If healers had a 3 Button GCD Combo like Tanks?

What would you have them be melee or ranged?
What would you have them do?

https://static.fanbyte.com/uploads/2021/10/healers.jpg

I imagine the 3 different attacks and whether incorporate the existing single target ranged spells could be used to do several additional things, such as recharge mp on the last hit, add a spell speed buff on the 2nd button (higher dps through faster casting?) and maybe just be plain?

None. They're casters, not tanks or melee. If I wanted that I'd just play PLD.

I want dps complexity but not in the style of a DoW 123 combo.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Azurarok

None. They're casters, not tanks or melee. If I wanted that I'd just play PLD.

I want dps complexity but not in the style of a DoW 123 combo.

---

Pictomancer's got it, even if they did condense it down to one button. I don't see why one of them couldn't do it, though I do agree that they should look for some complexity in other ways.
For the sake of this thought experiment though; Sage Dosis 1-3, Dyskrasia 1-2, get an Addersting after finishing the combo while also keeping the current Addersting generation from shield popping for lower levels. Dump single Toxikons to avoid over capping, dump them all during burst periods.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Selvokaz

What would you have them do?

---

I would have them not exist. 1-1-1 spam by another name is still just as uninspired.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by AmiableApkallu

I would have them not exist. 1-1-1 spam by another name is still just as uninspired.

---

This. The extra buttons just obfuscate the fact that your brain isn't being engaged.

For people who think they'd be satisfied if casters had a 1-2-3 combo, bind Glare to 3 different buttons on your hotbar and give it a spin.

1-2-3 is only as interesting as their end result.

Combos on other jobs have a purpose, be it to apply a DoT, maintain a buff or building a gauge to be used on something, be it Fell Cleave, Masterful Blitz, etc.

A 1-2-3 combo on healers as they currently are would accomplish none of this in a meaningful way. We'd reapply any buff and the like just by doing the combo over and over again with nothing to really stop us or break away from it, apart from the very rare GCD heal once in a blue moon.

No 1,2,3 combos please. It's just mechanical clutter. There is no priority, no thinking no decision making. It's like 1,1,1, but now you have to press the button that lights up.

Give us 1,2 but with a piority, either a proc, an extra dot or some effect that makes you think "Should I press this now or later?"

I would enjoy some more dps options but not necessarily a rotation. Or even better yet utility, but SQE is too busy giving utility to other classes. Or maybe some engaging content where tanks cant heal themselves though an encounter and hold the party hostage.

Any potential healer DPS rotation should resemble a caster rotation, not a tank's If a tank's DPS rotation is a simplified melee DPS rotation, then a healer's should be a simplified caster rotation. Right now they are too simplified to the point not really existing. That being said, a healer DPS rotation should not be heavily reliant on hoarding resources like most DPS rotation, and instead should focus on utilizing caster mechanics like Dual Cast or Umbral Hearts, etc. That way, there could be potential interactions between DPS spells, and healing spells.

Uhhh I wouldn't want that.
At most for sage id have a 1-2 that has an effect that shortens the cd of phelma or psych I guess. But a 1-2-3 just really isn't it for me especially on spell casters, I'd prefer just a priority system for their DPS either with dots or multiple casting spells with different CDs.

If the intention is to give healers more damage buttons, I don't think a 1-2-3 combo is the way to do it. It wouldn't add anything meaningful to their gameplay if it's just a copy+paste of what tanks already have.

But I don't think the idea should be shot down entirely. I'm going to adopt an unorthodox position and say that under the right circumstances, healer GCD combos have the potential to be more interesting than tank and melee combos. Before you call me insane, hear me out. The healer is essentially forced to commit to damage for n GCDs in a row without healing... doesn't that sound a bit like old Cleric Stance?

I can see GCD combos being an interesting addition to healer if:
- Broken combos are appropriately punishing.
- Using heals, including oGCD heals, break the combo sequence.
- Raid damage is frequent enough to make the healer worry about starting the combo at the wrong time.
- The combos are long--say, 5 GCDs long (and can be condensed to one button).
- The combo exists alongside the healer's one-button filler (Glare, Dosis), so that they have a weaker but safer GCD to fall back on if starting the combo is unideal.

