FFXIV Healer Strike and the 'How would you fix it?' line

Still crapping up the forums and pretending you're not contributing to the problem, eh?

In no particular order:

If the "main" thread is "too bloated" then I guess that says something about the integrity of the message. Also, surely THIS thread won't get too bloated as well, right fellas?

When we can't refute the point, something something profile troll.

You fellas are self righteous that creating another thread on a subject with an open thread is okay because it's *you* doing it. None of the wafer thin reasons why you can't use the existing thread are a justification for a second one, none of those eggshell justifications will prevent the same issues from happening here as well given time, and then someone who needs some thumbs uppin will create *another* thread, and this is how forums get crappified.

But you know what? We get the forums we deserve. The masses want to engage in self indulgent navel gazing, one sane man can't stop that from happening.

But as a closing note, some of you have deflected by mentioning other subjects that get too many open threads, so I know you understand the point. You're hypocrites, and that makes you human, but yeah.

As long as your personal ego tells you you're special, you'll do precisely what you know is unhelpful.

Good luck with the "strike" and i sure hope no one opens another thread to water down your uhh... "discussion" here.

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Originally Posted by klu

Still crapping up the forums and pretending you're not contributing to the problem, eh?

In no particular order:

If the "main" thread is "too bloated" then I guess that says something about the integrity of the message. Also, surely THIS thread won't get too bloated as well, right fellas?

When we can't refute the point, something something profile troll.

You fellas are self righteous that creating another thread on a subject with an open thread is okay because it's *you* doing it. None of the wafer thin reasons why you can't use the existing thread are a justification for a second one, none of those eggshell justifications will prevent the same issues from happening here as well given time, and then someone who needs some thumbs uppin will create *another* thread, and this is how forums get crappified.

But you know what? We get the forums we deserve. The masses want to engage in self indulgent navel gazing, one sane man can't stop that from happening.

But as a closing note, some of you have deflected by mentioning other subjects that get too many open threads, so I know you understand the point. You're hypocrites, and that makes you human, but yeah.

As long as your personal ego tells you you're special, you'll do precisely what you know is unhelpful.

Good luck with the "strike" and i sure hope no one opens another thread to water down your uhh... "discussion" here.

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Hey can I get you to do this self righteous whining on the 7 chaotic threads we have up right now, I’m getting kind of sick of the forums being clogged up with chaotic discussion. I mean one thread is enough right the rest are just being egotistical

Or do you just randomly have a problem with the problem of healers and disguising that as a pointless complaint about the way NA uses the forums

Or are you just a hypocrite, I mean it makes us human right?

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Originally Posted by klu

Still crapping up the forums and pretending you're not contributing to the problem, eh?

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Hello pot, my name is kettle. You're black.

Well about the numerous threads about the viera/hrothgar hats? What about chaotic? What about the numerois complaint threads about the graphics update?

Admit you are just as self-righteous as we are then.

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Originally Posted by klu

As long as your personal ego tells you you're special, you'll do precisely what you know is unhelpful.

Good luck with the "strike" and i sure hope no one opens another thread to water down your uhh... "discussion" here.

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What

I don't even know what is being implied here with all this ego talk

If someone else opens another thread that has the same purpose as this one (ie someone else has design ideas for healers and wants to share them), I encourage it. Maybe I'd even post there to say 'I think these ideas are cool'. In fact, I have done so in the past when people have posted such threads. I remember a Necromancer Healer idea from like 5 years ago that I quite enjoyed reading, and one for an Onion Knight Limited Job, just off the top of my head. Personally, I'd rather we have more threads like that, rather than all the 'show your {Character Race}' threads, but it's not like I can stop people from wanting to show off their character, so I'm not going to go in those threads and demand they stop. It's a public forum, everyone's allowed (within TOS) to post about whatever topic they choose

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Would be a bit easier to imagine, for instance, off just knowing how many Augment-granting casts should be available per minute, etc.

Similarly, the spitballed Nymian Libra effects do feel a bit bloated at this point.

(Nitpick/mostly-irrelevant, but Chain Strategem also doesn't yet feel very... Strategic, and while Libra could be potentially interesting as a sort of timing anchor like single-charge Reassemble or ShB Tsubame-Gaeshi, it also feels similarly... ehh? Though, I'm not sure how to make it actually feel any more Libra-like, either, off the top of my head.)

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Yeh, it's hard to say with this SGE in particular, as there's a lot of variables to the MP economy. For example, I don't know if Lucid should or should not exist with these designs (that's 3850MP per minute alone). I don't know how much Piety the player has. Stuff like that. So I did the maths assuming that the player would use 3 Toxikon burst windows per 2min (but at 3AM so it might have some inaccuracies still). If a player were to gain an extra Toxikon window because they had enough Piety, I see that as 'maybe a good thing actually', because it would mean that there's a reason to take Piety instead of other substats for once, which could be interesting IMO (at least, more interesting than 'just meld Crit'). With Lucid, natural MP regen and spending Addersgall, we currently get like, 12k MP per 2min, so the amount that has to be spent at once (1500MP per augment) has to be high because of that high income. If the income were lower (cough remove Lucid), the costs could be lowered too (eg to 1000, allowing you to 'pool' more 'augment uses' at once since they take less percentage of your total MP). It's a very experimental design all the way down though, as 'none of your spells cost MP' is so unheard of as a design idea

Libra's all about 'find enemy weakness, so that you can then exploit it with your other attacks'. The first thing that comes to mind when trying to relate it to SCH is 'guaranteed Crit', and the DOTs seemed like a prime canididate. It would lead to Chain having a very messy tooltip though, I agree. I'd hope that getting the effects slowly as you level (first the 'guaranteed crit DOTs' at 50, then Chain's current effect at 66, then an extra stack at 92 to make Baneful guaranteed to Crit) would make it more digestible over the learning process, but it doesn't help people already at level 100. As long as it doesn't end up as long as Starry Sky on PCT, I think it'll be okay. There's maybe a better way to implement the Libra effect that is more thematic etc., but that's the best I've got for now. If nothing else, it makes SCH's burst window feel more impactful (since the difference between regular gameplay and the burst window in current gameplay is 'press Baneful when all the raidbuffs have gone out, and use lots of Energy Drains')

At least you ADMIT to deliberately crapping up the forums with the necro.

