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

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Originally Posted by DatGuyChucky

Even if their logs are worse were they the person that claimed to be good at all roles with logs to back it up? Wait no that's you; I wonder how hard it is to not make false claims that take 20 seconds to disprove? Talk shit get hit

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I wasn't disproven though, try again

Why are logs even a factor in this conversation? Savage/ultimate shouldn't even be a consideration since healers would experience the most boredom in casual content where they can't even use their entire kit. This shouldn't be a conversation that's being gatekept behind clearing endgame content, it affects every healer at every skill level, many new healers are already saying that they're bored, many veterans are quitting the role entirely because everyone tells them to just play DPS, who is this design benefiting exactly?

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Originally Posted by Aravell

Why are logs even a factor in this conversation? Savage/ultimate shouldn't even be a consideration since healers would experience the most boredom in casual content where they can't even use their entire kit. This shouldn't be a conversation that's being gatekept behind clearing endgame content, it affects every healer at every skill level, many new healers are already saying that they're bored, many veterans are quitting the role entirely because everyone tells them to just play DPS, who is this design benefiting exactly?

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It absolutely is, as only high end content matters when discussing things like balance. Casual content by its very definition will never be healing intensive, it literally can't be

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Originally Posted by FireMage

Casual content by its very definition will never be healing intensive, it literally can't be

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Which once again raises the questions, considering the majority of the game is casual content (and also the majority of high end faces the same problem), Why design healers in a way that do not work there? How a role that does not work well in the majority of the game can be defined as something else but an absolute mess?

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Originally Posted by WaxSw

Which once again raises the questions, considering the majority of the game is casual content (and also the majority of high end faces the same problem), Why design healers in a way that do not work there? How a role that does not work well in the majority of the game can be defined as something else but an absolute mess?

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It does work well though. Healers have more tools than necessary in rollface content, more than tanks and DPS. What is the dev team supposed to do, have oGCD tools restricted to high end content? Do you know how stupid that sounds?

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Originally Posted by FireMage

It does work well though. Healers have more tools than necessary in rollface content, more than tanks and DPS.

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Precisely part of the problem is that we have far more tools than necessary, because them being so abundant compared to what the content needs translates into the majority of the kit simply not being used/needed and the gameplay devolving into 1 button mashing (not even dots now) because there is nothing to tackle the healing downtime effectively, this is something that neither dps nor tanks face as the majority of their kits are used in every piece of content

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What is the dev team supposed to do, have oGCD tools restricted to high end content? Do you know how stupid that sounds?

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Or... how about hearing what healers have been asking for for over 3 years now and give us back dps tools? How about instead trying to do the impossible task of removing the healing downtime, we simply embrace it and make it engaging so it can work as a reward for players that use effectively their tools?

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Originally Posted by WaxSw

Or... how about hearing what healers have been asking for for over 3 years now and give us back dps tools? How about instead trying to do the impossible task of removing the healing downtime, we simply embrace it and make it engaging so it can work as a reward for players that use effectively their tools?

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My prior posts have gone into this. Gee it's like I covered all the bases already or something

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Originally Posted by FireMage

My prior posts have gone into this. Gee it's like I covered all the bases already or something

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Hmm No? You didn't raise any single valid argument aside personal opinion, calling logs and saying other ideas like merging buttons that could be merged hot garbage without any explanation why. You haven't argumented any of your personal opinions either so I would say its far from covered

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Originally Posted by WaxSw

Hmm No? You didn't raise any single valid argument aside personal opinion, calling logs and saying other ideas like merging buttons that could be merged hot garbage without any explanation why. You haven't argumented any of your personal opinions either so I would say its far from covered

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I didn't state any opinions. Try again

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Originally Posted by FireMage

I didn't state any opinions. Try again

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It's sad that years later people think that healer DPS was more complex than now, instead of what it actually was: clunky

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Personal Opinion, clunky is something purely subjective, for you it may be for me it wasnt

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Aside from base single target and AOE GCD heals being traited up, that suggestion was hot garbage

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Personal Opinion

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then there's no real complexity in DPSing (because acting like SCH in SB was good design is beyond stupid)

