Suggestions for Healing-Damaging synergy.

There has been a lot of talk about whether healers should dps or not during fights. This is not the point of this thread.
Rather, I would like to suggest some changes in order to make Healer's dps feel fun and rewarding.

WHM: Casting Stone IV grants lillies. Lillies increase Spellspeed for X percentage, stacking up to 3 times. They also increase potency of the abilities they affect.

SCH: Broil II applies a "Meltdown" stacking debuff for 5 seconds. Each stack increases the damage the target takes by 1%. Can stack up to 5 times.

AST: Malefic II applies a "Star Alignment" Debuff for 15 seconds. When a player with a card buff hits the target with said debuff, the duration of their card buff extends by 1 second up to a maximum of 10 times.

The idea would be to have healers contribute to dps in a supportive manner, either by increasing the damage the target takes, increasing their own healing efficiency or making their buffs more potent.

That is a nice incentive and reasonable.

For the WHM, the idea is to expand on its main healer role. While these changes don't add any raid utility to the WHM, they grant synergy between the healing spellcasting and damaging spellcasting. While holding onto lillies might seem like a good strategy, the increase in healing skill potencies maintains their value as situational or emergency heals.

SCH is already a class whose mechanics serve to free itself from casting Gcd heals. While the stacking debuff of broil might seem a bit overpowered, the fact that it has such a short duration and its stackable, means the Scholar would have to spam it to have it work at its full effect, rewarding players that are able to weave in and plan oGcd heals with a flat increase to the raid damage. (Which I believe contributes to the "Tactical" part of the Scholar gameplay)

AST non healing abilities focus on Cards and Buffing, that is why I believe the "Star Alignment" mechanic works well. The moderatly long effect on the target allows the AST more margin between casts of Malefic I, healing spells and card buffs.

On a side note AST and SCH damage applied debuffs would also encourage players to focus on a single target.

That's a good idea. I've been toying with similar thing myself, tho more simple: stone/malefic/broil apply damage reduction debuff (number of stacks, % reduction and time to balance) with timer short enough that it rewards you by using them regularly, but % small enough that you don't suffer too much if you have to spam heal and it falls off.
Just a small something so even new healers who don't think about dps see it and go "oh, I need to use this skill as a healer!"

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Originally Posted by GrimGale

WHM: Casting Stone IV grants lillies. Lillies increase Spellspeed for X percentage, stacking up to 3 times. They also increase potency of the abilities they affect.

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IMO WHM shouldn't be incentivized to hold lilies.

Given than I can drop my Stone 4 cast is ~1.8s with Presence of Mind with ~1.7k SpS... while I'm not sure a SpS increase on the lilies is really a good idea. That said, I'll still chuck an avalanche at a suspected 1.5s (or less) cast time with Presence of Mind up if SE ever gives me that buff =D

There's already strong enough synergy with Assize right now, so the only skill that I would look into also granting lilies is Holy, so that way the WHM can generate lilies either with single target or AoE DPS. With 3 lilies Assize's cooldown drops to 40s from 60s. If the trait Secret of the Lilies 2 was extended to also count Stone 4 crits (so a 20% chance on a Stone 4 crit to reduce Assize and Asylum cooldowns by 5s), IMO that'd be enough incentive for the WHM to also work in Tetra, Divine Benison, and Asylum into their DPS rotation giving this rather unique DPS/Healing rotation - which IMO would be quite fitting for WHM and also help better differentiate WHM from the other healers.

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Originally Posted by Almagnus1

IMO WHM shouldn't be incentivized to hold lilies.

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That is why I suggested Lillies should increase the potency of the abilities they affect. So you get a reward out of using lillies instead of keeping them as a passive buff.

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Originally Posted by Terkhev

That's a good idea. I've been toying with similar thing myself, tho more simple: stone/malefic/broil apply damage reduction debuff (number of stacks, % reduction and time to balance) with timer short enough that it rewards you by using them regularly, but % small enough that you don't suffer too much if you have to spam heal and it falls off.
Just a small something so even new healers who don't think about dps see it and go "oh, I need to use this skill as a healer!"

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I dont' like the idea of giving all the healers the same ability. I think each class should feel different and unique.

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Originally Posted by GrimGale

There has been a lot of talk about whether healers should dps or not during fights. This is not the point of this thread.
Rather, I would like to suggest some changes in order to make Healer's dps feel fun and rewarding.

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For me healing and dpsing, working together with the co-healer is already fun enough and those changes wouldn't make the class more fun for me. Also balancing gets harder with addition like this, but the real problem, is that "meltdown", is like an mini TA or balance for 5 seconds and can get reapplied every time, unless they don't make meltdown an extra skill. Cause you can just spam broil 2 and this leads me to another issue. Some players in the game, only care about their dmg and they will try to "force" the healers to playing suboptimal, just so they get an good run. Personally, i like that support skills like balance or chain are seperated from either dmg or healing skills and only the icing on the cake so to speak.

