Again, if the players with the GREATEST amount of downtime and who are LEAST taxed by managing it, and therefore require the MOST resource to appease would feel engaged, it stands to reason that there'd be more than enough for those who need less.Quote:
Originally Posted by IDontPetLalas
Again, I'm referring to those PLAYERS who are able and have a desire to do content like Ultimate. Even they should feel quite enjoyably engaged even in Savage and Extremes (and those who'd only care to go as high as Savage in Extreme and Normals and those who only go so far as Extremes... etc., etc.). No part of what I said limits the desire for healers to be engaged to just Ultimate.
You asked me to exemplify what I meant by a "skilled" player, so I gave a couple quick illustrations and gave the implications for those illustrated levels of player, while just being realistic with the bounds of mechanics they'd care to play with, regardless of what role they make take on.
An Ultimate-loving DPS or Tank isn't likely to be engaged by Normal raids, so this would already be to say that healers can and should be redesigned to have a broader span of engagement than either of those roles, and I would say an Extreme is at least as far above Normal Raids as Ultimates are above Extremes. For those "(at least) 80%" of players... who don't do Ultimate... that'd leave you with everything except Ultimate as sufficiently engaging.
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11-28-2023, 07:42 AMShurrikhan
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11-28-2023, 07:55 AMSebazyHold up just a second:Quote:
Originally Posted by KenZentra
A decent blue log in P12S will see a healer using DPS GCDs at a ratio of 10 to 1 or more vs healing GCDs right now (At least on SCH, AST and Sadge, WHM will be lower due to Lilies ofc).
How do we fit in more dps abilities than we do already? Where is the assumption that we will do more damage with a 'fleshed out dps rotation' coming from? The amount of damage we do isn't decided by the complexity of our rotations, it's decided by how much potency we get, how it scales with our MND stat and how easily we can shovel it into the burst window.
Healers getting more do to isn't going to automagically make enrage timers tighter. If anything history has shown it to be the absolute opposite actually, remember E8S and how it was a complete snooze fest to heal with the add phase literally being the heal check? Yep, I think it makes a fair case for being the fight where healers were obligated to contribute the most DPS in perhaps any savage, not because healers had complex damage rotations, but because they had nothing else to do except spam glare for large swathes of the fight. -
11-28-2023, 08:10 AMty_taurus
Healing uptime is dictated by two things: how frequently damage is taken, and what tools you have to address that healing. You could have 30 different attack spells on each healer, and unless they interact with your healing in some way, they will have no effect on how frequently you spend your time DPSing.
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11-28-2023, 10:15 AMKenZentraI'd absolutely love to see my strawman. I've never said "healers should spend 100% of the time healing" like you think I have. I've only said I think they need to spend more than 8% of their total (GCD and oGCD) casts on heals, which is what the math comes out to according to "ty_taurus". I've said time and time again, that adding more DPS buttons will not solve the problem of Healers feeling boring and what I think would fix it, is if they were required to cast more heals due to more consistent damage being thrown out and healing spells having more interaction with each other outside of "Heals X amount". I also argue that adding more DPS buttons will require Healers to focus more of dealing damage more than healing, which they already focus on currently. Again, I have never and will never say "healers need to spend 90%+ of their time/GCDs/Actions as healing". I said, "more than 8% of actions healing". Whats higher than 8%?Quote:
Originally Posted by Shurrikhan
Ah, thanks for that.Quote:
35-65% of a skill healers' casts being spent on healing
Oh. Well, Im sorry that I was staying on topic? Crazy that in a thread about having one or the other, I decided to talk about having one or the other. Even still however, If healing kits (and by extension encounters) are revamped to heal more often, then you will have less time to DPS, so no, you would probably not get more DPS actions. That also applies vice versa, if you have an expanded DPS kit, you will most likely have the same or less healing actions to avoid button bloat and job complexity.Quote:
Asking for just the one over the other is merely running with the premise of the thread (IF you had to pick ONE) and/or a note on the state of the devs' willingness to actually do squat, in which case solely improving the downtime kit would work for all situations without potentially excessive decreases to accessibility (some decrease is fine; losing all but your very best healers is not), while solely increasing uptime can satisfy only in harder group content and requires a much larger host of accordant changes to make feasible. If you must, blame the OP for the false ultimatum, but the sheer number of people quickly saying "NEITHER should stay the same" or "BOTH should change" should already have clued you in to this.
Again, I tank and heal, and mained healing from HW until EW. I guess playing a role makes me a "DPS in disguise"?
Talking about strawmanning, btw:
I have said Healers need to heal more than what they do, which according to someone else looked like 8% of their actions.
-You said that I was in favor of flipping it to 92% of actions as healing, rather than damage.
I have said if Healers have a bigger or complex DPS kit, they will be spending less time healing, as to keep up their DPS they will forgo GCD Heals, which they already do and will continue to enforce a meta already in motion that Healers DPS more than they heal, by a lot.
-You said I am strawmanning people asking for 35-65% healing casts as wanting DPS rotations, which I did not.
In fact, I had actually said that I'd be more than happy to have a healer that does decent damage like SCH used to do in the past and that healers shouldnt have to spam any button over and over again, whether thats healing or DPS. Its almost like I want healers to be fun also? While you are over here actually strawmanning many things I've been saying. You can just like, not agree with me instead of starting an argument? -
11-28-2023, 10:32 AMKenZentraSo how do you view a more fleshed out DPS kit? Will it do the same amount of damage it does right now, less, or more? How do you expect these abilities to interact with each other?Quote:
Originally Posted by Sebazy
The only things I can think of is procs, DoTs, combos and charges.
So, if you cast, lets say Glare, you can get "Blinding Glare". Does Glare to its current damage or less than that? If its less, does "Blinding Glare" make up the difference in the sense of to original Glare casts, or does it do more than what two original Glare casts would do?
DoTs dont really solve anything per se, so unless there is something interesting that can be done with that, im just going to leave it at not really solving the issue at hand.
For combos, again, they either start off doing less, unless you finish it, in which they are still the same potency as however many Glares it would take before, or it does more damage than that.
You have a few actions to choose from, but they all have charges (except Glare), Do they all just do the same damage as each other, and glare is less than that?
The issue Im seeing is that it Healers need to complete their rotation, before switching to healing. And that if you dont have to worry about switching to healing, that you are just a DPS anyways.