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Personal Opinion, in fact Sch back in SB had quite a decent skill gap due to how its tools worked and interacted with its weaving and the only real truth would be that it was more deep than now due to how it had basically more tools

Honestly if you're gonna act self righteous as if only you had the truth, dismiss everyone else without arguments and basically taint any valid discussion I would say twitter is the place to go

Those were all statements of fact. If you're going to read with the comprehension of a grade schooler then you may leave

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Originally Posted by FireMage

Those were all statements of fact. If you're going to read with the comprehension of a grade schooler then you may leave

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If they were facts you would have arguments to prove them, still waiting for them

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Originally Posted by WaxSw

If they were facts you would have arguments to prove them, still waiting for them

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They've already been proven. You are dismissed

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Originally Posted by FireMage

They've already been proven. You are dismissed

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At least in this thread they aren't, could you please show me where so we can actually discuss them?
Since they are proven it should be easy

If only people with extensive experience are allowed to speak, then I will say that, in my 7 years of experience on every healer, the experience of the healer role has taken a sharp downturn since the beginning of Shadowbringer, I've fallen asleep during TEA prog and no one even died, that's how little healers have to pay attention to.

A point that was brought up is that optimising healing tools to minimise healing is the complexity of the healing role, this is false, what happens after you've optimised all the healing out of the fight? You press your dot and filler while pressing your other dps key whenever up. Even someone new to healing can see that it's indefensible, unengaging garbage, and many have, that's why the healer role is consistently bleeding players.

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Originally Posted by WaxSw

At least in this thread they aren't, could you please show me where so we can actually discuss them?
Since they are proven it should be easy

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There's no point in arguing with trolls, but I generally look at it this way. If a troll (someone who deliberately posts the opposite of common sense to trigger a reaction) is arguing against something, it really just signifies they think it's obviously true as well. That's why they pick it as a good topic to troll on.

It's not like any dev is going to read his insults and "dismissed" nonsense and take it as serious feedback either. It's clear trolling. Ignore it and move on, if anything the fact trolls are jumping on the subject so much over the last few years just shows how ridiculous it is that it hasn't been addressed.

I leave for a day and find 2 pages of people arguing with Gaston.

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

I leave for a day and find 2 pages of people arguing with Gaston.

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Yeh it's kinda funny he says I had no reading comprehension when I brought up his healing logs, when it's pretty clear to anyone with reading comprehension (so, not him I guess) that I brought up the healing logs in direct reference to his claim at being 'very good at all roles'. 'Yeh he's good at RDM, but I wouldn't say 'very good at all roles' is necessarily accurate' is my point, and if his RDM logs somehow grant him 'more authority' to speak on what is good for the game, surely my logs as healer give me more authority to speak for healer specific changes? Of course, he'll come back and disagree and call me idiot or whatever

And don't compare him to Gaston, at least Gaston came with a catchy musical number

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Originally Posted by Nizzi

I don't understand why people continue to entertain desperate for attention, delusional posters who have never posted anything worth replying to, especially when talking about roles they do not play and are not proficient in. I know healing is boring but surely it's not this boring? :(

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It's something to do at least. We've been exhausting the reasons why healer design is crap for six years now. If it weren't for annoying narcissistic Sylphie trolls we'd be here, sitting in a circle, going "still sucks for the same reason right?" "Yup." "Anyone got a question for the next live letter?" "Don't worry, I already know Yoshi-P's answer to whatever question you're going to formulate."

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Originally Posted by Semirhage

It's something to do at least. We've been exhausting the reasons why healer design is crap for six years now. If it weren't for annoying narcissistic Sylphie trolls we'd be here, sitting in a circle, going "still sucks for the same reason right?" "Yup." "Anyone got a question for the next live letter?" "Don't worry, I already know Yoshi-P's answer to whatever question you're going to formulate."

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Certainly is more fun than playing as a healer in FFXIV.

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Originally Posted by Semirhage

It's something to do at least. We've been exhausting the reasons why healer design is crap for six years now. If it weren't for annoying narcissistic Sylphie trolls we'd be here, sitting in a circle, going "still sucks for the same reason right?" "Yup." "Anyone got a question for the next live letter?" "Don't worry, I already know Yoshi-P's answer to whatever question you're going to formulate."

