Healers and "Always Be Casting"

I\\'ve been reading threads recently and this comes up every now and then, but it\\'s never really focused on, so it seems like a good reason as any to give it its own thread.

ABC, or "Always Be Casting", is the idea that if you are able to use a Global Cool Down skill, and said skill would have a positive effect, you should use it. It\\'s not just a healer concept; it exists across all roles and jobs; "Keep the GCD rolling" is common advice born from this concept.

Of course, there is the community opinion that players who don\\'t ABC are either less capable than their ABC contemporaries, or are lazy (or OOM) - the expectation is that good players press buttons. And this is on top of ABC, being tied with this game\\'s encounter design, pushing Healer DPS.

So, what are your feelings on this paradigm? I generally like it, but wouldn\\'t be averse to a different system, as long as it applies to all jobs and not just healers.

What other system would even work though? In all the MMO's I've played, you ALWAYS want to be casting something, keeping the GCD rolling in combat. Like, I really don't know what else would work, unless we wanna go back to the days of sitting in combat to regain MP(please Lord no.)

Also, I don't think it's an opinion, more so hard math. The one pressing buttons when possible, and thus keeping the GCD rolling(assuming not a broken combo spam) is always going to do more than one that only presses a button once every 4 seconds.

Another system would mean redesigning the game at this point, as it pushes you to ABC. What do you do otherwise ? Overheal or simply AFK ? Also keeping the gcd rolling is basically the gist of every class in FFXIV.

The only instances where this might not be true are pvp and deep dungeons.

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Originally Posted by Jonathan_Clover

What other system would even work though? In all the MMO's I've played, you ALWAYS want to be casting something, keeping the GCD rolling in combat. Like, I really don't know what else would work, unless we wanna go back to the days of sitting in combat to regain MP(please Lord no.)

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A great way to change this, would be to make ALL Spells get off the GCD and give them all their individual Cooldowns, even if it is just 5 or 10 seconds. This, alongside properly adjusted cast times, would allow ALOT of freedom in designing Casters/Healers in general. Old MMOs back in 2005-2009 had this very often, when GCD's weren't even used much yet and it worked really well.

For example, Rappelz Online (really old MMO from 2001, but now its pretty much dead) has one class called Chaos Mage, which was a caster focused on AoE Nuking (and long cast times), it had a 1,2,1,2 button combo (each had a 0.5 cast time and a 1sec CD)to press constantly when you werent using your big spells. The big Spells had Cooldowns that ranged from15 - 30sec and could go up to 2Min or even 5Min (placeable AoE fear that lasted for like 10sec).

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Originally Posted by Anhra

A great way to change this, would be to make ALL Spells get off the GCD and give them all their individual Cooldowns, even if it is just 5 or 10 seconds. This, alongside properly adjusted cast times, would allow ALOT of freedom in designing Casters/Healers in general. Old MMOs back in 2005-2009 had this very often, when GCD's weren't even used much yet and it worked really well.

For example, Rappelz Online (really old MMO from 2001, but now its pretty much dead) has one class called Chaos Mage, which was a caster focused on AoE Nuking (and long cast times), it had a 1,2,1,2 button combo (each had a 0.5 cast time and a 1sec CD)to press constantly when you werent using your big spells. The big Spells had Cooldowns that ranged from15 - 30sec and could go up to 2Min or even 5Min (placeable AoE fear that lasted for like 10sec).

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That's still ABC and pretty much current healer design, main difference being that the cooldown spells are healing spells and not DPS abilities.

I don't think most games have a gcd that you have to constantly use. It's mostly long cd skills that you use as appropriate for the situation to heal people and one short cd heal that you use to top people up but not needed to cast 100% of the time. If you use all your healing abilities on cd idk but that sounds like a good way to run out of heals and die? It's only XIV that has this always be dpsing mentality

I don't like nor dislike it. It's just the inevitable.

I play a game that presents me obstacles on my path to my goals. I have to overcome these obstacles to get my reward at my goal. One second not doing anything = One second slower in getting to my goal. No effort = No reward. Simple as that.

I'm not keen of multitasking either, i.e netflixing while playing. If I want to netflix I'll pour my focus on netflix and netflix alone. Gaming can wait, they won't go anywhere.

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Originally Posted by Teno

Another system would mean redesigning the game at this point, as it pushes you to ABC. What do you do otherwise ? Overheal or simply AFK ? Also keeping the gcd rolling is basically the gist of every class in FFXIV.

The only instances where this might not be true are pvp and deep dungeons.

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What would a system that doesn't encourage you to be active even look like though? You'd basically have to actively punish players for doing too much or forcibly prevent it. I don't know if anyone actually wants them to turn healer MP into a MMO version of stamina bar or put every offensive ability on a long cooldown.

There are alternatives to ABC, early ARR was a good example of this:

You'd routinely find that healers would stand around a lot more in early 2.x for a couple of important reasons. Healers were much more resource constrained, as a WHM if you spammed Stone II like we do now you'd be OOM pretty sharpish especially in a fight that also had AoE damage to heal through. In Coil, GCDs were also much more precious and it was often rather risky to have your GCD rolling given that bosses hit harder relative to tank's total HP pool and we didn't have anything like the amount of oGCD healing that we do now. These combined into a situation where during progression you'd often see healers precasting and interrupting Cure IIs to conserve MP if it wasn't needed or get a fast heal out when it was.

It was more common place to see healers putting out damage for specific burst windows and phases, but otherwise it was usually a case of maintaining dots and the rest is gravy.

As for which approach is better? Ehhhhh both have positives vs each other. I actually felt like a healer in 2.x and being able to triage quickly, efficiently and safely was actually an asset back then. But there's no denying that that kind of much slower more methodical gameplay is at odds with the overall ethos the game presents to us now. We aren't resource starved anymore and our kits are designed around squeezing in bursts of healing between a rolling GCD for the most part.

Tbh that was one of the irksome things about ARR, there were times where I had nothing to do BUT stand around if my ethers were on cooldown and I had been raising.

It's the same mentality I have at work. If I am here I should be busy doing something and not leeching off the clock. If I am in a dungeon group I want to always be active unless I just revived 3 players and need to conserve mana for healing. That way I can respect their time and I would hope they respect mine. Gameplay wise it just feels more efficient (and less boring) to always be casting something.