Good job crapping up the forums. With the necro. Deliberately.

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Originally Posted by klu

At least you ADMIT to deliberately crapping up the forums with the necro.

Good job crapping up the forums. With the necro. Deliberately.

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Good job policing the forums and simping for SQE, you must be wearing down your knee pads by now

We’ve had this discussion with this person before

If it’s a topic THEY like (like PVP) it’s “reopening organic discussion that still had more to say”

If it’s a topic they don’t like (like healer PVE design) it’s “toxic necroing that clogs up the forums and prevents actually important issues from being seen”

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Originally Posted by klu

Good job crapping up the forums. With the necro. Deliberately.

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It's kind of funny this quote applies to you.

The topic so new and interesting that people can't argue the fact that there's an open thread on it, and won't chastise people who "don't care that its a necro", but *will* try to profile troll someone whose consistently pointed out stupidity.

Man, if anything proves that we need multiple open threads on table same subject crapping up the forums, its you guys. You've totally owned me. I'm so defeated.

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Originally Posted by Supersnow845

We’ve had this discussion with this person before

If it’s a topic THEY like (like PVP) it’s “reopening organic discussion that still had more to say”

If it’s a topic they don’t like (like healer PVE design) it’s “toxic necroing that clogs up the forums and prevents actually important issues from being seen”

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I... don't think I've ever spoken with interest on the subject of pvp...

Considering that I have never one single time engaged in pvp in this game.

But do go on. Tell me more about what i do.

Oh snap, the "i don't care if its a necro" dude removed his post!

I didn't notice that. So thats why you folks think I did this.

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Originally Posted by klu

Oh snap, the "i don't care if its a necro" dude removed his post!

I didn't notice that. So thats why you folks think I did this.

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I had seen that too which is strange
It was something like, "I don't care if it's a necro, you people need to see this"
No clue why it would've been removed if the intention was to bring this thread back to the top for people to read OP

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Originally Posted by CVXIV

I had seen that too which is strange
It was something like, "I don't care if it's a necro, you people need to see this"
No clue why it would've been removed if the intention was to bring this thread back to the top for people to read OP

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Supposedly if you remove a post yourself, there would be some sort of 'blank space' remains that you can choose to write your reasoning why you remove it, or not at all. Your name would still be there.

Iedarus' post being completely gone without any trace means their comment was deleted by a moderator.

EDIT: kinda strange now when I think about it - that other glamour thread is being constantly bumped (people literally don't add anything new and express their intent purely to bump it) but the mod just leave them alone. Meanwhile a healerstrike-related thread being bumped and it's insta-delete. Man, I love double standard lol.

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Originally Posted by Rein_eon_Osborne

Supposedly if you remove a post yourself, there would be some sort of 'blank space' remains that you can choose to write your reasoning why you remove it, or not at all. Your name would still be there.

Iedarus' post being completely gone without any trace means their comment was deleted by a moderator.

EDIT: kinda strange now when I think about it - that other glamour thread is being constantly bumped (people literally don't add anything new and express their intent purely to bump it) but the mod just leave them alone. Meanwhile a healerstrike-related thread being bumped and it's insta-delete. Man, I love double standard lol.

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Yeah that's basically what happened. I'm honestly surprised it didn't result in me being totally banned from the forums (yet), but I just couldn't let such an elaborately crafted post simply die like that, especially when the healer strike thread is still going strong. Better to get the strongest threads in the forefront.

I'm ordinarily against necroing but this thread is legit hard evidence that there is a better way.

If someone's post really did get removed by a moderator, that means a moderator saw the thread. Which means a non-zero% chance that its contents got passed along to SE. Mission accomplished (maybe)

Since the thread got bumped by someone else, it gives me an opportunity to opine on the design of the current healers, these redesigns, and how they'd interact with the new raid design direction. With the latest tier, some healers are really starting to feel like they're a relic of their time, and nothing puts this more on display than how wide a disparity there is in functionality during the M6S add phase.

So, after clearing the tier, I was thinking about these designs, and how the additions to each Job would fit with each of the fights. For example:

WHM:

- M5S is the intro to the tier so there's not a massive amount of impact any additions would have. You would simply have more healing options to use, and more moblilty for places like Funky Floor or Arcady Night Fever's cleave dodging. Plenary Indulgence's mitigative effect would be a free bonus to help mitigate any hard hits like A/B Side, or Celebrate Good Times

- M6S is the big one, as the WHM design would give WHM access to more incidental cleave attacks, with Quake, Flood and Tornado. The WHM would be able to much more easily damage the adds, even when chosen to be in the Jabberwock bind, helping close the gap with AST (due to the latter having Gravity to spam from any range). If GCD heals need to be used for whatever reason (eg, early prog, low gear strength etc), their increased contribution to the Vigilance Gauge would get the WHM back into their damage-neutral healing tools far faster (and would give them more uses of Quake/Flood/Tornado to dump into the add packs)

- M7S has a couple of places where mobility is asked of the player (eg the Gigaflares in P1) which this WHM would have a better time handling. The WHM would also be able to Quake/Tornado/Flood the first adds. It's not much but it's more than we have now! Plenary's added mitigative effect would also always be a boon over the current WHM's mitigative suite. In moments where no healing is needed but the WHM wants to prepare Misery for raidbuffs, they'd also be able to use Afflatus Sanctuary to apply a damage-neutral barrier, allowing them to get at least some healing use out of the Lily

- M8S expects the player to be much more mobile, and this WHM would be just that, as it would have more instantcasts than hardcasts in its DPS rotation. Additionally, Plenary's mitigative effect would see plenty of use throughout the fight on various hard hitting mechanics (Tracking Tremors, Stone/Windfangs at the start, during the Add phase, Beckon Moonlight perhaps, etc). Being able to use Blessing of the Elementals for healing (instead of running out of damage neutral tools and relying on Medica3) would also help to keep the player's DPS rolling

SCH:

- M5S, as above, doesn't really push the player's limits per se. Even so, having more options on how to mitigate hard hits like B-Side > Celebrate Good Times allows the player to be more versatile in how they accomplish their mitigative responsibilities.