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You make it sound like we're the Ea, just accepting the futility of even bothering to try and rebel against the fate of the role. Nothing to do except embrace the nihility of it all, and watch as the hotbars become more and more barren of damage skills, and more and more bloated with excessive healing we don't need. We're not waiting for heat-death, we're waiting for heal-death

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Originally Posted by ForsakenRoe

You make it sound like we're the Ea, just accepting the futility of even bothering to try and rebel against the fate of the role. Nothing to do except embrace the nihility of it all, and watch as the hotbars become more and more barren of damage skills, and more and more bloated with excessive healing we don't need. We're not waiting for heat-death, we're waiting for heal-death

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Well, yes? Healing has become worse and worse for three expansions straight now. Any complaint we have is dismissed. Feedback is ignored. We might get a tweak or two through the cracks but Square loooooooves its current healing direction which is.... the opposite of fun. I've heard the same 10-15 discussions on how healers could be made more engaging a dozen times on these forums. They're great suggestions. They weren't implemented the first time they were mass upvoted, nor the second, nor third...

Discussion is great! Square is still going to ignore you. The 2.5 job designers they have are uninterested in the healer role.

The only time I was shocked healing maybe a lil engaging is squadran. I never got into grand company stuff much until I saw a friend with the cool emotes who told me to do some, compare to trust system that avoids and do mech. Goodness squadron really kept me on my toe as healer. they dont do mechs, the dps or heal( when i tried dps) drops dead to avoidables and the tank is poor on keep aggro or doing migi.

I tried as a dps and again healer and other dps would die to 2nd boss in aurum vale cause not moving out of mechs I had no choice but to be healer myself lol. Even then as healer am ripping aggro off tank. Fun

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Originally Posted by IceBlueNinja

I tried as a dps and again healer and other dps would die to 2nd boss in aurum vale cause not moving out of mechs I had no choice but to be healer myself lol. Even then as healer am ripping aggro off tank. Fun

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It's amazing you need a team that sucks just to have fun as healer in this game.

Which is why healers need more complex DPS rotations so they can have fun when not healing in the vast majority of this game's content.

There are many layers to this problem, depending on your playstyle and the playstyle of those you move through various aspects of the game with -- your perspective changes.

I still see many healers who don't hit the DPS buttons that are in place now. A good number of them. I've worked with players who get stressed over the complication of DPS on top of Healing. These are your casual healing purists. Complicating healing further creates more stress here.

I still hear complaints from some DPS and Tanks when going full glare mage mode and they aren't riding 100% health. I hear it from other healers as well. "Aren't you going to heal?" I've hit as many buttons, likely more... I'm using my oGCD and see the other healer still attempting to proc cure 1. Adding more buttons to slow down the average player still creates stress here. There was a post pages back about returning to the rotation after movement or emergency heals. They happen.

Stronger players, especially when playing with other strong players... Yes, this can get boring and dull, especially in standard content with some fairly skilled tanks being able to heal themselves entirely. Dia, Glare .... Holy SPAM... Help is needed for the brain numbing which happens. I have friends who will only see benediction, or the obligatory "git gud" regen when they reflex check me. These aren't the players that you tend to run across day to day.

This is where everyone splits. The answer isn't just to complicate the DPS rotation for healers. In general, for two sets of players, this will make the job more undesirable or cause problems for others. It doesn't really fit in to the idea of "Casual Gaming". In harder content, there is a place for it. Better ways to help the party.

The old FFXI had something here, sub jobs. Not favorable, again because of casual play. Players essentially were /forced/ to level specific jobs to augment their main.

What if there were a way to pull in one or two abilities from another job you've leveled? Leylines before Misery or Holy Spam... Game on.

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Originally Posted by Ashemmi

This is where everyone splits. The answer isn't just to complicate the DPS rotation for healers. In general, for two sets of players, this will make the job more undesirable or cause problems for others. It doesn't really fit in to the idea of "Casual Gaming". In harder content, there is a place for it. Better ways to help the party.

