A question: What makes a Healer "easy/simple" or "hard/complex"?

I mean, it SOUNDS like an easy question to answer...but what's the answer?

1) Do only GCDs matter? SCH has around 2x the oGCDs as WHM and they tend to have more indirect effects (less direct healing, more mitigation or resource generation/consumption), but people often don't factor those in as disruptions to the Glare/Broil/Malific/Dosisspam paradigm. Do oGCDs count.....or do they not really count?

2) Is it based on interaction of kit abilities? For example, Dosis generates Kardia. Spending Aetherflow generates Faerie Gauge. Plenary Indulgence modifies AOE GCD heals. Are these examples of something being hard/complex, or are they not?

3) Does availability of backup tools make a Healer easy? Most of WHM's oGCD kit is more or less mimicked by some of their GCD heals, allowing them to cast those (at a damage loss) in cases the oGCDs are on cooldown. SCH has the most limited spamable healing kit in the game, and none of its oGCDs directly replicate the effects of Adloquium or, really, even Succor - even though Adlo (outside of specific situations) and Succor are considered backup tools, they actually have different use cases as SCH's oGCDs don't actually have the ability to generate those effects. Is this complexity or perhaps not?

4) Is complexity only a measure of their damage kits? WHM's damage kit is arguably more involved than SCH, but it doesn't feel that way to a lot of players. So is SGE's. AST has the most slimmed down damage kit in the game, and the most spam nuke casts (Malific) of all the Healers in a given clear. So on the surface, that would make SCH the second least complex Healer and AST the least complex. Yet the community views them as the hardest and most complex. So clearly damage kits aren't a measure of complexity...but then damage kits are always brought up as a component of complexity, even though they seem to be trumped by...something?...else.

5) Is pre-planning a component of complexity? If so, how much? Remembering to use Earthly Star 10 seconds before a raidwide vs using Afflatus Rapture right after the raidwide, are these really very different in complexity? Some people might replace "remembering" with "planning", but in that case, how is planning out when to use your Raptures less complex than planning out when to use your Earthly Stars? Saving and using Recitation + Adlo + Deployment Tactics is more buttons with an arguably tighter application window, so is it more complex? What about Lilybell, another prepatory heal? Or Asylum, a slower heal but that also modifies other abilities to heal for more allowing combinations? How do we measure and rate the relative complexity, and why is one case of "press 1 button" considered more complex than another?

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In short, we talk a TON about simple/easy/braindead and hard/complex/galaxy brain stuff, but how can we actually quantify that? How can we break that down into what SPECIFIC things go into that evaluation, and which trump which when it comes down to it - e.g. AST has the simplest damage rotation but arguably the hardest oGCD one with some kit interactions and required pre-planning for optimization, so if we see AST as the most complex healer, that would suggest that damage rotation is trumped by the other metrics.

As we saw in the "Healers Then And Now" thread, sometimes these things can be a bit misleading. Only by actually breaking it down was it immediately apparent that WHM's damage rotation is actually more complex than SCH's, something that almost anyone (me included) would have said was the opposite before actually looking at it in that depth.

I get part of it is a "feel", but "feel" is different from person to person. Some people may see something simple (on paper) to be challenging to execute, others may feel something complex is child's play, and still others may see a distinction between "complex" and "clunky", relating the latter more to "bad controls" than to actual thoughtful mechanics and skill expression.

For terms oft thrown out, it might pay to have a more concrete way of looking at them.

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I get it's actually a complex question, and is some combination of the above (and probably some other things, besides), but we should have more than a truly vague notion of something if it's so important.

Perhaps it would be useful to approach from the opposite direction: take a kit widely considered "good", and play evil job designer with it. Make one change that would absolutely slaughter the kit's fun, and you've probably discovered some key magic that makes the sausage machine work.

What if, for example, we removed the distinction between black and white mana on RDM entirely? Fold them both into Red Mana. Every spell effectively a Jolt. Suddenly you've killed all interactivity in the casting and burst phase. Overrode a proc? Who cares. Used your spells in the wrong order? Ehhh. Disrupted the flow between your black and white spells? Doesn't matter. Choice between Verholy and Verflare? Don't care.

I think one of the most core things that makes a job fun is meaningful choice. There's a lot of flexibility there; the choice can be largely illusory or superficial, as you might know the black/white mana flow is VERY forgiving. It could stand to gain some skill ceiling from there; lord knows I miss the minor optional optimization game that was potency-gain Reprise, murdered in Endwalker.

Most of the healer kits are aggressively unfun because they're so childproof that they're essentially Red Mana jobs. Did you use the "wrong" heal here? Trick question, there isn't one. You aren't punished for basically anything outside death or healbombing so hardcore you deplete your MP. Oh no, I used a lily on the full HP ninja by accident! Oh wait who cares, I got the refund anyway. Oh no, I used Indomitability instead of Sacred Soil! Oh who gives a crap, they do practically the same thing, have exactly the same reward for using them, and barring tight mitigation checks or highly preplanned minimalism nobody will care, not even you. All of the kit "interactivity" is of the passive sort that has little to no influence on the decision tree. Kardia's up on the tank? Such interaction, wouldn't it be nice if it made me think twice about Dosis Dosis Dosis Dosis Dosis Dosis Dosis. Plenary Indulgence? It's Yet Another Healing Steroid. It doesn't change how you interface with your casting flow or introduce any decision-making. There is not a single moment in time where I wonder what my next ability will be, because if everyone's HP is fine it's just Boring Damage Nuke and if it's not, I could probably throw my healing buttons in a hat, fish one out at random, and be rewarded or punished more or less equally.

Don't overlook the impact of APM as well as well as how punishing it is for falling out of the 2 minute buff window. At least in my case, it's the core reason I absolutely hate playing AST in it's current form.

What makes a job easy = Few abilites /not having a complex rotation / Less abilities that are dependent or triggered by other abilities(inc shared cds) / shorter cds.

How complex and hard something should be -> should be tied to the difficulity of the the content...
Healers seems easy and brainded..when you do normal difficulity content -> but once you start doing savage and ultimate..
- you realize you do not want any more complex job.

just glancing through it, i think my answer would have to be majorly based on person to person alongside what semirhage said. don't get me wrong, a lot of what gets coded into a job defines its simplicity/complexity (or lack of even either), but that's just on a coding level. human error, no matter what, always plays a factor in someone's ability to handle something. AST could be incredibly simple to someone, easier than breathing for another, someone could have the luck to pull out the *exact* card they need exactly when they need it, or it could be the exact opposite in every circumstance. what could be "easy" to play for one person is hard for another. i have a friend who used to play RDM, but switched over to DRK. the reason? because he considered RDM to be too intensive for him to focus on, and DRK was simple enough for him to figure out everything and play it. it didn't matter that it was a tank and that he would have to semi learn how to do proper tanking. it didn't really matter (at first, i think he's planning to stop cause his group is basically gaslighting him for playing DRK) that it was the "worst" tank or that it was cut down heavily from what it used to be in SB. it was a simple and easy to understand action and ability list, and that drew him towards playing it over RDM.

another factor i believe is also availability, even if it can be a minimal one compared to everything else. two of the healers in game are locked behind base content. WHM is the only job you can start out as. SCH requires you to play through to level 30 and start the Sylph portion of main ARR to even unlock (when you're going to check if they're planning on summoning ramuh or not, i think around thousand maws of toto-rak?). for AST, you need to get through the entirety of ARR, both main and post (with having to do Crystal Tower raids for good measure). that's at LEAST over 100 hours worth of things you need to do to even reach the start of HW, get into Ishgard, and unlock AST for play, not to mention leveling up to 50 from 30 so you can play it through the story. SGE is a bit less constricting, but it still requires you to go from level 1 to level 70, 20 levels under the current cap. even if you were to consider either "simple" or "easy", that's more than enough time for even a beginner healer to figure out WHM and somewhat SCHs skill levels/ceiling (however low it may be) and be more than comfortable to continue playing that. consider a player that decides they won't get SGE until they got into the expansion it was released. basically ignoring it all throughout SB and ShB until they start the EW portion of the MSQ. by then, they've most likely gotten at least one healer to 90 if they've been doing roulettes alongside MSQ. they've played through all the content from start to end with one healer and one healer alone. that's the healer they'll know the most, the easiest they can play with.

Simple and Complex are ultimately subjective but the issue with Healers stems more from what Semirhage says, a lack of meaningful interaction within the toolkit. Healer toolkits are hugely disjointed messes, with the most interaction between any job being "press this to heal more"; Temperance, PI, Protaction, Horoscope, Synastry, etc, all just make you heal more, with maybe some extra mitigation or something else tacked on for good measure but they don't really do anything other than that. The shallow DPS toolkit also doesn't help healers in any meaningful ways since it's spam 1 while using 2 every 30s, with minute differences here and there.

There either needs to be more DPS skills, interactions between Healing/DPS or both for Healers to be in a better spot. Something as simple as the Diacloud proc idea that's been thrown around occasionally would be a refreshing start to say the least.

The best example of the 'press whatever, itll probably work' is AST. CO is 700p, CU is 600p, Star is 540 (720 if charged). So if a raidwide occurs, which do you press? Uhh, turns out, any of them really, they're all kinda interchangeable in most situations. And if one of them isn't enough to deal with the damage? No matter, just use another. They're all 1min CDs anyway so it feels like they're always up

As for 'what is complexity', that's entirely subjective. I find SAM complex because of the 'filler GCD' thing. I found HW/SB DRK 'easy to understand' despite supposedly being 'complex' with Darkside management etc (implying Darkside management was hard in HW). So the thread's kinda pointless for asking 'what is complex' unless you're aiming to find out what we, each person specifically, finds complex. Which is not much use to the devs, as we're only a small subset of the playerbase

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Originally Posted by Silver-Strider

Simple and Complex are ultimately subjective but the issue with Healers stems more from what Semirhage says, a lack of meaningful interaction within the toolkit. Healer toolkits are hugely disjointed messes, with the most interaction between any job being "press this to heal more"; Temperance, PI, Protaction, Horoscope, Synastry, etc, all just make you heal more, with maybe some extra mitigation or something else tacked on for good measure but they don't really do anything other than that. The shallow DPS toolkit also doesn't help healers in any meaningful ways since it's spam 1 while using 2 every 30, with minute differences here and there.

There either needs to be more DPS skills, interactions between Healing/DPS or both for Healers to be in a better spot. Something as simple as the Diacloud proc idea that's been thrown around occasionally would be a refreshing start to say the least.

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The two scenarios of 'WHM life':

'Ah a raidwide has occured, I will press Rapture. Oh, Rapture wasn't enough to top everyone. I will... press Rapture again.' Riveting gameplay.

'Ah a raidwide has occured, Rapture is not enough, but two Raptures is overkill. I will use Plenary to buff Rapture. I don't need to worry about whether it is up or not, as it is a 1min CD and therefore seems to always line up with the raidwides, without fail.' Riveting gameplay.

For me, healing is only complex when the group is bad. When players are nailing mechanics, all I have to do as the healer is press 1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1... and Use OGCDs for the scripted AoEs. Its much more challenging when I actually have to spot heal, quick rez, emergency shield, etc., all while adhering to mechanics. To me, that's an issue - good gameplay is considerably less rewarding. Healing gameplay is overly simplistic because the balance of healing vs. DPS vs. utility tools is poor, as is their implementation. For example, as an AST main, we have close to a fun and interesting design, but our DPS kit is simplistic and weak, our utility (cards) are conceptually cool, but clunky, weak, and unreliable (as opposed to Mug, Technical/Standard Step, etc.), and we have LOTS of healing buttons that are never needed (Synastry, Neutral Sect outside of high-end content, Benefic I, etc.).

What makes healer easy? Its simple really. We have too many healing tools that the game doesn't make use of and lack of interactions with them all. Someone already pointed out AST, but I'm going to use it since I know the class so well.

Collective Unconciousness (CU), Celestial Opposition (CO), Earthly Star (ES) and I'll even put Horoscope here are all on a 60 cooldown with raidwides (both in dungeons, raids, and EX) coming in at AROUND the 60 mark. That means I usually have 3-4 heals up every raidwide and can usually use the same one for the same mechanic - there fore, its boring.

Further, CU and CO are just regens. I hit a button and it HoTs. CU has the benefit of also having a mitigation on it, but in 90% of content I don't need the mitigation, so why would I use CU which requires my party to stand it in when I can press CO instead? It makes it a dead skill in most content. Another point to being boring. I want a choice between my abilities and I want them to matter.

Then there is the problem of lack of interactivity. Take Synastry for example. Its an ability where you can press it on one person and if you heal another, they get 50% of the healing, yet, it only works on Benefic and Benefic 2. A.Benefic doesn't apply the HoT to the person, (though it does, apparently apply the initial heal), and it doesn't work with Celestial Intersection (CI), Essential Diginity, OR even Exaltation because those are healing ABILITIES and not healing SKILLS. For what reason? Do explain SE. Making Synastry work for all of our single target abilities would make it more interesting.

I'm going to ignore Noct Sect's interesting mechanics were AST actually have been able to stance dance. But that too would make healing more fun and interactive.

What I am going to end on is an example:

My AST at lv70 vs my AST at 90.

At 70 I have ES, CO, CU, ED and of course my GCD abilities. Vs at 90 I have all of those, 2 charges of ED and CI each, Macrocosmos, Neutral Sect, Horoscope, Exaltation. At 70 I need to space out my healing. Maybe even saving one of my oGCDs for a specific mechanic meaning that if I need to use them earlier due to party member's mistake I have to supplement that tool I don't have for something else.

Where as for at 90, it doesn't matter if I use ES on cooldown for damage. I have 5 other tools that are just as good. Or, worse, I have 3-5 tools I am not using because no one is taking damage because the fights are undertuned for how many healing tools we have.

That is why I believe healers are so easy. Because it isn't just AST that suffers from this problem. All four do in some respect.

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Originally Posted by ASkellington

What makes healer easy? Its simple really. We have too many healing tools that the game doesn't make use of and lack of interactions with them all. Someone already pointed out AST, but I'm going to use it since I know the class so well.

