Healer New Ideas Thread

Today I wanted to create a topic not just bashing the new healer changes, but to help come up with more ideas that could make skills for healers more dynamic and unique. One of the biggest misconceptions I think from Storm to Shadow was the idea that healers don't want to dps. The idea was that we would rather NEED to heal more. So I have tried to come up with ways that healers can continue to dps while adding to their role of healer. Note most of my examples will include whm references since that is what i am currently playing.

-I loved the idea of the new lilies for whm but what if we did this in reverse. What if instead of casting heals to build up to a damage skill we casted damage skills to build up to a big heal.

-Turn Eye for an Eye into damage. I would suggest that instead of lowering enemy damage (tanks should be in charge of that) that it applies a DoT instead

-AoE skill that gives your teammates a buff that heals them for a % of the damage you do over so many seconds (blood for blood that heals allies)

-Lower potency heals that also apply damage/crit/dh/ss buffs

-Lower potency heals like cure empower your next attack like a combo for glare.

These are just some ideas but you get the gist. Let us stay busy with doing damage/buffing while also filling our role as healer. Do you have any ideas for more unique skills?

Aero 3 - it needs to come back ,at least its casting animation (possible replace Aero 2?)

Holy - it feels good...but I would still prefer it to do 200 potency with fall off (or at least 150 with no damage reduction)

Fluid Aura - it neeeds a buff. WHM's dot in pvp increases target's damage taken by 10%. Maybe give to FA this effect in pve, but reduce to 3% or increase cd to 1,5 min and make it 5%?

Lilies actions - they need to be oGCD + we need 1 lily action for damage or a buff to an ally. Im always sitting on 3 stacks with no need to heal

Blood Lily (havent used it yet, but that is not the point) - would be nice to have an alternative. Maybe add second blood lily action which will heal and place a buff on everyone. Possible reduce spell cast time and recast time, and auto-attack delay by 20% for 15 sec (presence of mind)

Crazy idea i had to kill 2 birds with 1 stone is to give FA a trait past lvl 60 which would transform it into lily action. Make a 300 potence aoe with 50% less to all other targets + dot (and give Aero 3 animation)

Or just give us Aero 3, buff FA and add lily spell for damage or to spend on something else but healing

+ shorter casting speed on stone spells

GOD I AM IN LOVE WITH YOUR EYE FOR AN EYE IDEA!

Some More Idea's:

1. Have one of the Healers get a "Black Mage Like" system that encouraging swapping between healing and DPS. Maybe give them two stances one which activates when they use an attack, and another which activates when they use a heal. Maybe the attack stance gradually increases MP regeneration, and the Healing stance gradually increases spell potency. is would mostly buff healing but would let the Healer get in one big attack when swapping stances maybe give them an OGCD Cooldown with big numbers for just this purpose. (I would rather have this on scholar, but it feels more white mage to me).
2. More DPS-Healing abilities, I want to see a DoT that also heals Allies that attack the subject SO BAD. (Preferably on Scholar, it'd be especially cool if you also had the Eye for an Eye change AND you could only have one of these two effects out at any given time.)
3. Make DPS abilities on healers not cost MP, so they can be used as a sort of cooldown phase. (Or at least on one healer)
4. Really want to see an Ground AoE that buffs and/or heals allies while hurting enemies! :)
5. Make Fluid Aura, an actual Fluid Aura. Some sort of Shield maybe.
6. Bring back Protect as some kind of OGCD Cooldown for WHM it's too iconic to be gone.
7. Make healing roughly half a healers kit, damage roughly a quarter, with the last quarter going to general support abilities.

To Pbuckley818
1. At first when reading this one I thought Oh no not old cleric stance but rereading it I think the idea is that the stance would change automatically based off your last used GCD? I like the idea of mana regen for one stance and a buffed potency for the other. The buffed potency would have to effect heal skills only but at least it would keep us healers busy and give us the feeling we were doing dps for a bigger heal and not just more dps cause there is nothing else to do.

2. This idea is why I love the skill earthly star so much. Other ideas could include a dot that once it expires explodes and heals in an aoe (you have to let the dot expire clipping would cancel heal) , or let glare/malefic/broil build up stacks and after so many stacks explode for healz.

3. I think costing no mp would be too much. Most of our mp now is still spent on dps so removing mp costs would mean removing the need to manage mp altogether. Like you pointed out in your first idea though I like the thought of incorporating mp management into dps skills.

4. Earthly star is like the poster child of what we want as healers. We would definitely have to nerf our base heals in fear of making healing too easy, but i feel healing would be more fun if we had to incorporate different methods of achieving our heals. Would also give the devs room to make the healers more unique DoT heals, Burst damage shields, Sustain HoT, ect..