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Originally Posted by era1Ne

Cause you can just spam broil 2 and this leads me to another issue. Some players in the game, only care about their dmg and they will try to "force" the scholar to playing suboptimal, just so they get an good run. Personally, i like that support skills like balance or chain are seperated from either dmg or healing skills.

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That is why I made it work with "Stacks." In average the scholar would not be able to mantain 5 stacks for a 5% given that he or she would have to bascially spam Broil non stop. That is extremely taxating MP cost wise and takes away time from GCD heals. But since the class has free OGCD heals the more skilled players will get a reward out of weaving in Lustrates, Excogs and Indoms while mantaining the 5 stacks debuff during burst phases. Thus more "Fun"

Regarding the behaviour of other players, I'd say it isn't really a game play issue, rather a community issue.

IMHO Whilst I think having a source of Lilies from DPS is a good idea (As O4S demonstrates perfectly), having a straight Lily per Stone IV is too much. I'm very 'middle of the road' when it comes to healer DPS and I typically manage 50+ rocks on Neo Exdeath alone, I've seen 130 from other healers within the FC. Needless to say, that's a lot of lilies.

Perhaps having a Lily from a Stone IV crit would be more sensible? Yeah RNG is horrible, but I can't really think of a better way in this case.

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Originally Posted by GrimGale

That is why I made it work with "Stacks." In average the scholar would not be able to mantain 5 stacks for a 5% given that he or she would have to bascially spam Broil non stop. That is extremely taxating MP cost wise and takes away time from GCD heals. But since the class has free OGCD heals the more skilled players will get a reward out of weaving in Lustrates, Excogs and Indoms while mantaining the 5 stacks debuff during burst phases. Thus more "Fun"

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You want to weave with Bio and Miasma 2 as much as you can, because broil 2 lets you clip and some dd would rather have you use broil instead of dots, since the latter don't increase their dmg, if "meltdown" would exist. They would probably also rather have the other healer heal most of the time, then sacrificing an stack. I don't think 100 or 50% would demand this, maybe not even 30%, but imo it is not a good design choice overall. I can't describe it very good, but let me give you an example using your "meltdown" idea.

I would be fine with it, when "old selene" is deleted and works similar to bahamut and gets automatic summoned when you use Dissipation (you'll loose eos for the time and get it automatic back when selene is gone). This revamped skill would give you 3 stacks to either heal or do dmg and grants you "new selene" skills, one of them being "meltdown". This way you got an window, in which an scholar doing dps is in most cases better for raiddps, since the raid utility "meldtown", "chain" and own dmg should excel everything the others offer currently. But we won't get an situation, if "meltdown" is to strong, that people demand main-/offheal meta again. Imo playing together with the co-healer (both doing dmg and healing as efficient as you can) is much more fun than solo healing fights or only doing dmg (with little heal support).

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Regarding the behaviour of other players, I'd say it isn't really a game play issue, rather a community issue.

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Absolutely.

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Originally Posted by Sebazy

IMHO Whilst I think having a source of Lilies from DPS is a good idea (As O4S demonstrates perfectly), having a straight Lily per Stone IV is too much. I'm very 'middle of the road' when it comes to healer DPS and I typically manage 50+ rocks on Neo Exdeath alone, I've seen 130 from other healers within the FC. Needless to say, that's a lot of lilies.

Perhaps having a Lily from a Stone IV crit would be more sensible? Yeah RNG is horrible, but I can't really think of a better way in this case.

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An crit would be fine imo.

That Star aligment is a good idea.
However, that would imply to reduce or remove effect from time dilatation and celestial opposition. It would be overpowered otherwise, i guess.

But i like that idea that those damage action could have another use than just pure damage.
This way only casting one is already a help

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Originally Posted by KDSilver

That Star aligment is a good idea.
However, that would imply to reduce or remove effect from time dilatation and celestial opposition. It would be overpowered otherwise, i guess.

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Well, if we made it so that applying Star Aligment would take skill, don't you think it would be a proper payoff for an extended card buff? This is basically my objective with all these changes. A skilled healer would be rewarded for their choices of either casting a healing spell or a damaging spell.

Healing fills the role but is inherently a situational choice. If party members are topped off, and there is no damage incoming, and the player is able to recognize that, he or she should be able to contribute to the party in some other way. That other way could be more than just raw damage (Which is basically the dps's role.) It could be some sort of support, either by buffing or enfeebling.