Collective Unconciousness (CU), Celestial Opposition (CO), Earthly Star (ES) and I'll even put Horoscope here are all on a 60 cooldown with raidwides (both in dungeons, raids, and EX) coming in at AROUND the 60 mark. That means I usually have 3-4 heals up every raidwide and can usually use the same one for the same mechanic - there fore, its boring.

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You inspired an interesting idea... What if instead of Horoscope being a reactivated heal... the effect changes depending on which tool you activate it with. Even if it were something simple like, if you activate it with a regen heal, it increases magic defense by 10%, and if you activate it with a flat heal, it increases physical defense by 10%. In practice, it can be a lot more specific--even tool specific, but that's just a very simplistic example to communicate the idea. You could have Horoscope have a shorter cooldown, but other heals have longer ones, so you'll often have Horoscope to pair with heal mechanics, but you have to plan out your tools to better take advantage of the secondary effect.

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

You inspired an interesting idea... What if instead of Horoscope being a reactivated heal... the effect changes depending on which tool you activate it with. Even if it were something simple like, if you activate it with a regen heal, it increases magic defense by 10%, and if you activate it with a flat heal, it increases physical defense by 10%. In practice, it can be a lot more specific--even tool specific, but that's just a very simplistic example to communicate the idea. You could have Horoscope have a shorter cooldown, but other heals have longer ones, so you'll often have Horoscope to pair with heal mechanics, but you have to plan out your tools to better take advantage of the secondary effect.

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Honestly, Horoscope is fine as it is. Its an okish heal by itself but becomes better and lasts longer if you cast Helios, either one. If you removed 2 of my other oGCDs, it'd be fine as is. Having so many secondary effects... no. Then it makes it bloated. Now if Nocturnal Sect was back and a stance dance where in Diurnal it did something and Nocturnal did something different sure.

Tl:dr if there was one more skill that worked with it, sure. Considering all the inputs that could work with it (ie. Exaltation and CI for example) I think we would have the same problem with Horoscope as I do with AST's current kit. Only instead of pressing 1 button I'd be pressing two. I want AOE mitigation? Horoscope + Exalt. I want AOE shields? Horoscope + CI. I guess if you really wanted to make it work it would need to be a longer cool down, not a shorter one. Kinda like Synastry is. Unless you propose the other skills would be on a longer CD.

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Originally Posted by ASkellington

Honestly, Horoscope is fine as it is. Its an okish heal by itself but becomes better and lasts longer if you cast Helios, either one. If you removed 2 of my other oGCDs, it'd be fine as is. Having so many secondary effects... no. Then it makes it bloated. Now if Nocturnal Sect was back and a stance dance where in Diurnal it did something and Nocturnal did something different sure.

Tl:dr if there was one more skill that worked with it, sure. Considering all the inputs that could work with it (ie. Exaltation and CI for example) I think we would have the same problem with Horoscope as I do with AST's current kit. Only instead of pressing 1 button I'd be pressing two. I want AOE mitigation? Horoscope + Exalt. I want AOE shields? Horoscope + CI. I guess if you really wanted to make it work it would need to be a longer cool down, not a shorter one. Kinda like Synastry is. Unless you propose the other skills would be on a longer CD.

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I didn't necessarily mean a different effect for every other heal, but rather you could connect the effect to a few specific heals, or even your card effects. And I used Horoscope as the baseline for thematic reasons. Reading the party's fortune feels like it should have some type of varying effect rather than something that's always the same.

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

I didn't necessarily mean a different effect for every other heal, but rather you could connect the effect to a few specific heals, or even your card effects. And I used Horoscope as the baseline for thematic reasons. Reading the party's fortune feels like it should have some type of varying effect rather than something that's always the same.

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I'm not against the idea if done well (except NO to cards tying into it; as much as I would love that I cannot see that being done well at all by this dev team), but that would mean an overhaul to all of AST's heals to cut the fat (which, I'm not against but - dev team are they willing to do it? I don't think so).

Its why I wanted Noct Sect to come back because it could do that. Remove Neutral, and the Mitigation on CU in Diurnal, and Noct could do the extra interconnectivity - CI (if we want to keep it I wouldn't be sad if we lost it) could be its regen effect, CU in Noct would have the Mitigation only while Diurnal would have the Regen, Exalt could have a new effect under Noct, CO would have its shields.... and maybe Macrocosmos could stay as it is.

But something like that with AST's kit? I'm down. I'd love it honestly.

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Originally Posted by Semirhage

Perhaps it would be useful to approach from the opposite direction: take a kit widely considered "good", and play evil job designer with it. Make one change that would absolutely slaughter the kit's fun, and you've probably discovered some key magic that makes the sausage machine work.

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I think this is largely subjective. For example, removing Lilies on WHM (6.0 showed us how poorly that works) everyone probably agrees on, but some people might say "adding a DPS rotation to it" would break it while others think that would save it. That may be more an argument of kit functionality than difficulty.

Meaningful choice is a good thing to shoot for for fun, I agree...but that's not always a matter of difficulty or challenge or complexity. Indeed, some Jobs could have choice added that actually makes them simpler. To use your RDM example, suppose Jolt was removed and Stone/Fire were always up, not needing a proc. This would give the kit greater flexibility and choice (as you'd always have the option to use them where 50%ish of the time you do not currently), but reduce difficulty.

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Originally Posted by Sebazy

Don't overlook the impact of APM as well as well as how punishing it is for falling out of the 2 minute buff window. At least in my case, it's the core reason I absolutely hate playing AST in it's current form.

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Fair points, although MCH is one of the higher APM Jobs in the game and considered one of the easier ones. So we'll add APM as another axis of challenge.

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Originally Posted by Silver-Strider

Simple and Complex are ultimately subjective but the issue with Healers stems more from what Semirhage says, a lack of meaningful interaction within the toolkit. Healer toolkits are hugely disjointed messes, with the most interaction between any job being "press this to heal more"; Temperance, PI, Protaction, Horoscope, Synastry, etc, all just make you heal more, with maybe some extra mitigation or something else tacked on for good measure but they don't really do anything other than that. The shallow DPS toolkit also doesn't help healers in any meaningful ways since it's spam 1 while using 2 every 30s, with minute differences here and there.

There either needs to be more DPS skills, interactions between Healing/DPS or both for Healers to be in a better spot. Something as simple as the Diacloud proc idea that's been thrown around occasionally would be a refreshing start to say the least.

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I don't think they're "disjointed", but I do think that there are a lot of overlaps that make decision making less meaningful outside of optimization scenarios. This is probably because the community/players are so collectively focused on optimization/meta that the Devs have kind of had their hand forced since the alternative was putting their foot down hard. For example, when they removed Energy Drain, the message was clear - "We don't want you using healing resources to optimize damage!" The community response was a revolt. So the Devs went the opposite direction, giving Healers a lot of overlapping abilities - Medica, Rapture, Indominability, Holos, Celestial Opposition, Prognosis, and Ixochole all do basically the same thing (Sacred Soil does not, btw...) - so that players could optimize damage, since the message players collectively have told the Devs over and over is that they want healers to be about optimizing damage with healing as a mere aside. Though this problem extends well beyond Healers; it's the reason Tank stances were removed (players tried to actively avoid agro stance as much as possible, defeating the purpose of it even existing - no, it wasn't a challenging dance; people would actively just NEVER USE IT outside of the first 5 seconds of combat) and has wreaked havoc with the game when DPSers complained about things like positionals, boss hitboxes, downtime, disengages, and difficulty of aligning disparate CD buffs.

Though I'm a bit curious what you think heals should do other than...heal/mitigate/shield...?

I don't think that we need more DPS skills across the board (or healing/DPS interactions, whatever that may boil down to), but I do think the Healers need to not be carbon copies of each other.

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Originally Posted by ForsakenRoe

The best example of the 'press whatever, itll probably work' is AST. CO is 700p, CU is 600p, Star is 540 (720 if charged). So if a raidwide occurs, which do you press? Uhh, turns out, any of them really, they're all kinda interchangeable in most situations. And if one of them isn't enough to deal with the damage? No matter, just use another. They're all 1min CDs anyway so it feels like they're always up

As for 'what is complexity', that's entirely subjective. I find SAM complex because of the 'filler GCD' thing. I found HW/SB DRK 'easy to understand' despite supposedly being 'complex' with Darkside management etc (implying Darkside management was hard in HW). So the thread's kinda pointless for asking 'what is complex' unless you're aiming to find out what we, each person specifically, finds complex.

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Arguably yes.

It's constantly brought up how Healers aren't complex enough and how they need to be more complex. As that IS subjective, it's completely useless to the Devs - or, indeed, to our own non-Dev discussions.

Not until we actual quantify what that IS.

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Originally Posted by ASkellington

What makes healer easy? Its simple really. We have too many healing tools that the game doesn't make use of and lack of interactions with them all. Someone already pointed out AST, but I'm going to use it since I know the class so well.

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One of the things I've said before (and gotten various levels of pushback against, though more on Reddit than here) is that we have too many oGCDs and they're too powerful. We need less of them and they need to be weaker such that people actually have a reason to use GCD heals. PART of the reason for this is how mobile fights are now, PART is the playerbase deciding damage optimization is the only thing that matters ("Green DPS" aside, "The only HP that matters is the last 1", "Killing the boss is damage mitigation/healing", and "The only utility that matters is damage" all are reflections of this), and PART of it is that MMOs just add more abilities over time. But it's clearly too much, though some Healer Jobs are worse offenders than others.

The pushback is generally from people that want more damage spells (yet complain about healing being trivial) and not wanting the solution to be "make healing non-trivial". People even have insisted it can't be done because it would require all past fights to be backdate changed...which is odd since (a) they've never had an issue with that before and (b) that's the way the game originally worked.

But I agree that too many oGCDs that are too powerful and up basically all the time have made Healers trivial/easy.

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Originally Posted by Renathras

Fair points, although MCH is one of the higher APM Jobs in the game and considered one of the easier ones. So we'll add APM as another axis of challenge.

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I think the AST issue with APM is that it's a lot of buttons and retargeting all dogpiled into each 2 minute burst window. Outside of that burst it's barely any different to SCH or WHM. I think MCH is more akin to DNC still no? The APM still rockets through oGCDs, but it's more of a pattern with no need to constantly change targets? Couple that with how punishing missing a burst window and falling out of sync with the group is and it's honestly a completely different problem IMO.

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Originally Posted by Sebazy

I think the AST issue with APM is that it's a lot of buttons and retargeting all dogpiled into each 2 minute burst window. Outside of that burst it's barely any different to SCH or WHM. I think MCH is more akin to DNC still no? The APM still rockets through oGCDs, but it's more of a pattern with no need to constantly change targets? Couple that with how punishing missing a burst window and falling out of sync with the group is and it's honestly a completely different problem IMO.

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Yeah. I think AST is the ONLY Job in the game that has to hyper-target-swap. Offhand, I can't think of any other one. MCH, NIN, and DRK all have the "high APM burst, lower APM filler", and MNK, NIN, and MCH under Hypercharge all have a reduced GCD (so much faster ability use compared to other Jobs) that give them higher APM both inside and outside of burst. In a strict sense, they have higher APMs than AST does, but ASTs is paired with target swapping, which isn't counted as an "action" but clearly IS one.

Yeh, there's a big difference between 'Actions per minute' that AST has with target swaps, and 'Casts per minute' for stuff that is fast paced like NIN burst or MCH hypercharge windows, but they don't have to retarget ally/the boss twice every GCD. If 'Actions per minute' were properly tracked, including 'swapping target' in that count, I'd imagine AST's APM would be closer to like 60 65 compared to NIN's current 45ish

Look at Starcraft pro games and their APM counts. Now imagine that 'selecting units' doesn't count as APM, only pressing keybinds for the shortcuts to 'build another pylon' or whatever. APM count would be way smaller

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Originally Posted by Renathras

The pushback is generally from people that want more damage spells (yet complain about healing being trivial) and not wanting the solution to be "make healing non-trivial". People even have insisted it can't be done because it would require all past fights to be backdate changed...which is odd since (a) they've never had an issue with that before and (b) that's the way the game originally worked.

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Yes the push back is more damage spells because

1 - Some fights would have to remade because even with less oGCDs, good healers are bored. Just because I'm more engaged at 70 than 90 doesn't mean I'm still PROPERLY engaged at 70. Bosses have too long of wind ups, not many of them target someone that ISN'T the tank, too much of their damage is avoidable and so most dungeons I'm STILL only healing with oGCDs in the 60-70 range. If you want more healing, the fights are going to have to change. Why is this a problem? Have you seen how long it took for SE to actually change them? If reducing the healing spells, and supplementing more damage spells is faster, then yes, I would rather add more damage spells.

2 - SE doesn't want to give the alternative: support tools. AST cards and BRD's change from SB to Shb speaks to this. They don't want to take the time to make impactful spells for healers to use outside of mitigation. Caster's are allowed to have an AOE sleep, but healers are stuck with Repose and NEITHER even work on the bosses. We can't even use either like a form of Head Graze/Interject. We don't even have an AOE Esuna! So if SE isn't going to give us any supportive tools, rather takes them away because if we don't use them then we're going to fail apparently, then all we're going to get is damage so we may as well ask for damage.

3 - EVEN IF SE decided to do the above, we will STILL have instances to where our dps rotation is monotonous. Especially in solo content where it is highlighted front and center. Support tools? Don't need them. Healing? Don't need them. What are we left with then? Broil/Dosis/Glare/Malefic and our DoT and w/e extra healing tools we use as damage because, while we don't need the healing at all we can still use the damage to kill the sponge (ES, Lord of Crowns, Toxicon, Misery, Assize). In group content, you're still going to have down time where you aren't going to be buffing or healing, so what is the excuse to not make all healer's dps tools a bit more engaging?

I replay plenty of fights I still find fun due to either wipefests if I'm lucky (Dun Scaith, Orbonne) or just because I don't have access to as many tools (60-70 fights), or even ones that are still relatively challenging (Amaurot, Dead Ends) at the "level cap", and I'm STILL pressing 1 way too much. And Amaurot actually hits hard.