And again, not that this is what you are advocating for, but this is the problem I think of when expanding DPS kits and how they are inevitably going to be "This does more damage overall" thus enforcing that Healers are DPS 1st and Healers 2nd. -
11-28-2023, 11:20 AMMaltothorisThing is they fixed this issue with melees and tanks with the fact that using their range attack no longer interrupts their combos and some stuff for the paladin like holy spirit and atonement not disrupting it as well. iF you could applying the same thing with healers it could work and not a full dps rotation. FOr whm it would something ala Black mage lite. Maybe integrate it like one stance increases damage dealted in a small amount and then the other stance increase healing and some mit since whm lacks mit. An idea but again the reason we are at his part is that Yoshi and his team may play healers but they do not MAIN healers and thus are somewhat fools on the matter.Quote:
Originally Posted by KenZentra
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11-28-2023, 11:27 AMForsakenRoeThe main issue most people seem to have with current healer DPS kit, is how big the difference in 'number of uses per minute' there is between our filler (Glare etc) and 'literally anything else in the kit'. Tackling that, by reducing how often Glare is cast (by expanding how often other things are used) would go a long way to quelling the unrest, I think. To that end, what I'd do to WHM:Quote:
Originally Posted by KenZentra
- new gauge, 0-100 bar style (can be any other max number, make it 0-50, 0-500, doesn't matter to me, I'll just go with 0-100 cos it's what we know from other jobs)
- Glare now gives 1 gauge
- Dia is now 12s duration (meaning 5 uses per minute instead of 2), and gives 1 gauge on cast, and 1 per tick (total of 5)
- Water (upgrading into Banish) has a 15s CD and gives 5 gauge on cast. Also it's instant for mobility
- Holy gives 2 gauge per enemy hit (so in a trash pull of 7 mobs, that is 14 gauge per cast)
- 50 gauge is spent on an AOE heal. I call it 'Blessing of the Elementals', but you could just as easily call it Cure 4, name's not set in stone
- using the new heal gives 3 buffs (or elements on the job gauge, to prevent buff cap issues), associated with earth, water, wind. Stacks to 2 of each
- while you have these stacks, Glare becomes Quake (100p stronger and 50% damage falloff for AOE), Banish becomes Flood (100p stronger and 50% damage falloff for AOE), and Dia becomes Tornado (30p stronger on cast,
20p per tick, totalling 110p. Also is 50% damage falloff for AOE, so you can DOT big packs with it). This all combines to make the heal damage neutral with one Glare, taking inspiration from Misery (and how well received it is)
- With Glare at 310, Dia totalling 430 (150 on cast, 70 per tick) and Banish at 350, the total potency per minute from GCDs is a mere 60p a minute higher than our current output (8140 now vs 8200 projected), so damage checks can remain as they are and be unaffected
So it sounds like a lot maybe, but in the end it would boil down to 'press Dia every 5th GCD, Banish every 6th, Glare as filler'. But it opens many doors for optimizations, and design space for the devs to add new things later, like new actions that build gauge, spend gauge, a CD that makes your gauge spending free for 3 uses like Inner Release, etc. Just the fact that there's AOE damage falloff to the elemental abilities, means that we go from 'just spam Holy in AOE' to having three new damage buttons to use when doing dungeon trash pulls, greatly enhancing the variety in visuals we'd be seeing. Our 'optimal burst window' would change from 'Dia, Misery, 6 Glares' to something like 'Tornado, Flood, Misery, Quake, Quake, Tornado, Glare, Flood'. And of course, the main point, doing this would change us from doing Fig A, to Fig B:
https://i.gyazo.com/f2668a932c11a85c...0eabf84c89.png https://i.gyazo.com/613e394c07733c89...f021fadf76.png
Reducing our Glare usage from 75%, to about 30%. Or less, depending on if we need to actually cast a Medica 2 or something occasionally. But, the important thing to note is that if we have to heal with a damage losing GCD like Medica 2, it either replaces a Glare, or it replaces a Dia/Banish but we then move that skill backwards by a GCD, we don't lose the cast, we just adjust it along the timeline such that we still push a Glare off. So if anything, something like this helps us to preserve our damage output, because it's the 'lowest contributor', Glare, that gets sac'd to do that heal
They don't have to do this exactly, of course, but the general idea behind it, of reducing how often we cast Glare by increasing how often we cast other things, is what they should aim to do IMO. If they increase healing required of us such that it puts heavy pressure on the timing of the use of 'Cure 4', such that you can't just hold it and burn it right before raidbuffs (which you could do to optimize if you wanted to, that's intentional), that'd be great too. But I think that adding a kit similar to this as a groundwork to build that 'extra healing required' onto is probably a better idea. I dunno about others, but I feel like I have to resort to things like Medica 2 faster on WHM than any other healer. I think back to Curtain Call in P4S and how much easier it was to manage as an AST, just because of how many more tools they have at their disposal
I've done idea-thinking for the other 3 healers, but WHM is the one I cared about the most at the time since I mained it, and it's the one I believe is most in need of such a shakeup, so it's the one I put the most effort into -
11-28-2023, 11:39 AMForsakenRoeOh I wouldn't even bother with that stuff, a simple 'this has a X second CD' on a skill means that there's no combo to even break in the first place. Or, like RDM, 'X ready' statuses could be leveraged to create pseudo-combos. If we have, for example, a level 20 CNJ having a 15s CD on Water, a Stone spell, and an Aero with a 12s duration, then it doesn't matter if they need to heal, when they come down from healing and go back into doing damage, they just have to follow the general priority system of 'is Aero up? if not, use that. If it is, is Water ready to cast? If yes, cast that. If not, then cast Stone'. If they had to cast 25 heals in a row for whatever crazy reason, they'd come back to doing damage with everything up and ready, and go 'oh, Aero fell off, I'll refresh that' as per the priority chart, then Water next GCD, then Stones.Quote:
Originally Posted by Maltothoris
Ironically, we had what I asked for in the post above (12s DOT, 15s CD) in ARR. But the 15s CD was OGCD (Fluid Aura), and the 12s DOT was accompanied by a separate 18s DOT (Aero2 and Aero1). We managed back then (with old Cleric Stance too) so I'm really not sure how we're apparently going to break down into nervous wrecks if we got only half of that stuff back. Maybe the devs have conniptions at the thought of a DOT duration that doesn't end in a 0 and that's why we're where we're at, though -
11-28-2023, 12:12 PMRenathrasRight?Quote:
Originally Posted by hydralus
If AST gets anything close to its HW Card gameplay back, that'd be at least 4 more buttons than it has now. Including 3 (Sprint, LB, and Potion) on your hotbars, PLD has the most with 37 (34 without), DRK and SCH are second (36, 33 without), and then AST tied with GNB and NIN at 35 (32 without). Crossbars are 16 each, so two sets to toggle between makes 32 at the most before having to shoehorn in solutions like macros or "press and holds". Keyboard and mouse, that's over three rows of abilities. And in a simple consideration, THREE 10s (30) is a lot of abilities, regardless of what game one is talking about.