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I don't think it's an issue. The casual/bad players would still rarely or poorly DPS on healers but still overheal (or otherwise do nothing while waiting to heal), while the good players could have more fun in their DPS contributions. The skill floor would increase so bad healers who do bad DPS would be doing even worse DPS as a result, but I think that's a willing trade off for above average players to actually have more fun and be encouraged to play healer more often. The casuals probably wouldn't even notice a difference at all.

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Originally Posted by Ashemmi

I still see many healers who don't hit the DPS buttons that are in place now. A good number of them. I've worked with players who get stressed over the complication of DPS on top of Healing. These are your casual healing purists. Complicating healing further creates more stress here.

I still hear complaints from some DPS and Tanks when going full glare mage mode and they aren't riding 100% health. I hear it from other healers as well. "Aren't you going to heal?" I've hit as many buttons, likely more... I'm using my oGCD and see the other healer still attempting to proc cure 1. Adding more buttons to slow down the average player still creates stress here. There was a post pages back about returning to the rotation after movement or emergency heals. They happen.

Stronger players, especially when playing with other strong players... Yes, this can get boring and dull, especially in standard content with some fairly skilled tanks being able to heal themselves entirely. Dia, Glare .... Holy SPAM... Help is needed for the brain numbing which happens. I have friends who will only see benediction, or the obligatory "git gud" regen when they reflex check me. These aren't the players that you tend to run across day to day.

This is where everyone splits. The answer isn't just to complicate the DPS rotation for healers. In general, for two sets of players, this will make the job more undesirable or cause problems for others. It doesn't really fit in to the idea of "Casual Gaming". In harder content, there is a place for it. Better ways to help the party.

The old FFXI had something here, sub jobs. Not favorable, again because of casual play. Players essentially were /forced/ to level specific jobs to augment their main.

What if there were a way to pull in one or two abilities from another job you've leveled? Leylines before Misery or Holy Spam... Game on.

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The players that don't hit DPS buttons now won't hit any new DPS buttons.

I don't know about how often you hear about these "why aren't you healing " issues, but if no one is dying and you (global you) are using your tools skillfully, all I can say is that there is no reason to feel stressed. Adding more buttons isn't the the problem, it's (potentially) a lack of self-confidence for some people.

Finally, I don't seen anyone asking for complicated DPS rotations, however "casual gaming" doesn't mean that someone doesn't want to be able to improve, or to have flexibility in their job. Right now the job design really doesn't offer much once someone has been playing it for awhile, this is what a number of people are asking for. This should not intimidate anyone who is new to the job, or who wants to ignore these options- but if someone is ready to stretch a bit, at least they can use them.

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Originally Posted by Ashemmi

I still hear complaints from some DPS and Tanks when going full glare mage mode and they aren't riding 100% health. I hear it from other healers as well. "Aren't you going to heal?" I've hit as many buttons, likely more... I'm using my oGCD and see the other healer still attempting to proc cure 1. Adding more buttons to slow down the average player still creates stress here. There was a post pages back about returning to the rotation after movement or emergency heals. They happen.

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People need to stop talking in extremes. There's no binary of 'does not press damage button EVER' vs 'Is a 99 parsing damage god', there is an entire scale of skill levels in between. If someone is skilled enough at healer to do damage now, adding new buttons to the DPS rotation is going to throw them off for a bit, yes. Keywords, for a bit. With practice they will get comfortable with the new rotation, just as DPS have to every time there's a new expansion, and a new rotation to learn. Frankly, the idea of 'we cannot add new buttons to healer DPS rotation because it'd be too much for players to handle' is insulting, not just to vets who can definitely handle it, but also to the casual players you're trying to be the champion for, because some of them WOULD be able to handle it given they practice, and these 'protect the babby players!' sentiments just keep them in the nest, and stifle their growth.

Also, if someone says 'why arent you healing' when you are doing healing, if they aren't dead, ask them 'but did you die?'. The only HP that matters is the last one. I don't think I've EVER been told to 'stop damage and heal' like this.

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Originally Posted by Ashemmi

This is where everyone splits. The answer isn't just to complicate the DPS rotation for healers. In general, for two sets of players, this will make the job more undesirable or cause problems for others. It doesn't really fit in to the idea of "Casual Gaming". In harder content, there is a place for it. Better ways to help the party.