All of this to say, SE doesn't design fights for engaging healing. DoTs are either Esuna'd and Esuna doesn't have a CD so if it is automatically reapplied who cares? OR hit like a ray of sun through a window glass and either don't need to be healed at all, or can easily be healing through with a simple HoT. Boss mechanics, as I've said, are way too spaced out (want a good example? Smileton is ridiculous with it) and again, don't usually hit random party members so you don't even have to do spot healing which would break it up. AoEs are too avoidable. Which usually leaves unavoidable raid wides and tank busters. Well tanks mitigate tank busters and they don't really hurt. And raid wides also, don't hurt. And both always come on a long enough cool down to where you have something up, even in lower levels.

We need more bosses like Diabolos or Ra La. The former has tank busters frequent enough in the second phase to where the tank CAN'T mitigate them all at 60 and the latter actually makes me cycle through all my oGCDs like a proper boss should.

That requires a major rework of too many fights for it to be feasible (and in some cases it doesn't need to be that drastic but you get the point) and I don't see SE even MAKING fights in the upcoming expansion like this let alone fixing older ones, which is why we ask for damage.

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Originally Posted by ASkellington

Y
That requires a major rework of too many fights for it to be feasible (and in some cases it doesn't need to be that drastic but you get the point) and I don't see SE even MAKING fights in the upcoming expansion like this let alone fixing older ones, which is why we ask for damage.

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Clearly what they should do is this: add damage tools (the quicker fix), under the pretense of 'oh yeh we're doing this so healers have something to do in 7.0, so that by 8.0 we'll have had a bigger time window to work out a better solution (eg, making fights actually do damage)'

Then if/when it turns out that actually, more damage tools WAS the solution all along, just nix the last part and say 'well we WERE going to look into alternatives, but the extra damage options were so well received we figured 'why rock the boat', so we'll be going ahead with adding even more damage options in 8.0'

Heavenward Scholar had a kit that fit the damage and healing profile of encounters perfectly. You spent most of your time dpsing and it was fun. You had plenty of skills to manage to do damage. When it was time to heal you had a few skills but they required thought to be put to full advantage. Your strong heals had cool downs that needed to be respected. You couldn't blow everything on Energy Drains because the same resource was the cornerstone of your healing and you couldn't rely on Succor spam to fill health bars. Every healer should have been made into Scholar with a robust DPS kit to fill the healing downtime in causal content and a healing toolkit that required some actual brainpower to function well. Instead every healer became Astro with a DPS kit so pitifully bare you only had one option. Nuke spam until your dot drops and reapply your dot if it has enough time to be useful. Then healing became bloated with sooooooo many options that there is absolutely no way to fail. Both healing and DPS need complexity for healers. We spend too much time waiting for damage when we could be enjoying a fun mini game like every other class that involves DPS or support. Healing NEEDS to be easy. Everyone fails when healers can't heal well enough. The barrier to entry for healers is healing; not DPS complexity. If your healer can't get the party to survive the first raid wide you disband. Traits and tools that make healing accessible is critical but dps that is fun allows solo content, Fates, and every instanced duty to also be enjoyable for healers. DPS needs to be engaging (not difficult but engaging) and healing needs to be straight forward but not foolproof. You shouldn't be able to hit level 90 relying only on medica 2. The learning curve for healing is non-existent. You causal your way to your first extreme or savage and then get your mind blown by mp management, nuance between skills, and prioritization of tasks. If your cohealer, both tanks, and two dps are dead with one being a red mage who do you revive first? It depends on the encounter and timing. Is it down time or will a buster with a tank swap be coming soon? Do you have a way to revive quickly like Presence of Mind or Lightspeed? Healing can't be super complex even if it's the main job of healing. DPS can range from two or three buttons to most of your kit and encounters can be tuned to allow extreme failure with every option on the scale. This seems like common sense to me but yet we have healing toolkits that aren't accessible and DPS kits that put people to sleep. It boggles the mind.

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Originally Posted by NobleWinter

Heavenward Scholar had a kit that fit the damage and healing profile of encounters perfectly. You spent most of your time dpsing and it was fun. You had plenty of skills to manage to do damage. When it was time to heal you had a few skills but they required thought to be put to full advantage. Your strong heals had cool downs that needed to be respected. You couldn't blow everything on Energy Drains because the same resource was the cornerstone of your healing and you couldn't rely on Succor spam to fill health bars.

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I agree with this.

But not this:

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Originally Posted by NobleWinter

Every healer should have been made into Scholar with a robust DPS kit to fill the healing downtime in causal content and a healing toolkit that required some actual brainpower to function well.

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The problems this game has worst, imo, is when they make everything the same. This goes for making all Jobs simple but ALSO for making all Jobs complex. There should be a spectrum. In HW, when SCH was that way, WHM was not and AST was...well...AST.

Moreover, I think the reason for the "no way to fail" is because so many Healers quit the role in HW and SB that the Devs were trying to make it so people didn't have "Healxiety" and would actually que up as Healers more, since there were massive Healer shortages.

As you say, though I don't agree with it personally, the Devs also thought "Healing NEEDS to be easy." But that thought extends to Healer damage kits. They also NEED to be easy, otherwise almost no one will play them. People who want complex damage rotations play DPSers. Giving Healers a mediocre damage kit will just alienate the people who don't like damage rotations (and play Healers for that reason) while also not appealing to people who want a "real" DPS kit, who will keep playing DPSers. It will only please a narrow sliver of the population, like as not. Which could already be achieved by just giving SCH its SB kit back.

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Originally Posted by NobleWinter

when we could be enjoying a fun mini game like every other class that involves DPS or support.

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Not everyone "enjoys" damage rotations. Again, if we did, most of us would be playing DPS Jobs. Many people do solo content, FATEs, and instanced duties on Healers and enjoy them. I love playing on Healers now, for example. I do Experts, PotD/HoH solo runs, Extremes, 24 mans, and occasionally Savages. I did the latest Extreme, Ex5, on RDM (since it was the only Practice party up when I had time) and got my clear, and hated almost every minute of it. I did it, but I did not enjoy it. On the other hand, I've healed all the other Extremes and enjoyed those (except Ex3, because Eff that place, lol), and I even tanked a few. But I've never enjoyed DPSing any of them. Did some ZodEx on SMN. It was...meh. I did it for farms and it wasn't abject misery, but I wouldn't describe it as fun. On the other hand, I healed it, even solo healed it on SGE quite a few times, and had a blast every time on Healer.

I'm not saying some people are DPSers or anything, but I am saying not everyone loves DPS rotations. I contend that some Healers should have them while others do not, then players may gravitate to the one they find most acceptable.

...but this is an aside we've had in dozens of threads and not really directly on topic, isn't it...

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Originally Posted by NobleWinter

DPS can range from two or three buttons to most of your kit and encounters can be tuned to allow extreme failure with every option on the scale.

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In theory, yes. But I've yet to see it happen. Until encounters are tuned with Enrages so generous to Healers doing 100% or 1% DPS - which would be so generous as to make them trivial (and that gray parsing SAM would still blame the Healer if the party hit an Enrage) - then "extreme failure" isn't allowed, and likely won't be.

But, again, I think the solution is a joint one: Make SCH SB again. Make AST SB again. Leave WHM alone. Tune SGE up around the edges. Then launch the expansion and see who gravitates to what and which Healers get played and to what extent. From there, more decisions can be made if necessary, though it may not even be necessary at that point.

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Originally Posted by ForsakenRoe

Clearly what they should do is this: add damage tools (the quicker fix), under the pretense of 'oh yeh we're doing this so healers have something to do in 7.0, so that by 8.0 we'll have had a bigger time window to work out a better solution (eg, making fights actually do damage)'

Then if/when it turns out that actually, more damage tools WAS the solution all along, just nix the last part and say 'well we WERE going to look into alternatives, but the extra damage options were so well received we figured 'why rock the boat', so we'll be going ahead with adding even more damage options in 8.0'

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Firstly: One could argue this for damage changes instead (e.g. encounter damage and oGCD cooldown, potency, and abundance decreasing)

Secondly: We could just do this with one Healer from each category (Pure and Barrier) and then run the test that way. Because if we do it all at once to all the Healers and it DOESN'T work, then what? All of 7.X there's a massive Healer shortage and almost no one can clear any content? That's a pretty big gamble...

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Originally Posted by ASkellington

Yes the push back is more damage spells because...

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*ahem* Yeah, that is an example of the typical response. :)

(1) Fights wouldn't need to be remade. First of all, they TEND not to make a lot of changes other than a few balance tweaks on previous bosses. Second of all...you didn't really give a reason that fights would need to be remade. If the oGCDs were removed/weakened, you'd need GCDs for those cases you mention, and GCDs we still have. I'm not saying which is faster, I'm saying which is the problem. More DPS spells is a band-aid treating the symptom, not a treatment addressing the cause. It's saying "Encounter design sucks, but with a DPS rotation I'm slightly less bored (and people who don't like DPS rotations now hate playing the game)", which isn't a solution. It's like if you have a snake wrapped around your throat strangling you so you can't talk giving you a notepad and a pen so you can communicate despite the situation. It's not actually fixing anything.

(2) I think is more a case of balance/tuning and that FFXIV is designed to be much more strict and rigid than, say, FFXI is. Though I'm genuinely curious of the logic behind Repose vs Sleep. At one time, when they were Cross-Class, it might have made sense, but they aren't anymore. Casters have Lucid, why don't Healers have Sleep? There's no logic to it that I can tell. We don't have an AOE Esuna...but when do we NEED one? Like......ever? We have other tools besides damage. Mitigation actually is one. A part of me wishes they'd give the DPS mitigation kits to Healers. People certainly are quick to blame Healers when they die due to not enough mit, so may as well let us actually be the masters of mitigation.

(3) Is complex because a lot of people play Healers EXPLICITLY BECAUSE they don't like DPS rotations. I personally don't like DPS rotations. I avoid playing DPSers if at all possible. I will Tank for friends before I'll DPS because their "dps rotations" are slimmed down. I've never played a class in any type of MMO where I enjoyed the damage rotations on it. Ever. I've never found any that I liked, just some I hated slightly less than others, like Cataclysm Arcane Mage in WoW, which didn't play too differently than FFXIV Healers do. HOWEVERR, as I've noted before, the solution may be to mix and match. Give some Healer Jobs more DPS rotations and others less so players who like either can pick the one that matches their preference. But legit, giving Healers complex DPS rotations would probably cause an exodus of Healer players, and some would leave the game entirely since there are no other options. It MIGHT get some DPSers to try out Healing (GNB did with Tanking), but that was ONE Job in the role, not all four. It was what I was hoping SGE would do and was surprised when it did not.

(4) Honestly, I enjoy playing old content on WHM just fine. Again, this is a case of different people liking different things, I think. And there's only one solution that would actually satisfy everyone. And it's not giving all the Healers more DPS buttons...

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Originally Posted by ASkellington

Boss mechanics, as I've said, are way too spaced out (want a good example? Smileton is ridiculous with it) and again, don't usually hit random party members so you don't even have to do spot healing which would break it up. AoEs are too avoidable. Which usually leaves unavoidable raid wides and tank busters. Well tanks mitigate tank busters and they don't really hurt. And raid wides also, don't hurt. And both always come on a long enough cool down to where you have something up, even in lower levels.

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This I somewhat agree with, though. But keep in mind those examples are from casual content for the most part. Don't cast a heal for all of P5S and see how far the party can prog before wiping. Heals ARE needed, they're just needed in short bursts, all at once, via overpowered oGCDs. That's the problem.

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Originally Posted by ASkellington

That requires a major rework of too many fights for it to be feasible (and in some cases it doesn't need to be that drastic but you get the point) and I don't see SE even MAKING fights in the upcoming expansion like this let alone fixing older ones, which is why we ask for damage.

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They wouldn't rework any of them. Just as they haven't gone back and made all ARR and HW fights require EW oGCD toolkits. If you could go into ANY of those old encounters ilevel synced but with your full EW toolkit, they'd be trivial because of the amount of mitigations the Tanks have and how many oGCDs the Healers have. The team don't worry about old content outside of making sure players can still clear it. Any changes like this are forward looking. Prior content you can already unsync and completely one-shot, and the Devs aren't going back and changing it all. That's not the way they work.

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Originally Posted by Renathras

snip

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1. Is still a thing because it doesn't matter if I use a GCD or an oGCD. Damage is still infrequent. For damage to be more frequent, fights would have to change. Healing with Benefic 2 over Essential Dignity or A. Helios over my 4 oGCDs is just as engaging. So yes, fights would need to be rebalanced still if you want healing to be more fun, and that's not even including how our healing kit also would likely need to change.

2. Is on SE's dumb part. And I'm not waiting for them to reintroduce support tools OTHER than mitigation, which was my point. Addle, Feint? I don't care if we have those. They're a press of the button and done really and nothing truly interesting to deal with. We have our own versions of mitigation. I want some support OTHER that mitigation. Where is MP restore? Gone because we have 0 mana costs (another thing that makes healing boring btw). Why DON'T we have an AOE esuna and fights designed around using it? Why again CAN'T we use Repose/Sleep on a boss as a way to Interject? THOSE are the support tools I am asking for and SE stubbornly refuses to give. So again - damage.


3. There is 0 reason why all healers cannot have a Phlegma and another DoT to make solo content less tedious. That isn't a damage rotation like a dps. Do all healers need SCH's dps kit in SB? No. But does it need to stay 1 DoT and 1 nuke? Also no. AST or any other healer can have a small dps kit if there is to be more of a focus on something else or for it be easier, but there is 0 reason for one to stay as it is right now.

I agree with you, however that not all the healers should be brought to SCH's SB level, but ALL of them do need to be changed.

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Originally Posted by ASkellington

...

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(1) Right, but what I mean is that isn't an argument to change past designs. Leaving them alone makes them no worse than now. Even infrequent, that damage would be addressed by a GCD, thus breaking up the Glarespam. And the goal is to make healing in current content more engaging, not in redoing the entire game - your more DPS buttons solution wouldn't help since you wouldn't be getting them until SB or later content, so you'd still be going 60+ levels before you'd see anything that isn't Aero/Stone.