Ran the numbers here for the curious: https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...for-discussion
I don't necessarily think it's bad to have a few Jobs with lots and some with less buttons, but it's kind of getting out of hand as it is.
It's one of the many "well akshually" technicalities people try to use all the time to discredit me while studiously avoiding my actual arguments.Quote:
Originally Posted by ty_taurus
I'm with you on this one. A rotation need not be particularly RIGID, nor with actions that directly connect (e.g. combos). Those things aren't needed. Besides which, it's a generic term for "sequence of actions". MNK's sequence of actions is extensive before it cycles, yet it's still described as a rotation not "collection of DPS buttons that is most definitely NOT a rotation and how dare anyone suggest it is".
In any case, I was using it in general sense for "collection of DPS actions all used in combat", Shurrikhan was just being not-nice.
Yes, I think this is something that ALMOST EVERYone agrees on (apparently, saying "everyone" means if even one person does not, it's a lie and that the person daring to say it must be hammered for their grotesque oversight, so I'll make sure to put ALMOST EVERYone to ensure clarity...)Quote:
Originally Posted by AmiableApkallu
I think line vs rotation isn't really a great distinction outside of BLM, mostly because "line" isn't a generally used term with a common definition. If you asked me "What is a spell line to you?" I'd say "An upgrade path, like Stone 1 -> Stone 2 -> Stone 3 -> Stone 4 -> Glare - Glare 3 or, alternatively, a named 'line' such as 'the Cure Line of Cure 1, Cure 2, and Cure 3' or 'the Medica line of Medica 1 and Medica 2' as the X-Line of spells."
I feel rotation is generally understood and used to mean "sequence of attack actions". Again, MNK's "rotation" goes a very long way before repeating exactly (it's sort of a fractal in that there's the normal rotation of, what, 21 abilities? But then this can be disrupted by Nadi generation/consumption, and oGCDs aren't always up in the same exact place in the overall cycle each time). So I don't think a closed loop is necessarily part of the definition (despite that sounding like what it should be). But as you note, 12111111111 is technically a closed loop.
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But yeah, we agree healers need less filler, even if we don't necessarily agree on exactly what should take its place.
More or less most of this.Quote:
Originally Posted by KenZentra
Though I think it's not the whole community, it definitely IS a very vocal portion of it.
As a healer in literally every game I play that has healers:Quote:
Originally Posted by Nizzi
Healing IS fun.
Healing IS what I enjoy doing. There are a lot of people that play healers that want to DPS and find it fun. I do not. If I found DPS fun, I'd probably spend most of my time playing a DPS Job. I do not find DPSing fun. I find healing and/or supporting my party fun. Hell, I find tanking more fun. Healer main telling you this.
Oh my god, yes! All of this. ALL of this...Quote:
Originally Posted by KenZentra
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11-28-2023, 01:26 PMKenZentraI really like what you've shown here and breaking down what it could look like. Thank you so much!Quote:
Originally Posted by ForsakenRoe
I like the idea that you build gauge by doing DPS, but it also ties into healing as well without it looking like you'd need to continue your rotation to completion before needing to heal with a GCD AND on top of that it ties back into when you use your DPS. You could easily interrupt your DPS to heal, and with a good deal of wiggle room, you (hopefully) dont need to worry about capping a resource you gain from healing.
While I still hope for more healing GCDs, as thats what I like, the synergy from both doing your DPS and using the heal via the Job Gauge is something I think should've already been implemented. It just feels like what you said should've been done long ago it just feels that... fundamental? If that makes any sense? Like doesn't seem obvious that even when you do have to DPS (even if it were not very often) that it should contribute someway to your healing, not just as a reward of "Oh you efficiently healed the party, here is some time to do some extra damage", but even "You efficiently healed, here is some time to do extra damage, which will also further your ability to heal".
Again, thanks for your break down of what it would look like, genuinely! -
11-28-2023, 02:11 PMShurrikhanNor did I say you did.Quote:
Originally Posted by KenZentra
Nor did I say that. I simply pointed out, across multiple posts now, that...Quote:
Talking about strawmanning, btw:
I have said Healers need to heal more than what they do, which according to someone else looked like 8% of their actions.
-You said that I was in favor of flipping it to 92% of actions as healing, rather than damage.
- Even if you flipped how we spend our GCDs, uninteractive spammable filler heals would still be uninteractive filler, regardless of whether it's a heal or attack; the problem goes beyond mere tuning relative to content into also the tuning and functionality of skills among/relative to each other, and treating our healing kits as just needing increased difficulty hurts what is possible for/from those kits.
- Increasing healing requirements to a point that our downtime kit would actually be fitting (e.g., some 80% of skilled healers' GCDs spent healing) would likely decrease cast diversity when compared to a lower bar (a mere majority of time spent healing) for which, yes, our present downtime skills would still seem insufficient to many. Difficulty without balance tends to reduce variety of actions. You need the balance, too.
We started all this with a simple note on my part not to confuse "It's boring when I'm not healing much" (which I could even accept as a fact of being a healer, even if that still seems wasted opportunity to me, as tanks can be plenty interesting even when their not nullifying much damage or positioning many mobs) with "It's boring because I'm not healing much." One thing that repeatedly surprised me, at least initially, in healing in tBC, WotLK, Cata, WoD, BFA, and ShL, and echoed when listening to healer-main Mythic streamers, etc. was that the fights with more interesting decision-making and moment-to-moment actions around healing were rarely the ones that cranked up healing requirements all the way up to 10/10, because those fully cranked up fights actually devolved their cognitive load into mere whack-a-mole with MP-efficient spam. Unless the kit is perfectly suited to make a puzzle problem out of that particularly cranked-to-hell fight, there is a point of painfully diminishing returns, even if we were to think nothing of downtime tools going to waste (say, for lack of MP, so that we'd instead spend that time idle).