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There's two main schools of thought on how to make healer more interesting as a role: Add more damage to heal, or add more damage skills to use. We've seen this tier what happens when there's more damage to heal: even more 'fairweather' healers quit because they cannot keep up. I, and many other people asking for change, have said many times: We think adding more damage skills to use is the solution to this problem, because it allows the 'healing side' of the kit to remain as easy to access as it currently is. New healers would not need to feel stressed, because they can ignore the DPS stuff entirely when they start. As they play through the NINETY LEVELS of story, they can start to experiment in dungeons (doubly so now there's trusts that won't yell at them for mistakes) about when they can afford to maybe throw a DOT in here, a Glare in there.

No, the real issue I think is the players who flat out refuse to improve. The ones who get snappy at anyone who dares to suggest any change to their playstyle. Not even 'hey did you know you can do damage', I mean if you suggest 'hey try using Regen instead of Cure 1, it heals more for the same MP cost' and they say 'shut up I know how to heal'. The other issue is players who defend 'strawman casuals', as you are doing here. These 'casuals who can't keep up with having new buttons' do not exist in the numbers you are trying to imply. Yes, there is a non-zero number of them. But there's plenty of casuals who COULD keep up with the new buttons, if they were given the chance to practice and improve. All posts like this are misguided in my view. You're like a mother bird trying to keep the chicks in the nest. They never learn to fly if they don't leave the nest. By insisting that we can't have anything that could require the player practice and become more skilled, you're just advocating for a specific skill ceiling to limit everyone, rather than the skill ceiling be decided by the job's design. And ironically, we can see what happens because of this smothering attitude: This tier, where players who were not skilled enough to handle heavier incoming damage. Because SE kept them in the metaphorical nest for all of SHB, and EW's first tier. So when this tier came along and asked more of the player, many couldn't keep up, and so quit in frustration.

The training wheels have to come off at some point.

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Originally Posted by Ashemmi

What if there were a way to pull in one or two abilities from another job you've leveled? Leylines before Misery or Holy Spam... Game on.

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We used to have that, it meant healers HAD to play some THM to get Swiftcast, or melee HAD to play DRG to get Blood for Blood. This would be the same, forcing people to play classes they dont want to, to get 'essential' extra skills to cross-class over.

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Originally Posted by IDontPetLalas

Finally, I don't seen anyone asking for complicated DPS rotations, however "casual gaming" doesn't mean that someone doesn't want to be able to improve, or to have flexibility in their job. Right now the job design really doesn't offer much once someone has been playing it for awhile, this is what a number of people are asking for. This should intimidate anyone who is new to the job, or who wants to ignore these options- but if someone is ready to stretch a bit, at least they can use them.

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I suggested a change to WHM that adds one extra GCD instead of Glare every 15s and changed the DOT to be refreshed every 12s instead of 30. Other people have suggested other things, whether for WHM or other healers, but all of the suggestions are not DPS level intricate rotations. At most, it's 'give SCH its DOTs back'. This mentality of 'oh the healers are asking for more DPS complexity? Surely this means they're demanding super technical stuff like DRG buff/life alignment, or RPR double communio', like no man I'm asking for ONE extra GCD on WHM and rescaling the DOT duration so the class feels more bursty.

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Originally Posted by ForsakenRoe

Also, if someone says 'why arent you healing' when you are doing healing, if they aren't dead, ask them 'but did you die?'. The only HP that matters is the last one. I don't think I've EVER been told to 'stop damage and heal' like this.

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This only works on players who actually UNDERSTAND that the last HP is all that matters. Factually, the problem isn't that healers wouldnt be able to heal as well, its that healers are already THE role that always gets the blame when things go poorly in general. Excacerbating it further with any further with even MORE things they not just 'can' but 'MUST' do to not fail would make it only worse and put even more casual people off of touching the role because of responsibility weight. Tank is already struggling because of that, beng least generally populated role in queues. Making it into Tank AND Healer is not going to solve any role population issues.