(2) I'm confused. You were complaining that we don't have more to do that isn't damage or healing, then complain that you don't want THAT not-damage thing. If we had fights designed around using Esuna, an AOE Esuna would trivialize them. I agree it'd be nice if we had fights that used Esuna, but fights that use Esuna would mean that we SHOULDN'T have an AOE Esuna. How is using an AOE Esuna in response to a debuff any different than using an AOE Afflataus Rapture in response to a damage wave? It's not. We dont' use Repose/Sleep on bosses as an interrupt because NO ONE interrupts bosses. Tanks have interrupts and don't use them on bosses because bosses don't have anything interruptable, and if they did, a Tanks oGCD would be the optimal tool to use, not a cast time spell that everyone would tell you you're bad for using just like people say PLD's using Clemency or RDM's using Vercure are bad. My point is you're asking for something other than healing to do...and then limiting it from the things we can actually have that aren't healing and saying the only thing you'd accept is stuff you know isn't going to happen. It's a tilted argument from the start.

(3) Solo content isn't tedious to a lot of people. There's zero reason all Healers NEED those. I think the problem here is that you think that all Healer players want what you do and feel the way you do. Many players find WHM, for example, fun and engaging. People solo Deep Dungeons on it, do MSQ on it, etc, and don't find it tedious or boring. It's explicitly WHY I think we should change SOME Healers but not ALL of them, so that both types of player have at least one they enjoy playing on. There's only one Healer in the game that has 1 DoT + 1 Nuke, and that's AST.

(4) When I say I don't think they all need to be changed, I'm genuine in that appraisal. It's not laziness or even familiarity that makes me think WHM is in a good place. I genuinely believe it IS. I think the encounter designs are wonky and that all the Healers should have less powerful oGCD tools. I won't repeat my full analysis here, but I genuinely believe that oGCD tools should be of two types - weak but commonly available tools (largely to augment GCDs, in some cases as quick semi-emergeny tools like Tetra or Benison could be) and powerful but rarely available tools (like when Benediction was a 6 min or whatever CD ability that you carefully planned for or only used in response to emergencies). That is, things you use alongside your GCDs (small/short) or things you save and use for emergencies or carefully planned events (big/long). The rest of the healing should be more GCD based, which also would mean things like MP would actually matter, and Jobs like Casters having that SB MP transfer ability would make sense and allow for skill expression and utility in other Roles as well. WHM MOSTLY has this going for it, with the only exception being that Lilies are MP free, but that's an acceptable compromise to me. I'd like it if WHM's other GCDs generated Blood Lily as well, so that the trade off between Medica and Rapture was MP and immobility vs mobility at the cost of consuming a resource, but that would make it a meaningful choice on the part of the WHM as to which to use as opposed to the automatic decision that Rapture is automatically better, or if it's about to be up, Assize and just forget using a GCD entirely. Further, as discussed in this thread, WHM is the Healer right now that has the least reliance on its spam GCD damage button; an unexpected thing that I don't think anyone really saw coming.

Note that this is also a place where Healers COULD be more distinct from each other, less homogenized and less samey. I liked the WHM/SCH dichotomy of ARR, which worked because WHMs were GCD direct healers while SCHs were more combat oriented Cleric stance with Lustrate/Eos oGCD side healing. The two worked well together and the two appealed to COMPLETELY different types of player...and pretty much everyone was happy with it. Both could clear lower level/casual content, and in hard team content, each had a place and stood side by side while appealing to disparate player types. This wasn't some other MMO, this wasn't 1.0, this was ARR. And it worked. SCH as an oGCD Healer focusing more of their GCD effort on DPS while activating oGCDs for healing, WHM as a GCD healer (which is still is today via Lilies, people just tend not to think of those as GCDs because they're instant and feed into Misery, a damage spell) focused more on party health bars and doing light filler damage when their attention wasn't needed on healing.

WHM is the only one more or less where it needs to be right now, I think. The only straight up change I think it really NEEDS is to make Plenary a lesser (5%) damage reduction so WHM has as many mits as AST does, even if they're different types. This is the single and only area it cannot compete with the other three Healers since they ALL have at least relatively available mit and WHM does not. Once Temperance is burned, that's it, they're reliant on someone else in the party to mitigate for the next 120 seconds.

If I was going to make any more changes, the second change I'd make is for all WHM GCD heals to generate 1/3rd Blood Lily, and the third I'd make is to make Cure 2 a straight upgrade (same cast time and MP cost) of Cure 1. I think it'd be 5-7th change on my list before I would even get into DPS spells, and it would probably be something like make Assize a GCD with a 40 sec CD and 2 charges, and to add a low level "Water" spell that is an AOE CNJ would get around level 15 or so that upgrades to Holy at 45 so low level WHM's would have an AOE tool. (I think of FF9's Vivi's Water spell where it makes a big sphere that floats up then bursts - kinda like Holy does.)

SGE I think is close-ish. I feel like Toxicon needs to be damage neutral so that SGE using its GCD barriers (maybe heals, too, but definitely barriers) can actually generate more of it. Outside of that, a second short duration Kardia it can place on a second target (basically a variation of Synastry/WoW PLD Beacon of Light that lasts for ~3-4 GCDs), as well as an AOE one. Basically give it those tools on shortish (45-60 sec?) CDs so that they can actually do most of their healing with Kardia augmented a bit by Addersgall and have their big CDs be big/long CDs as outlined above, possibly with a touch of pruning. SGE having a damage rotation is a fine thought, and would work well with the extra Kardia options, but isn't strictly necessary for it to be where it needs to be, it's more an added bonus if we're extra frisky.

SCH and AST, on the other hand...are NOT where they need to be.

They are the ones casting their Broil/Malific the most, and they are the ones with weird optimization and battle systems. SCH has Ruin 2 but no reason to use it.

SCH has the most powerful and extensive oGCD kit in the game aside from MAYBE AST yet doesn't use Ruin 2 to employ them nor has a second DoT to use with its lesser need/reliance on GCDs and more free GCD slots to burn. Hell, a 15 sec duration SHADOW FLARE (GCD 2.5 sec cast) would give them SOMEthing (and, bonus points, work in AOE too!), as would Miasma and/or Miasma 2, etc.

AST has the simplest GCD rotation of all the Healers, yet its oGCDs are too powerful to make meaningful gameplay choices with them, and its Card system we've talked about at length needing adjustment. Many people would even agree that AST doesn't need more damage buttons as they'd overwhelm its players, what it needs is a more interesting Card system and a more effective way to use them. It's one reason my suggestion for AST is to make Cards on the GCD to give them a bit more time between all the target/retargeting they need to do, and this would also making having more interesting Cards that require more thinking WORK.

I'm not being a contrarian when I say it:

I don't think all the Healers DO need to be changed.

I think SCH and AST absolutely do.

I think SGE might need some changes but also largely works.

I think WHM is more or less where it needs to be and would take it as-is, though I'd accept a few tweaks that give it more engagement with its GCD HEALING kit.

It's interesting how frequently that you respond with rebuttal such as "Solo content isn't tedious to a lot of people. There's zero reason all Healers NEED those. I think the problem here is that you think that all Healer players want what you do and feel the way you do. Many players find WHM, for example, fun and engaging"

You are backing up your opinion, and based upon likely empirical evidence and claiming it as fact- when you aren't providing any factual evidence (independently sourced metrics) to back it up.

Given that- it remains an argument of one person's preference versus another person's preference. You are "being a contrarian" , you have held to some positions- one for example being "It's explicitly WHY I think we should change SOME Healers but not ALL of them, so that both types of player have at least one they enjoy playing on. There's only one Healer in the game that has 1 DoT + 1 Nuke, and that's AST." - you are absolutely entitled to your opinion, however that isn't one that everyone holds.

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Originally Posted by Renathras

Revolt

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This occurred because of a combination of reasons.

They removed Energy Drain without reallocating the MP restore from it.
They increased the cost of Addlo/Succor to ridiculous levels that made them unsustainable.
Both Quickened Aetherflow and the Fairy Gauge required burning thru excess stacks to make the most out of them but with nothing but Lustrate there was very few ways to utilize either of them without overhealing.
Couple this with the butchering of WHM and the Revolt was inevitable. Viva la revolución.

As for what I would like for heals to do, being a part of a cohesive toolkit would be a nice start. There's too much overlap in terms of what skills do and no real justification for it. Why would I ever hit Cure 2 before Afflatus Solace or Tetra? Medica over Rapture or Assize when it lines up? There simply isn't any reason to do so because the former all have cast times and MP costs associated with them on top of being a DPS loss to utilize whereas the latter don't. I would like there to be a reason other than "shit has hit the fan". If Healers could also differentiate themselves from one another that would be a great bonus on top.

So, keeping with WHM for a moment, here's what I would do.

1. Turn Solace/Rapture into traits for Cure 2/Medica. If you have a Lily up, they turn into the corresponding skill. Throw in an Afflatus version of Cure 3 as well for good measure.
2. Return Aero 3 but have it and Dia function similarly to BLM's Thunder Spells so they don't overlap and include the Thundercloud proc into the mix, going off of Regen/Medica 2, so that good Regen uptime is actually rewarding to accomplish. With them frontloading their DoT damage on the initial hit, not only would they do slightly more damage than the 2 Glares that would be lost from Regens->Aeros but you also have short timers to maintain again, much like what people miss with the removal of DoT playstyles.
3. I would have Tetra grant a Lily upon usage as to justify why it has the longest CD and lowest potency of all the ST healing CDs.
4. I'd lower the CD of Temperance down to 60s and just flat out remove PI. Between Regens actually being worth a damn to keep up frequently, Afflatus skills now including Cure 3 in the mix and Temperance being a 60s CD, there's no real need for PI anymore. Only other option would be to turn it into an AoE Shield Effect and I wouldn't argue if that was the case but the current form of PI wouldn't be needed with the rest of the changes.

That pretty much leaves the oGCDs like Asylum, Assize, etc unaccounted for but that's the gist of what I would do with WHM. I might be more inclined to revert the 1.5s cast time on Glare back to 2.5 and give it Water/Flood as a Ruin 2 equivalent skill just to further differentiate it from the other healers but that just trades the 1.5s cast time for a Ruin 2 skill so its not that much of a difference.

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Originally Posted by IDontPetLalas

It's interesting how frequently that you respond with rebuttal such as "Solo content isn't tedious to a lot of people. There's zero reason all Healers NEED those. I think the problem here is that you think that all Healer players want what you do and feel the way you do. Many players find WHM, for example, fun and engaging"

You are backing up your opinion, and based upon likely empirical evidence and claiming it as fact- when you aren't providing any factual evidence (independently sourced metrics) to back it up.

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Yet another attempt to derail a thread. Where to even begin? I'll stick this in an HB so it doesn't derail the thread itself.

1) There is not "zero reason" for any Healer to stay as it is now. There are several, which I've articulated before and some here. In brief:

- Some people like Healers as they are right now and wouldn't like the changes. This is AT THE VERY LEAST a reason to keep AT LEAST ONE Healer as it exists presently.
- Some of the Healer kits right now actually work very well, both in the game system/mechanics terms and in the kit's identity. WHM and SGE, as I've discussed previously, both do. There's a risk to "fixing what isn't broken".
- The Devs don't exactly have a track record of "fixing" Jobs that ends up with more people happy with them than there were before their changes. PLD, Kaiten, and SMN are the shortlist (though I contend they probably got it right with SMN, but still alienated a lot of people by removing Green Mage)
- Changing some but not all Healer kits reduces the risk of Healer role collapse if the changes aren't well received. Say for the sake of argument we add more DPS kits to all the Healers, but it turns out it was only a small minority that wanted them and, in fact, the majority of Healers in the game very much did not, to the point they quit the role or quit the game. Perhaps there are additional new Healers from the other roles, but not enough to make up the difference and we have the worst Healer shortage in the game's history, far worse than SB or 6.2. That problem wouldn't materialize if one or two of the Healer Jobs were not changed, since many of those players would migrate to those Jobs instead of leaving the role/game, either minimizing or preventing the collapse and allowing the changed Jobs to attract new members to the role without causing the high level of losses that changing all of the Healer Jobs would result in.

There are more, but there are three reasons. And as we know from math, 3 does not equal 0. So there are not zero reasons, there are several, for not changing all the Healer kits.

2) Note that I use "a lot" or "some" while other people use absolute terms, such as "to make solo content less tedious" (implicitly assuming that solo content is tedious to everyone when it is not); interesting that you have no issue with false absolute statements - which are opinions presenting themselves as facts - while my own positions are more limited and measured - because I recognize that they are not universal. "a lot" is not a majority. 1000 is a lot. In a game of 4-5 million players and 500,000-1 million healers, 10 thousand would still be a lot. Do you really believe there are NOT a lot of players who are fine with Healers as they are? Really? Likewise "many". Note I'm not the one claiming total or majority support of my positions. I'm also the one that holds that even if you guys WERE a minority, I'd still want you to have something you enjoy; a consideration none of you, over months of threads, have extended to those who don't think like you do, I might add...

3) I'm basing my opinion on the fact that we have a diverse playerbase and it is HIGHLY probable that a not insignificant percentage of them think like I do. I base this on the fact that I think like a more traditional MMO healer and that many players do not frequent the forums and seem not to have the complaints that you do. Again, I make no statements on the SIZE of this population other than it is non-zero and consists of a not-insignificant amount of people. I've estimated before it could be anywhere from 15-70%, where even at the lowest end, it would still comprise around 1/6th to 1/5th of all Healers - an entirely reasonable position given MMO populations, the relatively few Healers that come to the forums to voice complaints, etc. An entirely reasonable position that, again, none of you seem willing to admit to (since it would likely justify an argument to leave at least one Healer alone...)

4) I claimed nothing "as fact", though what I said very likely IS true - "a lot of people" likely do not find Healer solo content tedious, and "Many players" likely do find WHM fun and engaging. A not insignificant, non-zero number of Healer players do not think as you do (note that one isn't a likely; that one IS true, though it's impossible to say what that non-zero number is)

5) None of you have provided factual evidence or independently sourced metrics to back up your position that even a majority of Healers want the changes you propose, nor a commanding enough majority to have them all changed, nor that there are no minorities of any size that would disagree and be deserving of at least one left for them, nor that there are NO such people (a statement you'd know is a lie because I'm one such person, proving it's a non-zero number). Contrasting that, I have, in various threads, provided census numbers, clear rates, and ability analysis across the game's history - which is far more than any of you have done. The closest is an anecdotal statement (with no actual statistical support or data presented) that Healer numbers have collapsed post P5-8 release. Yet you attack me for my position which is far more sourced and supported than your own, which hasn't been by you or any of the posters agreeing with your position...