All of this would put a bigger emphasis on planning fights: the healer would need to think ahead on when to heal and when to start a combo without breaking it. It could also open up more possibilities for decision-making - perhaps steps 3 and 4 of the combo can be instant casts so healers can time their combo to coincide with mechanics that force movement. Maybe the combo can also be mana-intensive so that resource management becomes an actual consideration again - in this case the healer would need to optimise the number of combos used without running out of MP for Glares, heals, and potential raises. In the case of Sage, maybe the last step of the combo can be melee.

At the end of the day I'm just a DPS main looking in from the outside, but this is the kind of decision-making I wish tanks and melees had with their combos. It feels a bit ironic that the one role where 1-2-3 combos could be most interesting is the same role that doesn't (and will likely never) have a 1-2-3 combo.

For me dps is something I do because I have nothing else to do. I'd rather bosses including savage would have status ailments that need removed, new buffs to increase player damage or reduce cast times/actions, bring back paralyze, slow etc and just make the boss build immunity. Boss could then get a status effect immune for X minutes.

no thanks I do rather see enemy do more damage and heal a bit more not have my downtime being the only thing I do

That’s basically Cleric stance.

I don't want a 3 button combo, I want something interesting. Bring back SCH's dots! And Shadowflare, and Bane

I see 1-2-3 could work with Astrologian

but in a different way

it is like 123 but you could mix and match different combos to get extra benefit

for example:
1 2 3 = party healing
2 1 3 = party sheilding
3 2 1 = party regen
1 3 2 = party mitigation

something like that

each combo will grant stack max of 4 stack that give you 1 extra random card draw

Absent of them somehow making healers need to gcd heal (which they can’t) I’d still rather have ways to support the party with gcds than a combo. Buffs, debuffs, dots, utility, all the traditional ‘healer things’. Anything that’s not what we have now lol (but ideally not a standard gcd combo)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Silhart

I can see GCD combos being an interesting addition to healer if:
- Broken combos are appropriately punishing.
- Using heals, including oGCD heals, break the combo sequence.
...

All of this would put a bigger emphasis on planning fights: the healer would need to think ahead on when to heal and when to start a combo without breaking it.

---

And what happens when a DPS player goes off script and needs a heal that wasn't in the plan?

The game, on its own terms, says that breaking combos is bad. It's one thing if you break a combo because of your own (lack of) skill, especially when fights are highly scripted. It's quite another to need to break a combo because of someone else's actions and the need to take care of your role's primary responsibility.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Silhart

I can see GCD combos being an interesting addition to healer if:
- Broken combos are appropriately punishing.
- Using heals, including oGCD heals, break the combo sequence.

---

If this system were added to the game, it would add an additional incentive for healers to DPS even if there is healing that needs to be done; that's the exact kind of system that's poison for a co-op game, because it would result in more conflict between players. Players will die because their healer was pressing the shiny combo buttons before getting to the healing, because the healer fell into the trap that the devs left for them.

And that's literally the point of combos in games: to incentivize players to commit to a course of action and not stray from it, by dangling the carrot of maximized rewards at the end of the combo. There's no reason to give healers this sort of incentive unless you're trying to incentivize healers not to heal. Which, to be clear, FF14 absolutely should not do.

Besides, Paladin has been updated to keep their combo even if they do a heal; so if healers do get a single-button combo, it would be backwards to use an out-dated design.

(I don't mind the idea of a single-button combo - similar to PvP combos - for healers, just to make the visuals and sound effects of Stone-Stone-Stone less tedious. Is it a fix to healers' problems? No. But it might be a mild stop-gap.)

Apkallu and Lilimo, I hear what you're saying, but the points you've raised aren't things I see as flaws but rather.. the entire point of the combo system. It would be left up to the healer to judge the capabilities of their team and decide whether it's safe to start a combo for the upcoming mechanic. Though, as much as I disagree with you both, I understand you're both ultimately in the right: a system like this would also cause headaches for everyone since it would attract a bunch of healers who are addicted to squeezing every last bit of potency to the detriment of everyone else.

