More engaging DPS for healers

[MoroMurasaki]

There has been and likely always will be a lot of conversations going on surrounding healer DPS that look at it from a moral perspective (healers should DPS to help their parties) or that address community standards (healers should or should not dps based on the way the rest of the playerbase feels) but this topic is not for that discussion.


If you want to participate in this thread I simply ask that you suspend the Great Debate from your mind. I'm coming into this as someone who believes all healers should dps but this isn't about who should do what and rather some different ways to produce engaging dps play for the role that has by far the most boring dps in the game. It's for sharing ideas on how we could improve this situation while not making healing any more difficult than it is now.

That said, a few of my ideas. They revolve around WHM primarily because that's my main and favorite healer but I'm super curious to hear what people think of for all three!

Healing/DPS Integration

Right now there is very little synergy (or even interaction) between the DPS a healer does and the healing portion of their toolkit. Things like Assize/Earthly Star and Aetherflow stacks (to an extent) might contribute to both sides of the coin but there is very little choice involved.

What if every Stone spell a WHM cast on an enemy placed a small layer of Stoneskin on the enemy's target? The added mitigation could allow for more DPS uptime but if this shield stacked with other shields as Divine Bension does now a WHM could build an extra layer of protection for a tankbuster or keep the tank’s hp stable while a regen brought them to full health.

How about instead of shielding the tank the Stone spells hit their target with a ‘dulled’ debuff that reduced their physical damage done by a small percentage? As if the Stones were wearing away at the target’s weapons/claws/teeth/etc.

How about having both spells and being able to choose which to use based on the situation. In a fight with a purely magical boss you would prioritize the shielding Stone but in a fight with magical attacks and physical tankbusters maybe you try to stack both before a buster hits. Maybe some bosses who use primarily blunt damage like Ironfist or hammer-wielders would be immune to the Dull effect because they aren't using something with a point or an edge.

If DPS spells helped make healing easier (like Holy does in an AoE situation) maybe people would be more okay with using them since they're directly contributing to the primary role of healers.

DPS “Rotations”

There is a reason for the quotations. I know that as a healer there are plenty of encounters (and groups) that leave less time for DPS. I'm sure any competent healer could execute a full DPS rotation in Xepatol but maybe not in an EX primal.

How about a basic combo? Tanks have them.

Maybe 3 Stone-themed spells build up to a large single-target hit at the end. Maybe 2 instant-cast Aero-ish spells apply a DoT and increase the user’s movement speed or spellspeed for a few seconds. We could even have a Water combo that had an AoE cleanse effect instead of dps at the end when someone in the party had a status debuff.

If we’e worried about button bloat it could be handled with a proc system like Straight Shot/Straighter Shot - each spell procs the next so that it's still not taking up a bunch of room on our bars. Or similar to pvp where your combo buttons update automatically.

DPS into Healing

Sort of piggybacking on the combo idea - how about a ‘combo’ sort of interaction between your dps and healing spells.

If you've cast 3 Stone spells in 10 seconds your next Cure/II has a shielding effect added on. If all enemies in an area have your Dots on them your AoE heals grant a minor skill/spell speed increase. For each chaincasted Holy you bump the potency on your next single-target heal by 20 letting you bring the tank back to full easier during a large pull.

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Disclaimers - I don't dislike healers as they are now but recent conversations surrounding The Great Debate have forced me to confront the idea that the game does not do enough handholding to encourage new healers to contribute DPS. If their DPS tools were more intimately entwined with their healing kit I think this could be alleviated a bit.

I know there are people who don't want to DPS as a healer. The reality of the situation is that you should. I know even if these changes (or others like them) were implemented there would still be zero DPS healers out there. While I might have my own feelings about that I think that number would at least be considerably reduced.

Please share any ideas you have as to how we might improve the situation as it stands. My goal here is to give healers more meaningful choices apart from “is someone gonna die? No? Stonestonestonestone” and while this might be a controversial topic I don't think I’m coming from a bad place.

Edit: This has gone in General Discussion because I think the healer subforum doesn't have enough frequent visitors who aren't healer mains themselves. People who regularly play other roles with more interesting rotations will likely have further insight and I’d appreciate their contributions

[KaivaC]

I actually like this idea, and looks like you've put some thought into this, Moro

My only worry is that with this, some of those bad apples that we love talking about will start demanding it, which would be against what you're offering here. I'm all for it - hmm...thinking of something for AST would be tough because of the weird way our buffs override each other. I'm thinking along the lines of Malefic enhancing the type of buff that a card has by 5% or something like that. I'd really have to think about this, though.

[AphraelAmarantha]

Ugh, please just leave WHM alone. I don't need crazy rotations or synergies or whatnot, its why I play the class because it's simple. I can deal with no "heal needed, stone stone stone, holy, holy, holy" and whatever. Complications will make me drop it in a heartbeat. :/

[KaivaC]

Ugh, please just leave WHM alone. I don't need crazy rotations or synergies or whatnot, its why I play the class because it's simple. I can deal with no "heal needed, stone stone stone, holy, holy, holy" and whatever. Complications will make me drop it in a heartbeat. :/

From what it looks like from what's posted, Moro's suggestion is simple. It's not really complicated, and actually, it's just the exact same thing you already do, just has added benefits to the rest of the party. I never got a chance to use Stoneskin, but I do remember when WHMs could cast it. I actually miss the days when all healers had their own variants of esuna and protect.

