In Favor of DPS Kits

Wanted to bring this topic up again since it's been popping up in the strike thread and related lately.

I think one of the bigger issues we clash on is how they should deal with healing downtime making the role as boring as it is. It's generally been an argument between:

A. Getting(returning) dps kits so we have more than one damage button to use
B. Reduce healing downtime so we spend less time hitting damage buttons

These aren't exactly mutually exclusive, but they do tend to be at odds with each other, and I lean pretty heavily on A over B.

With B, healing downtime will still increase as time passes and players get better gear and learn the fights, so it's kinda inevitable we eventually end up back to having more time to use our damage buttons even if requirements are initially higher.

It also offers very little to make the role enjoyable when doing things solo, like playing the MSQ, running FATES, deep dungeon, variant dungeons, etc. Those aren't insignificant imo, and I want the role to be enjoyable in all aspects of the game, not just group content.

Edit: This isn't to say that tanks/dps shouldn't get nerfs on their mit/heal tools. I personally don't really care if they do or don't adjust those tbh

It really should be both.
People who argue for only DPS want to play DPS and people who want to argue for only healing want to play a different MMO.

Healers need to do way more healing and they need to do more damage and have basic damage mechanics. It doesn't need to be anything like a rotation (maybe on sage if they want to go all in on green DPS) just something that removes the one button spam.
SCH being a dot mage made sense because you managed a pet and also had to manage damage or healing trade so the dots were present for consistency.
WHM had a couple of dots and different cast time attacks for movement management and long CD attacks for variety.
AST was incredibly similar to the current system because you made up for your lack of damage in versatility between shield or pure healing and buffing damage.
They weren't super advanced at most you were managing like 4 buttons regularly which was shorter than monk and dragoons main rotation GCDs.

These aren't complicated damage systems just something more than 1 button spam which is hillarious because back then healers has way more GCD healing due to ability heals being rare or expensive back then and the healing checks in ARR and especially HW were rough so healers had more damage options and were forced to do more healing. Now healers have no damage options and barely any healing requirements.

I mean if we take a look at tanks (who have a simplified melee rotation) and we assume that the game gets rebalanced to both require more active tanking and also more active healing - which we have no indication so far that it's ever happening but let's assume for a moment - then it would follow that healers ought to have a slightly simplified caster set.

Now as all healers already have a DoT (good, although maybe we want to change this for 1-2 of them for variety), there's room for the following, easily, without overloading the already very crowded hotbars of healers:

Astrologian
Malefic gets replaced with a 1-2-3 autocombo of instant cast spells after Astral Draw. These are weaker than the current Malefic. After Umbral Draw, it goes back to the default, a 4-5-6 autocombo of slow-casting spells that deal more damage than current Malefic. Lightspeed probably reduced to 1 charge again to compensate.

Scholar
Current fairy gauge and the union removed. Every GCD-heal and Aetherflow-using heal adds 1-20 to the new fairy gauge, based on healing (shields not counted, only healing, overhealing is okay though). At any point, bar can be spent to turn Eos into Selene for 4 energy/second. Selene does not use Embrace, instead she casts a nuke on a target every time you cast either a nuke or a DoT on something, akin to summoner major summon assist nukes. Selene can be freely turned off/on as an oGCD.

White Mage
Lose nuke. Gain two extra DoTs, one hits the closest target to whoever you GCD-heal (including everything in its radius for Cure III!), the other is really strong and lasts 60 seconds but is a 3,5s cast. New spammable filler is a 2,5s-5,0s (unsure) channeling spell. As long as you channel it (the initial cast is instant) accelerates all of your DoTs every 0,5s, making them lose 3s and also cause that lost tick of damage. In other words, you apply multiple DoTs then "burn them" as your filler.

Sage
Can hold down the Dosis button. This causes 1 normal cast, and then afterwards every 0,5s a random single laser fires for 25% of the normal Dosis damage (and causing 25% of the normal Kardia healing). In other words, you try to find moments you can stand still and hold the button down for +25% damage and Kardia healing.

Importantly, I think none of these uses more buttons than the job uses right now, possibly except White Mage with +1 button. Healers are already overloaded for buttons, so transformative changes would work best IMO.

I wouldn't mind more DPS abilities along with higher healing requirements. Currently I think SGE is a good template. Damage spell, dot, charged instant ability, and resource using movement tool.

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Originally Posted by Carighan

Malefic gets replaced with a 1-2-3 autocombo

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Is that any different from now? It's going to be mashing the same button over and over. I'd try to stay away from combos, especially if they're going to auto update.