My feelings around those players and the jobs being designed around them is a topic for another day.

I'm not super married to this idea so I don't feel the need to argue - I just saw OP's idea and decided to approach it from a different angle to everyone else.

I would of course enjoy a 1-2-3 nuke rotation if purely visual, akin to the Pictomancer main filler combo.

On Astrologian in particular because our spells are all pretty, so I can easily see just using 3 existing effects in a cycle. Bonus points if Combust 1 and 2 autocombo, too!

However, if it's a 3 button combo, then hell no. I have way too little hotbar space as it is, the very last thing I'd want is wasting 2 more for something that needs exactly 0 brain input to perform and would just be a rote task aimed to wear the switches on my keyboard out in a slightly more uniform way.

But brainstorming more complex damage setups for a moment:

Astrologian
Place an Earthly Star. By itself it now does nothing. This unlocks two new GCD abilities: One deals damage (+minor AoE) and places stars and constellations on the earthly star dome. One does targetted healing (+minor AoE) and also places things on the dome. Depending on how many of each got used, the other effect gets stronger when you dissolve the Earthly Star (manual only, caps at a certain amount). Placing costs a ton of mana, so be sure you can use it while it's up! This would essentially be a much much much stronger thing than our current Star, but also takes time and active effort to build.

Sage
Already more damage skills than other healers, I'd mostly do visual passes on this. The main nuke should be a 0,8s cast on a 1,5s GCD, firing two random lasers for two individual (small) damage numbers. In other words, while spamming this, it's not hits of 4 lasers, but as near-constant barrage of lasers for tons and tons of tiny hits.

Scholar
This is tricky, because first I want a proper pet again. A real pet. Not what it is now. Then once that is done, add damage-centric fairies! Swiftcast hence mostly becomes a sort-of stance swapping tool.

White Mage
I'd add a cyclical element to this that is stronger than the current lily stuff. Basically a button cycles something like instant damage, casted damage, big slow damage, casted heal, instant HoT. And you have to always use it in that order, no skipping. Make it about the rotational nature of your movement/casting.

I would be down to give it a try absolutely.

id keep them mostly minor, so its not a huge deal if followed or not. (rushed ideas. no real thought put into them)
HEALER#1 2nd DoT. This is a shorter CD and breaks up the 1111 spam, its max potency would be like10-20 more than their basic 1 spam.
HEALER#2 2nd combo that does 10 more potency, with a chance to proc a 3rd hit in the combo for 10 additional potency~
HEALER#3 after pressing their basic nuke 3 times the DOT they have transforms into an attack with 20 more potency. (Can be assigned to a different button, in case you need to reapply the DoT)
HEALER#4 a simple 1 2 combo for the busiest of healer jobs. I'd assume thats AST, but havent played it so many years, I have no idea how busy it actually is or isnt now. (5-10 more potency on the 2nd hit)

general idea is that if things get dicey, or a healer rly doesnt want a DPS rotation, that the low potency increase means that spamming 1 wont be TOO detrimental outside of hard DPS checks

I'd give

White mage:
A 1 2 spell combo (stone into water maybe) that sometimes gives us glare 4 (or a leveled down version of it)

Scholar
They get a version of thundercloud (so they occassioanny have to press 2 during their broil spam)

Astro
A time bomb.

Press a button to apply to target. Does damshe to target after some time. Ticks faster when maleficing the target

Second pass over my ideas from above:

Astrologian
- Cards are now targettable at enemies and friendlies (the single target Play abilities, that is)
- If aimed at a friendly target, work just as now.
- If aimed at an enemy target, they cause some damage, plus try to "autoselect" their target, by proximity with some restrictions.
- If possible, Play 1 will will try to target a DPS player of the correct "type".
- Play 2 will try to target a tank player.
- Play 3 will try to target the lowest health player in range.
So we can eshew fine-tuned target control in favor of doing some extra damage.

