Healer DoTs Need a Rework

Something that I don't see a lot in these discussions about the Healer role is their DoT actions and how dull they are. This has likely been brought up in the past, especially in SCH threads, but Healer DoTs need a rework on how they play out for each Job.

Each Healer DoT is an instant cast ability that has a duration of 30secs.

That's it.

No interactivity with the rest of the kit. You just press it once and forget about it for thirty seconds. To be blunt, this is bad. Really REALLY bad. Especially, when you compare Healers to Jobs like BRD and BLM, who have more interactivity with their DoTs (still surprised BRD is keeping it's DoTs in DT).

So how do we fix this?

I think the best way to alleviate the problem is to have the DoT durations decrease to the twelve to twenty-four second range. Maybe decrease the durations to 15 or 20secs if SE wants to keep it within the two minute meta. This change is minor, but it'll be a benefit for us because we'd be pressing the button more and it'd help alleviate the 1 button spam all healers are guilty of. It's not much, but anything helps.

However, I think we can push this further and have each Healer Job have their own unique interactions with their DoTs.

WHM
Give WHM it's own version of BLM's Thunder proc and BRD's DoT procs to Straight Arrow. Since WHM is getting a new DPS action, let Aero / Dia have a small chance to proc into the new DPS action, with WHM getting a weaker version of the new DPS action at a early level.

SCH
SCH needs Bane back. PvP SCH already has Bane in the form of Deployment Tactics, so having that version of DT carried over to PvE SCH would be great. For the sake of interactivity, give the Job a DPS action whose potency increases depending on how many DoTs are on the enemy NPC. Looking at you Ruin II.

AST
I honestly have no idea. Can any AST player think of anything for Combust?

SGE
It's getting an AoE DoT in DT. Have that and it's single target DoT stack with one another.

Feel free to post any ideas that you can think of.

Here's a thought - I'm absolutely fine with having a 30 second dot on each healer. If one healer in future gets to juggle additional dots - as SCH used to do (and which has been started on SGE already) , I would be fine with that, however I would rather that each healer gets additional actions, rather than adjusting the dot on each of them.

I don't think every healer strictly needs a DoT. They could achieve the gameplay of maintaining something in different ways.

WHM could apply a debuff that slowly boosts the potency of a spell over time, so you maintain the debuff and hit the spell at max potency to not overcap.

SCH can be the healer that keeps and manages actual DoTs.

AST could have a damage compile ability to keep up or an ability that grows stronger over time but needs to be detonated manually by Combust.

SGE also doesn't really need a DoT, I feel like direct damage and juggling short CD damage buttons should be their specialty, maybe they could apply short burn DoTs from Phlegma and Pneuma.

WHM - the DoT proccing something would be interesting.

SCH - for sure needs bane and Miasma back. A hard cast spell would be nice.

AST - if the card system were robust enough it could get away with only having 1 DoT like in SB. Otherwise the damage compile ability Aravell mentioned would be fun.

SGE - maybe something like a reverse Kardion? Something that deals damage when you cast a heal? This one's a tough one to really think of something fun. Hopefully the Eukrasian Dyskrasia stacks for funsies.

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Originally Posted by currentlemon

WHM
Give WHM it's own version of BLM's Thunder proc and BRD's DoT procs to Straight Arrow. Since WHM is getting a new DPS action, let Aero / Dia have a small chance to proc into the new DPS action, with WHM getting a weaker version of the new DPS action at a early level.

SCH
SCH needs Bane back. PvP SCH already has Bane in the form of Deployment Tactics, so having that version of DT carried over to PvE SCH would be great. For the sake of interactivity, give the Job a DPS action whose potency increases depending on how many DoTs are on the enemy NPC. Looking at you Ruin II.

AST
I honestly have no idea. Can any AST player think of anything for Combust?

SGE
It's getting an AoE DoT in DT. Have that and it's single target DoT stack with one another.

Feel free to post any ideas that you can think of.

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Astro: Every 6 seconds, Combust spreads to nearby enemies who do not have combust at the current duration. Gravity increases Combust duration by 3 seconds. Macrocosmos detonates Combust on all afflicted enemies.

Sage: Toxicon increases E.D. duration by 6 seconds. Phelgma refunds 5 seconds of cooldown for each enemy with D/E.D. hit by it.

I wouldn't mind some additional interactivity, but to be clear -- I mean that as something which complicates decision-making in intended situations and offers more variety to button-presses, not merely something that makes a given function less responsive by requiring it to be bundled to/from a prior action or allows us to spam our filler keys even more.

I.e., a Dia that increases Glare damage would actually be worse, since now it reduces the use case even for skipping Dia in favor of Glare and therefore the benefit of correctly guessing enemy time-til-death. (Even a Dia with just more upfront damage would be preferable, as it increases the use cases for the less common action without simply holding the common action partly hostage to it and doesn't unnecessarily complicate one's average ppgcd to do so.