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Importantly, I think none of these uses more buttons than the job uses right now, possibly except White Mage with +1 button. Healers are already overloaded for buttons, so transformative changes would work best IMO.

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Keeping the button count reasonable is important but I think it would be better done by consolidating heals. Spells like Medica are so rarely used that combining them with their HoT forms wouldn't feel like a loss. The HoT would be the same except for upfront healing on cast. Redundant abilities could be trimmed and replaced with charges of a single ability. This would allow new DPS buttons to be more interesting I feel.

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Originally Posted by Ramiee

It really should be both.
People who argue for only DPS want to play DPS and people who want to argue for only healing want to play a different MMO.

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I tried to think of a counterargument but you're probably right. I want the dot mage aspect of SMN we lost in EW on SCH, powerful long cast spells but various mobility/instant cast resources to stock up on WHM like BLM, and SGE to have proc-based combos like a physranged. I like healing with tanks, RDM, and DNC. I want SMN's physick usable, carbuncle's barrier be put on other party members, and MCH to have Bishop Autoturret and a Defibrillator rez. A lot of my wants tend to blur the lines between the trinity now that I think of it, and that's also kinda asking for a different MMO.

It used to be both. Check out this comparison between Heavensward and Endwalker:

https://i.imgur.com/ImGOKXV.png

https://i.imgur.com/4Q1HUp6.png

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Originally Posted by hunter2

It used to be both. Check out this comparison between Heavensward and Endwalker:

https://i.imgur.com/ImGOKXV.png

https://i.imgur.com/4Q1HUp6.png

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God we had it so good in HW.

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Originally Posted by hunter2

It used to be both. Check out this comparison between Heavensward and Endwalker:

https://i.imgur.com/ImGOKXV.png

https://i.imgur.com/4Q1HUp6.png

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The irony of the HW log having more healing over damage casts compared to EW when EW kit is filled with heals will never not be funny when I see this brought up.

I made some outlines for healer DPS kits in another thread a few weeks ago. It got the reception you'd probably expect. (Not because the outlines were notably bad, but apparently people enjoy being Cure-bots...)

https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...s-for-healers/

I love healing, but the role is so brain dead in DT. I'd rather farm Island Copper Ore for 12 hours than call myself a healer "main" these days.

Up all the potencies for all the Healers spam attacks. Glare, Broil, Malefic and Dosis...
Add attacks to all the Healers that makes use of unneeded Job Gauge resources. WHM's Lilies, AST's Cards and SGE's Addersgall. And make Energy Drain more useful for SCH.
And then they can look into adding extra attacks to fill in gaps on the Healer gameplay.

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Originally Posted by NegativeS

I made some outlines for healer DPS kits in another thread a few weeks ago. It got the reception you'd probably expect. (Not because the outlines were notably bad, but apparently people enjoy being Cure-bots...)

https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...s-for-healers/

I love healing, but the role is so brain dead in DT. I'd rather farm Island Copper Ore for 12 hours than call myself a healer "main" these days.

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Anyone who wants pure healing botting are playing the wrong game. ARR was designed from the ground up for healers to be damage dealers and for the healers to become pure healers the entire game design would have to change.
Telegraphed attacks you dodge would have to be lessened and constant damage output would have to go out which people can't handle.
Play M3N and you'll see how healers struggle in healbotting because without mitigation those raid wide combos hit hard.
Though they're right that healers need to heal more they can't just heal and therefore need damage mechanics.

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Originally Posted by Ramiee

Anyone who wants pure healing botting are playing the wrong game. ARR was designed from the ground up for healers to be damage dealers and for the healers to become pure healers the entire game design would have to change.
Telegraphed attacks you dodge would have to be lessened and constant damage output would have to go out which people can't handle.
Play M3N and you'll see how healers struggle in healbotting because without mitigation those raid wide combos hit hard.
Though they're right that healers need to heal more they can't just heal and therefore need damage mechanics.

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Well yeah, but there's a huge empty space between "pure healbotting, might as well not have any nukes" and what we currently have, which is more or less the opposite as oGCD heals are very rarely not enough to cover everything. How about, I dunno... some steady healing? Like every 3rd-5th GCD at least?

I mean, consider this: Damage dealers spend all their time, well, dealing damage. It's in the name of the role. So as is evident from that, what do healers do? That's right, they spend their GCDs dealing damage. And what do tanks do? Yeah, as evident by the role name, they use their GCDs to deal damage. It's simple, isn't it?