White Mage
- New ability, "Ebb and Flow".
- This replaces Tetragrammaton. No CD, medium mana cost that stays the same for all of below.
- It's an oGCD (yes, with a mana cost!) heal that heals for a small-ish amount.
- Afterwards, the ability becomes an instant cast but GCD medium-ish heal.
- Afterwards, it becomes a 2,5s casting GCD very large heal with a medium healing splash effect in a quite small radius.
- Afterwards, it becomes an instant casting GCD nuke that hits roughly like Glare.
- Afterwards, it becomes an oGCD nuke for a small amount of damage + 9s of a low-potency DoT.
Basically, it goes oGCD -> instant -> slow -> instant -> oGCD, and you have to adhere to that cycle.

Sage
Dosis now has two modes of operation. If pressed, it casts as now. But if you hold it down, then once the cast finishes and the lasers fire, it starts shooting a continuous stream of lasers as all 4 fire alternatingly. This is ~25% higher DPS than the normal cast spam, and hence 25% higher Kardia output (every laser Kardia's for 25% of the normal amount of course, and also costs 25% as much mana as a normal Dosis cast), and you can hold however long you want/can. Pew pew pew!

Scholar
A new fairy joins the race. Oh I don't know, let's call her "Selene". Now Selene is mostly the same as Eos, only she's had enough of the jokes about fairies all being the same. She thinks Embrace is lame. Instead, she casts continuous nukes on whatever target the Scholar designates by being the last target they put Bio on. However, she's still a bit inexperienced: Her nukes get weaker over time as she exhausts herself. To get around this you have to give her a rest, the longer Selene was with you, the longer you need to keep Eos out for the debuff about Selene's exhaustion to disappear.
So in other words, active pet-swapping between a damage and a healing pet.

I'd very much prefer a proc system like RDM, BRD and DNC, or at the absolute least something like Firestarter from BLM. I'd even go as far as saying that the dps and healing kits should connect somehow. Imagine if Freecure also applied to Glare or Dia, or a spell crit grant a blood lily stack, idk.

Sadly, I doubt that'd ever happen because then the Sylphies would complain they're "forced" to dps.

Man there was a time healers had more attacks but eh the player base cried about it here we are :clowns:

It's tempting to latch onto the idea of playerbase being a hivemind, eh? I guess people were actively kicking out healers who didn't use cleric stance in dungeons too :p

/s

My ideal to give healers more attacks is more "you did it, you used your healing tools!" rewards like Afflatus Misery and Toxikon. I don't want a complicated damage rotation; I would far prefer "sometimes when you heal you get to do more damage".

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by wildvenonat

My ideal to give healers more attacks is more "you did it, you used your healing tools!" rewards like Afflatus Misery and Toxikon. I don't want a complicated damage rotation; I would far prefer "sometimes when you heal you get to do more damage".

---

The problem with that design is that it often causes useless overheal for DPS gains

Misery is always a gain if you keep it aligned to the 2 and 1 minute burst window so 3 lilys every minute is always a gain, this doesn’t care if you actually need to spend 3 lilys per minute or not. This is the same problem star runs into, though at least Star has a 10 second window you can optimise its healing around. Assize also has this problem

If a healing tool is a gain on damage then it’s a damage tool with sometimes incidentally useful healing, if it’s a loss (like toxicon) then at best it’s a wonky partial refund, at worst it’s a vestigial noob trap

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Zakuyia

Man there was a time healers had more attacks but eh the player base cried about it here we are :clowns:

---

To be fair I was behind that, but the assumption I erroneously made was that we'd get more damage to heal. As in, doing the actual job I play the actual role for in the first place.