- M6S, the Add phase experience would be vastly improved due to SCH regaining multiple DOTs and being able to spread them via Bane. Additionally, if chosen to go far away for the Jabberwock bind, the SCH could keep up their damage by spamming Shadowflare, getting the on-cast potency of the spell repeatedly. Additionally, more options for mitigation and pure healing (via Strategies) would allow a minmaxing SCH far more versatility in how they tackle the phase. Synchronization Tactics could also allow for interesting emergent gameplay, such as being able to put Concitations out, even on the Melee/Tank group, in the Lava phase because while you cannot reach them, the Faerie can

- M7S, any situation that calls for mobility, this SCH would have more tools to address, both for mitigation-while-moving and damage-while-moving. Additionally, Synchronization Tactics would allow for more freeform healing in certain phases where the party is split apart (eg Strange Seeds in P2).

- M8S' movement requirements would be much more smooth to handle, thanks to things like Defensive-Indomitability, Defensive-FeyBlessing, etc. Synchronization Tactics would, again, help a lot in the Add phase to mitigate both groups for the line AOE hits. In Phase 2, SCH could be incredibly well suited to the fight design (given that we're split across several platforms). Unfortunately, SE made the Faerie instantly teleport back to us whenever we use a teleporter, so this potential strength of SCH's kit was killed on the vine. Being able to do things like Recitation > Defensive-Excogitation > Deployment Tactics in a moment like Twofold, not only giving everyone a heal to top them up after their first hit, but also mitigating that first hit with the added Galvanize effect, would massively increase how many options the SCH player has to handle each mechanic

AST:

AST already feels pretty well suited to the fight design we now see, but for an example of 'potentially it's even cooler', being able to Synastry and spread mitigation/healing effects between the two Tanks during M6S Add phase would be very cool to see. Duplicating Essential Dignities, or Exaltation's mitigation effect, or Celestial Intersections, would make Synastry feel very powerful in that phase

SGE:

- M5S: As above, M5S is the introduction and as such, nothing will feel like a complete gamechanger. But, there are plenty of moments where the boss doesn't do much of anything while he sets up for his next attack (Eg, loading up A/B Side, or doing his X-Snap and Twist cleaves), and in these moments, this SGE would have opportunities to set up themselves, using the Kardia Augments to apply Zoe-based Barriers to the party ahead of the A/B Side hit

- M6S: Quite a big one, SGE would have even more options on how to deal damage to the Adds. With Neuralgia/Myasthenia and the Toxikon rework, a SCH could potentially stockpile 20 seconds of AOE attacks to use, even from the opposite side of the arena, by using their 2 charges of Myasthenia, then spending 2 Toxikon windows (which take 7.5s each to complete), not on alternating Neuralgia (the cone) with Myasthenia (the line AOE), but instead choosing to sacrifice the tiny bonus potency for alternating and simply pressing Myasthenia 4 times before finishing with Pneuma. If not chosen by the Jabberwock, they can instead incorporate Neuralgia as usual. The SGE would also be able to much more effectively keep up the offense against the adds while still keeping the Tanks alive, thanks to the new Kardia Augments. Even if the SGE were to fall back on using Eukrasian Diagnosis to save the Tanks, the barrier breaking would grant a free use of Phlegma, which could then be used to apply the DOT to the add pack for massive damage contribution. Also, in the Lava phase, Kardia Augments would make healing from range a lot more comfortable

- M7S: As with the other healers, more mobility options for when the player has to move (although SGE has a lot of mobility anyway). Kardia Augments allow more healing over long distances (Strange Seeds, Debris Deathmatch), and would also allow the SGE to much more easily heal through Brutal Impact raidwide sequences without dropping their damage.

- M8S: THE big one, as the boss draws inspiration from the same places that SGE's visual aesthetic does (with the fin funnels and all). SGE vs Howling Blade would presumably end up pretty fast-paced on both sides, with great SGE players being able to match his attack speed with a barrage of their own counterattacks. Extra mobility options as the fight requires, Phlegma proc from Barriers saving the player more damage compared to Toxikon's current refund (for Tracking Tremors and the like), being able to use Kardia Augments to heal from longer ranges at times like Add phase, or all of Phase 2. With how fast the mechanics come at us (especially at the end of P1), this would provide a LOT of situations where a Zoe-based Barrier gets broken, allowing the player to use Pepsis quite frequently to trigger the Second Opinion healing

Might not be as interesting to anyone else as it is to me, but it's quite... validating? To see that the ideas I had way back in Endwalker would be well-suited to this new design direction for the raids. It tells me that my thought processes, and the logic of 'why give this healer, this thing', was on the right track, and that the additions listed here would help to future-proof the Healer kits and give the Devs new design spaces to explore

Tangential, but... one idea, with a few possible iterations, that feels like it's never quite seen sufficient rebuttal yet could increase the desire for responsive healing and make incoming non-lethal is to have some further penalty from remaining at lowered health (which, while it might not feel the "nicest" to have your performance in your healers' hands even sooner than upon death, does make sense, as why would being at 100% health be the "Brink of Death" just for having died within the last 89 seconds and again within 89 seconds before that... while you're still swinging, moving, and being healed with full effectiveness while at 1% hp?).

Some possible (highly spitball) iterations:

EDIT: Added an old idea back into the list.

1. You now take an additional 10% of your missing health as damage per server tick while under 70% health, but the biggest sources of damage (individual or in chain) are reined in and squished down a bit.
   
   :: This (and all spitballs after) assumes a leniency period, whereby actually the better of the last two ticks is taken, but I've left the description as is for brevity.
   