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Originally Posted by Carighan

Scholar
Current fairy gauge and the union removed. Every GCD-heal and Aetherflow-using heal adds 1-20 to the new fairy gauge, based on actual healing done vs maximum possible healing (shields not counted, only healing). At any point, bar can be spent to turn Eos into Selene for 4 energy/second. Selene does not use Embrace, instead she casts a nuke on a target every time you cast either a nuke or a DoT on something, akin to summoner major summon assist nukes. Selene can be freely turned off/on as an oGCD.

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Bad design. The better your team becomes, the less effective you become as you will lose this dps feature. And no directly conflicts with other healers as their heals weaken you now. Which makes it a balance hell.

Damage should be standalone from any healing, or purely rely on ogcd casts (making it a fixed time period with a free heal you can weave in the rotation). This gives an optimal damage target (100% dps uptime) possible to exist, to which you can balance. And by making the ogcd/other mechanic gracefull enough, also make less effective players get a decent 'bonus damage' effect. Their heals might get fully spent a lot more often. But outside of that still involve a very similar dps rotation in which you want to spend most time dealing damage.

If you want such feature, make it tied to the dps button itself, and optionaly also make a heal gcd charge it, but at least always include dps casts. This brings a static charge up time with it. And still involves a dps loss if too many gcd heals are used.

Sure hurts knowing we went from having both to having neither. I've heard healer dps wasn't expected back then, and my understanding is they then tried to account for it with the Stormblood adjustments, but what happened from there that got us the ShB kits?

Also I only just now noticed Raimee's topic on the matter from april, and it's interesting how we went from folks leaning to needing more DPS to suddenly Both after DT.

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Originally Posted by UkcsAlias

If you want such feature, make it tied to the dps button itself, and optionaly also make a heal gcd charge it, but at least always include dps casts. This brings a static charge up time with it. And still involves a dps loss if too many gcd heals are used.

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Hrm, fair point, although I specifically would not want a static type of charge - say, every 14 GCDs you charge the fairy for DPS mode. The thing about that is, that takes player agency and skill expression along, as at that point it might as well just be automated. Too static and hence too dependable in nature. At the very least it'd need to be something like a random 1-20 charge on each GCD spent so the charge time is unreliable and hence as a player you have to be able to handle that unreliable charge time vs what is currently happening in the fight.

I'd add that just like tank dps kip include self healing, healer dps kit could/should include a layer of aoe healing or some kind kit interactivity
ex :
-123 dps combo with branching path for heal/shield/gauge
-auto-combo with 3rd step heal/shield/gauge
-gauge usage for "continuation" heal/shield action

Theses effects could be applied around self/target/pet/kardia_target

The potencies should of course not be enough to make healing actions ore useless ; more of a HoT padding

Just mixing these around would open a bit of playstyles diversity and alleviate a bit of the "healers let people die for dps" argument

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Originally Posted by Azurarok

Also I only just now noticed Raimee's topic on the matter from april, and it's interesting how we went from folks leaning to needing more DPS to suddenly Both after DT.

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Well most healer mains even back then believed both should be overhauled but most healer mains back then were thinking about what realistically could be done in DT. DPS getting overhauled was the basic fix so they could work on getting better healing systems and encounter design over the next few expansions.
It's funny because they technically did this but locked it behind 2min bursts which was completely stupid.

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Originally Posted by Calysto

I'd add that just like tank dps kip include self healing, healer dps kit could/should include a layer of aoe healing or some kind kit interactivity
ex :
-123 dps combo with branching path for heal/shield/gauge
-auto-combo with 3rd step heal/shield/gauge
-gauge usage for "continuation" heal/shield action

Theses effects could be applied around self/target/pet/kardia_target

The potencies should of course not be enough to make healing actions ore useless ; more of a HoT padding

Just mixing these around would open a bit of playstyles diversity and alleviate a bit of the "healers let people die for dps" argument

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I mean... that's kinda what Sage and their Kardia is, isn't it?

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Originally Posted by Ramiee

Well most healer mains even back then believed both should be overhauled but most healer mains back then were thinking about what realistically could be done in DT. DPS getting overhauled was the basic fix so they could work on getting better healing systems and encounter design over the next few expansions.
It's funny because they technically did this but locked it behind 2min bursts which was completely stupid.

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I mean they did add more self-sustain/mitigation for dps and tanks that made the lack of healing worse.

But yeah the lv92 skills just don't do anything with the role's empty filler phases.