5. knockback and bind skills are useless not even on my hotbar, should really be replaced with something useful. Also the low potency heals like cure and physik are next to useless also. I dont want to spend a whole GCD on a big heal right now let alone a small one. I think they deserve an extra effect.

6. I really want to see the return of protect also, but not in its old form. We dont really have a Sheild regen skill in the game yet, add shield hp over time for a duration would seem to fit the idea of protect imo.

7. Making healing fun is about letting healers do their role while keeping them busy. Fights do not require healing 24/7 and even if they did it is boring to hit the same 3 skills to heal over and over till you run out of mp. We need more creative ways to heal and manage our mp while contributing to the fight with our dps.

Love the ideas! Hope more people will post, maybe someone from square will see these ideas incorporate them in some way!

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Originally Posted by Nobuyuki_Sanada

-I loved the idea of the new lilies for whm but what if we did this in reverse. What if instead of casting heals to build up to a damage skill we casted damage skills to build up to a big heal.

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I would be happier with this. xD I'd be fine with turning WHM into the DPS to heal job, but I don't think SE ever will go that far for it. :/

How about a healer combo involving dots with short cooldowns so you can comfortably try to do damage while giving yourself enough openings to weave at any time. Something like a tank combo with a dot on one end and a buff attack on the other. Could even be a buildup like broil -> broil II -> broil III then Bio -> Bio II -> Bio III, with three dots ticking and plenty of room to get necessary heals off. Fits well with the scholar aesthetic because you’d be incentivized to use proactive healing over reactive healing, so you can hunker down for your three cast combo.

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Originally Posted by Inkpot

How about a healer combo involving dots with short cooldowns so you can comfortably try to do damage while giving yourself enough openings to weave at any time. Something like a tank combo with a dot on one end and a buff attack on the other. Could even be a buildup like broil -> broil II -> broil III then Bio -> Bio II -> Bio III, with three dots ticking and plenty of room to get necessary heals off. Fits well with the scholar aesthetic because you’d be incentivized to use proactive healing over reactive healing, so you can hunker down for your three cast combo.

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I don't know if i'm understanding your idea correctly but if I am the first issue i would see is button bloat. Your taking 2 skills and making them 6 all with the purpose of doing more damage. The idea is that we want to actually heal more but we don't just want to spam cure 2 or healer equivalent all day. If you give a healer time to do anything they will just use those GCDs to do more damage unless they are absolutely required to heal in fear of wiping. This is why OGCDs are so valuable as they don't require you to stop your dps just weave in the heal and go to town. I could have gotten your idea completely wrong and if I did I apologize.

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Originally Posted by Atlantasia

I would be happier with this. xD I'd be fine with turning WHM into the DPS to heal job, but I don't think SE ever will go that far for it. :/

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So my idea was not to change the entire class, but rather just spice it up. You would still have your base heals but maybe they would be as potent and therefore require some of these new mechanics to top people off or assist in managing your mp. Right now your are wasting 3 gcd's on heals you most of the time dont need for 1 big dps skill, why not change that so that misery does less potency but it consumes a lily and the blood lily is used on one of the 2 Afflatus heals with a higher potency. This would feel better because you dont feel bad about spending a gcd on a damage move and it also gives you another big ogcd heal.

I would like to see some skills that have trade-offs.

As an example for Scholar. The numbers are just arbitrary so you get an idea of what I'm after - balance accordingly.

1) A Shadowflare-like ability with full uptime (say, arbitrarily, 30 sec duration, 30 sec cooldown, 30 potency, 1 aetherflow cost) that cannot be cast at the same time as Soil.

If Soil is active, it will be removed from the field upon SF cast.
If SF is active, it will be removed from the field upon Soil cast. Soil cast resets cooldown of SF, so that if you're willing to spend another aetherflow, you can have the uptime back.

Now, this would cost 2 Aetherflow per minute, so perhaps it would make sense to restore the Aetherflow trait back. To prevent the trait from being too strong, it could lower cooldown only on SF casts.

The full uptime is important because it forces you to give up its uptime in exchange for Soil, which is a powerful CD right now.



2) I like Fairy Gauge interaction. Fey Blessing by itself cannot dump the fairy gauge at the current rate, so our spender currently is still Aetherpact. So how about a fairy nuke that costs Fairy Gauge. Could be an Assize clone that costs half the fairy gauge and scales non-linearly with the amount of gauge consumed (say 100/250/400/550/700 in exchange for 10/20/30/40/50 gauge). Heal or no heal (Seraph is already strong).

Scales non-linearly because gauge is limited, so using it early costs you. The idea is to build up to it, not spam.

Only usable during Seraph...
You have full gauge, but Seraph is on CD or it's not the best time to use it. But you're overflowing the gauge. What do you do?
That's just an example. There's other interactions with Aetherflow/Gauge/Seraph that can happen with something like this.