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Originally Posted by Heroman3003

This only works on players who actually UNDERSTAND that the last HP is all that matters. Factually, the problem isn't that healers wouldnt be able to heal as well, its that healers are already THE role that always gets the blame when things go poorly in general. Excacerbating it further with any further with even MORE things they not just 'can' but 'MUST' do to not fail would make it only worse and put even more casual people off of touching the role because of responsibility weight. Tank is already struggling because of that, beng least generally populated role in queues. Making it into Tank AND Healer is not going to solve any role population issues.

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I mean, if we're going that route why not replace healers with Trust NPCs? Or permanent mid-strength passive regen effects? If the design parameters which define healers boil down to

• can't ever fail
• must be so easy that the most nervous newbie isn't frightened by Aglaia
• must have no skill ceiling because new players have to feel like they've reasonably mastered it after an instance or two

Then what we're describing isn't a fully-formed RPG class that a human being should be expected to play. We're describing a sub-10 line script.

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Originally Posted by Semirhage

I mean, if we're going that route why not replace healers with Trust NPCs? Or permanent mid-strength passive regen effects?.

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Yes ths just get rid of the role because they have shortchanged it so much it’s not worth it.

All healers should just stop and play other roles.

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Originally Posted by Heroman3003

This only works on players who actually UNDERSTAND that the last HP is all that matters. Factually, the problem isn't that healers wouldnt be able to heal as well, its that healers are already THE role that always gets the blame when things go poorly in general. Excacerbating it further with any further with even MORE things they not just 'can' but 'MUST' do to not fail would make it only worse and put even more casual people off of touching the role because of responsibility weight. Tank is already struggling because of that, beng least generally populated role in queues. Making it into Tank AND Healer is not going to solve any role population issues.

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Yeh so the key part you are missing is that this is not level 1-30 we're talking about here, we're trying to make the endgame of EX dungeon daily runs and such more interesting. There's no one 'touching the role' there, they're level 90 they know how to, at the very least, keep people alive. Imagine a swimming pool. You know how there's a deep end and a shallow end right? So the newer healer is at the shallow end, able to swim in there, but able to put their feet on solid ground if they start feeling like they need to (in this case, the ground represents dropping all damage and spamming healing to keep people alive). As they get more comfortable with their kit while levelling, they can move more and more towards the deeper end of the swimming pool, as they don't need the crutch of the bottom of the pool under their feet.

Let me give everyone a personal anecdote. I never learned how to swim in primary school. I never passed the tests, and had to stay in the kiddy size pool for 6 year olds, even when I was much older. Why? Because I was tall. Very tall. So tall in fact, I could not kick my legs to swim without hitting the bottom of the pool. The instructors refused to let me just go in the shallow end of the 'adult pool' because I had not passed the basic stuff. I had to teach myself in my highschool years, way later. Why am I saying this embarrassing story? Because the adults who thought they knew how to 'keep me safe', only served to stifle my growth, because they were too overprotective. They thought they knew what was best for me, but they didn't bother to consider my unique circumstances, of being unreasonably tall compared to the average kid of my age. Just like how some people are here, re: 'newbie healers'. Not every 'newbie healer' is going to suck and let everyone die. Not every 'newbie healer' is going to start out as a curespammer. Some might actually, Twelve forbid, actually read their tooltips and work out that Cure1 kinda sucks after level 35. Some of them might have been incredibly competent players in other MMOs. Whether it's Sastasha or Savage, the same old 'what about the new player????' comes up and it's getting tiresome. People who have suggested ideas have been very clear, very many times now. We have considered the new player experience. We have made our ideas with new players in mind. In fact, it'd be even easier for a new player to adapt to the changes in the ideas we made because they don't have to unlearn the muscle memory of smashing Glare 11 times in a row.