Healers more or less have 2 kinds of bursts, a dps burst like all other roles, and a healing burst, which either come at scripted moments, or when mistakes are made by party members, and these bursts themselves feel fine to do. There's nothing to do inbetween and there's so much of that.

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Originally Posted by Azurarok

Healers more or less have 2 kinds of bursts, a dps burst like all other roles, and a healing burst, which either come at scripted moments, or when mistakes are made by party members, and these bursts themselves feel fine to do. There's nothing to do inbetween and there's so much of that.

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Yeah and the worst part is, whenever a fight even hints at not sticking to this rigid pattern, it becomes incredibly fun as a healer. When everyone first did it in 690 gear, Valigarmanda EX's DoT was too weak, but still interesting, in particular as a shield healer since you could not pre-shield 20 seconds before the next damage hit, the DoT would eat the shield by then. M3S has actual healing needs later in the fight. The odd extended-healing-blasts phase such as Rotten Heart or the end of P4S phase 2 are amazing as a healer. You get to actually heal.

And I'm not even saying that every fight should be like this all the time, but c'mon Square, there has got to be a middle ground between 10 minutes of Rotten Heart non-stop (though I'd take that over what we have now, tbh) vs the current Warriors-can-trivially-cover-the-entire-raid-healing.

So IMO, give us just 1-2 more damage kit elements, but also stop designing raid fights to need ~0 healing outside of these sparse single bursts. And then if needed remove 1-2 current oGCD timers to free up hot bar space. We got way more tools than damage to heal, and even with a lot more damage we'd not nearly need this much healing kit in this game's fight design. Might as well make hotbar space for more damage!

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Originally Posted by Azurarok

I mean they did add more self-sustain/mitigation for dps and tanks that made the lack of healing worse.

But yeah the lv92 skills just don't do anything with the role's empty filler phases.

Healers more or less have 2 kinds of bursts, a dps burst like all other roles, and a healing burst, which either come at scripted moments, or when mistakes are made by party members, and these bursts themselves feel fine to do. There's nothing to do inbetween and there's so much of that.

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Yeah adding healing to MNK, SMN and PCT was very dumb. RPRs regen was already pretty powerful and now pretty much most DPS gained healing. The upgraded Tank defensives were also real dumb, the only one that was good was DRK but thats because it had a self heal locked behind a 2 minute CD which is very reasonable for a tank compared to WAR.

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Originally Posted by Ramiee

Yeah adding healing to MNK, SMN and PCT was very dumb. RPRs regen was already pretty powerful and now pretty much most DPS gained healing. The upgraded Tank defensives were also real dumb, the only one that was good was DRK but thats because it had a self heal locked behind a 2 minute CD which is very reasonable for a tank compared to WAR.

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I'm still questioning why they gave a heal to MNK, especially after SE went out of their way to nerf Mantra last expansion

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Originally Posted by Silver-Strider

I'm still questioning why they gave a heal to MNK, especially after SE went out of their way to nerf Mantra last expansion

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Honestly, 90% chance it was just because they needed the third and final "Reply of <Element>" and didn't want it to add damage directly or add what would more thematically belong to Wind or Fire, leaving virtually no other way to add value than to provide sustain. Since a mere Second Wind II would have been complained about, and healer complaints are inherently muted, AoE heal it was.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Honestly, 90% chance it was just because they needed the third and final "Reply of <Element>" and didn't want it to add damage directly or add what would more thematically belong to Wind or Fire, leaving virtually no other way to add value than to provide sustain. Since a mere Second Wind II would have been complained about, and healer complaints are inherently muted, AoE heal it was.

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I think an AoE mitigation effect would've been more thematically appropriate, given the nature of Riddle of Earth being little more than MNK Rampart. but it does begs the question, what will become of BRD? As I recall, part of the justification for Mantra's original nerf was because BRD was underperforming and SE went the route of improving its supportive toolkits rather than a straight damage buff, so they changed Nature's Minne to be an AoE heal buff like Mantra but with a slightly higher % buff. Now that MNK has Earth's Reply, does that mean that BRD will be getting an even stronger AoE heal to follow the selfsame logic of last expansion or will it be left to the wayside?

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Originally Posted by Silver-Strider

I think an AoE mitigation effect would've been more thematically appropriate

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Aye, but that would mean you have to be hit by the thing you want to mitigate before you could AoE mitigate, and that mitigation would likewise reduce healing requirements (all while being under higher scrutiny, since it increases max eHP as well).