I.e., don't underestimate the impact the kit itself has on how much can be managed out of it at various levels of stringency; it's not quite as straightforward as it might first seem, and pushing too high can actually remove a given kit's ability to engage with its complexities, which are the actual enjoyable part for many (as compared to the mere mechanical whackamole that increasingly replaces it). That was it.
To which concept you responded with "People who play this game like to pooh pooh actual MMO healing, then go back to hitting that glare key like a woodpecker," as if having played XIV for any time left me unable to appreciate the raid/M+ healing I'd done in WoW or GW2 and left me happy with Glare spam??? Seriously, what?
We're already talking some 80+% healing uptime there, and the difference being mostly just whether one is even able to interact with some of my healing nuances otherwise available being pushed out by too high of burst intake (can't set up/can't use efficient heals/spec basically barred until hotfix) or too great of total damage (forced towards the most MP-efficient shit only, actually decreasing my number of real options and concentrating my CPM down to fewer and fewer among my non-CD actions).
How is the likes of 'high requirements, but not quite so high as to literally reduce my number of effective choices among my heals' wanting godsdamned Glare spam? How is caring about how the kit itself is designed and how it might otherwise devolve to equally few choices under tuning increases alone wanting Glare spam?
If it's so bad to prefer fights that allow slightly more elaborate plays (and less spec exclusion) and the occasional damage key, fair enough, I guess, but no part of what I had said implied being okay with Glare spam, only that difficulty affects what healing complexities can reasonably interact with at BOTH ends, and our kits' balances in themselves play a hefty part in what engagement can come from those encounters.
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EDIT: Now, if your response after quoting me had little to nothing to do with what you quoted of me, I apologize for the mis-assumption in thinking your reply was meant for the person you quoted / was made in reply to the ideas presented in that quote. But if my preferring just short of whatever healing requirements are so tight as to actually devolve healing kits is too attack-spam-happy to you just because we might still be able to fit in the occasional utility-laden attack, then we're going to have to agree to disagree.
Again, I prefer that a typical healer spends a majority of their time healing. I actually like the existence of weaker, more-MP efficient heals for the flexibility they allow in tuning. I'm not exactly super DPS-focused in what I like from my healing jobs/classes/specs. I just feel that healing kits need to be considered for their interactions at varying intensity levels (if only for the fact that we want room for skill expression and gear will inflate over time) and that even 80% time spent on healing would still be worth improving downtime kits over. - Even if you flipped how we spend our GCDs, uninteractive spammable filler heals would still be uninteractive filler, regardless of whether it's a heal or attack; the problem goes beyond mere tuning relative to content into also the tuning and functionality of skills among/relative to each other, and treating our healing kits as just needing increased difficulty hurts what is possible for/from those kits.
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11-28-2023, 02:59 PMShurrikhan
A small note on "Healers are DPS first, healers second":
So long as the fight is won by reducing a unit's or units' HP to zero, every job's value will ultimately be about damage.
We bring tanks when the damage the party can produce by having a tank is greater than the damage you could produce without them there, if only by nature of their preventing the greater damage losses that come from deaths and/or the increased at-cost healing requirements the party would otherwise face. The short-term indirect/supportive output (sustain, which just allows damage-dealing units to continue dealing damage, and the ability to reposition enemies for greater effective uptime) will often enough exceed the direct value (damage) one could otherwise manage by having yet another DPS.
We bring healers when the damage the party can produce by having a healer is greater than the damage you could produce without them there, if only by nature of their preventing the greater damage losses that come from deaths and/or at-cost caution the party would otherwise have to deal with. The short-term indirect/supportive output (sustain, which just allows damage-dealing units to continue dealing damage) will often enough exceed the direct value (damage) one could otherwise manage by having yet another DPS.
Make that a fight ended by increasing a unit's or units' HP to X/full/etc., and the relationship would invert. You deal damage (to adds attacking the unit) to nullify healing requirements you'd otherwise have to face. The short-term indirect output (damage) may often exceed the longterm direct output (healing).
The healing requirements are currently too low to always necessitate 1 in 4 members of the party being healers (not necessarily a problem, imo, so long as some fights may also want 3 of 8 to be healers, in turn) or even to take any at all (a problem at that point unless only viable for the best of the best). That much is an issue, sure, and healing would imo feel better if the average healer needed to spend more of their time healing than not.
...But the value of every role will always be in terms of whatever metric (or direction) wins the fight, be that HP-increases or HP-decreases. That's never going to change, nor is it worth trying to change. That's just inherent.
That's also why I can't understand anyone complaining that another party member's mistake --or worse, GCD healing in general-- may cost the healer damage. Ultimately, in terms of party damage, they don't, unless that mistake didn't actually need to be healed. Look at the average clear speed (including wipes) with and without the healer, and see which is, on average, getting that boss to 0 HP faster. Chances are, the mistake being healed is still speeding up the run a whole lot more than not having the ability to make up for it, let alone refusing to for 'mah Glare'.
As a healer, your largest source of (party) damage contribution... is your healing. But, much like having a ton of barely-any-HP enemies or killing with an ST skill an enemy that'd otherwise die to the next AoE before getting its attack off, yes, you can waste some of that contribution by overkillinghealing, because your are dealing with many smaller ally HP bars rather than just a single (in the case of nearly all XIV raids) enemy HP bar. -
11-28-2023, 03:39 PMAravell
I think it's rather strange to claim that we'd be spending more time doing damage if we had more damage buttons, especially considering that we at one point in the past had more damage buttons and we actually spent less time doing damage than healing.
The actual reason that we spend so much time doing damage is because we have way too many avenues of healing without actually dipping into the GCDs, so we end up spending those dead GCDs with damage spells. Because while "Heals for X" has a limit, a limit which is lowered by the frankly unnecessary amounts of tools we have, "Deals X damage" is only limited by the enemy HP bar, so damage will always have the greater value.
Adding more healing buttons would not solve anything, increasing healing required would also require quite a sizeable increase to even come close to pressuring our current kit.