   This effectively moves mitigation from mattering only in terms of healing not needed thereafter and/or keeping up the final single point of health (for a bimodal "dead" or "alive") to being able to actually threatening healing requirements thereafter, but in a way that pure healing now can also deal with, putting them on a more even footing (assuming greater overall sustain, at least in terms of raw throughput, for pure healing).
   
   
2. Your output (damage and healing / effective potency) is reduced by 10% below 75% health, 20% below 50%, and 30% below 25% health, with accordant re-coloring of the health bar per quarter. Or, your output is simply reduced by 1% for every 2% you are below 70% health (max of 35%), with gradual recoloring below 70%.
   
   This reduces healer knowledge-leveraging in terms of incoming fatal damage but allows for more frequent rewarding responses to damage and perhaps even synergy between stronger but slower CDs or greater timing leniency (per long-duration barriers) and more frequent/granular CDs or those with less timing leniency (e.g., direct healing only), though if and only the latter are given commensurate overall sustain advantage to make up for their lack of burst potential or new extension to max eHP.
   
   
3. Each second, your %hp missing below 80% also reduces inflicts Trauma equal to 5% that amount, reducing your maximum HP. You clear away 5% of remaining Trauma and regain 1% of your normal max HP per second as part of your natural health regeneration, but this threat does give reason to heal non-negligible damage immediately. Vulnerability Up debuffs now instead apply Trauma, providing an obvious visual representation of the eHP loss.
   
   This similarly gives reason to heal quickly but without penalizing output in a way that might oblige DPS "annoyingly" to hold CDs a brief time until healed. Yes, as a side-effect of pulling Vuln debuffs into the Trauma system, this also reduces the danger of spaced Vulnerability Up debuffs (e.g., of refreshing a debuff with only 1s remaining, thereby maxing out the time for which you are vulnerable) while allowing design to slightly increasing the danger of being hit in dense fashion (since each debuff's impact would decay over time anyways).
   
   In encounter design, the largest hits therefore ought to be nerfed a bit, with the threat of remaining at low health making them seem more serious even without the one-shot potential. If still attempting a design that balances heals and mitigation, then it would make sense for barriers in this case to also decay over their duration to reduce their timing leniency, or to ensure that pure heals pack an increase enough to total sustain (relative to heal + bonus max eHP + Trauma avoided by the barrier relative to an GCD-later follow-up by a pure-heal) or to frequency of low- or no-cost skills over mitigation to be competitive.
   
   
4. Both [2] and [3] together, with output reduced by half of %hp missing below 80% and maximum health by 10% of that portion per server tick. E.g., at 1% hp you'd have effectively 40% less potency and would take 8% of your max HP in Trauma per tick, though this could be slowly cleared over time once healed up. Vulnerability Up would still be replaced by Trauma, with every Vulnerability Up debuff ultimately also being a Damage Down debuff.
   
   With that, we'd want to keep people at 80+% health, making that --rather than 1+%-- the sort of go-to healing threshold. This gives us 80% spare margin that we CAN tap into but wouldn't constantly want to leverage for healing efficiency, which means we have plenty of room to deal with excess while feeling like we have more to do.

Granted, I'd still add to that either about a, idk... 40%(?) healing nerf across the board and nerf to back-to-back burst or White Hole style mechanics OR increase the frequency of outgoing damage spread apart from said mechanics (ideally, atop more random-hit damage and so forth). I might even recommend that we allow for cast-holding (pause a cast at 99.99% progress to hold for when the damage comes out, making timing more lenient if needed at commensurate cost to uptime).

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Trauma

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We had to lose things like 'DRG gives a debuff to the enemy that makes Piercing damage 10% stronger', because any time you played BRD or MCH but didn't have a DRG in the party, it'd feel pretty bad knowing 'I could be doing 10% more, but I'm being artificially held back by the system'. Likewise, I expect this would end up in the same situation: DPS/Tank players feeling like their fun (doing big number) is being held hostage by whether the Healer wants to actually heal sooner rather than later. Additionally, there's occasionally times where in Savage, Tanks get domed for about 20% of their HP per autoattack, so would the Healer be forced to keep the Tank constantly topped up to keep them above 80%, lest their damage output start getting affected?

I think the suggestion shares some similarities in concept to the Aetherblight idea in the OP (which I added a lot later so it's understandable if you weren't aware of it), but this Trauma system would, if I understand it correctly, externalize the 'punishment' in such a way that it affects everyone. Whereas, I'd imagine the 'punishment' that you have to deal with for Aetherblight, is simply 'you, as the Healer, have to do more healing (compared to dealing with the Aetherblight quickly)', which internalizes both the resolution of the mechanic, and the punishment for not resolving it, to the Healer role.

If being below 50% meant having 20% reduced damage, heck, if it meant even 2% reduced damage, I expect GNBs would refuse to use Superbolide, as it'd require them to actively decide 'I will do less damage, so that I can be more surviveable' which was the exact issue and reason that the TankStance/DamageStance thing got removed (so that Tanks didn't have to 'feel' like they need to sacrifice Damage/Surviveability for the other). WAR and DRK would have it even worse too, as if they have a situation where they are constantly being brought back down to 1HP (eg Howling Eight), they're going to be told 'you need to deal 30% less damage, during this 2min window, as part of the strat' and it lasts a whole 10s, that's half the burst window!

As for reduced Max HP while suffering Trauma, I'm not a fan. I look back to how Weakness/Brink would reduce your Max HP, and lead to chain-death because after the first one, you simply don't have the Max HP to survive the subsequent raidwides. I also remember the whole 'Tanks using STR accessories and dying to Susano's TB' thing. I think it made sense to address those issues (whether the way they were addressed was 'the correct way' is a different topic). There's also a fair amount of times where we have multiple hits in a row, which drop us below 80% and would trigger the Max HP reduction mid-mechanic, which would have to be reworked/double checked to see that they still function. WHM would also be more punished than AST in this regard, as AST has CU and Neutral Sect shields over WHM's one-time Divine Caress shield, which means that in some cases, AST would be able to prevent multi-hit mechanics from taking the party into Trauma territory, while WHM would be forced to let them drop into the threshold to trigger the Max HP reduction (Tracking Tremors, some Brutal Impacts, etc.)

