would return, becoming a 2charge, 60s charge time action. When you use it, your currently drawn Minor Arcana becomes a Lady of it's suit. This guarantees that inside the burst window, your Minor Arcana is always going to have the maximum effect.

Major Arcana effects:

Balance: 10% damage, 15s.

Bole: 20% damage mitigation, 15s. Additionally, grants 3 stacks of Bole's Bulwark, causing the enemy that strikes the bearer of this buff to take 10% of that ally's Max HP as damage and consuming one stack.

Arrow: Grants 10 stacks of 'Arrow's Assault' (12 if the target is PhysRanged), increasing Autoattack rate by 400%. One stack is consumed for each Autoattack dealt under it's effect, and upon consuming all stacks, the Autoattack rate returns to normal.
Additionally, if the target of this card is the AST, grants 5 stacks of Arrow's Assault, speeding up the recast time of the AST to 1.5s for the next 5 GCD attacks, and making cast times of those spells instant.

Ewer: Grants 1000mp over 15s. Additionally, If the target is a healer, grants 3 stacks of Ewer Overflowing, causing the next 3 attacks dealt to strike a second time for 100% of the spell's potency. Additional effects are not applied. This second strike cannot crit or Direct Hit.

Spear: 10% Physical damage, 15s. Additionally, if the target of this card is the AST, all magic damage dealt by the AST is instead considered physical for the duration, allowing them to benefit from this card's effect

Spire: 10% Magic damage, 15s

A Note on Minor Arcana: Knaves, Lords, Ladies are 7 8 and 9 respectively. Due to not having a duration, these effects will last on the target until they are overwritten by another card, or KO removes them.

X of Staves: Increases the next 5 attacks dealt by the target ally by 60p. Additionally, increases the damage of the first attack dealt by target ally after this effect is applied, by 5 potency, multiplied by the face value of the arcana.

X of Rings: Deals 100p in counterattack damage each time the target ally is struck, up to 3 times. Additionally, deals an additional 5 potency, multiplied by the face value of the arcana, for the first counterattack only.

X of Knives: Causes the next 6 Autoattacks to deal a second strike for 50p. Additionally, a bonus potency equal to the arcana face value is applied to each of these bonus strikes.
if the concept of 'potency value not divisible by 5' is too much for the engine, make it 'first autoattack has bonus damage of '5 x face value'' like the rest

X of Cups: Causes the next 3 healer damage spells to cost half MP, and to strike a second time for 100p. Additional effects are not applied twice. Additionally, the first of these spells deals bonus damage equal to 5 potency, multiplied by the face value of the arcana

X of Crowns: Increases the next 5 instances of Magic damage dealt by 60p. Additionally, a bonus potency equal to the arcana face value is applied to each of these bonus strikes.
(see arrow if game can't handle non-5 values)

X of Irons: Increases the next 5 instances of Physical damage dealt by 60p. Additionally, a bonus potency equal to the arcana face value is applied to each of these bonus strikes. Additionally, if the target of this card is the AST, the next 5 instances of magic damage are instead considered physical, allowing them to benefit from this card's effect

By making the cards have a unified effect of 'increases damage', balanced against one another in output, we can have them feel unique again with additional effects (like Bole's Mit, or Ewer's MP restore). We can also create effects that allow every role to have a card that is 'desired by X role', rather than the previous 'Balance or bust', or the current 'throw it all on the DPS'. Tanks and Healers would also get to have a card that is not just a case of 'well, I got a caster card and we've got two melee in this dungeon', but one specifically tailored to be 'this is the best on Healers, but casters can make some use of it as well'. This would also allow for, as mentioned previously, 'slightly unconventional' play with some card effects. For example, with the effect of Bole, 'reflect damage based on Max HP', you would place it on a Tank normally, as they have the highest Max HP. But you might also consider using it on a Healer or Caster for additional safety (eg they got a vuln stack) at the cost of a tiny amount of damage. By associating each card/suit with a specific role, I believe that the effect/role pairings would be very intuitive to learn (at least, easier to learn than having to relearn that Arrow/Ewer are now a pair, instead of Arrow/Spear). Bole protects, so it goes on Tanks. Spears are melee weapons, so it goes on the Melee. The Spire gets struck by magic lightning, so it goes on Casters, etc.

As a final side note, I've also thought about a new system for assisting in targeting allies for one-off ability uses without breaking your targeting on your current target. Essentially, like executing a macro that says /ac "action" <2>, but without actually having to make all those macros and bind them all. It would be something akin to more recent Monster Hunter games, with their Radial Menu of quickbinds for items, crafting, or emotes. Essentially, the way I'd envision it would be something like:

https://i.gyazo.com/0683c799b6dd1ce2...093522d11a.png

So in the example Arcana Gauge given, your burst window would be:

Malefic until burst time

Divination, Sleeve Draw (to empower the Minor Arcana into a Lady of it's suit, in this case, Lady of Cups)

Hold Minor Arcana button (this is GCD)
Move mouse/RightStick to the right (targets the SCH)
Release Minor Arcana button (Card is sent to SCH), let go of RightStick to go back to it's neutral position

Hold Major Arcana button (this is an OGCD weave)
Move mouse/Rightstick up/down (targets one of the tanks, whichever is MT atm)
Release Major Arcana button, release RightStick

Sleeve Draw if desired (this would turn the 6 of Irons into a Lady of Irons, in this case)

Hold Minor Arcana button (this is GCD)
Move mouse/RightStick down-left or down-right (targets the NIN/MNK)
Release Minor Arcana button (Card is sent to NIN/MNK), release RightStick

Hold Major Arcana button (this is an OGCD weave)
Move mouse/Rightstick down-left or down-right (targets the NIN/MNK again, as a Major and Minor effect can both be active at once on someone, but not two Major effects or two Minor effects)
Release Major Arcana button, release RightStick

Spam some more Malefics until Minor Arcana comes back up

That might look like a lot of stuff, but it's actually only two GCDs worth of actions listed there (the two uses of Minor Arcana). In practice, I'd expect it to feel pretty fast paced, but also very fluid, to throw out cards at such speeds. At first, it'd be a bit weird to get used to, but with practice, I can see people getting incredibly fast at executing actions within such a system. As mentioned before, Malefics can be thrown in to 'buy a GCD' to consider your next card move if needed, or to buy time for a Redraw if needed. Additionally, this system could theoretically work for a lot of other skills. Excog, Lustrate, Exaltation, EssentialDignity, DivineBenison, Tank shareables like Intervention or Nascent Flash, even something like DragonSight for DRG, or Verraise/Vercure on RDM and Rekindle on SMN, could benefit from such a system, making the act of 'throw this utility skill onto an ally' so much more fluid, and preventing (or at least reducing) those instances of 'untarget boss to heal, can't tab back to boss because it's too damn big'

Sorry that is a lot, but it's in tags so it's a bit prettier (I hope)

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Originally Posted by Eastwall

That's an interesting video, but this is not my job. I shouldn't be required to get better to enjoy the game.

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Troll? There's a minimum of effort that can be demanded of you, yes. When I say "minimum", I don't mean having orange parses, but knowing your rotation, your role, and the strats. That's what's required in any activity, and I don't see why JVs should be exempt. Especially when they're multiplayer.

You've been invited to a game of DnD. The least you'll be expected to do is prepare a bit of background for your character; look at the rules; know how your class works. If you turn up with your hands in your pockets, and don't try to improve your knowledge of the game = after a while you won't get the invitation.