Another note: Even if we spend 80% or so of our time healing, that's still not a valid excuse for why the downtime kit HAS to be boring. There has not been a single good reason why one part of our kit has to be barebones and boring. -
11-28-2023, 03:46 PMRenathrasThat's because our oGCDs were weaker (something people have asked for and been told we can't do that since it would make past encounters impossible), we had less oGCD heals (same), and we had more randomized damage with boss crits and continual auto-attacks during casts (we've also been told we can't go back to that), and healing occurred more frequently during the encounters, necessitating at least some GCD heals, and more than now (and we've been told we can't do that because our heals are too powerful - while also being told we can't nerf the heal strength because it would make Johnny Casual unable to clear content).Quote:
Originally Posted by Aravell
It's easy to say the only solution is more DPS buttons when you've insisted every other solution is disallowed. -
11-28-2023, 05:44 PMShurrikhan
Except, Ren, the point being made isn't that you can't increase healing requirements, only that you can't increase healing requirements enough for highly skilled players to be fulfilled by merely Broil-Bio without making the experience noticeably inaccessible for less skilled players. Increase that flex space even a bit (e.g., a skill or two's worth of complexity more) and you're golden for most content. Increase it a bit more, and that's yet more content secured.
Neither side will work on its own. Improving just the damage is an improvement of equally insufficient quality to improving just the healing kit. The only difference is that one works for all content without incurring accessibility issues while the other does not. They're both still individually insufficient. But alas, that the shit false ultimatums stick you with. -
11-28-2023, 05:53 PMRenathras...which is probably why many people are okay with giving SCH back its SB kit.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shurrikhan
That aside, the issue isn't just "highly skilled players" but everyone else deriving enjoyment. No where has the discussion ever been "what do highly skilled players - and no one else - want?", nor is it like ever to be.
Moreover, such players are going to be bored in 4 mans whether they have a Tank rotation or 2 buttons. Anything less than a full on DPSer rotation isn't going to satisfy in 4 mans with current damage/healing profiles. "What will make high end players not bored in MSQ content" isn't the question, because the answer is "realistically...nothing can".
More DPS buttons alone will not work.
More healing alone CAN work.
The best solution is probably a mix of both - more healing requirements and a couple of healer Jobs having more damage buttons with a couple not. That's most likely to resolve the situation satisfactorily for the most players.
[EDIT: Yes yes, people can say all they want a second DoT and a 3 hit combo burst every 2 minutes will make them not bored...but really? C'mon. That's going to be "novel" for a week, "exiting" for half that, and within 6 months, those same people will be demanding more DPS actions because they're still bored. That doesn't make sense to base the problem/solution on, since it not only ignores everyone else, but it also probably doesn't even address the needs of THOSE players, either.] -
11-28-2023, 05:59 PMSebazyIMHO right now the biggest issue with the core concept and gameplay loop of FFXIV healers is that when played at a decent level, pressing glare is either the optimal choice or very close to it.Quote:
Originally Posted by KenZentra
It's absolutely bonkers to me that SE have continued down this path despite repeatedly claiming 'we want healers to heal more, we don't tune around healer dps' etcetc and yet here we are. Need to heal someone? Glare > Benison > Tetra, want to heal lots of people? Glare > PI > Rapture. Want to raise? Glare > Swiftcast > Raise etcetc. You can say 'But Seb, just drop your cast and swiftcast > raise right off the bat to which my response is simply: That's when you randomly get Swiftcast not taking effect and that raise not being instant, weaving Swiftcast off a Glare solves that entirely.
It's wrong and borderline absurd to me that I should want to weave swift off a glare to remove the risk of it bugging out and not making the raise instant but here we are. Yet another little facet of the game that's encouraging us to just take our brains out and mindlessly smash glare.
This is big part of why I'm actually softer on WHM than I am the other healers, at least with WHM our Lily spenders rival Glare for value per GCD. For the rest, they are locked in firmly and it sucks, doubly so for AST which just shouldn't be. It has so much potential to play like a completely different healer, it's got some truely great ideas like Macro but yet once it's done shovelling all it's cards as tightly into that 2 minute burst window as it can mange, it spends the next ~100 seconds or so playing like any other healer.
Worrying about healers doing more damage is completely missing the point, that's not the goal here. I used to be able to do more DPS than a well played and well geared DPS job in dungeons back in HW as SCH and I'll be the first to admit that was a broken state of affairs. Our damage output relative to other jobs has dropped significantly over the years yet you'll struggle to find people complaining specifically about the numbers themselves.
Basically, I want us to be in a situation where I can do an alliance roulette or such but still get value from thinking about what GCD I'm pressing. As long as the answer isn't nearly always 'Glare' and when it isn't it's 'Dia', I suspect I'll be much happier than I am now. Rather than me waffle on more about all the different ideas I've thrown at these boards over the years, my suggestion would be to go watch some SWTOR or Warhammer Online (if you can find any decent PoVs at least) healer gameplay. Both offered up vastly superior healer concepts to what we have now.
You keep saying this, but if that's the case, where was this discussion back in the later half of HW and all of Stormblood? Creator laid the foundations that we are still sat on today, SCH and AST had all the resources they needed to spend significant chunks of time nuking if not to the same extremes that we have now, and of course Stormblood just moved us ever closer to where we are now and finally gave WHM the resources needed to spam rocks as well.Quote:
Originally Posted by Renathras
The only comparable issue I can remember back then was one I raised myself at the media preview for Stormblood which was SCH losing it's spammable AoE for 4.0 which was swiftly course corrected.
Why was it fine back then for years, but would be a problem now within 6 months?
How many times do I have to debunk this claim. GFC man. I've quite literally done the math and calculated cleanly and openly for you that even if we half our healing potency, it would take a round the clock Harrowing Hell Normal to get us spending 2/3rds of our GCDs on heals.Quote:
Originally Posted by Renathras
Harrowing Hell, 24/7. With halved healing potency.
Wildstar called, it wants a word with you sir. -
11-28-2023, 06:00 PMZairavaGoing to chime in again.Quote:
Originally Posted by Renathras
No, increasing healing alone isn't going to cut it. I'm not very skilled at the healing role but even I can recognize that even if you increase the healing need to dish out you are still going to find that downtime and it will boil down to spamming glare/broil/etc. Even for me, I will inevitably fall into that loop.
Increase it too much and you turn either at or just short of spamming healing spells, which isn't much different then just spamming your one damage spell.