Maybe it sounds stupid. But I hope you get the idea. Trade-off DPS abilities, not button bloat like Miasma or old Shadowflare. I think with the old abilities gone, it's much easier to rebuild something around Aetherflow/Fairy gauge.

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Originally Posted by LariaKirin

I would like to see some skills that have trade-offs.


1) A Shadowflare-like ability with full uptime (say, arbitrarily, 30 sec duration, 30 sec cooldown, 30 potency, 1 aetherflow cost) that cannot be cast at the same time as Soil.

If Soil is active, it will be removed from the field upon SF cast.
If SF is active, it will be removed from the field upon Soil cast. Soil cast resets cooldown of SF, so that if you're willing to spend another aetherflow, you can have the uptime back.

Now, this would cost 2 Aetherflow per minute, so perhaps it would make sense to restore the Aetherflow trait back. To prevent the trait from being too strong, it could lower cooldown only on SF casts.

The full uptime is important because it forces you to give up its uptime in exchange for Soil, which is a powerful CD right now.



2) I like Fairy Gauge interaction. Fey Blessing by itself cannot dump the fairy gauge at the current rate, so our spender currently is still Aetherpact. So how about a fairy nuke that costs Fairy Gauge. Could be an Assize clone that costs half the fairy gauge and scales non-linearly with the amount of gauge consumed (say 100/250/400/550/700 in exchange for 10/20/30/40/50 gauge). Heal or no heal (Seraph is already strong).

Scales non-linearly because gauge is limited, so using it early costs you. The idea is to build up to it, not spam.

Only usable during Seraph...
You have full gauge, but Seraph is on CD or it's not the best time to use it. But you're overflowing the gauge. What do you do?
That's just an example. There's other interactions with Aetherflow/Gauge/Seraph that can happen with something like this.

Maybe it sounds stupid. But I hope you get the idea. Trade-off DPS abilities, not button bloat like Miasma or old Shadowflare. I think with the old abilities gone, it's much easier to rebuild something around Aetherflow/Fairy gauge.

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Im only a level 72 scholar so a lot of the new mechanics I have not experienced. A full uptime DoT AoE sounds interesting but it doesnt really contribute to our healing role. The feeling I get from this would be that it would make soil "feel" worse because I was giving up something to use it on top of the aetherflow stacks to use soil and reapply SF. What if soil worked like Wildfire from machinist. All the damage it mitigates explodes for damage after the duration (obviously % would be adjustable) This way your not sacrificing something to use soil but it also helps contribute to the dps. Overall I never had a problem with soil since its a OGCD it doesn't interrupt me from doing anything.

I think the second skill has the same problem either I feel like im giving up assize to use fey union or vise versa whenever I'm using the faerie gauge. I think this would be more workable with a way to convert aetherflow stacks to faerie gauge. Its interesting but I see where your going with this one!

Great Ideas!

Since WHM is so focused around MP efficiency and big hitters with heavy MP costs, what if they got a new nuke (on top of Glare and Dis, maybe call it Banish) that costs about 1200 MP and has 700ish potency?

Edit: Also, AST is seriously holding back healer balance by virtue of its healing gimmick being "you can be WHM-lite or SCH-lite". If its Aspected spells instead did a thing where they, on top of the base healing, applied a buff that turns the next X incoming damage into a DoT (with some tools to either extend and dilute that DoT or just flat out clear that DoT damage), that would give them a very different niche compared to WHM and SCH, and a much more active style of healing compared to now.

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Originally Posted by Nobuyuki_Sanada

I don't know if i'm understanding your idea correctly but if I am the first issue i would see is button bloat. Your taking 2 skills and making them 6 all with the purpose of doing more damage. The idea is that we want to actually heal more but we don't just want to spam cure 2 or healer equivalent all day. If you give a healer time to do anything they will just use those GCDs to do more damage unless they are absolutely required to heal in fear of wiping. This is why OGCDs are so valuable as they don't require you to stop your dps just weave in the heal and go to town. I could have gotten your idea completely wrong and if I did I apologize.

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My idea is mostly centered on giving healers more instant casts to weave in their many, many oGCDs. A more complex healer rotation featuring more slots of instant casts (like Bio, Bio II, Biolysis) means healers aren’t as often opting to sacrifice DPS for a chance to heal.

Imagine if tanks had to lose DPS to weave in a tank CD. I’m not saying you make stone/broil/malefic instant cast, but having only one optimal weaving instance every 30s is silly. Make one every 10s. None of this is about doing more total damage.