6)

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Originally Posted by IDontPetLalas

Given that- it remains an argument of one person's preference versus another person's preference.

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You mean the very thing I have stated numerous times up to this point?? That we all have different preferences and that the Healer/playerbase likely has a spread of preferences such that the Healers should NOT be made all the same (simple OR complex) as that would be denying many people a Healer Job that appeals to their preferences? THANK YOU for agreeing with me. Though it's rather untoward of you to do so only by acting like I didn't already hold that very selfsame position before you here. Indeed, I hold it now and you do not - your post indicates that you still think my position is not held by others, or at least, not by enough to matter.

7)

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Originally Posted by IDontPetLalas

You are "being a contrarian" , you have held to some positions- one for example being "It's explicitly WHY I think we should change SOME Healers but not ALL of them, so that both types of player have at least one they enjoy playing on. There's only one Healer in the game that has 1 DoT + 1 Nuke, and that's AST."

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I hope you realize "stating a fact" is not "being a contrarian". Unless you thought I meant the other Healers don't have 1 DoT + 1 Nuke? My statement was that only one Healer has that AND NOTHING ELSE. Though it's not MUCH else, WHM has Misery, SCH has Ruin 2 (ED isn't a GCD), and SCH has Plegma/Toxicon/Pneuma. Stating a fact isn't stating an opinion. And even if it were; stating an opinion isn't being a contrarian. Being a contrarian is choosing to hold or present a position opposite everyone else's for no other reason than that you want to hold/present an opposed position. In my case, I present my position as I said above - because I genuinely believe it.

8)

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Originally Posted by IDontPetLalas

you are absolutely entitled to your opinion, however that isn't one that everyone holds.

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Irony, thy name is...

You realize that I'm the only one here who HASN'T stated my position is universal and that everyone holds it, or some statement close enough to that to make no difference? I'm the one here who couches my statements with "many", "some", "a lot", "a not-insignificant amount", and so on; implicitly if not explicitly NOT saying my position is majority, much less universal. While you guys describe your opinions as universal truths, what I do is call your attention to the fact they are not universal.

When I many people don't think or feel as you do, that's not me saying NO ONE does or that EVERYONE agrees with me.

It's me saying a not-insignificant, non-zero amount of people disagree with you. It could be a minority, it could be a plurality, it could be a majority. I don't know, so I don't say. But it's not zero, and it's not insignificant. You're the one supporting posters arguing that your position is absolute, or near enough to not matter.

You are absolutely entitled to your opinion (something I've said many times), however that isn't one that everyone holds. And no, I'm not turning your words against you - these are literally the same words I've said many times before now, and in threads you've been an active part in. You can't not know that I hold this position. Especially as you often act as if you do not...

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Originally Posted by Silver-Strider

This occurred because of a combination of reasons.

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I agree, but the point still remains: The Devs tried to say something about what they wanted Healer design to be and the community refused to accept it. Set aside Energy Drain (for the MP issue) and note that the community also largely (or, if a minority, a vocal one that is still of significant size) has rejected the push towards Healers dealing less damage or having less involved damage kits. You can list any number of reasons for this, but the end result is the same - the Devs took actions in one direction and the community refused to accept it.

I also am confused: What "butchering of WHM"?

WHM was only "butchered" in SB, it was made whole in ShB, not "butchered". And arguably HW. Removing Aero 3 to add Misery and the fantastic ShB Lily system that made WHM not suck anymore like it did in SB - there's no rational person I've ever seen argue that SB WHM was actually good when pressed - was not a "butchering". WHM in ShB was better than WHM in SB, full stop. AT WORST it was a side grade, but it wasn't a side grade, it was an improvement. WHM in EW is, as this very thread has pointed out, more developed, engaging, and WORKS than ShB or SB. And yes, that's all that was changed for WHM from SB to ShB. Aero 3 was removed (Aero 1 had been removed in 4.0), Presence of Mind 2 (the redundant non-toggle Cleric Stance) was removed (Cleric Stance 1.0 was removed in 4.0), the terribad 4.0 Lily system was removed, the generally considered pointless Fluid Aura was removed and replaced with the actually good Divine Benison (Fluid Aura was made worthless in 4.0, not 5.0), and the actually good Lilies (which at the time weren't damage neutral but were arguably close to it) were added and WHM was actually considered a worthwhile healer in ShB where it was considered bad in SB. WHM also got a 1.5 sec Glare in 6.0 to use for weaving (something it, unlike SCH who had Ruin 2, arguably actually needs; recasting Dia over and over during the Bozja Wraith miniboss fight because I had NOTHING ELSE on WHM to use while moving and Glare's cast was too long to slidecast at all with felt terrible) which was also an improvement.

I think the ONE thing I might consider reverting from EW would be Thin Air, though this targeted one is kind of growing on me, I did like the 15 seconds of free casting...

I'm trying to think of anything else of value changed from SB to ShB, and I can't think of anything. The only thing lost of any worth was Aero 3. The other stuff was either already made worthless/pointless in 4.0 or already removed outright in 4.0.

Anyway, getting to it:

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Originally Posted by Silver-Strider

Why would I ever hit Cure 2 before Afflatus Solace or Tetra? Medica over Rapture or Assize when it lines up? There simply isn't any reason to do so because the former all have cast times and MP costs associated with them on top of being a DPS loss to utilize whereas the latter don't. I would like there to be a reason other than "shit has hit the fan". If Healers could also differentiate themselves from one another that would be a great bonus on top.

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I literally just proposed a solution for this:

1) Make Cure 1 upgrade to Cure 2 (direct upgrade, so Cure 2's MP cost would be 400 and cast time 1.5 sec base; AST nearly has this already and WHM is the one that's supposed to be the strong throughput Healer)

2) Make all WHM GCDs generate 1/3rd Blood Lily on use (that is, they're now all damage neutral). This makes all GCD heals for WHM be a choice - "Do I want to stand still and expend MP on this, or do I want to expend a limited resource that I might rather save for movement later?", as the damage being neutral between Cure 2 and Solace or Medica and Rapture makes it an actual choice rather than one being objectively better. You only have one Lily and expect a movement heavy mechanic coming within the next 10-15 seconds before you have another Lily up? In such cases, Medica/Cure 2 or even Medica 2 for the HoT might be better to cast now so you have that Lily for the upcoming movement phase. It provides an actual choice because there are actual use case differences and trade-offs, even if they heal for the same potency. Right now, that choice doesn't exist because Medica/Cure 2 incur an MP, movement, and damage penalty, and the last one of those is too damning to make them usable. (Also the 400 MP Cure 2 cost - hell, even 500 - would make it MP neutral vs a Glare cast)

3) PROBABLY have Medica 1 upgrade to Medica 2. It's a flat upgrade, it just needs its tooltip adjusted. Medica 1 can read "250 potency heal, Regen 150 potency for 3 sec" (one tick, maybe two ticks). Medica 2 has its MP cost reduced by 100 and is now a straight upgrade, problem solved.

Now the basic healing kit is:

Cure 2 / Solace / Tetra for single target healing. Solace has higher priority if you have Lilies to spare and/or no movement coming up, Cure 2 if you have 1 or less Lilies and/or expect movement to be coming up, Tetra if you need an immediate spot heal regardless of whatever else you're doing (if you're mid-cast on a Glare, Solace will be too slow). They now have distinct use cases and Cure 2 and Solace have trade-offs to make using one or the other both justifiable choices (actual choice!) based on the situation, with Tetra being more of a backup item in case of emergencies.

Medica 2 / Rapture for AOE healing, with the same Cure 2/Solace argument of MP and cast time vs movement and a limited resource. Assize is still used on CD as long as it has the damage component (which no one is arguing to remove), so is only part of the equation if it's about to come off CD or has JUST come off CD and you don't mind a few seconds drift on it. There's an argument to make Assize have 2 charges, but that would upend this, so better not. Again, this is actual choice rather than one option always being better by default.

My goal in any changes is to increase player choice and remove "this one is always better" situations. At least, for stuff like this. Doing things like having Cure 2/Medica replaced with Solace/Rapture if a Lily is up removes choice.

4) Making Plenary a minor (5% or 10% on a shorter duration) party mitigation would patch the hole WHM presently has. Temparance down to 60 seconds helps, but WHM would still be one short vs the other Healers and most encounters. If you're actually trying in 4 mans (where you have no other Healer), you start to notice really quickly that the other three have 3 mitigations per 2 mins but WHM does not. For example, Ra La's raidwides or the final boss from Alzadaal's Legacy have either a party-wide every 30 second or a bit more often than 60 sec (I for get which), and where even AST has a CD for that, WHM does not and its noticeable. While in more serious content you SHOULD always have a second Healer, even AST has tools for that. So unless we're removing mitigations from the other Healers (something I oppose), WHM needs to gain ~2 per 120 sec over what it has now.

.

I personally oppose the "if you have a Lily up" idea - yours isn't the first time I've seen it - because there ARE cases where I want to hold a Lily for something, and removing that choice is not an improvement. It's akin to arguing that Tanks/Melee/MCH should have their 1-2-3 condensed into a single button. Note that if all the GCDs were instant cast base, that WOULDN'T be an issue, but the only one that is is Regen. Also note this isn't an issue with Cure 1 (which I see no reason not to remove) because it doesn't really have a distinct use case. The use case for Cure 1 is EXTREMELY narrow - you have less than 1000 MP but greater than 400 MP and/or you need a heal in less than 2 seconds but greater than 1.5 sec. This is not true of Medica/Cure 2, which have distinct use cases. It'd be like telling a BLM that Xenoglossy and Fire 4 were basically the same thing and to turn the Fire 4 button into Xenoglossy whenever a Polyglot stack is up. While both have the effect of "does damage", and you DO want to use Polyglot stacks before overcapping, the use cases are still distinct. And if Medica/Cure 2/etc all generated 1/3rd Blood Lily, there would actually be a viable trade-off there that presently does not exist - there are cases where you wish to conserve limited resources and where MP would not be your most limiting resource.

I'm a bit confused about your Aero 3. By "similarly to BLM's Thunder Spells", do you mean the way Thunder 2/4 are AOE only and Thunder 1/3 are single target only? I'm not sure that's worth justifying another Hotbar slot, honestly. I'm also a bit confused on your Thundercloud proc. Wouldn't that end up with people complaining they have to overheal with Regen/Medica 2? And by "proc" you mean "not guaranteed", right? Meaning if it doesn't proc, using them would be a DPS loss? Where if we just make them contribute to the Blood Lily, they're guaranteed damage neutral...

Also: Not everyone likes having "short timers to maintain". Especially if we change the other Healers to where they all DO have them...

Making Water/Flood a Ruin 2 equivalent wouldn't differentiate it, it would make it look more like SCH while contributing to button bloat with no gain; even if we just look at your model (not mine), Regen would be the preferred instant cast GCD weave, not Water/Ruin 2. Making Water a low level AOE that upgrades into Holy would actually make it more distinct...

.

But, allow me to veer to a different question:

What would you do with SCH and AST?

EVERYONE seems to want to change WHM - the one Healer that needs changing the least - but we don't all even agree on that.

But EVERYONE agrees that SCH and AST need to be changed...so instead of proposals for WHM, what would you propose for the Healers we all agree should be changed?

Or do we all agree so much you just agree with my own stated positions on both, such as bringing back all of SCH's SB abilities and making AST Cards on the GCD?

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Originally Posted by Renathras

WHM butchering

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I was referring to SB WHM, which happened alongside the 1st attempt to remove Energy Drain.

We'll have to agree to disagree about the proposed changes to WHM.

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What would you do with SCH and AST?

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I'm just gonna copy over some ideas I had for SCH from another thread. Although it's somewhat more controversial than my WHM suggestions.

Just bear with me as it's far from being complete given that SCH has a vast array of gameplay elements to it, from the pet, to Aetherflow, to Energy Drain, etc. that I needed to consider and for all of my theorycrafting, I am still not 100% on some of the suggestions myself as of yet nor do I have ideas for some skills. The overall Goal was to reduce the need for our oGCD heals by both expending the DPS toolkit to provide some level of utility and to make the GCD healing toolkit work in a way that would benefit DPS but not handicap the healing side of things. There are some buffs to the oGCD healing side of things but there is also some skills that I want to remove.

GCD healing:
Addlo could be given a damage reflection element to it.
Succor could be used for both healing and to refresh/extend SCH's DoTs.

Physick I am at a loss. Upgrading it to Addlo at level 30 is an obvious solution but then there's also the option of just making every healer's Cure 1 equivalent skill have an Esuna effect added to them. You remove 1 skill either way so they both work.

DPS:
Broil and Ruin 2 now offer 5 Fairy Gauge.
Miasma returns and stacks with Bio with both having a 50% proc to grant 5 gauge per tic.
Shadowflare returns as an oGCD DoT that lasts 15s on a 60s CD but instead of a Slow effect, it grants the Protraction effect to any ally that enters the Dome for 10s. This way, it can remain useful for all content since most bosses are immune to the Slow effect and it would normally be centered on the Tank since that's where the enemies generally are so that they can still receive the benefits of Protraction.
Bane is added as a 15s DoT on a 60s CD that doesn't build Fairy Gauge but turns the ability into Fester. Using Fester causes Bane's DoT to expire but reduces the damage the Target does by 5% for the remaining duration of Bane's DoT timer upon use.

Aetherflow: I am honestly completely stumped here.
Indom is in contention with Fey Blessing and Succor now so would we really need it? Either Indom or Blessing would need to go but I'm more invested in keeping Blessing than Indom since otherwise it becomes harder to balance the Fairy Gauge unless I add a new Fairy Ability, which defeats the purpose of reducing the over abundance of oGCD healing tools.
The can of worms that is Energy Drain is also something that I can't really think of what to do with. SCH should have plenty of DPS tools now that it wouldn't really need it and if we're reducing oGCD healing tools, we might need to use more Aetherflow abilities more often.