The best solution is a mix of both, but if they insist that healing requirements should NOT be higher, then ultimately...yes, the dps is going to be the best route for downtime engagement. -
11-28-2023, 07:47 PMForsakenRoeI'm not sure which OGCD you refer to, but I remember a time when Indom was 500p and now it's 400. Fairy potencies are roughly equal to how they were in SB (they just fixed pet scaling being unintuitive), but they still used to be stronger thanks to Rouse. I suppose you could make the argument that back then we had less, true, for example on AST we didn't have CO as 'second Helios', it was used to extend card durations and had no healing attached.Quote:
Originally Posted by Renathras
On the subject of 'something we can't have (weaker OGCDs)', we did actually try that, though not by choice: AST released in 5.0 with 'weaker OGCDs'. You can see the 'panic buffs' to rectify that here:
Since SE buffed them by like 50% (or in some cases, even more), I would call that a good case study on 'actually maybe we can't just reduce OGCD power by 50%'. It wasn't just a case of people complaining because AST was struggling to compete vs WHM (and WHM being cracked for the first time in like 3.5 years), people didn't seem to like the idea of being forced to cover the healing with GCD heals because 'their OGCDs aren't enough to keep up'
Damn that's a name lost to the agesQuote:
Originally Posted by Sebazy
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11-28-2023, 08:10 PMForsakenRoeNP, though I should note that some of the more 'healing side' parts of it were left out, as I was focusing on answering the question of 'how do we make the DPS rotation for healer, without it being interrupted by us doing our job of healing'. So, to clarify the other half of the changes, the healing side:Quote:
Originally Posted by KenZentra
- I'd make Cure and Medica upgrade at 30 and 50 respectively to Cure 2 and Medica 2. Freecure can stay if the devs really must keep it, just make it so 'Cure 2 has a chance to make Cure 2 free'
- I'd swap Rapture and Plenary, so Rapture would be at 70 and Plenary at 76. This allows Rapture to be available in UCOB/UWU, where WHM has crazy mobility struggles compared to AST (or maybe I just suck)
- I'd add 'Afflatus Tragedy' at level 58 and move Thin Air back up to 68. This would be a low level version of Misery, doing 800p (4 Stone 4 casts is 880p currently). I suppose this one isn't quite 'healing related' though
- I'd add two new buttons ideally, a single target and an AOE shielding Lily spender, with potencies lower than the shield healers currently have and no base heal. I went with 400p/250p, compared to SCH/SGE's current 540/320.
This would allow WHM to get value out of a Lily they spend with 30s of leeway, given that we're now apparently incentivized to purposely 'waste' Lilies to get Misery for raidbuffs. Also, I hate the Pure/Barrier split so I want it gone (I think it failed). I figure we can name them Afflatus Bastion and Sanctuary. Sanctuary, the AOE one, would also have synergy with Plenary, giving it a 200p heal so it functions a little more like a Succor
- I'd readd Divine Seal as a level 40ish skill, boosting our healing potency by 20% for 20s, on a 2min CD. It would upgrade to Temperance at 80, so we don't need an extra button bind for it
- I'd readd Protect at a lower level, as a 5% mitigation, 10s duration, on a 60s CD. It would upgrade to Plenary at 76, so that doesn't need an extra bind either. This is so WHM can compete vs AST, who has CU as a 60s mit
- I'd add a trait to Medica 2 at some point in levelling, which does 'When you have Medica 2 active on yourself, Cure 3's MP cost is halved', so you can pump harder in big heal checks with less MP concerns
- And finally, the 'new gauge' would also be built via non-Lily healing spells. Regen would give a total of 10, Cure2 would give 10, Medica2 would give a total of 15, and Cure3 would give 20, iirc. Higher amounts than the damage skills, but you don't want to rely on the GCD heals if you can, as they are damage loss. But if you DO rely on them, the extra speed of gauge building means you'd get that damage neutral heal faster, to get you out of 'damage loss city' sooner
Thank for read. Never let it be said that I 'only want more damage button', I'll take more healing buttons and interactions too, as long as they're interestingly designed and have cohesion within the kit. Plus, all of this would only require 2 'additional keybinds' in total, for the shield lily buttons. Without those (if SE insists on keeping WHM as a Pure healer and giving it zero shield options), it is button neutral (+2 for Banish and gauge spender, -2 because of Cure/Medica consolidation) -
11-28-2023, 08:14 PMfulminating
I don’t think it makes me a bad person to want to see the fallout from a dungeon with an unavoidable demi-harrowing hell floor effect. Or even a trial. Guildhest? Please.
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11-28-2023, 08:40 PMSaraideWell during harrowing hell i certainly didnt spend the usual ~75% of GCDs on damage spells. But there was also an incoming damage per second of ~85k spread across the party after mitigation.Quote:
Originally Posted by fulminating
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11-28-2023, 08:45 PMgeorge357better healers
if a better healing set will make a better healer then i say yes to this.
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11-28-2023, 09:23 PMDoraganhttps://media.tenor.com/7oJPa53XCMkA...de-eye-dog.gifQuote:
Originally Posted by fulminating
Poor level 35 sprouts, they'll never know what got them. -
11-28-2023, 09:30 PMRein_eon_OsborneHaving seen 2 pug healers failing to deal with normal harrowing hell a few times and had to be bailed by tank LB, I'm already imagining the actual fallout here.Quote:
Originally Posted by fulminating
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11-28-2023, 10:00 PMSebazy
Leveling dungeons have come close at points history. I’d absolutely love to see it happen. Big AV pulls skirting agro with the tank and hanging onto HPS by the skin of my teeth and having to sleep the occasional add was a great time to be alive. But yeah, it’ll be a shock to the system for those that don’t see it coming or never expected to have to deal with that again.
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11-28-2023, 10:32 PMAbsurdityI would love to see that...and I would especially love to see the reaction from all the "a healer's job is to heal, not deal damage" people, because they're usually the first to fail any kind of actual heal check.Quote:
Originally Posted by fulminating
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11-28-2023, 11:28 PMMerriganToo much truth. Easy there, you're brutal.Quote:
because they're usually the first to fail any kind of actual heal check.