Let's imagine for example, a raidwide hit in a normal raid. It deals 50% of your Max HP in the Trauma version, and 25% of your Max HP, plus 25% of your Max HP as Aetherblight, in the other version. With the Trauma effect, if left alone (because the Healers want to just deal damage and not heal), the people who took the hit will deal less damage, through no fault of their own, due to Trauma. In the Aetherblight version, however, I would imagine that the more common punishments for leaving Aetherblight alone would be things like a Vuln Up (which does nothing on its own until the next hit hits), a DOT (which increases how much HP needs to be healed before the next mechanic, so, 'punishes the Healer' for leaving it alone), or a pseudo-DOT which converts more and more HP into Aetherblight over time (increasing how much HPS you have to push to get out of Aetherblight and stop the conversion, again punishing only the Healer for leaving it alone)

I was already aware of Aetherblight. I just consider them fairly different, and those three explicitly example spitballs to be far from the limit. You may recall my suggesting a simple Grievous mechanic before, whereby missing %hp DoTs you (past a threshold of lenience) based on that wound's severity. The more wounded you are, the less someone can be left there, even without further incoming damage, essentially leaving big hits threatening even without necessarily one-shotting people (making us less bimodally dependent on mitigation / max eHP increases). While such would give mitigation even more places where it feels significant, the extent would therefore be reduced, and unlike healing absorption

As I mentioned back around the time Aetherblight first popped up, I find healing reduction / absorb / necrotic mechanics to be kind of the worst of all worlds (relative to DoTs, more direct relative vulnerability, or even damage loss), but, tbh... I don't see anything wrong with, yes, needing to not literally be at the brink of death to be able to deal one's full damage -- "externalizing" or not (which probably wasn't the reason the likes of Piercing Resistance Down were removed, judging by developer admission or as would seem logical from what else was removed or what those removals were allegedly responding to ["playing a comp, not a job”]). If anything, I'd rather the game be more contextual and interdependent, even if not so categorically as through Slashing/Piercing/Blunt Resistance Down debuffs. Doubly so when the opposite makes no sense (still capable of superhuman feats just as when at the peak of health... until dead a pinprick later) or leave potential fixes preemptively abandoned just to keep the game as degeneratively streamlined as possible.

Consider also, though: Is our performance not already externalized if a healer fails to keep us up (alive), or to rez is in timely fashion? To say we can't have anything that would incentivize keeping us healed because a healer might not want to heal us feels like yet another "healers can't have X, because... <outlier bad player example Y>", though now also from an altogether different context. (Why would players still always play as they do now, where there is reward only for maintaining the final 0.01% of health in a context, even once there is reward for, say, a whopping 80% of health?)

Healers exist to increase the raid's total DPS by having those other, greater sources of DPS not go down as far as they otherwise would (if/when the investment in that capacity would be more efficient for said effective DPS over a whole fight --deaths included-- than taking another DPS or Tank). Whether that factor is purely bimodal (dead or alive / 0% or anything greater than 0%) or more granular doesn't change that. If anything, it's more likely to habituate more responsive healing even relative to risking minor damage loss then than risking your least geared member's death now, simply because old habits of healing only when CDs permit the healer not to lose any personal damage (a trifle by comparison anyways) wouldn't be viable in that new context.

Inb4:
(Why the dislike of healing absorbs? Because they either truly or ostensibly don't matter until the next damage event, therefore at best acting as more damage per event but without the necessary scrutiny of eHP thresholds unless chained, rather than creating actual new damage or damage-risk events. I want more to interact with, ideally; more timings that would matter, rather than only to, in effect, nerf healing and extend all players' max HP while creating a new arbitrarily buffed --that is, relative to not including that mechanic-- class of utility spell.)

* To be clear, this does not apply to in PvP or ramps of debuffs resettable through deliberate, non-plain action (e.g., kiting during old Necrotic affix healing taken reductions in M+), only as a general mechanic in place of a less delayed means of threat (DoT, damage reduction, longer lasting max HP reduction, etc.).

P.S.
As for WHM, there's no point designing a broad system specifically for/around a job as is where said job is already unnecessarily hamstring; the spitball ideas above, like being significantly injured inherently carrying a DoT with it before, assumes the obvious -- that WHM might be allowed to have some way to shine beyond the rare perfectly timed (but already devalued by now) Misery cleave.

I wouldn't mind some battle mechanics like fatigue and hp/mp decay through it but the mechanic would have to be clearly identified visually for healers or supports to help alleviate it and manage it but the whole system would really need to be reworked entirely into a different type of content to bring actual resource scarcity and forays into dungeons or hostile territory, rather than dance fights. Just adding a debuff that grows over time or forces healers to overheal else the dps are going to go mad at them for losing damage, on top of the current system, feels frankly kinda like a punishment.

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Originally Posted by Valence

I wouldn't mind some battle mechanics like fatigue and hp/mp decay through it but the mechanic would have to be clearly identified visually for healers or supports to help alleviate it and manage it but the whole system would really need to be reworked entirely into a different type of content to bring actual resource scarcity and forays into dungeons or hostile territory, rather than dance fights. Just adding a debuff that grows over time or forces healers to overheal else the dps are going to go mad at them for losing damage, on top of the current system, feels frankly kinda like a punishment.

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I think each idea shared here has definitely had that easy visual identifiability, no?

• Aetherblight shows what portion of missing HP would take more to heal back via coloration right on the health bar.
  
  
• HP thresholds explicitly came with visual indicators for each range.
  
  
• Reduced Max HP, unlike Vulnerability Up debuffs, can likewise easily show the max HP lost right on our HP bars (blacked/greyed out or shaded area).
  
  
• Same for the "Trauma" undermechanic posited in my last post.
  
  
• And as long as all wounds would create a DoT based on missing HP, pulling the badly wounded increasingly towards death, there'd be nothing at all visually ambiguous about that, and we could even have the expected net damage or healing to be taken over the next server tick to show right on health bars.