Fairies:
Eos
Whispering Dawn now lasts for 15s with a cure potency of 120. 60s CD remains unchanged.
Fey Blessing CD reduced to 30s
Fey Illumination now provides a 15% Healing buff with 8% mitigation on a 60s CD
Selene
Whispering Dawn now lasts for 24s with a cure potency of 75. 60s CD remains unchanged.
Fey Blessing CD reduced to 30s. Provides a 380 potency Shield instead of a heal.
Fey Covenant provides a 15% mitigation effect with a 8% Healing Buff on a 60s CD.

Fairy Gauge:
Starts off at 100 upon entering an instance.
Whispering Dawn, Fey Blessing and Fey Covenant/Illumination cost 25 gauge.
Aetherpact costs 50 gauge and summons your unused fairy to the target to provide healing for 15s. This way you can use your other fairy skills without needing to worry about the tether turning off.
Seraph costs 50 gauge but Angel's Whisper, Consolation and Seraph Illumination can be cast without cost.

Misc:
Dissipation no longer dispels your fairy nor grants Aetherflow but instead allows the use of 1 fairy ability with no cost.
Alternatively, Dissipation and Recitation could be reworked to allow 1 free Aetherflow or Fairy ability usage with 2 charges, Recitation just allowing the skill to Crit over Dissipation.
Expendant is also something I hesitate to touch since it's still useful, even after the nerf but with the buff to Covenant/Illumination, do we need it?

Like I said, it's a work in progress and it might not provide the full picture of anything either but hopefully, it can at least give some context to my thought process.

As for AST, I've never really given it as much thought as WHM or SCH, which are my preferred jobs, so I'm not really sure on how to improve on it much.
I suppose the main thing I would do would be to separate cards into 2 categories, Major/Minor Arcana.
Major Arcana would provide the generic DPS card buffs. Whether they remain just flat damage buffs or focus more on stat buffs can go either way for me really.
Minor Arcana would be support cards that grant mitigation, extra healing, or shielding.
I'd change Undraw to Hand of Fate, that turns the currently drawn card into Lord/Lady of Crown instead of being a meaningless button.
While I hesitate to change their healing skills since they work fine, something that I would like to see would be an emphasis on Regens. Similar to how old CO would extend the duration of buffs that the AST gave, I would like to see that mechanic return as well as an inverse of it where they could trade away a Regen to turn it into a burst heal instead.
I don't really see a reason to keep the Seal system either. Astrodyne is a weak skill, even at 3 seals, that they could probably just turn it into a 2 minute buff with all 3 bonuses without it really impacting AST all that much.

Not really sure what else to do with AST though so take that with a grain of salt.

Edit: This is what happens when you post at 2am lol. I'll edit this to clarify some things.

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Originally Posted by Renathras

The problems this game has worst, imo, is when they make everything the same. This goes for making all Jobs simple but ALSO for making all Jobs complex. There should be a spectrum. In HW, when SCH was that way, WHM was not and AST was...well...AST.

Moreover, I think the reason for the "no way to fail" is because so many Healers quit the role in HW and SB that the Devs were trying to make it so people didn't have "Healxiety" and would actually que up as Healers more, since there were massive Healer shortages.

As you say, though I don't agree with it personally, the Devs also thought "Healing NEEDS to be easy." But that thought extends to Healer damage kits. They also NEED to be easy, otherwise almost no one will play them. People who want complex damage rotations play DPSers. Giving Healers a mediocre damage kit will just alienate the people who don't like damage rotations (and play Healers for that reason) while also not appealing to people who want a "real" DPS kit, who will keep playing DPSers. It will only please a narrow sliver of the population, like as not. Which could already be achieved by just giving SCH its SB kit back.

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I read all the other posts since this one I'm quoting but I have to ask about this specifically. Emphasis mine, just want to find out how you square this assertion with the data you posted in that other thread a while back, which says:

https://i.gyazo.com/26f0f9ed3bd9780d...0543f95ad5.png

At least, if I'm reading it right, that HW was the highest level of healer playerbase we've ever had and while there's currently an uptick of sorts, we've never been close to what we had back then? People quit in SB, I'll agree on that, the data says that too. But HW? It seems that, if these numbers are to be believed, HW was the peak of 'people want to play healer' and we've never had it anywhere close to as high as back then ever since, even with a new healer class being released

Yet another attempt to derail a thread. Where to even begin? I'll stick this in an HB so it doesn't derail the thread itself.

Yet you attack me for my position which is far more sourced and supported than your own, which hasn't been by you or any of the posters agreeing with your position...

6)
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IDontPetLalas's Avatar
Quote Originally Posted by IDontPetLalas View Post
Given that- it remains an argument of one person's preference versus another person's preference.
You mean the very thing I have stated numerous times up to this point?? That we all have different preferences and that the Healer/playerbase likely has a spread of preferences such that the Healers should NOT be made all the same (simple OR complex) as that would be denying many people a Healer Job that appeals to their preferences? THANK YOU for agreeing with me. Though it's rather untoward of you to do so only by acting like I didn't already hold that very selfsame position before you here. Indeed, I hold it now and you do not - your post indicates that you still think my position is not held by others, or at least, not by enough to matter.

So to address a number of points: as per (3) so you really don't have any idea of how many people share your position. Which is fine, neither does anyone else here on the forum - that does mean that throwing around "a lot" is extremely subjective, and no it doesn't derail the thread. That also impacts (4) for example - you just don't know. It could be 1 % of the healers, 5 or 20. No idea. 5) So hundreds of pages of healer feedback are meaningless ? In addition, in any change there are going to be minorities that disagree , that isn't going to ever be avoided. That shouldn't prevent change, it can however be managed, and it's something I handle all of the time (6) Nice try at taking my words out of context to justify your position of leaving "one healer as it is" but no, that isn't at all what that meant. (7) understood! (8) on this you are incorrect and I will leave it at that

Finally..there's the cherry on the cake mention of "attacking you". Really? Because your argument (not you personally) is challenged?

All I'm gonna say is, if SE had a PTR where we could test 'SB WHM, with current Lilies and skills added', I would put actual money on the vast majority saying 'this is great'. Maybe I'm wrong, and I'd lose my money on the bet, but I'm confident enough in my assertions to make it. We only have to have these 'nuh uh my way would be better' because we're unable to put them to the test. It's all well and good insisting that 'no if we had all the healers have actual skill ceilings (skill floor remains as is) then EVERYONE would quit and the servers would explode and Blizzard would buy out SE and turn the game into a glorified Hearthstone lobby' when there's no way to disprove that statement. But if we had a seperate client for 'testing' stuff, we could put some of these false assertions in the grave where they belong

It wouldn't even need to necessarily take server space. Could make a 'lab room' of just plain white nothing forever, with a training dummy in the center, and have the game client look at localhost instead of the server IP, and essentially 'host' the 'server' on the player's own machine. We've got the benchmark program, something similar with a 'playtest these moves for us and give feedback on the forums' should be doable. At least, if the 'spaghetti code' issue is as solved as they claim

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Originally Posted by ForsakenRoe

All I'm gonna say is, if SE had a PTR where we could test 'SB WHM, with current Lilies and skills added', I would put actual money on the vast majority saying 'this is great'. Maybe I'm wrong, and I'd lose my money on the bet, but I'm confident enough in my assertions to make it. We only have to have these 'nuh uh my way would be better' because we're unable to put them to the test. It's all well and good insisting that 'no if we had all the healers have actual skill ceilings (skill floor remains as is) then EVERYONE would quit and the servers would explode and Blizzard would buy out SE and turn the game into a glorified Hearthstone lobby' when there's no way to disprove that statement. But if we had a seperate client for 'testing' stuff, we could put some of these false assertions in the grave where they belong

It wouldn't even need to necessarily take server space. Could make a 'lab room' of just plain white nothing forever, with a training dummy in the center, and have the game client look at localhost instead of the server IP, and essentially 'host' the 'server' on the player's own machine. We've got the benchmark program, something similar with a 'playtest these moves for us and give feedback on the forums' should be doable. At least, if the 'spaghetti code' issue is as solved as they claim

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My disagreement stems from approaching it in the opposite direction; "SB WHM with current lilies and skills" is the logical equivalent to "Endwalker WHM plus Aero 3". I think "lol just add Aero 3 it'd make WHM good again" is...not something I see panning out, and in fact would slot into the folder of opinions I have labeled "Endwalker healer design is terrible, samey, and embarrassing...oh except WHM, suddenly when the white egg job stone is involved this horrible job design I spent the last two paragraphs lambasting is *chef's kiss* near pinnacle".

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Originally Posted by Renathras

What would you do with SCH and AST?

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https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...-revamp-theory.

Note that this was a few weeks after patch 4.1 early on in Stormblood. SCH had been course corrected after it's initial murder at the hands of 4.0.

If was to rewrite it today, I'd definitely take advantage of newer additions such as charges to add additional utility to abilities whilst avoiding bloat such as Fey Antithesis to swap fairies without the additional buffs whilst it was on cooldown to save likely needing to pocket Swiftcast after a Selene burst cycle.

Other than that I think it still holds up pretty well as a concept. It would fit in pretty well with the focus on burst windows that we have now whilst offering some flexibility if you fall out of sync removing the need to skip an entire 2 minute burst to get back in alignment with the group. IMHO it'd offer a little more potential for engagement with how powerful 'throwing' fairy abilities would be. Lastly, it'd give the illusion of being a very pet centric healer once again, despite the pet really being nothing more than a minion/crosshair. It'd reward aggressive play in a more meaningful manner than the speedy aetherflow IMO somewhat similar to how Misery rewards good usage of Lilies.

I've had different ideas of how to approach SCH in the past but here's my bingo card of things I'd want to see from a full SCH rework:

- Restore Miasma and Shadowflare; replace Biolysis with Bio III and upgrade Miasma to Miasma III.
- Separate Selene from Eos with something new where both feel valuable in different scenarios. No party buffs on Selene.
- Rework Aetherpact into a replacement for random casts of Embrace. Instead of your faerie casting heals constantly, you tether her to party members you want to have a permanent, weaker regen on. She can still activate faerie actions while tethered.
- Delete Dissipation.
- Rework Aetherflow into exclusively an offensive resource and rework the Fey Gauge into your resource for healing tools. For Aetherflow, cutting Energy Drain and making it more about Fester, Bane, and a third DoT, for example, or something to that effect would be the goal.

EDIT:
Also, as an additional brownie point, I want SCH to apply Toad to enemies somehow. Perhaps just adding that to Bane, or adding it to a mitigation debuff on enemies from Selene that toads and reduces damage dealt. I know it really isn't important, but it's fun for dungeons, deep dungeons, and any future Eureka/Bozja type content we may get.

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Originally Posted by ForsakenRoe

I read all the other posts since this one I'm quoting but I have to ask about this specifically. Emphasis mine, just want to find out how you square this assertion with the data you posted in that other thread a while back, which says:

https://i.gyazo.com/26f0f9ed3bd9780d...0543f95ad5.png

At least, if I'm reading it right, that HW was the highest level of healer playerbase we've ever had and while there's currently an uptick of sorts, we've never been close to what we had back then? People quit in SB, I'll agree on that, the data says that too. But HW? It seems that, if these numbers are to be believed, HW was the peak of 'people want to play healer' and we've never had it anywhere close to as high as back then ever since, even with a new healer class being released

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I would say the most likely answer is that Healers then were diverse (we had a pure/simple Healer - as discussed, WHM was largely played then as it is now, just with more GCD cast heals; a damage focused support Healer in SCH; and a pretty crazy hybrid buffer/support Healer with AST). Everyone had an option available to them.

SB was when the simple/easy option (WHM) was at its absolute worst, so we saw a large exodus. ShB was when all of them were made simple, so we lost the complex lovers but regained the simple lovers that had abandoned the role.

This would suggest the answer is a hybrid approach.

The caveat to this is that we don't know what the numebers were BEFORE that because the data wasn't available. What if the number in ARR was 30%? What if it was 20%? Each would lead us to a different conclusion about HW, the second that HW was a peak but the first that HW was the beginning of a downward trend. Unfortunately, we don't have that data, so we don't know.

But what we know is that when Healer Jobs were more diverse across both playstyle and complexity, and that both were viable, the role was more popular.

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Originally Posted by ForsakenRoe

All I'm gonna say is, if SE had a PTR where we could test 'SB WHM, with current Lilies and skills added', I would put actual money on the vast majority saying 'this is great'. Maybe I'm wrong, and I'd lose my money on the bet, but I'm confident enough in my assertions to make it. We only have to have these 'nuh uh my way would be better' because we're unable to put them to the test. It's all well and good insisting that 'no if we had all the healers have actual skill ceilings (skill floor remains as is) then EVERYONE would quit and the servers would explode and Blizzard would buy out SE and turn the game into a glorified Hearthstone lobby' when there's no way to disprove that statement. But if we had a seperate client for 'testing' stuff, we could put some of these false assertions in the grave where they belong

It wouldn't even need to necessarily take server space. Could make a 'lab room' of just plain white nothing forever, with a training dummy in the center, and have the game client look at localhost instead of the server IP, and essentially 'host' the 'server' on the player's own machine. We've got the benchmark program, something similar with a 'playtest these moves for us and give feedback on the forums' should be doable. At least, if the 'spaghetti code' issue is as solved as they claim

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I actually somewhat agree with this. FFXIV's Dev team is pretty tight on stuff, though - they don't even release potency changes in patch notes before maintenance anymore - so it'll never happen. But it would be one way to see which change are popular and which are not.

But given we DON'T have one of those, I think the next best solution is what I've proposed - change 2-3, leave 1-2, see which one players play the most.

I could be wrong, but if people are still playing Healers, they likely wouldn't quit over that. Those that like it the way it is would continue doing it, those who don't would try out the new/changed Healers and, if they enjoyed one, stay with the role, and people that left the role for that reason would likely do the same, increasing the role's population. Everyone tried out SGE. Even jaded Healers who were considering quitting the role (and probably those who did) to see if it could appeal to them. Imagine if it HAD. Imagine if it WAS the DPS focused Healer everyone - and this is one of the few universal statements I'll make; probably EVERYone - thought it was going to be when they heard "heals by doing damage".