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11-29-2023, 01:54 AMAmiableApkalluFamiliarity breeding boredom just as easily applies to healing as it does to dealing damage.Quote:
Originally Posted by Renathras
Harrowing Hell in P10N (normal)? Week 1, it was "novel" and "exciting." Week 2 and later? It's just yet another mechanic you know is coming and either save cooldowns for or else prepare to GCD spam heal your way through. Same with the first set of trash in Thaleia. Week 1, it was "exciting" with all the AoEs going off back to back. Week 2 and later? Yet another mechanic you know is coming. Same with every "drop to 1 HP" mechanic. Etc. etc.
Whether it be healing or dealing damage, we don't necessarily need it to always be novel and exciting for the rest of eternity. We do need the absolute floor for boredom to not be quite so low. By way of analogy, raise it from bread-and-water up to comfort food. -
11-29-2023, 03:10 AMty_taurusYou know, for someone who is constantly on people’s assholes about having good faith discussions, you do love to write off everything different players have described wanting to you, something you have specifically asked for multiple times I might add, with these insultingly uncharitable takes like “one extra DoT and a 3-hit combo every two minutes”.Quote:
Originally Posted by Renathras
Stop asking for good faith discussion when you continue to turn around and intentionally misrepresent others’ arguments simply because you don’t like them.
No, healing changes are not enough to fix healers. FFXIV healers are built to be combat medics that actively engage with DPS. That was true in ARR, and it’s even more true now. The game needs to give healers DPS tools to compliment that. Don’t like that? You want attrition style healing where you almost never DPS? Go play WoW. -
11-29-2023, 03:24 AMSargeTheSeagullI mean “almost never” is pretty inaccurate tbh. I mean disc priest and mistweaver heal directly by dealing damage. Aside from a couple “oh shit” buttons you can’t heal without dpsing as them. Holy paladin can’t generate any of its main healing resource without dpsing (without a specific talent build) and one of its main healing avenues is an attack that debuffs the enemy and anyone who hits that enemy is healed. And a bunch of its heal cooldowns are like macrocosmos/pneuma ie damage neutral. Preservation evoker’s main avenue of maintaining MP is by evoker’s signature dps channel, plus if you go for a certain build then your fire breath attack heals party members. The only healbot healers are resto shaman and resto Druid and even then their DPS kits are way more involved than that of healers in 14.Quote:
Originally Posted by ty_taurus
All that to say, even in a game where you need to heal ~80% of the time you still have tons of ways and tons of time to deal damage in fun interesting ways. -
11-29-2023, 03:34 AMIDontPetLalas
:eek: Damn you brought out the "f" word in a healer discussion.
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11-29-2023, 04:10 AMRenathrasYou mean the time period where damage was higher and we had less oGCDs and less powerful ones (even SCH) such that GCD healing was common (and necessary even on SCH), where half of that had Cleric Stance, and that same half was when theorycrafting was in its infancy AND where the raids were so tightly tuned that the second raid set destroyed the raiding scene and nearly killed the game a second time? Oh, and lest we forget, when many players still believed that healers were for healing, the traditional MMO view, and the idea that "healers are just Green DPS" had not fully congealed?Quote:
Originally Posted by Sebazy
AND where the people who didn't like damage dealing literally could just...not. In most content, healer DPS was irrelevant, and large swaths of the community still not only had great sympathy for Pure Healers (and Support-Buffer Healers), there were people who would sometimes tell you not to DPS to prevent going OOM. There were no standards outside of the high end raid scene, and it was kind of the wild west with everyone else. Many people didn't optimize damage at all, and many didn't even DO damage when on healers.
AND the game operated under a somewhat primitive/primordial (e.g. earlier) version of the 4 Healers Model - WHM was nearly a Pure Healer's dream. It healed with GCDs and Asylum (and Assize was used more like Indom or Ixo), "rolling HoTs" was pretty normal, and it had EW WHM's rotation minus Misery. Like, SB WHM would be EW WHM if you removed Lilies and Misery and replaced them with Aero 3 and an 18 sec Aero 2 - something the "more DPS people" reject as an allowable solution for WHM now, even if we ADDED Aero 3, cut Dia's duration to 18 sec, and LEFT Misery (so we'd actually have MORE DPS actions than we did in SB!). How does that even make sense? How is literally more to do than SB a downgrade?
In other words, during that time, healer players that wanted to heal and not have a complex DPS kit played WHM. You know, the thing I suggest all the time and get told we can't do?
Yeah, the game had it back then. Probably helped with the "we had the most healer players (as a percentage of the population)" and "people weren't complaining about things" (I mean, people WERE, just DIFFERENT things) situations. Gee, maybe the 4 Healers Model IS the way to go, imagine that?
Anyway, you're comparing apples to porcupines.
I'd say "Because at that time, people had other things to be concerned about and the discussion wasn't about maximizing DPS for most of the community, nor insisting everyone else do the same". Even as late as SB, I remember healer players only healing in groups and no one cared. I only noticed when specifically looking at their cast bars and whether their DoTs were up or not due to knowing the healer kits myself.
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That's a question, not a statement. Anyway THEN CUT IT IN A QUARTER.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sebazy
The idea that DPS additions can be anything but healing additions can only be very specific things - specific things that detractors can say won't work - is just nonsense. The game literally had more healing, GCD healing, requirements in the past, and people liked healing more back then.
It's not some arcane, unsolvable mystery to make healing requirements more extensive.
And so you know - you don't need AOE to do more healing. Single target effects can also exist. It's not hard to come up with different ideas, especially since the argument would be to alter kits and tuning across the game.
Wildstar died because of its art style as well as its mechanics (I know quite a few people, myself included, that didn't play it for that reason). Regardless, games like Warhammer had more extensive DPS kits on healers and also died. Shall we say "Warhammer called, it wants a word with you ma'am" and throw out your arguments summarily as well? Or can we recognize that what killed those games weren't their healing kits?
CAN work.Quote:
Originally Posted by Zairava
Of the two, if we're only going to change ONE thing, more healing is the thing to change.
The idea is to change things across the board, however.
Yes, because if you nerf one healer by 50% and not the other two with it...Quote:
Originally Posted by ForsakenRoe
Imagine if you cut BLM's damage by 50% but not the rest of the DPS Jobs. How well would that work? Would that be a case study we can't have a stat squish/reduction in damage numbers, or that such changes must be global if done AND encounters must be tuned around them?