[AphraelAmarantha]

I dunno, I don't like the combos stuff, or the option of adding whatever stuff they are talking about, just seems to complicated to me. just let me stick to my stone stone stone and holy holy holy. It's already hard enough for me trying to keep track of which buffs I have up, who needs healed, and so on. Adding more to keep track of like procs, more buffs and stuff will just make it harder. Its one reason I stopped playing RDM, I cant always keep track of procs and I can't deal with clipping very well, no matter how hard I try.

[BillyKaplan]

What if they made healing more engaging for healers...?

[MoroMurasaki]

I actually like this idea, and looks like you've put some thought into this, Moro

My only worry is that with this, some of those bad apples that we love talking about will start demanding it, which would be against what you're offering here. I'm all for it - hmm...thinking of something for AST would be tough because of the weird way our buffs override each other. I'm thinking along the lines of Malefic enhancing the type of buff that a card has by 5% or something like that. I'd really have to think about this, though.

I think I've put far too much thought into it actually, I think maybe I should think considerably less about healer dps/this game in general >_>

That aside thank you for your kind words! I was thinking a bit about AST (Tridus plays SCH so I never do but I have been known to AST on occasion) and I was thinking this could be a great chance to make them a bit more on-brand as Time Mages.

Perhaps allies effected by a card buff who attack an enemy afflicted with Combust recieve a 1 second bump to their card duration? It would add up over time but would still be impossible to maintain indefinitely.

Or hitting a Combusted enemy with Malefic gives the AST a bit of an sps increase/reduces the CD on Lightspeed.

Clearly not as thought out as my WHM ideas but I love AST as a time mage so much I'll definitely keep thinking about it!

Also, 100% unrelated, we need cross-world linkshells so much due in large part to you being on Siren. Friend me on discord (if I haven't horribly offended you in the past o.o) 'cause I wanna bug you in-game if you aren't too busy. moromurasaki#5719

@Aphrael I get that this isn't something everyone is going to be in love with and that's totally cool. One of the most common rebuttals I see surrounding healer dps lately is that it is too simple so I think that your opinion, while different, is no less valid. I would think that the combos could be a thing you'd be okay with - instead of pressing the Stone IV button it would be Stone then the button would change to Pebbles then to Earthquake (names obviously 100% not real names) but it wouldn't be anything else to track in that sense.

I also hear quite often that the game does nothing to encourage healers to dps and while I don't agree I do think integrating the gameplay a bit more could certainly help alleviate this.

What if they made healing more engaging for healers...?

A thought. Not what this thread is about at all but feel free to make one with your ideas on that.

Also I'd argue several of my suggestions do just that in terms buffs/debuffs/etc.

[KaivaC]

I dunno, I don't like the combos stuff, or the option of adding whatever stuff they are talking about, just seems to complicated to me. just let me stick to my stone stone stone and holy holy holy. It's already hard enough for me trying to keep track of which buffs I have up, who needs healed, and so on. Adding more to keep track of like procs, more buffs and stuff will just make it harder. Its one reason I stopped playing RDM, I cant always keep track of procs and I can't deal with clipping very well, no matter how hard I try.

What if they made it similar to how PvP works for some DPS rotations? I mean, I'm all for creating more engaging DPS for healers, but sticking with WHM for this discussion, I think it would work with WHM. It could be similar to how SMN's Ruin 2 turns into a Ruin 4. Also since you mentioned it, RDMs don't really have buffs to keep track of outside of Embolden. I keep Verflare/Verholy on my 1st hotbar. How did you have yours set up that it's hard to keep track of your procs?

[Jxnibbles]

I sadly agree I get so tired of Regen, Aero 3, Aero 1, Stone 4/Holy spam, Tetra, repeat.. Its even worse on astro Regen, Combust 2, Malefic 3/Gravity spam..

GIve me something like ogcds damage, Or give me something meaningful to be aware of maybe rework the gauge systems you know????????

[AphraelAmarantha]

I also hear quite often that the game does nothing to encourage healers to dps and while I don't agree I do think integrating the gameplay a bit more could certainly help alleviate this.

Actually, I think o5n is the first time its highly encouraged since you die if you don't lol. We need more mechanics like this that force a healer to dps to get themselves or their group out of a bad spot. :3

snip

I have two hot bars, one for my controller set up (yes I use controller because I'm even WORSE with kbnm) and a second one on top that keeps track of what is on cd. On top fo that shows what I have buffed/debuffed. Still doesn't help that much because I have to constantly looking at health bars to make sure people aren't dying. I've gone thru this before, I have poor eyesight, spatial awareness and peripheral vision. I have to look at something directly for about two to three seconds to process what is going on before I decide to make an action. So usually what happens is I look at hitpoints first, then look at main battlefield to see if no aoes I need to move out of, sometimes I look at the boss animations if required, then look at my buffs/ then cds, then I can decide what to do next.

I also have a vid of showing how bad I suck with rdm, note that I recorded this before I switched my UI (which didnt help me at all, still couldnt beat it after going over and over at it, hence I switched to WHM) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Id1CzkF3Dj8