Its hilarious that there's multiple threads about the healer strike, but no actual strike yet to be seen anywhere.

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Originally Posted by Hallarem

Its hilarious that there's multiple threads about the healer strike, but no actual strike yet to be seen anywhere.

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There are multiple threads about the healer strike... because the reasons behind haven't abated, and half the activity is meta-commentary like yours above or even less directly stuff like my post here. Why would anyone be shocked about this? This is the forum that made "Titanmen" a thread genre.

Thread count, post count per thread, and total post count across threads don't meaningfully scale with the level of activity of the thing they talk about, only the ideas that launch that thing and how defensive others are about those rationales being discussed.

Meanwhile, I'm not a striker, but heals still remain the most instant queues for me, rather than the norm for the last several expansions (tanks), green slots are most often the last to fill in PFs, and while leveling non-healers, matchmaking definitely averaged maybe 30% longer (usually in finally finding said healer) than at similar times in prior expansions (including double-DPS-addition ones), so I'm not sure what was so invisible about it unless Chaos DC just didn't happen to be as affected.

Apart from that, maybe you don't see the healers who are striking... because they're striking?

Now, of course, some then get replaced by those wanting the most instant of queues and couldn't care less about the role since it's just a way to more quickly get braindead content over with, shrinking that gap in matchmaking, but nearly only place you'd then see the "career" healers who may or may not strike would be... the only place healers might remain interesting -- in Savage/Ultimates, which those who can conditionally still enjoy healing in its own right may then still do... while they're still interesting, to then be replaced by others afterwards because... the slots mostly still need to be filled for near-PuG purposes, tank sustain or no.

Effectively, the replacement may make the role look healthier than it is -- split in half between those whose expectations for it are bare minimum because... they're just doing bare minimum content anyways while Netflixing, and those who only play it in precisely the other situations (Savage/Ulti prog), with far fewer through-and-through healer mains anymore.


tl;dr: You're talking about something that quickly hides its own evidence of activity (since people pulling out of a ratio-ed need then vacuums in replacements for them through then-increased margin of reward/immediacy), and even then things have looked far enough off the norm, even if less so now, that a strike does seem to have made some impact.

Terrific ideas, logged into the forums just to write a reply. I like that the optimizations are minor but something to work towards if you're stuck while progging or re-clearing. Not being able to play on hand somewhat makes it hard to imagine how it will flow so I will only focus on WHM and Aetherblight for now.
Aetherblight is a nice concept and would make a pure healing check possible without making Macrocosmos too strong. I don’t it should be a regular mechanic but throwing it to boss during any content would be cool.

I would be approaching as your ideas has made it into the game 1:1 and I’m asked “Would you change something? If so what?”

I like jobs/classes/characters/bosses etc that have multiple abilities that interact with the same system. (This is why I like EX4 so much) Ways to increase or decrease that, or different ways to use the same thing. I think vigilance idea can work but I think it would be better if it was also tied to the Lily gauge. (Again this is just a me thing) BOTE would be a Lily spell as well. The way I would have it is that ST lily spenders would generate petals and AoE lily spenders would generate Blood Lily, if you have Blood Lily AoE spenders would generate petals and vice versa. And I would make it so that using your damaging spells would make the lilies bloom faster.

In order to reduce the button bloat to maximum. I would keep Medica I but Afflatus Solace, Rupture, and BOTE would replace Cure II, Medica I, and Cure III respectively. You would be forced to spend your lilies first if you want immediate heal and you will probably overcap if you’re using them too much.

For levelling I think introducing Holy/Gravity/AoW/Dyskresia earlier would be better. Having it in the first dungeon would be ideal but I would be fine as long as it isn’t as late as it is now. I think it is important to show “You should AoE in a dungeon” by giving the AoE abilities earlier.

Again, terrific ideas. It might be also nice to write the lvl 100 kit without any previous versions so that people can see the lvl100 kit easier.

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Originally Posted by MetaBoi

Terrific ideas, logged into the forums just to write a reply. I like that the optimizations are minor but something to work towards if you're stuck while progging or re-clearing. Not being able to play on hand somewhat makes it hard to imagine how it will flow so I will only focus on WHM and Aetherblight for now.
Aetherblight is a nice concept and would make a pure healing check possible without making Macrocosmos too strong. I don’t it should be a regular mechanic but throwing it to boss during any content would be cool.

I would be approaching as your ideas has made it into the game 1:1 and I’m asked “Would you change something? If so what?”

I like jobs/classes/characters/bosses etc that have multiple abilities that interact with the same system. (This is why I like EX4 so much) Ways to increase or decrease that, or different ways to use the same thing. I think vigilance idea can work but I think it would be better if it was also tied to the Lily gauge. (Again this is just a me thing) BOTE would be a Lily spell as well. The way I would have it is that ST lily spenders would generate petals and AoE lily spenders would generate Blood Lily, if you have Blood Lily AoE spenders would generate petals and vice versa. And I would make it so that using your damaging spells would make the lilies bloom faster.

In order to reduce the button bloat to maximum. I would keep Medica I but Afflatus Solace, Rupture, and BOTE would replace Cure II, Medica I, and Cure III respectively. You would be forced to spend your lilies first if you want immediate heal and you will probably overcap if you’re using them too much.

For levelling I think introducing Holy/Gravity/AoW/Dyskresia earlier would be better. Having it in the first dungeon would be ideal but I would be fine as long as it isn’t as late as it is now. I think it is important to show “You should AoE in a dungeon” by giving the AoE abilities earlier.

Again, terrific ideas. It might be also nice to write the lvl 100 kit without any previous versions so that people can see the lvl100 kit easier.