But in particular in Savage fights, FFXIV loves to deal very little damage to the raid. Big raid AoEs happen rather infrequently, and hence can be handled with just our oGCDs and mitigations. This is in contrast to other MMORPGs that throw out a constant barrage of both all-raid and random-target hits into the raid, often with unreliable damage numbers, quickly depleting any timers you might have available and then making the healers use their actual casted heals to heal both individual people and the whole group.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Supersnow845

The problem with that design is that it often causes useless overheal for DPS gains

---

Then let's fix the ACTUAL problem you already mention here, the lack of damage to heal in the first place. That'd fix all the issues we're decrying in this thread. It'd handily solve the "lack of damage buttons" because frankly we'd have better stuff to do.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Supersnow845

The problem with that design is that it often causes useless overheal for DPS gains

Misery is always a gain if you keep it aligned to the 2 and 1 minute burst window so 3 lilys every minute is always a gain, this doesn’t care if you actually need to spend 3 lilys per minute or not. This is the same problem star runs into, though at least Star has a 10 second window you can optimise its healing around. Assize also has this problem

If a healing tool is a gain on damage then it’s a damage tool with sometimes incidentally useful healing, if it’s a loss (like toxicon) then at best it’s a wonky partial refund, at worst it’s a vestigial noob trap

---

Burning 3 lilies per minute is the fun of white mage to me, though. Yes, sometimes it's useless overheal. It feels good to have something to heal, though, and it keeps me engaged and watching my lily generation.

I would far prefer damage tools with sometimes incidentally useful healing to a three button damage combo.

I think oGCD's could be used to make the rotation much more fun for White Mage. Here’s my idea for a more engaging damage system that draws upon the Conjurer Roots. It would use these skills:

Commune Earth
Ability: 1 Sec Recast
Call upon the aid of Earth Elementals. Elementals will accompany you indefinitely until directed to act on your behalf.
First Call: Beckon nearby minor Elementals
Second Call: Beseech a Greater Elemental
[Action changes to Commune Air upon Execution]


Commune Wind
Ability: 1 Sec Recast
Call upon the aid of Wind Elementals. Elementals will accompany you until directed to act on your behalf.
First Call: Beckon nearby minor Elementals
Second Call: Beseech a Greater Elemental
[Action Changes to Commune Earth upon Execution]


Commune Water
Ability: 1 Sec Recast
Call upon the aid of Water Elementals. Elementals will accompany you until directed to act on your behalf.
First Call: Beckon nearby minor Elementals
Second Call: Beseech a Greater Elemental


Force of Nature
Spell
Instant Cast / 2.5 Sec Recast Time
Direct your Summoned Elementals to unleash their power.

• Minor Earth Elementals: deal Earth damage to target.
• Greater Earth Elemental: deal Earth damage to all nearby enemies around your target.
• Minor Wind Elemental: deal damage over time to target.
• Greater Wind Elemental: deal Wind damage over time to all nearby enemies around your target.
• Minor Water Elemental: increase the range of your next Cure, Cure II, or Cure III by 10 yalms and the radius of Medica, Medica II, and Medica III by 5 yalms
• Greater Water Elemental: reduce the cast time of all healing spells by 3 seconds. (Raise is included in healing spells affected.)

Visually I imagine that Minor Elementals will be about half the size of Scholar’s Pixie circling around the WHM in a ring of color. A diagonal brown ring going over the left shoulder for Earth. A diagonal green ring going over the right shoulder for Wind and a horizontal blue ring around the waist for Water. The Greater Elementals would be slightly smaller versions of Sprites at about half the size of a SMN egi that hover haphazardly around the player character.

From a gameplay standpoint this set-up of skills makes your single target nuke two buttons to execute. First you summon Minor Earth Elementals and then cast ‘Force of Nature' to attack. The combination of Ability and Instant Cast Spell means this can all be done while moving. This setup also allows for double weaving two Elementals so your Wind aspected DoT can be applied simultaneously while casting this new ‘stone’. Since Commune Earth will become Commune Wind after the first use, you will press the same button twice to apply both single target Earth and Wind effects. Since Commune Earth and Wind will both change simultaneously you will alternate these buttons to create AoE effects.

‘Force of Nature’ is a spell that can be prepared in advance which makes it very versatile and also interesting during downtime. Between Dungeon Mobs you can prepare an AoE attack and DoT to be launched at the first enemy sighted and prepare Water Elementals to make chasing a sprinting Tank simple with increased range and instant cast Cures available.