Suppose, Einstein thought experiment, that it HAD been that. It had some galaxy brain gameplay, high skill ceiling, and whatever you'd consider a fun rotation - be that DNC, RDM, BLM, GNB, MNK, NIN; whatever it is you think would be fun - and had actually DONE THAT.

Then people like you would have tried it out, and absolutely loved it. Would you still wish that WHM would change? Of course you would. Would you be making threads all the time asking that WHM be more like SGE? Maybe so. But you'd be playing SGE and actually having fun with its mega-complex hyper-active gameplay style where every encounter was as exciting as the most exciting thing to you.

And we would have actual data, because we could look at which Healer Jobs were being played and which were not. If no one liked simple Jobs, WHM would be dead last and everyone would have flocked to SGE, and that would be apparent. That could then be used as a solid argument for changing the other Healers, because it would be an example of it working.

But maybe it would be middlingly popular. Maybe many people would like it...but many wouldn't, just as many people like BLM but many do not and prefer SMN. Well, then that'd be an argument for holding onto that new status quo - one which appeals to both camps.

You might not like that - because it's WHM you'd want to get the SGE treatment - but you'd be running content on SGE and actually enjoying it, and everyone playing Healers in FFXIV would have a Job that appeals to them, and the Healer shortage would abate as people come to the role, either back to or for the first time, playing the awesome playstyle you propose.

I think that's the next best thing we can hope for, given there is no PTR.

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Originally Posted by IDontPetLalas

Yet you attack me for my position which is far more sourced and supported than your own, which hasn't been by you or any of the posters agreeing with your position...

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Again, HB time:

What in this:

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Originally Posted by IDontPetLalas

It's interesting how frequently that you respond with rebuttal such as "Solo content isn't tedious to a lot of people. There's zero reason all Healers NEED those. I think the problem here is that you think that all Healer players want what you do and feel the way you do. Many players find WHM, for example, fun and engaging"

You are backing up your opinion, and based upon likely empirical evidence and claiming it as fact- when you aren't providing any factual evidence (independently sourced metrics) to back it up.

Given that- it remains an argument of one person's preference versus another person's preference. You are "being a contrarian" , you have held to some positions- one for example being "It's explicitly WHY I think we should change SOME Healers but not ALL of them, so that both types of player have at least one they enjoy playing on. There's only one Healer in the game that has 1 DoT + 1 Nuke, and that's AST." - you are absolutely entitled to your opinion, however that isn't one that everyone holds.

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...was "sourced and supported"?

You provided no sources, so literally nothing you said there (which was mostly attacks on me) was "sourced", and you didn't offer supporting arguments, only your opinionated statements as if they were facts. Can you provide a source for...honestly, you didn't even make any position other than that you said I didn't source things (I've referred to FFlogs, FFXIV census, and Lucky Bancho census; all of which are actual things - you, on the other hand, have not provided any sources at all) and that I'm entitled to my opinion, which is a statement everyone agrees with.

As to the few points you've now made - which were not points you raised, they are you trying to counter me after your broadside...

No one knows how many people agree with them. But it is, as I've said, a not-insignificant, non-zero number. "a lot" is not "extremely subjective". Things like "X is boring" is extremely subjective. I notice you do not feel like you need to call out "extremely subjective" statements when literally anyone else here makes one, and are attacking my measured statements which do NOT assume universal or near-universal agreement. Very interesting...

For 4, it's not "you just don't know". It's reasonable to infer based on both census data and how the majority of the playerbase behaves. Is it absolute fact? No. But it's actually MORE SUPPORTED than the position Healers are boring. Funny how that works. 1%? No, it's more than that. You can believe it's not, but show me your evidence. Likewise, show me what % of people believe Healers are boring and in need of changing. You speak of sources, time to show yours: Prove that the vast majority of Healer players in FFXIV think Healer Jobs are boring and need to be changed. Can you? We both know the answer is you cannot, but I would LOVE to see you try. Show us that EVERYONE agrees. Can you?

...no. You can't. Maybe 1% agree with you. Maybe 5%. Maybe 20%. WHO KNOWS?! And yet, you support complete changes to all Healer Jobs, all Healer players, and the entire Healing system of the game as it exists, based on...WHAT?

Meanwhile, my position is a modified status quo that actually GIVE YOU some of what YOU WANT. But it doesn't give you EVERYTHING you want. My position is measured so that no matter what those %s are, be they in favor of my position or yours, everyone is served in some way. What if my position was the majority? Your fixes would destroy the game. What if your position was the majority? My position would appeal to them with a majority of the Healer Jobs and arguably could see the Healer role fixed, and maybe even the remaining Healer Jobs changed if your position was popular. Also, the status quo is not the position that requires defending - proposed changes do. And as mine's the half-way solution, it requires less than yours. But if you want to push me back to just saying hold the status quo from the top down...

(5) So when did you stop beating your wife? WHERE did I say they were MEANINGLESS?

HOW MANY TIMES across ALL of these threads do I have to say that I recognize there are people that think like you do and think we should change several of the Healer Jobs to exclusively appeal to you before you get it?

HOW MANY?

One more? Will one more do?

Clearly not.

So how many times must I say it?

And when will you say the converse - that there are many Healers that would not like your proposed changes?

Yes, any change will have minorities disagree - some will have majorities disagree. Can you prove which your change would cause to disagree? Moreover, do you know what the solution to that is?

...to have measured change that offers an opt out for people that don't want the larger change. Indeed, my proposal IS what "managed change" would look like.

(6) I took nothing out of context. But by all means, say what and how I took it out of context. Either you believe we have different preferences or you do not.

(7) Well...at least we have that. A rare oasis of understanding. I'd love to stop with that, but...

(8) - no, don't leave it at that. HOW am I incorrect in THIS statement:

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You realize that I'm the only one here who HASN'T stated my position is universal and that everyone holds it, or some statement close enough to that to make no difference? I'm the one here who couches my statements with "many", "some", "a lot", "a not-insignificant amount", and so on; implicitly if not explicitly NOT saying my position is majority, much less universal. While you guys describe your opinions as universal truths, what I do is call your attention to the fact they are not universal.

When I many people don't think or feel as you do, that's not me saying NO ONE does or that EVERYONE agrees with me.

It's me saying a not-insignificant, non-zero amount of people disagree with you. It could be a minority, it could be a plurality, it could be a majority. I don't know, so I don't say. But it's not zero, and it's not insignificant. You're the one supporting posters arguing that your position is absolute, or near enough to not matter.

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Be specific now!

...or perhaps don't say "you're wrong" in the future when someone isn't...

You didn't attack my argument. You restated one of my statements (not my argument) as if it was implicitly wrong, didn't bother actually arguing that, and then attacked me for stating an opinion without source or support, when I've presented both sources and supporting arguments. You didn't even present an argument that my statement WAS WRONG. At best, you were attacking me for not having absolute proof on how many "a lot" or "many" are, while you have no problem with people making arguments on your side do worse.

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Originally Posted by Semirhage

My disagreement stems from approaching it in the opposite direction; "SB WHM with current lilies and skills" is the logical equivalent to "Endwalker WHM plus Aero 3". I think "lol just add Aero 3 it'd make WHM good again" is...not something I see panning out, and in fact would slot into the folder of opinions I have labeled "Endwalker healer design is terrible, samey, and embarrassing...oh except WHM, suddenly when the white egg job stone is involved this horrible job design I spent the last two paragraphs lambasting is *chef's kiss* near pinnacle".

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Huh.

I'm not saying it's good or bad, but your take is...unusual. Most people that want WHM changes essentially want Aero 3 (and possibly Aero 1 and Fluid Aura) back, and often times...that's it.

Interesting to see you disagree.

Not bad, just...I dunno, different.

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Originally Posted by Silver-Strider

I'm just gonna copy over some ideas I had for SCH from another thread. Although it's somewhat more controversial than my WHM suggestions.

The overall Goal was to reduce the need for our oGCD heals by both expending the DPS toolkit to provide some level of utility and to make the GCD healing toolkit work in a way that would benefit DPS but not handicap the healing side of things. There are some buffs to the oGCD healing side of things but there is also some skills that I want to remove.

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Huh. Interesting.

I mean, I'd have gone the opposite way with it - since ARR/HW/SB SCH players enjoyed being GCD damage dealers power-weaveing oGCD healing and mitigation. But I'm always interested in seeing interesting twists. So, obviously, I'm reading on. :)

So Adlo being kind of a Thorns (WoW Druid) ability, interesting. Though I'm not quite sure how you mean for Succor to work here. Like an AOE Iron Jaws that also is an AOE party heal? Interesting...

Yeah, Physic/Cure/Benefic are all kinda "Uh, wut?" at this point. The only one that isn't instantly overshadowed is...I dunno, Diagnosis MAYbe? But probably not even that.

So your spam nuke/movement nuke gives you some gauge, your DoTs (of which you have...2 GCD ones) have a chance of giving gauge on ticks, Shadowflare is a.....sorta healing oGCD?...oh, three DoTs since you want Bane to be a DoT (not a spread), but on a CD, which doesn't build gauge.....though I'm not sure what "but turns the ability into Fester" means? Bane turns into Fester once you use it? Or something about having gauge turns Bane into Fester? Either way, I do get that you mean for Fester to basically make the Bane DoT a damage down debuff bomb/boobie trap, where the player can either expire it late to get DoT ticks and a short damage down debuff on the boss, or use Fester early if their party needs a longer period of mitigation. That's actually a neat idea. Not sure if it would work or not, but I don't think I've seen it proposed that way before, and that's kind of a cool concept.

Aetherflow: You're honestly not the only one. :)

Indom is stronger than Fey Blessing and stronger (in healing) than Succor, but if you're pushing more GCD heals, I could see wanting to remove Indom. Just make Blessing into Indom? XD I still think Blessing should have had the CD cut, not the Faerie Gauge. That way you'd have an AOE healing option alongside Aetherpact, instead of gauge being just for a single somewhat lackluster ability and having ANOTHER oGCD CD ability...

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Originally Posted by Silver-Strider

The can of worms that is Energy Drain is also something that I can't really think of what to do with. SCH should have plenty of DPS tools now that it wouldn't really need it and if we're reducing oGCD healing tools, we might need to use more Aetherflow abilities more often.

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Energy Drain IS one of those kinds of "What even to do with this...?" abilities, isn't it?

Fairies: I feel the Devs want them to be glamour options (though as we know from SMN, you can do that anyway...), but I do like how your Eos and Selene are kind of mirrors of each other, fitting for the Sun/Moon dynamic Lily was introduced to us as having.

Fairy Gauge: I kind of like these, too. Though I'm curious which Faerie you're using during Aetherpact? I'm guessing the one you have active. And I'd guess this ability wouldn't allow swapping for its duration? Basically you have your benchwarmer come in to Aetherpact so your active Faerie can heal and oGCD without interruption. And putting all the Faerie oGCDs on the Gauge actually makes it have a purpose. I'm kind of curious if SCH would be unable to effectively heal if they weren't actively damaging - SGE has an issue right now (though much lesser) that if it IS having to GCD heal party members, it's not Kardia healing the Tank, so the SGE player has to devote more resources (and potentially "catch-up" GCD healing) on the Tank. So I'm curious if you're having to spam Succor/Adlo/Physic (for whatever reason) if you're going to be in a "losing battle" of being gimped since you won't be getting any gauge?

Dissipation: I MUCH prefer this version. Basically Recitation/Rhizomata but for Faerie abilities. Neat idea.

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Originally Posted by Silver-Strider

Alternatively, Dissipation and Recitation could be reworked to allow 1 free Aetherflow or Fairy ability usage with 2 charges, Recitation just allowing the skill to Crit over Dissipation.

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Note that Recitation in this scenario would be more powerful...and has a shorter CD.

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Originally Posted by Silver-Strider

Expendant is also something I hesitate to touch since it's still useful, even after the nerf but with the buff to Covenant/Illumination, do we need it?

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I would say YES.

Expedient is one of the neatest abilities to me in quite some time since it offers non-mitigation, non-damage boosting, non-Raise UTILITY to the party...and it's utility that people actually VALUE. Yes, a lot of people sleep on this, but it's definitely a form of utility that isn't "you do more damage", "you take less damage", or "I'm raising you because you took too much damage". Most of the rest of the utility in the game is one of those kinds, but Expedient is different. Yeah, it has the mitigation part, which is NICE, don't get me wrong, but it has something ELSE. And it's something else people actually VALUE when used well. Meteors on ZodEx and Chackrams on HydEx, you can really feel the extra buffer it gives the party. Using it on HydEx is what helped me get my first clears there, because people were otherwise largely too slow (and for whatever reason, couldn't use Sprint).

I cannot overstate how cool it is to me for the Devs to introduce an ability that ISN'T damageboost/mitigation/Raise or damage dealing itself, but that is so popular with players they actually have to nerf it. I think we need more of those, not less.

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Originally Posted by Silver-Strider

Like I said, it's a work in progress and it might not provide the full picture of anything either but hopefully, it can at least give some context to my thought process.

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I mean...I'm not one of the people who dislikes current SCH, but I actually like those proposals a lot. I'm a bit concerned about emergency healing situations and balance, but if those things could be addressed? It seems creative and interesting, and I'd definitely at least give it a spin, even if it wasn't my favorite in the end. It would definitely diversify the Healer Job offerings, in a great way, and I think that's a good thing.

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Originally Posted by Silver-Strider

As for AST, ...

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Yeah, I'm not much of an AST player (I can play it, I just don't like it that much), but honestly, I really like your proposed changes there, too.

Major Arcana for the "all cards are Balance" since people would fish for Balance otherwise, Minor Arcana for the actual interesting side buffs (which are no longer competing with Balance), and ShB era Minor Arcana (under a new name) to convert cards you don't need at that time into Lord/Lady.

Imo, that's a good idea. One of my complaints about SCH is that BECAUSE Energy Drain uses Aetherflow, it makes Lustrate, Sacred Soil, Indom, and Excogitation (when the latter two aren't using Recitation) fight with Energy Drain, and because "damage >>> all", Energy Drain often wins. But contrast with SGE, which has basically Lustrate, Sacred Soil, Indom, and not-Excogitation...and actually USES them. Is, in fact, ENCOURAGED to use them (for MP management, but what's important is they have a reason to use them and they aren't forced to choose between them and something else).