Likewise, something like old Bane, if it were put on a CD separate from any healing tools, would similarly reduces the number of non-filler actions one is enticed to cast during gathers or for AoE situations with fewer than 4 enemies. It's a seemingly cool function... but would actually mean you lose even more of the original variance. Whereas if Biolysis split its remaining duration among nearby enemies when its victim died and Bane were instead an Aetherflow action that added up all afflicted enemies' durations in the area, added some flat amount, and split them evenly across all mobs in that area, you'd at least be able to use it for burst AoE, offering new use cases for Biolysis instead of solely giving more AoW spam in situations where one could previously optimally DoT.

That said, interactivity from healer offensive actions whose use are limited by whatever means, be they hard CDs or soft CDs like DoTs or charged skills or what-have-you, often merely requires enough need for competing actions (e.g., GCD heals) that one's fight knowledge / awareness is rewarded through being able to fully leverage those more difficult-to-fully-leverage actions. That's been one of the foremost costs to making so much of our outgoing healing mere oGCDs, especially when there's no competing offensive value for those oGCDs' charges: Any challenge offense carries must comes purely from offense, since it and healing no longer interact or intersect in any meaningful way. And since we healers spend over 90% of our time DPSing, it would then take nearly some 90% of a DPS's kit to make that damage-dealing actually fulfilling.

Fun fact this was brought up in JP by a healer and everyone who replied to this shot it down saying that dots are already hard enough to maintain and if anything they should last longer.

back in royal road day AST's DPS can be acceptably low because they contribute toward DPS via card buff on team members.

Can the new sage dot be stacked on top of the regular one or is this just a boring useless replacement for eukrasian dosis ?

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Originally Posted by Teno

Can the new sage dot be stacked on top of the regular one or is this just a boring useless replacement for eukrasian dosis ?

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We still don’t know but I’d say a greater than 50/50 chance it either just applies E dosis or the DOT is a loss on 1

Dyskrasia has no use on a single target (outside of incredibly specific prog ABC strats) I can’t imagine they will make e dyskrasia a gain on 1

SE'd rather remove dot interactions from jobs were dots are actually core like BRD or SMN instead of touching healers' stupid dots.

to be honest most people complain about Dot's but there is one thing that work just like it and it's Regen they both use the same tick damage as you may call it so if they rework the offensive Dot's they also have to seperate or rework the Regen in itself

Just give SCH Shadow Flare (GCD), allow Deployment Tactics to spread Biolysis, and finally Emergency Tactics to make Biolysis a nuke.

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Originally Posted by Aravell

AST could have a damage compile ability to keep up or an ability that grows stronger over time but needs to be detonated manually by Combust.

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Yup, been saying that Earthly Star would be more fun as a no-cooldown GCD for a while.

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Originally Posted by Nero-Voidstails

to be honest most people complain about Dot's but there is one thing that work just like it and it's Regen they both use the same tick damage as you may call it so if they rework the offensive Dot's they also have to seperate or rework the Regen in itself

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I'm not totally sure to follow what you were trying to convey with this message, but DoTs and HoTs don't work the same way at all in the game except that they share similar intervals for their ticks. DoTs are based on DoT individual actors tied to their owner (if you place 2 dots on something they'll synchronize their ticks with each other but only if they both belong to you), which tick depending on how the dot gets applied after animation delay and damage resolution (which varies a lot depending on skills). HoTs are based on the server clock (ticking every 2 and 11/12 seconds), ticking at the same time than HP and MP regen and eorzea minutes among other server things.

Healer toolkits in general need a rework.

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Originally Posted by Valence

SE'd rather remove dot interactions from jobs were dots are actually core like BRD or SMN instead of touching healers' stupid dots.

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SMN had always been a copy pasta of wow's warlock, hence the dots. But since EW it has a strong visual identity all its own, typical of a FF, but the worst gameplay it could ever have, and it looks like nothing will change in DT. Dots never were the saving grace for the job, although it was still infinitely more fun than the current iteration.

I was playing FFXI during the free login and one thing SCH had there that could possibly be ported to XIV was an ability called Modus Veritas. Basically doubles the potency of a DoT while halving the remaining time of it. Probably too strong for say aetherflow charges. But to have in the 2 minute burst window. Could be "fun".

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Originally Posted by rawker

Just give SCH Shadow Flare (GCD), allow Deployment Tactics to spread Biolysis, and finally Emergency Tactics to make Biolysis a nuke.

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Just to add, I might even ask to move Art of War at a later level and replace it with Shadow Flare and make Art of War, still a GCD spell, only usable when Shadow Flare is active and act as a Salt and Darkness to it.

So at least on the Media tour build, SGE DoTs stack and are both a gain even ST.

Sad to see it on SGE not sch but glad they are giving back some more DoT action to at least one healer after all these years.

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Originally Posted by Sani2341

So at least on the Media tour build, SGE DoTs stack and are both a gain even ST.

Sad to see it on SGE not sch but glad they are giving back some more DoT action to at least one healer after all these years.

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This might sadly be the reason I finally switch to SGE as my main.