Oh also, this 'things they MUST do' is baloney. Nobody's gonna give anyone crap for dropping damage GCDs in any content below Savage. Imagine a hypothetical 'precious new player' RPR were to just never use Gluttony, or a PLD were to never use Confetior in an EX roulette. Nobody would care. Likely nobody would even notice. So let's not pretend like these 'poor precious healers' are going to get shouted at in Smileton, because they forgot to reapply Miasma AND Bio as SCH. And guess what, if they DID get yelled at for being ever so slightly suboptimal in content that doesn't even warrant it, the TOS is there to protect them. They don't need Don Quixote fighting 'the windmills of perceived complexity' for them on the forums like this. And Tank lost a LOT of it's 'anxiety inducing' gameplay, like 'what if I lose aggro' and 'what if I take too much damage because I dropped tankstance to push more damage'. At some point, SE needs to realize the truth of the matter: No, removing the stuff that 'causes tank/healer anxiety' is not going to miraculously get people to try the role. Some DPS players just like playing DPS, and there's nothing that's going to change that. So stop trying to bribe them onto a role they don't want to be on, by mangling the role for the people that DO want to be on it.

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Originally Posted by Semirhage

I mean, if we're going that route why not replace healers with Trust NPCs? Or permanent mid-strength passive regen effects? If the design parameters which define healers boil down to

• can't ever fail
• must be so easy that the most nervous newbie isn't frightened by Aglaia
• must have no skill ceiling because new players have to feel like they've reasonably mastered it after an instance or two

Then what we're describing isn't a fully-formed RPG class that a human being should be expected to play. We're describing a sub-10 line script.

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If we remove healer as a role and just give everyone the solo instance Blessing of Light regen effect, the content's still probably clearable. That's pretty sad isn't it

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Originally Posted by glamazon

Yes ths just get rid of the role because they have shortchanged it so much it’s not worth it.

All healers should just stop and play other roles.

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They already are, it would seem. But I'm of the opinion that if my kitchen sink breaks, I don't move house, I fix the sink, so here I am. Hoping that Healer role will be 'fixed'. Or at least, glued together with spit and prayers barely enough to resemble 'fun'.

Maybe if we ask for a hilariously overcomplicated rotation based on phases of the moon, patron deity and party races they’ll meet us halfway?

Bane and miasma on scholar, lv50 blm on white mage and nascent flash on sage isn’t a huge request. Maybe they could give sage a low potency forced crit that can be cast instead if more healing is needed but it’s not worth hardcasting heals yet?

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Originally Posted by fulminating

Maybe if we ask for a hilariously overcomplicated rotation based on phases of the moon, patron deity and party races they’ll meet us halfway?

Bane and miasma on scholar, lv50 blm on white mage and nascent flash on sage isn’t a huge request. Maybe they could give sage a low potency forced crit that can be cast instead if more healing is needed but it’s not worth hardcasting heals yet?

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you missed astrologian. 1 button dps sucked on astro even back when the cards were fun. Msq, fates, sidequests etc exist too.

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Originally Posted by Recon1o6

you missed astrologian. 1 button dps sucked on astro even back when the cards were fun. Msq, fates, sidequests etc exist too.

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I didn't think it sucked. I guess I wouldn't mind one extra dot or DPS button as HW/SB AST, but it certainly felt unique compared to WHM and SCH. Now WHM/SCH/SGE all play like HW/SB AST without cards, while current AST plays like flaccid bacon.

Didn't AST have 2 dots at one point too, even with the wacky cards? I have vague memories of there being two Combusts, one with a cast time and one instant? Maybe the instant one was equal potency to Malefic at the time so it was more for mobility though I don't fully remember

edit: looks like I was thinking of HW, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSSlJQRMTqg

One button astro was boring, and the "good" astro card system was fishing aoe balance. While I aggre new it feels dumb when you cannot get 3 symbols, it was way worse when you used to constantly get bole, arrow or spear (maybe spire and ewer, can't fully remember). A bit the same as noct sect which was less interssing than dia sect as extends regen duration is far more usefull than extends shields ones.

If instead of that was "good" in the past, turn to what could be good for the future ? Healer need some trim to their abilities and would probably gain to have some others dps/offensive supports tools as the game extends. But, having a 1/2 or 1/2/3 cycle would only be like a smokescreen, and systems alike the WHM lilies would be way more engaging. Also i think healers could get some tools for party burst phase.

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Originally Posted by Sparkthor

One button astro was boring, and the "good" astro card system was fishing aoe balance. While I aggre new it feels dumb when you cannot get 3 symbols, it was way worse when you used to constantly get bole, arrow or spear (maybe spire and ewer, can't fully remember). A bit the same as noct sect which was less interssing than dia sect as extends regen duration is far more usefull than extends shields ones.