HW/SB Arcana had all the "bad" ones competing with Balance. And like Energy Drain, Balance always won. Splitting them into Minor Arcana like this takes the SGE route where you have Plegma (Balance) and then Addersgal abilities (Minor Arcana), and you're incentivized to use both and actually USE BOTH because they aren't competing with each other.

I might be gushing a bit, but I think that's a fantastic idea.

And you make it even BETTER with Crown Play there (whatever name you'd call it; I'm guessing Undraw isn't the name you'd settle on?) - Say you get the Minor Arcana Bole but the boss is untargetable or the tank buster just happened and no one needs any mitigation for a while? Convert it into 50/50 free damage (Lord) or free healing (Lady) to open up the slot to draw something else next and get some use out of the "dud" at the same time. And if you draw Bole and the tank buster is coming up? Well, obviously toss it on the Tank! :D

It's low-key brilliant and honestly, I'm...kind of shocked you're the first person I've ever seen propose it because it's elegant and allows AST to have both the "wanted" buffs, the "niche" buffs, and some RNG fun, and a "bad draw" protection to keep the "bad" cards from getting you down.

I honestly love this idea. You're selling yourself way short!

Then have their identity be more "time magic" again (HoTs and less direct heals), but like WoW's Resto Druid (same concept, just nature regrowth instead of time, but same diff), having some burst tools and HoT -> burst conversion CDs for emergencies. This would make it more distinct from WHM, which supplies more direct, burst healing but has HoTs on the side, so AST and WHM would be mirrors of each other instead of carbon copies.

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Originally Posted by Silver-Strider

I don't really see a reason to keep the Seal system either. Astrodyne is a weak skill, even at 3 seals, that they could probably just turn it into a 2 minute buff with all 3 bonuses without it really impacting AST all that much.

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Honestly, the Seal system has never been good. It was introduced as a way to say "See! We've taken your Card diversity but you still have some RNG here!", but then they (yet again) stuck the RNG on things that people want (Divination), which then caused them to 180 and stick it on something where the different levels were arguably "happy accidental bonuses" rather than something people really were excited for, making it completely lame. Just dumping it and making Astrodyne a 2 min buff with all the bonuses would probably work better, I agree. Bonus points: Less buff capping.

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Originally Posted by Silver-Strider

Edit: This is what happens when you post at 2am lol. I'll edit this to clarify some things.

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Honestly, I think you're REALLY selling yourself short.

Yeah, I don't like your WHM idea, but I love these. These are both pretty creative ideas that I haven't seen other people suggest, and your AST one is an amazingly elegant solution to the "boring cards, but if not, RNG feast of famine" situation. I love it in particular. Though it doesn't change AST's GCD game...maybe with actual interesting Cards, it wouldn't have to...

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Originally Posted by Semirhage

Perhaps it would be useful to approach from the opposite direction: take a kit widely considered "good", and play evil job designer with it. Make one change that would absolutely slaughter the kit's fun, and you've probably discovered some key magic that makes the sausage machine work.

What if, for example, we removed the distinction between black and white mana on RDM entirely? Fold them both into Red Mana. Every spell effectively a Jolt. Suddenly you've killed all interactivity in the casting and burst phase. Overrode a proc? Who cares. Used your spells in the wrong order? Ehhh. Disrupted the flow between your black and white spells? Doesn't matter. Choice between Verholy and Verflare? Don't care.

I think one of the most core things that makes a job fun is meaningful choice. There's a lot of flexibility there; the choice can be largely illusory or superficial, as you might know the black/white mana flow is VERY forgiving. It could stand to gain some skill ceiling from there; lord knows I miss the minor optional optimization game that was potency-gain Reprise, murdered in Endwalker.

Most of the healer kits are aggressively unfun because they're so childproof that they're essentially Red Mana jobs. Did you use the "wrong" heal here? Trick question, there isn't one. You aren't punished for basically anything outside death or healbombing so hardcore you deplete your MP. Oh no, I used a lily on the full HP ninja by accident! Oh wait who cares, I got the refund anyway. Oh no, I used Indomitability instead of Sacred Soil! Oh who gives a crap, they do practically the same thing, have exactly the same reward for using them, and barring tight mitigation checks or highly preplanned minimalism nobody will care, not even you. All of the kit "interactivity" is of the passive sort that has little to no influence on the decision tree. Kardia's up on the tank? Such interaction, wouldn't it be nice if it made me think twice about Dosis Dosis Dosis Dosis Dosis Dosis Dosis. Plenary Indulgence? It's Yet Another Healing Steroid. It doesn't change how you interface with your casting flow or introduce any decision-making. There is not a single moment in time where I wonder what my next ability will be, because if everyone's HP is fine it's just Boring Damage Nuke and if it's not, I could probably throw my healing buttons in a hat, fish one out at random, and be rewarded or punished more or less equally.

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best take with zero solutions in sight because that would mean reworking 4 jobs, or reworking the platform they're in. with the best case scenario being the healers are harder to play which will anger the casual audience

Problem :On a good day with a good team in most instances you will not but doing much besides 1-1-1-1-1-1. tank busters are a joke, raid wides are infrequent, mechanics revolving around healing is slim to nonexistent. On a bad day with a bad team youll at most do some ressing or healing slightly more than continue 1-1-1-1 Due to this gameplay the question is irrelevant due to the jobs being irrelevant. Doesnt matter how complicated the kits are, you can get by raw healing medica 1 and cure 1 and its equivalents for 99% of the content. Except savage which is where all jobs are designed for no matter how few of them their are. Not helped by some job skills being outclassed or never used to due how many tools healers kit. Secret about me is as a SGE ive never used; Kardia, Soteria, Hamia, Panhamia, Zoe, Pepsis, Diagnosis, Prognosis, Kerachole, rhizomata, Holos, & Krasis due to never needed too and all healers have this fluff issue. In dungeons specifically if your with a WAR you dont even need to heal. Bosses are a bigger waste of a healers time because nothing is thrown to warrant your existence due to trivial mechanics. Trials could be fun with 1 healer but with 2 its plainly overkill back to 1-1-1-1 and doing 2/14 healer actions.

Solution The biggest naysayers are raiders for a job overhaul with some exceptions. For dungeons; mobs needs more diversity than bowling pins, vague answer but dont wanna rant on dungeon design again going off topic, Dungeon bosses need to do more damage and need more mechs where the party takes damage, all bosses need this change 24 man raids and nm trials dubbed raids included

ask again once the game uses healers in their day-to-day content using at least 50% of their kit vitally

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Originally Posted by Renathras

Though I'm not quite sure how you mean for Succor to work here. Like an AOE Iron Jaws that also is an AOE party heal?

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Pretty Much.

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though I'm not sure what "but turns the ability into Fester" means? Bane turns into Fester once you use it?

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Think of it like how SAM's Ogi Namikiri turns into Kaeshi: Namikiri after use. You use Bane and then the skill changes to Fester in a similar fashion.

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Just make Blessing into Indom?

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There's a few reasons I didn't. For the proposed Fairy Gauge to work well, there needs to be more frequent usage of Fairy Abilities. It's why I cut the CDs on Blessing and Illumination/Covenant in half during the Fairy Ability changes. With the abilities also being stronger than the current forms of the skills (Whispering Dawn is currently 560 total potency to my proposed 600 potency, Fey Blessing granting a Shield effect under Selene and Fey Illumination/Covenant provide 15%/8% buffs as opposed to the 10%/5% buffs) as well as the change to Succor to make it useful to maintain DoT uptime, and by extension restore more gauge via DoTs, I felt it was fine to remove Indom.

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Though I'm curious which Faerie you're using during Aetherpact?

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Correct on the Benchwarmer Fairy. They would tether to your intended target and the other would continue as normal.

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I'm kind of curious if SCH would be unable to effectively heal if they weren't actively damaging

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I attempted to mitigate this issue as much as possible. Succor refreshing your DoTs to allow the Fairy Gauge to continue to accumulate while you healed, Dissipation allowing a free Fairy Ability usage, the buffs to the Fairy's skillset, Bane providing Mitigation, Shadowflare becoming a secondary Sacred Soil but instead of mitigation/regen, provides more healing received/Max HP, etc. was all an attempt to make SCH able to prevent that emergency scenario from happening in the 1st place. I even considered making Addlo shield breaks proc an effect that turns Ruin 2 into Ruination that provides 10 Fairy Gauge on usage but that was too much like Toxicon for my liking. The only other things I could consider was buffing Emergency Tactics to provide Gauge and give it 2 charges or put an effect like DNC's Espirit on Chain Stratagem so that the party would provide SCH with more Fairy Gauge as they attacked while the SCH focused on Healing.

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Though it doesn't change AST's GCD game...maybe with actual interesting Cards, it wouldn't have to...

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That was my thought process as well. AST never really had many attacks to start with, just the 2 DoTs (3 if you cross classed Aero 1), Malefic and Stella. Stella, however, lost its main purpose of being a 1.5s cast time ability over Malefic and the Heavy debuff hasn't really seen much, if any, usage in recent times that it would need a rework to be of any use to AST and while I'm fine with AST getting Stella back to break up the monotony of 1-1-1 Spam for them as well, I can't confidently suggest anything for them since I'm not sure what the class really needs to be engaging for AST mains again.

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Originally Posted by Renathras

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1. Leaving them alone still makes them just as boring. Bosses STILL have too long of wind ups, still hit like a wet noodle and still have too many dodgeable aoes. That isn't going to change without an overhaul. Just because I'm more engaged in lower level content doesn't mean I am properly engaged. As I've said. A good chunk of content feels like Old Praetorium. And I've already said what would make healing more engaging. Which would require a rework. Just because I now GCD to break up my nuke doesn't not make healing suddenly engaging. I'll also add that making our healing tools more engaging means absolutely nothing if the bosses themselves are still boring.

2. Makes me wonder if you even read what I said. I'm asking for support options outside of mitigation "Feint/Addle" and gave examples of how SE could do that. Healers already have mitigation. Even WHM (Temperance). I don't think we need more, but if want to give healers more sure. I want other support tools that other MMOs give to either support roles or healers and that's on SE for one, not making any (outside of Expedient) and two, not making any boss mechanics that can use them. As I've said.

3. AST isn't the only healer that has 1 Nuke and DoT. Misery, Toxicon, Assize, Lord of Crowns, and Energy Drain don't count. Why? All but Lord are tied to healing in some way and Lord is RNG. Who made this stipulation? I did. When I asked for all healers to get a Phlegma-like ability and another DoT. None of them but Assize counts for that and like I said, its tied to healing. I want a straight up damage option. Are Misery and Toxicon more interesting? Yes. Do I think with tweaks they could be the answer I'm looking for? Sure. Is that what I'm asking for? No. Stop saying that they are.

Also we can debate back and forth on whether or not all healers need to have extra dps buttons. My stance is yes. Its always going to be yes. And I still see 0 reason why none of them can't get another Phlegma or DoT.

4. We're never going to agree on. Period.

All healers can stand to have more engaging healing kits, but they ALL can stand to have more engaging dps kits when healing isn't required.

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Originally Posted by Renathras

What would you do with SCH and AST?

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SCH I don't play but:

• Selene is a glorified recolor. Make her different.
• Fey Gauge needs more actions to interact with it.
• Bane. You can even give the trait to Deployment Tactics like PvP.
• Perhaps as a fix to pet issues, give SCH the Closed Position as a trait to where fairy skills are casted from both the SCH and the fairy, but obviously don't stack.

AST:

• Cards - 1) make them different, either give 6 six back with changes or give the 3 support back (Bole, Ewer, Spire) with cahnges, separate them by Melee/Ranged and keep Divination as RR Balance, 2) fix the seals system by making the seals combination actually matter with certain combinations giving a supportive buff (still keeping Divination as is, 3) remove the cards and rebrand AST as Time Mage the healer and burn the last set of bridges give time manipulation abilities (delayed damaging spells, Time Dilation to work on HoTs/DoTs and maybe buffs).
• Change AST from being a WHM but better clone - focus hard on regens/delayed healing OR give back Noct sect, remove Neutral sect, and allow it to be toggled in combat giving advantages and disadvantages for both (Diurnal has 0 mitigations for example) that a good AST will optimally use, but a not as good AST will not struggle.
• Skills I personally want to be addressed - CO/CU, CI, Synastry, Earthly Star, Undraw

1. CO/CU - this I think would be fixed in several different ways, but ultimately it comes down to a flaw with all healers: cool down for both is 60s, mechanics I would use both are ~60s, I end up never using one (CU) as a result and thus it becomes a dead skill in most content, because what one can do... the other can also do with differences that ultimately don't matter. Fixes I would like to see is changing the effect of one or again, changing the CD to something that isn't 60 or 120 seconds.
2. CI - Exaltation is a better CI and fits thematically with AST being a delayed healer. Without Nocturnal and even with it, I would rather see it changed into something else or modify into being a weaker Exalt (same CD) that trait upgrades.
3. Synastry - Either remove the skill or make it work on all single target abilities (excluding cards if they stay single target)
4. Undraw - Remove.
5. Earthly Star - This is the nittiest of picks but I don't care, reduce the size from 30y to 20y. All the fun was taken out of it now that it covers the entire arena. And honestly, there was no reason for it to be this big.

Pain points:

Lightspeed - I don't want a second charge. While I understand the reasoning for it (so it isn't locked into the opener and can be used for movement) 2 charge abilities feel less fun to use. While I will concede that AST could use this change now, I don't want them to keep it and I would also like to revisit ED and CI (if it stays). 2 charges are nice to have in W2W. They're less as nice when most of the time I don't even need the first one.

GCD vs oGCD cards - No to GCD cards. Removing the seals system or changing it to be an secondary support would fix the high amounts of BS targeting underneath the Divination window, which is the main problem with AST. Making them GCD doesn't fix the fact that you need to target a player and then retarget the boss. Making them AOE like in PvP probably would.

God could you imagine how cool it'd be if you could Synastry-share Exaltation's mit effect (at 40% effectiveness on the secondary target) for double TBs?