To be honest we already have those abilities in all of the healers toolkits. WHM deals raw damage, SCH supports with debuffs like ShadowFlare's slow and Chain Stratagem (And the laughable Speed Selene buff) and AST has cards.

I just wanted to have the dps part of each class contribute to that support role aswell so that part of the toolkit doesn't feel so disconnected from the support role.

Just make it simple. Good old heal proc = damage spell never get old in any mmorpg

Something like (AST)... if your benefic crit, the next malefic spell will be instant cast (mp and cd still apply). Then you can add something more to make it interesting like... You can stack the malefic instant cast proc, when the stack is at maximum (3 for example) instead of malefic it will be gravity that become instant cast.

I like the idea of healers getting a boon for throwing out damage, however I'd suggest something simpler. A stacking buff on the healer that increases the chance that the next heal spell with crit. Say a 1% boost for 5 seconds (two GCDs) stacking up to 5 times. If that's too potent make it so there is a percent chance of this proccing and adjusting the duration of the buff accordingly. Actaully, yeah. 50% chance to gain a stack and a duration of 4 GCDs. It would take longer to gain stacks, and there is a 1:16 chance that you'd love it even while spamming so you can't just hold onto it forever.

I like this idea.

Trying to tie DMG to Heals is a very dangerous subject unless the class/style is based on the concept to begin with (likely chance given the games direction and expansion pattern). Best to keep it simple if you're going to, something that if it happens -cool- but no one is counting on it.
I think the best thing for this on White Mage is "Free Cure". if Stone has a chance to proc Free Cure it grants 'something' without being too invasive or making the balance try to account for it. It also acts to indirectly add lilies since Cure II has the 100% chance.

Alternatively for those that think to tie Lilies to Damage buffs, I'd not tie the Stone buff to the 'holding' of lilies but rather to the spending of them. So each time you use the lilies you get a stacking damage buff called "avalanche" which increases your Stone Potency. This buff ends when combat ends. So the more healing you do at the start, the more damage you can pump out at the end of the encounter, when healing becomes less frequent.

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Originally Posted by Sebazy

IMHO Whilst I think having a source of Lilies from DPS is a good idea (As O4S demonstrates perfectly), having a straight Lily per Stone IV is too much. I'm very 'middle of the road' when it comes to healer DPS and I typically manage 50+ rocks on Neo Exdeath alone, I've seen 130 from other healers within the FC. Needless to say, that's a lot of lilies.

Perhaps having a Lily from a Stone IV crit would be more sensible? Yeah RNG is horrible, but I can't really think of a better way in this case.

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A Lily when Aero2 expires.

A Lily per cast of Holy

A Lily on Stone IV crits.

That all seems reasonable to me.

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Originally Posted by Kabooa

A Lily when Aero2 expires.

A Lily per cast of Holy

A Lily on Stone IV crits.

That all seems reasonable to me.

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I don't know about Stone 4 crits.. Cure was buffed because of rng. I would actually like if they remove the lily generation from cure II and add it onto Regen (Not the ticks) or Stone 4 instead.

Maybe fix the 68 trait and make boss encounters random so Cdr feels more useful.

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Originally Posted by Kabooa

A Lily when Aero2 expires.

A Lily per cast of Holy

A Lily on Stone IV crits.

That all seems reasonable to me.

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Not a fan of the first two really =/

Aero 2 shouldn't really be expiring which takes us further down the 'rewarding sub optimal play' rabbit hole, I believe it's still best to clip WHM dots slightly no? And of course whilst a Lily per Holy would be nice in dungeons, that's not where we have issues with Lily generation and it'd do very little to help us generate them in raids where it's more of a problem.

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Originally Posted by Sebazy

Not a fan of the first two really =/

Aero 2 shouldn't really be expiring which takes us further down the 'rewarding sub optimal play' rabbit hole, I believe it's still best to clip WHM dots slightly no? And of course whilst a Lily per Holy would be nice in dungeons, that's not where we have issues with Lily generation and it'd do very little to help us generate them in raids where it's more of a problem.

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Given how the game works on a server tick system, clipping any DoT is in itself a risk, and you're generally doing it just so you don't have to worry about missing a potential tick by letting it expire.

So you lose a DoT tick if you do or don't, depending on when you applied it, and how close you're paying attention to when the damage actually ticks, which I'm going to guess you have more pressing matters than whether Aero 2's last tick is going to fire or not despite the spell having 2s left.

Don't forget that clipping Aero II potentially rather early is a bread and butter choice for movement alongside Regen. I clip it a lot on both O3S and O4S because it's either that or waste GCDs whilst running around and/or watch it expire whilst I'm occupied with something else.