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Now that MNK has Earth's Reply, does that mean that BRD will be getting an even stronger AoE heal to follow the selfsame logic of last expansion or will it be left to the wayside?

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Probably the latter. Or perhaps, in response, they'll hear out a complaint or two from a physical ranged job by 8.0 or 9.0. If we're lucky.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Aye, but that would mean you have to be hit by the thing you want to mitigate before you could AoE mitigate, and that mitigation would likewise reduce healing requirements (all while being under higher scrutiny, since it increases max eHP as well).

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They could've gone the route they did with PCT's Tempora Grassa and just make it so you sacrifice a portion of the personal mit to convert it into party mit but I digress.

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Probably the latter. Or perhaps, in response, they'll hear out a complaint or two from a physical ranged job by 8.0 or 9.0. If we're lucky.

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Listen, it only took them 6-7 years to realize Mantra > Nature's Minne and just by the nature that BRD is a DPS role, they at least have a slightly better chance of being heard before healers lol

I would very much like to see moving back towards healers having more damage skills to manage, as someone who was a healer main in heavensward but moved away from it after the simplifications. It's just not a very enjoyable role if the only thing that keeps you from spamming the same one button most of the fight is other people playing poorly and you having to heal them more than usual. I know that the 10 or so damage skills scholar had in heavensward wont be coming back, but even just one more semi-regularly pressed damage skill would go a long way.

In general I actually love if some DPS and tanks have strong support options, and in fact in particular if some of them have healing options.

But once again, the incoming damage on the raid is so incredibly low in FFXIV, these "flavour" options (in any other MMORPG) end up covering all healing needs. While the big 10-20 ability healing kits of healers go mostly unused, entirely because there's no damage to use them on.

That does not mean we should not get slightly expanded DPS kits. Sure. In particular if they can be made flavourful - say, Astros throwing their drawn cards at enemies Gambit-style! - but we also need a way to actually let healers do what their entire role is meant to do. And that cannot be done on the side of the job, not even by removing healing from other jobs (that'd just be a bandaid, in any case). It has to be done on the encounter side.

It's the same song and dance. Healers complaining about not having enough to do and ppl telling us that we should play other roles if we wanna dps.

It's sad when people fail to realize that a healer's contribution is not only managing HP bars, but doing damage as well. Every job is a dps job. Tanks are dps that have defensive CDs and healers are dps that have healing abilities.

At the end of the day, the difference between beating content is whether or not you can balance healing and doing damage.

Every time someone asks for the devs to make us heal more to avoid downtime is so frustrating bc healing isn't just about the frequency at which you have to heal but the depth of what you have to heal. Throwing raidwides back to back while making us do mechanic vomit isn't really that engaging.

The combat design has been striped down to the point that healing is just healing back from single digit numbers. It's why the devs struggle so much to make new abilities that aren't just raw healing.

And then you realize that the devs are way too afraid of making healing difficult bc they want bad players to not feel punished for understanding how a healer works.

Healing will never be more than it is now. The devs have made it clear that they simply do not care bc to them, healing is just a one sided affair.

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Originally Posted by Silver-Strider

I'm still questioning why they gave a heal to MNK, especially after SE went out of their way to nerf Mantra last expansion

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Its because they needed an Earth Reply. Honestly it wouldn't be a problem if it was like old Riddle of Earth where it was a selfish regen, a strong self heal every 2 minutes is pretty reasonable for MNK.

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Originally Posted by Azurarok

It also offers very little to make the role enjoyable when doing things solo, like playing the MSQ, running FATES, deep dungeon, variant dungeons, etc. Those aren't insignificant imo, and I want the role to be enjoyable in all aspects of the game, not just group content.

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Healer should heal crowd always ignore this.

FFXIV is not like SWTOR where you can have tank/dps companion for all solo content.

You need to be a masochist to attempt deep dungeon solo challenge as AST.

If our Chocobo actually tanked properly when in their tank mode I'd be quite a bit happier to run around the field as a healer.

That or if monsters tamed with Beastmaster could be used even when not using the job, and assuming different monsters can cover different roles.

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Originally Posted by hunter2

It used to be both. Check out this comparison between Heavensward and Endwalker:

https://i.imgur.com/ImGOKXV.png

https://i.imgur.com/4Q1HUp6.png

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God that really just highlights the entire issue with current healer design so easily lol.

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Originally Posted by Zaytex

God that really just highlights the entire issue with current healer design so easily lol.

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It does but people will still look at that and not see a problem