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Thank you for reading, glad you enjoyed

It's definitely possible to design the idea in such a way that it doesn't require the addition of the second gauge, but I think the design would suffer for it. WHM is known for being the 'easy to approach, simple' Healer. And there's merits in both approaches, I think, of 'WHM has one gauge that handles everything, so it's simple' versus 'WHM has two gauges that work in tandem, but the amount of things each gauge does is lessened, so it's simple'. Looking at something like SCH, the aspects that are controlled by its two gauges (Aetherflow and Fey) are quite simple and intuitive, despite there being two different Gauges, IMO. In fact, Fey Union being the only use for the Fey Gauge (currently, who knows what 8.0 has in store) is a great comparison/example to how BOTE is the only spender (in this design) for the Vigilance Gauge, or how Fell Cleave/Bloodspiller (and their AOE versions) is the only thing that the WAR/DRK spends their gauge on now

Without increasing the cap of how many Lilies we can store, we'd be unable to take advantage of another strength that the two gauges would provide: having the ability to pool more damage-neutral healing at once. Where we currently can store up to 3 Lilies, the design would allow for '3 Lilies plus 2 BOTE casts', and I'd make the argument that having that versatility is not only a good thing for optimization usecases, but also gives the more casual player access to more easy-access healing tools when they need them. We'd need to have the Lily gauge extended to, at minimum, 5 Lilies, to have the same 'pool' of resources to pull from. I've also never really subscribed to the idea of 'Solace replaces Cure2 when you have a Lily' etc. as IMO it removes player agency. Few as they may be, there are times where you might want to choose to press a Cure2 instead of a Solace, to keep the Lily for a later point in the fight. And so it's for these reasons that I believe that a second gauge element would serve the design more effectively

I personally don't really notice the lack of AOE in early dungeons. I know it's a pain point for other players though. The way I see it is, stuff dies super-fast as it is, even with single targetting, as the dungeons were designed without Healer AOE in mind (and arguably, Healer damage at all). After all, we have to remember that in those dungeons, there's potential new players. Getting them to press any damage buttons at all, let alone AOE ones, is already asking a lot of them when they're just starting out. For WHM specifically, Holy is THE White Magic spell (even referred to as 'the ultimate White Magic' in some older games), so at the minimum, you'd have to be a WHM to have access to it IMO. That'd mean a minimum learn level of 30. I'll look at it and see what can be done. SCH and SGE do get access to some (limited) AOE as early as 26 with Shadowflare and Phlegma in their designs, at least, so I guess it'd make sense if WHM/AST sort of matched that (edit: Holy/Gravity moved down from 45 to 35)

Maybe at some point I'll edit the posts to include 'this is what you would have at level 100', that sounds like a good idea

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Originally Posted by ForsakenRoe

SCH and SGE do get access to some (limited) AOE as early as 26 with Shadowflare and Phlegma

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Shadow Flare haven't been in the game since Shadowbringers, by the end of the year, we will be longer without than with it, currently, SCH is without AoE until 46, where as WHM gets Holy at 45.

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Originally Posted by VeyaAkemi

Shadow Flare haven't been in the game since Shadowbringers, by the end of the year, we will be longer without than with it, currently, SCH is without AoE until 46, where as WHM gets Holy at 45.

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What I meant is, if these designs were added to the game 1:1, SCH would regain Shadowflare at level 26, which it could spam-cast for the instant 100p of on-cast damage in low-level AOE situations (or as an optimization in higher level situations, like 'you are in the Jabberwock bind in M6S and cannot use Art of War on the pack of enemies). So the other user's request was 'Can WHM get access to AOE sooner too, to match how early this SCH would have AOE access'

the best way to "fix" it would be to stop playing healers, stop talking in the healer forum.
Just quit quietly and stop caring about healers for a few months even a year and play other jobs or games.

But this will never happend because the strike is actually a minority of players, the vast majority don't care.

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Originally Posted by Qyoon

the best way to "fix" it would be to stop playing healers, stop talking in the healer forum.
Just quit quietly and stop caring about healers for a few months even a year and play other jobs or games.

But this will never happend because the strike is actually a minority of players, the vast majority don't care.

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Silently quit? Why? So you don't have to read our complaints? Devs gotta know why people don't like the role if they ever want to make it better. And even if they don't read this specific thread, having community discussions leads to other avenues of feedback (like bigger, well known community members talking about it, or threads on other forums).

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Originally Posted by Aviatorhead

Silently quit? Why? So you don't have to read our complaints? Devs gotta know why people don't like the role if they ever want to make it better. And even if they don't read this specific thread, having community discussions leads to other avenues of feedback (like bigger, well known community members talking about it, or threads on other forums).

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Simply because the only thing devs looks at are statistics.
They fix things when stats shows it's not working, not by randomly scrolling the forums.
If you keep complaining about healers while you keep playing them.
The numbers only shows it's fine so they don't look into it.
Because stats are more reliable tools than subjective opinions.
Why would you invest time and ressources on something that is okay on paper ?

You can keep making 1000 pages threads, they won't read or let them ask you what you'd want.
So far nothing has been adressed about the healer strikes, look at the 7.2 patchnotes.
They don't care about healers at all because "the numbers are fine" so wait until 8.0.

Most of the known community members are not talking about it anymore.
They covered it a bit during "the hype" period and then proceed to their priorities such as talking about PF, third party tools and raid tiers.

If devs were so concerned about the state of healers jobs we would already have seens changes.
They almost reworked black mage so it fits 7.2 encounters while barely touching healers beside dots potency.

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Originally Posted by Aviatorhead

Silently quit? Why? So you don't have to read our complaints? Devs gotta know why people don't like the role if they ever want to make it better. And even if they don't read this specific thread, having community discussions leads to other avenues of feedback (like bigger, well known community members talking about it, or threads on other forums).

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So, hundreds of pages of healers complaining about their role. For years, as some of you like to point out. And nothing happened. You keep playing healer and think that writing in a forum that is NOT visited by any devs that care is enough.

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Originally Posted by Qyoon

Simply because the only thing devs looks at are statistics.
They fix things when stats shows it's not working, not by randomly scrolling the forums.
If you keep complaining about healers while you keep playing them.
The numbers only shows it's fine so they don't look into it.
Because stats are more reliable tools than subjective opinions.
Why would you invest time and ressources on something that is okay on paper ?