This spell system also allows you to seamlessly alternate between healing and DPS by calling forth the appropriate Elemental before your next GCD. You can prepare to heal by summoning two Water Elementals and since this will make the healing spell Instant Cast you can summon two more Elementals to return to DPS or continue to heal during the Recast time.

The Lily system gained after level 50 will feel like a safety net to allow weaving room for summoning your desired Elemental.

Of course this system would need to accommodate abilities like Holy, Glare III and Glare IV as well. For Holy I would give it a 4 second Recast to encourage switching between it and AOE versions of Earth and Wind attacks. At level 72 when Glare is acquired I would upgrade ‘Force of Nature’ via trait. Every three casts of ‘Force of Nature’ would allow a single cast of Glare III. These casts of Glare III would be allowed to stack up to five so that you could potentially build a burst phase with ‘Presence of Mind’ and the multiple Glare IV’s it unlocked and Afflatus Misery.

All in all I think this could give WHM it’s true niche as the mobile healer with the furthest range for healing spells. This would feel like an appropriate trade for the lack of oGCD’s it has compared to the other healers being able to continuously dance thru mechanics.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Supersnow845

snip

---

Yeah it's a problem that will always arise, it's why if people want something like this you need it to be equivalent to Penuma where it just refunds the GCD. Shield swipe and repelling shot reminds me everyday that even a slight DPS gain will always be disregarded for safety or utility.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Selvokaz

What would you have them be melee or ranged?
What would you have them do?

https://static.fanbyte.com/uploads/2021/10/healers.jpg

---

Whitemage...give them Ruse; Stone, Quake
Sage..probably really hard to pronounce
Scholar..likewise
Astrologian...Star, Comet, Meteor.

Honestly - I'd love to see each healer given some short duration buff to maintain to benefit the party throughout the fight.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ramiee

Yeah it's a problem that will always arise, it's why if people want something like this you need it to be equivalent to Penuma where it just refunds the GCD. Shield swipe and repelling shot reminds me everyday that even a slight DPS gain will always be disregarded for safety or utility.

---

Lilies already are a dps gain but you're given enough freedom on when to spend them and when to use the dps part that useless overheal doesn't come at the expense of not having healing resources later.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by wildvenonat

Lilies already are a dps gain but you're given enough freedom on when to spend them and when to use the dps part that useless overheal doesn't come at the expense of not having healing resources later.

---

It's a gain by chance though, it's only guaranteed to refund the damage from what I understand. It's an good system because the rng factor or raid buffs alignment isn't guaranteed so it's more of a bonus, something like a heal procing something that gives a DPS gain guaranteed is the problem because players would overheal for that.

The caveat of turning blood lily into a gain is to build said misery outside raidbuff window, then dump at least one misery every 2 minutes into raidbuff window. You'll be shoving 1 GCD that packs the punch of 4 Glare IIIs but gaining the benefit from said raidbuff (technically forcing 3 extra Glare IIIs by doing that).

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ramiee

It's a gain by chance though, it's only guaranteed to refund the damage from what I understand. It's an good system because the rng factor or raid buffs alignment isn't guaranteed so it's more of a bonus, something like a heal procing something that gives a DPS gain guaranteed is the problem because players would overheal for that.

---

What is the problem with overheal, exactly? If you're not losing damage from healing more than you need to, what does it matter if you heal something that they could have survived without?

"After using resources, you get access to a nuke" is a fun design and a lot of why lilies are good is that you've got a ton of flexibility on when you use them and when you use your spender. It is not a gain to use Afflatus Solace on cooldown. I would like using healing actions to be able to improve my dps, but not in a strict manner where you're having to use a healing action on cooldown. Thankfully, many things have charges.

I think Scholar in particular would need a rework in order to change more actions to charges, but I also think Fey Blessing, Fey Union, Dissipation, and Protraction are not well designed. Dissipation is at least strong, unlike the other three, but it's a far worse offender on "all actions become DPS actions if they are capable of being used for DPS" than using the design philosophy of lilies more broadly and on more healers.

Busy work like 1-2-3 combos instead of a one button combo is not satisfying to me; looking for good uses of lilies so that I can store a Misery for the next set of raid buffs is fun, though.