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Originally Posted by Nobuyuki_Sanada

Im only a level 72 scholar so a lot of the new mechanics I have not experienced. A full uptime DoT AoE sounds interesting but it doesnt really contribute to our healing role. The feeling I get from this would be that it would make soil "feel" worse because I was giving up something to use it on top of the aetherflow stacks to use soil and reapply SF. What if soil worked like Wildfire from machinist. All the damage it mitigates explodes for damage after the duration (obviously % would be adjustable) This way your not sacrificing something to use soil but it also helps contribute to the dps. Overall I never had a problem with soil since its a OGCD it doesn't interrupt me from doing anything.

I think the second skill has the same problem either I feel like im giving up assize to use fey union or vise versa whenever I'm using the faerie gauge. I think this would be more workable with a way to convert aetherflow stacks to faerie gauge. Its interesting but I see where your going with this one!

Great Ideas!

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Well, yes, that's the point, trade-offs and decision making.

I don't like the Soil idea because it has only benefits and no downsides - you would simply use it on CD most of the time. Besides, I think Soil is already way too powerful.

In terms of optimization, I think it's more interesting than simply mashing every DPS potency on CD. Not these specifically, but abilities that have trade-offs in general.

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Originally Posted by Leidiriv

Since WHM is so focused around MP efficiency and big hitters with heavy MP costs, what if they got a new nuke (on top of Glare and Dis, maybe call it Banish) that costs about 1200 MP and has 700ish potency?

Edit: Also, AST is seriously holding back healer balance by virtue of its healing gimmick being "you can be WHM-lite or SCH-lite". If its Aspected spells instead did a thing where they, on top of the base healing, applied a buff that turns the next X incoming damage into a DoT (with some tools to either extend and dilute that DoT or just flat out clear that DoT damage), that would give them a very different niche compared to WHM and SCH, and a much more active style of healing compared to now.

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I can tell you right now if you give me a 700 potency GCD thats only flaw is mp cost I will "Thin Air" "Prescence of Mind" that skill all day and my DPS king dreams will come true :)
The only problem with converting damage to dot is that you still take the damage, unless you give them a way to dispel the dot. If you allow the dispel then essentially your negating all damage completely. The big problem with Ast is that its the third wheel. If Ast focuses on regular hp heals then a WHM + AST combo will not be good, same situation if it focuses on Shields then SCH + AST would be a bad combo. The conclusion is to let them be able to switch according to their partner but not in combat. We need more unique ways of healing and as this entire thread suggests turning our dps moves into heals/buffs in creative ways makes the classes more fun and makes it easier to make each class unique.

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Originally Posted by Inkpot

My idea is mostly centered on giving healers more instant casts to weave in their many, many oGCDs. A more complex healer rotation featuring more slots of instant casts (like Bio, Bio II, Biolysis) means healers aren’t as often opting to sacrifice DPS for a chance to heal.

Imagine if tanks had to lose DPS to weave in a tank CD. I’m not saying you make stone/broil/malefic instant cast, but having only one optimal weaving instance every 30s is silly. Make one every 10s. None of this is about doing more total damage.

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Your double weave window is dictated by the buff duration. Dot combos would only give you a bigger window, but they will still only happen every 30s.

You could make every cast time like Malefic and it would be fine for SCH/WHM. You'd get to weave a single heal anytime you want. AST is of course different because of their card weaving.

I see some very imaginative and well-intentioned ideas in this thread. I hate to be a debbie downer though, but I've seen ZERO evidence that anyone from SE reads the healer board, and ZERO evidence that we've been represented in any way whatsoever by the "media tour" darlings. Much as I love a few of them, like Raziel, Mizzteq, and Chris from WorkToGame -- I don't think anyone told devs that changes to SCH and AST were too drastic and detrimental; in fact some of the Youtubers I've seen were downplaying healer changes and telling naysayers to "wait and see how it plays." Well, I've seen how it plays, and speaking as someone who loved playing astrologian before, it sucks donkey balls.

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Originally Posted by Nobuyuki_Sanada

I can tell you right now if you give me a 700 potency GCD thats only flaw is mp cost I will "Thin Air" "Prescence of Mind" that skill all day and my DPS king dreams will come true :)
The only problem with converting damage to dot is that you still take the damage, unless you give them a way to dispel the dot. If you allow the dispel then essentially your negating all damage completely. The big problem with Ast is that its the third wheel. If Ast focuses on regular hp heals then a WHM + AST combo will not be good, same situation if it focuses on Shields then SCH + AST would be a bad combo. The conclusion is to let them be able to switch according to their partner but not in combat. We need more unique ways of healing and as this entire thread suggests turning our dps moves into heals/buffs in creative ways makes the classes more fun and makes it easier to make each class unique.

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That's why I specified the next X potency worth of damage, with ways to clear parts of that damage. If you want an example of a similar mechanic, WoW's Brewmaster Monk is built around tanking damage through similar means.