You can keep making 1000 pages threads, they won't read or let them ask you what you'd want.
So far nothing has been adressed about the healer strikes, look at the 7.2 patchnotes.
They don't care about healers at all because "the numbers are fine" so wait until 8.0.

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I already said that the forum posts can amount to other avenues of feedback that the devs DO sometimes listen to. And my point was about being quiet about it, I agree that not playing healers is a good way to get the dev's attention. It's the idea of dropping the role AND saying nothing that sounds silly to me. Even if the devs never read these forums, or any form of feedback from the playerbase (deranged as that would be,) we still should talk about what makes the game suck for us, like any other player does here.

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Originally Posted by Shialan

So, hundreds of pages of healers complaining about their role. For years, as some of you like to point out. And nothing happened. You keep playing healer and think that writing in a forum that is NOT visited by any devs that care is enough.

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Exactly... This is what some people don't understand. The strike isn't huge and only numbers matters.
The only real way to make a change happends is for the numbers to show something doesn't work.

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Originally Posted by Shialan

. You keep playing healer and think that writing in a forum that is NOT visited by any devs that care is enough.

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No. I don't play healer anymore, and I'm not saying 'keep playing healer, just complain more' I am saying KEEP COMPLAINING. even if the devs don't listen. It's your god given right to complain around here and everyone should participate, even if it isn't the immediate solution to our problems.

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Originally Posted by Aviatorhead

I already said that the forum posts can amount to other avenues of feedback that the devs DO sometimes listen to. And my point was about being quiet about it, I agree that not playing healers is a good way to get the dev's attention. It's the idea of dropping the role AND saying nothing that sounds silly to me. Even if the devs never read these forums, or any form of feedback from the playerbase (deranged as that would be,) we still should talk about what makes the game suck for us, like any other player does here.

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Because when a company wants to know your opinion they also have tools for that.
Many chinese video game companies are using those, such as massive online polls for exemple.
They provide metrics , numbers, charts, clearer answers, you don't need to read posts one by one.

Again, would be a waste of time and ressources to have one person scrolling around the forum and reading 1000 page threads.
And even if it may happend, would be on the japanese parts of the forum in a very limited extent.

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Originally Posted by Qyoon

Because when a company wants to know your opinion they also have tools for that.
Many chinese video game companies are using those, such as massive online polls for exemple.
They offers metrics , numbers, charts, clearer answers, you don't need to read one by one.

Again, would be a waste of time and ressources to have one person scrolling around the forum and reading 1000 page threads.
And even if it may happend, would be on the japanese parts of the forum in a very limited extent.

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But they can watch a 10 minute video made by someone who did read through the thread, at least in part. Or get feedback from folks who read or participated in the thread, who can better articulate what their problems are now that they have a community to discuss it with.

If the only downside to these discussions is litterally 'the devs likely won't read them specifically' then there isn't much reason to stop.

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Originally Posted by Aviatorhead

But they can watch a 10 minute video made by someone who did read through the thread, at least in part. Or get feedback from folks who read or participated in the thread, who can better articulate what their problems are now that they have a community to discuss it with.

If the only downside to these discussions is litterally 'the devs likely won't read them specifically' then there isn't much reason to stop.

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Wich isn't the case because no major content creator that exchange with SQE made this a priority, that exactly why we are in this situation.
A problem that exist since almost half a decade and haven't been looked upon means continuing on that path isn't the way to resolve anything.

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Originally Posted by Qyoon

Wich isn't the case because no major content creator that exchange with SQE made this a priority, that exactly why we are in this situation.
A problem that exist since almost half a decade and haven't been looked upon means continuing on that path isn't the way to resolve anything.

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I mean, not yet at least. And just because it hasn't resulted in anything yet doesn't mean we drop the whole notion of giving feedback on this issue. I can't see how 0 feedback other than just not playing healer outright, is better than not playing healer but also talking about why you've stopped.

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Originally Posted by Aviatorhead

I mean, not yet at least. And just because it hasn't resulted in anything yet doesn't mean we drop the whole notion of giving feedback on this issue. I can't see how 0 feedback other than just not playing healer outright, is better than not playing healer but also talking about why you've stopped.

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So how many more years are you wiling to wait ?
And If you think devs are actually reading the forum.
What is your interpretation of them not communicating about a 1000 pages thread talking about healer issues that made it to the press ?

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Originally Posted by Qyoon

So how many more years are you wiling to wait ?
And If you think devs are actually reading the forum.
What is your interpretation of them not communicating about a 1000 pages thread talking about healer issues that made it to the press ?

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Well we're waiting regardless of whether we complain or not. Saying nothing isn't going to make the game change faster.

And IDK if the devs are reading the forum or not. If they are and they ignored it, thats sad but I'd hope it's because they have plans for healer that just takes time to act on.

But again. The entirety of my point is that not talking about this issue, isn't going to make things change either. If anything that'll just make the devs think people are more fine with healers than they are if the only feedback they have is 'people rarely play the role but don't complain about it either'

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Originally Posted by Aviatorhead

Well we're waiting regardless of whether we complain or not. Saying nothing isn't going to make the game change faster.

And IDK if the devs are reading the forum or not. If they are and they ignored it, thats sad but I'd hope it's because they have plans for healer that just takes time to act on.

But again. The entirety of my point is that not talking about this issue, isn't going to make things change either. If anything that'll just make the devs think people are more fine with healers than they are if the only feedback they have is 'people rarely play the role but don't complain about it either'

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Not talking about it shows people lost interest, and the goal become to build back that interest into the role.
Right now people plays healers, make suggestion about improving them, so everything is buisness as usual.

When people lost interest into the whole tanking role, the devs made sure to make it attractive.

If they had plans on making healers better, they would have communicated about it already or at least tried some stuff like they do for other jobs.

For now and until atleast 8.0, nothing will be done for healers because the numbers shows "it's good enought" thats the sad reality of the situation.
Thats why i said, i don't think anything will change, they said themselves, if you don't like a job, play something else.
And the vast majority of players don't really care about the state of the healers jobs anyway.