If instead of that was "good" in the past, turn to what could be good for the future ? Healer need some trim to their abilities and would probably gain to have some others dps/offensive supports tools as the game extends. But, having a 1/2 or 1/2/3 cycle would only be like a smokescreen, and systems alike the WHM lilies would be way more engaging. Also i think healers could get some tools for party burst phase.

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Where do we start... At the start, I guess. So as I just posted (which you may have missed due to the timing), AST wasn't always 'one button'. Personal anecdote, when I was first maining AST in 3.4 my balance draw rate was so high I'd question if it was really 1/6 equal chance for each card. Guess I was one of the lucky ones. Anyway, this whole thing of 'you just fished for balance!', I've come to realise, is emblematic of the playerbase's attitude towards game design nowadays. It seems that things can't have 'a chance of having the best result' anymore, the playerbase at large seems to feel almost... not entitled? IDK how to word it, but basically whatever the 'best result' is, they feel like they deserve only that result, and therefore rather than the 'powerful moment' being just that, a moment that comes sometimes and goes just as quickly, they feel like that 'powerful moment' is the baseline the class operates at, and anything else is just 'you got screwed by the game, devs pls fix this garbage'. This isn't just a FF thing either, I think it's just that people have adjusted their mindset over time, as they got older, etc. But I'm not a psychiatrist and IDK how brains work, so back to the topic here.

Nocturnal Sect was, unironically, 'interesting' IMO. You might disagree, and you're welcome to. But with SB, Noct got a lot more different stuff from SCH, as it got a much stronger burst AOE healing tool with Earthly Star, and it's damage mitigation bubble worked differently from Soil, becoming the blueprint for how Kerachole on Sage now works. The fact it applied a buff to people, rather than forcing them to stand in a specific ground AOE, with the downside of having it be up less often, meant it played differently to SCH. The tuning was jank, yes, SCH having Deploy Adlo and 2x as much Soil meant it was scuffed performance wise. If only they had kept doing performance-adjustments to balance it...

Lastly, speed round. We are looking to the future, by looking at what people enjoyed in the past, what originally drew them to the class in the first place. Maybe not all of it can be used, but just discarding it all because 'that's in the past now' is pretty silly IMO. Trim abilities, yes definitely, but SE is very attached to keeping their very important skills like... Physick at level 90? Literally nobody with any sense is asking for healers to get a 123 combo, that is a physical class thing. The only non-phys class with a 123 is RDM, and it's on it's melee skills. People suggest stuff more like RDM's Verfire/Verstone Ready buffs, procs that can safely be held for a long time in case of large healing suddenly being needed. Healers DO have tools for burst phase, SCH has Chain and Energy Drain spam, AST has... whatever that 2min window is, SGE has Phlegmas pooled, WHM has Misery and Presence of Mind to Glare faster. Making the 2min window slightly more interesting does not solve the issue of the other 105 seconds of each 2min cycle being boring though

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Originally Posted by Mithron

It's amazing you need a team that sucks just to have fun as healer in this game.

Which is why healers need more complex DPS rotations so they can have fun when not healing in the vast majority of this game's content.

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I agree it shouldnt be like this and that fun was more like stress...tbh

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Originally Posted by Mithron

I didn't think it sucked. I guess I wouldn't mind one extra dot or DPS button as HW/SB AST, but it certainly felt unique compared to WHM and SCH. Now WHM/SCH/SGE all play like HW/SB AST without cards, while current AST plays like flaccid bacon.

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If we're going back to SB AST's kit, I think a cool idea for a rotation would be oGCDs with a button that can reduce their cooldowns by half, kinda like the opposite of Time Dilation, taking the idea of PvP AST Double Cast Malefic. For example, there could be 2 damage oGCDs with 30s and 45s cooldown respectively, and a button (could be called Quick or Haste, from FFT?) on a 90s cooldown that reduces the cooldown of those two oGCDs and Earthly Star by 30s. Just throwing ideas out there, but in general I think oGCDs fit SB AST well since it was the only one with a 1.5s nuke.