So is Warhammer.Quote:
Originally Posted by ForsakenRoe
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11-29-2023, 04:30 AMMayhemmerWhat I would give to have even some of this level of kit interactivity in this game... I might be overestimating my understanding of the current woes of healing in 14, but it feels (to me) like they (whoever on the dev team actually pens the job design stuff) very desperately want 'healing tools' and 'damage tools' to be mostly in separate rooms, with the notable rare exceptions. They don't get to play together. Maybe I'm just pining for an entirely different approach to healer design at this point, but I just want the role to provide an experience that is both fun, and one I can't get playing other roles. I feel like I don't have the former because the latter is so underwhelming.Quote:
Originally Posted by SargeTheSeagull
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11-29-2023, 04:32 AMRenathrasLol, name checks out.Quote:
Originally Posted by Absurdity
No, the first people to fail are the more DPS people. Because "can't use a GCD on healing! muh deeps!!!"
People that are already spamming heals anyway don't tend to have much trouble healing...
Agreed, but if the argument is that a couple more DPS buttons will cure boredom, my point stands: It won't. Not for any length of time. And then what?Quote:
Originally Posted by AmiableApkallu
Like an addict, the people that got their "fix" with a few DPS buttons will go back to their dealer and ask for more. This is my point: It would never be enough. Not until the DPS rotation was substantial enough to eclipse healing as the player's focus. And at that point, all the players that wanted to play healers will have left the role.
Thus that cannot be the solution, neither as the first of incremental changes nor alone. And that's ignoring that this is only talking about the people that WANT it and how it's an imperfect solution even for them. It's even worse for everyone else. I harp on the 4 Healers Model over and over again, but it's because it IS something that addresses everyone's concerns at once, especially when done with encounter and kit/tuning revisions. It can work alone OR with additional changes to healing kits, and it INCLUDES more damage buttons baseline as part of the proposal.
More healing alone can work.
The 4 Healers Model alone can work.
More DPS buttons alone cannot work and will make things worse and drive people away from the role.
But, the ideal solution, again, is doing a combination of things TOGETHER. They can be in incremental steps, but must be in incremental steps TOGETHER. Not "we'll add more DPS buttons first then wait for the next expansion to think about doing anything else". If that's the result, I'd quit healing day 1 of DT, and not be alone. And ques are already going to be terrible due to adding 2 DPS Jobs and no new Tank or Healer Jobs. If you add to that making all Healers into DPS Jobs, combined with the DC travel madness, ques for content would go through the stratosphere. -
11-29-2023, 04:34 AMRenathrasWhen people are talking about HW and SB - HW and SB were on that par of thing. And SOME proposals (Roe's WHM one) is effectively a second DoT (in this case a CD with a specific duration, but other than being a bit less annoying to track is effectively the same thing in terms of button cadence) and a 3 hit combo under burst.Quote:
Originally Posted by ty_taurus
If you like I can reword that to "a second CD, this one a GCD, and a 3 hit combo in a burst every 40 sec or so", but the end result is the same.
Some of your proposals have been more in depth, but none of them are an incremental change. And any proposal at or below Tank levels is still going to be boring within 6 months. Don't think so? Go ask the Tank Forum if they're bored with their DPS rotations or not. Really wanna bet on their answer being they're consistently thrilled and engaged by them? Their answers will probably be various flavors of how boring and samey they are, with the only saving grace to your argument being the occasional person saying "I mean, at least it's not as bad as healers, but it's still bad".
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Healing changes CAN be enough alone, but they shouldn't be alone.
Encounter design, healing kit design and potencies, the kits of other Jobs contributing to healing and mitigation, etc etc AS WELL AS dps abilities must all be on the table together.
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I'll keep asking for good faith discussions because I continue to speak to the topic and NOT misrepresent people pretty consistently. Way MORE consistently than you, at any rate Mr. ring-tailed-lemur-with-a-brain-injury. You aren't exactly one to speak to the topic of good faith discussions with quips like that...
You go play WoW. Your toxic attitude would fit right in there, at least.
Same.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mayhemmer
I would love a game where our healing and damage kits across the healers were diverse so people could play a more damage focused rotation with healing or could play a healing focus.
It's what I mean by the 4 Healers Model.
It'd be nice to have a game where people weren't insisting everyone be a Disc Priest. -
11-29-2023, 04:41 AMThurmnmurmnRemember he's the only one who's right.Quote:
Originally Posted by ty_taurus
Imo best course of action is to just ignore him.Quote:
Originally Posted by Renathras
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11-29-2023, 04:49 AMSargeTheSeagull
Very very truncated summary of what Ren said to Sebazy. I have to point this out because of how mine smashingly stupid this statement is. Ren suggested making most fights’ damage profiles roughly like harrowing hell from P10 but for the whole fight. Sebazy literally math’d out why that wouldn’t be enough to make us spend the majority of GCDs on healing spells, even if you reduced their potency by half and stated, correctly, that if you did that people would stop playing the role altogether because people now, months after p10’s release, still can’t handle HH in normal without tank LB. Ren’s answer was “THEN CUT IT (healing potency) IN A QUARTER”.
Tho I think Thur is right and it’s generally a good idea to just ignore him, that little lala sure as hell can make me laugh sometimes. -
11-29-2023, 04:57 AMZairavaI say just raising the amount of healing isn't enough because you will still end up with healing downtime insufferably boring and monotonous and the response boiled down to just "yes it CAN, but healing should be THE thing to change between the two if it was one or the other"Quote:
Originally Posted by SargeTheSeagull
You could say "only raising the amount of healing needed isn't enough because you still end up with boring, monotonous healing downtime" till you're purple in the face and it still wouldn't get through. -
11-29-2023, 05:00 AMMayhemmerIt's frustrating that I can't articulate what I want out of a healer other than "feel good gameplay" based just off ideas I think are neat and would like to see, but I KNOW I'd like a healer (or even just a support dps caster) that focused less on stringent adherence to a rotation or 30s/60s/90s/120s, and more on something at least a bit more dynamic. That being, incoming and outgoing damage. Similar to how Sage's PvP versions of Kardia and Eukrasian Dosis III function, but fleshed out into an entire job and given more depth.Quote:
Originally Posted by Renathras
Maybe I'm naïve, maybe a concept like that wouldn't function well in 100% of content 100% of the time, but I bet it'd at least be pretty damn fun.