GIVE SCHOLAR BANE AND FIX ART OF WAR MP AND WE'LL BE FINE

[dezzmont]

I meant per minute, yeah.

I did misunderstand Afflatus quite badly it seems! That does change the evaluation significantly in terms of the mobility aspect and the Misery spell, so Misery is now just a 'payoff' for casting 3 GCDs, which any healer is going to have to do anyway, and having 700 potency GCDs means less time on GCDs. Either way, that does shoot a hole in more offensive weaving. It does still seem correct that overall WHM DPS has gone up and SCH down quite significantly, and WHM healing is at least more mobile. No matter what we should expect WHM DPS relative to SCH to go up somewhat significantly, but I now definitely see why others are more pessimistic about how by much.

[EaMett]

I meant per minute, yeah.

I did misunderstand Afflatus quite badly it seems! That does change the evaluation significantly in terms of the mobility aspect and the Misery spell, so Misery is now just a 'payoff' for casting 3 GCDs, which any healer is going to have to do anyway, and having 700 potency GCDs means less time on GCDs. Either way, that does shoot a hole in more offensive weaving. It does still seem correct that overall WHM DPS has gone up and SCH down quite significantly, and WHM healing is at least more mobile. No matter what we should expect WHM DPS relative to SCH to go up somewhat significantly, but I now definitely see why others are more pessimistic about how by much.

Yeah. I went ahead and did some napkin math. I by no means am trying to be 100% accurate here I just want to show the difference between SCH and WHM.

I took a 3mn dummy encounter. No healing then divided it by 3. Currently the potency per minute is something along the lines of:

SCH ~6900
WHM ~7300
Delta is roughly ~400 pot

In 5.0:
SCH ~7800
WHM ~8550
Delta is roughly ~750 pot

So there is a slight increase. Most of it comes from the fact that SCH no longer has a tool that is equivalent to assize for dps (that would've been something like shadowflare or another dot that we lost).
What we need to keep in mind is that 80% of the SCH healing toolkit will not affect this that much. On the WHM side however, short of using afflatus skills everything else will incur a significant DPS loss. Even keeping assize off cooldown for 15s if you're waiting for a mechanic will eat up your advantage.

The above is also why I've made a few suggestions in this forum to improve SCH dps gameplay while not giving it any extra dps (I essentially suggested a broil nerf). As well as spending the last couple of years asking for WHM to get a damage ogcd (like actually getting potency back on fluid aura)

[Eloah]

...On the WHM side however, short of using afflatus skills everything else (GCD heals) will incur a significant DPS loss.

OMG. Thanks to several posts, recent statement, and the above quote, I frucking get it now. I also now understand why SE did what they did. I don't know if I'm relieved or even more pissed.

Okay, so hear is my question: Why is a healer being punished for healing?

And I don't mean a DPS loss, I mean the community, the Meta. Argh, I hate the Meta. That might be why I wasn't seeing certain things the same way as other people. It doesn't discredit anything I said, but I am not Meta. People are already bitching that WHM new "foul" skill is a DPS loss in some way, like what?

I think that's what needs to happen. The Meta needs to change, but also healers don't need less DPS skills, they each need a rewarding DPS rotation system. That's one of the reasons we SCH are pissed. Because SCH branched off ARN, it had a unique rotation. WHM and AST sadly don't.

I think as a community that's what we need to ask for a healer DPS rotation, something that feels rewarding when done, but doesnt punish us if we cant do it. You know when we actually, how dare we keep the party alive that's a complete waste, lol.

[Hanayumi]

If they dont give us some of the old moves back they should tack on like a 20% magic damage buff or something of that sort to dissipation, its going to be totally useless with the more reliance pets and the loss of energy drain, I only ever used it for the extra energy drains... >.<

[EaMett]

If they dont give us some of the old moves back they should tack on like a 20% magic damage buff or something of that sort to dissipation, its going to be totally useless with the more reliance pets and the loss of energy drain, I only ever used it for the extra energy drains... >.<

We will need a stack dump back regardless. I don't see how SE could move forward and not return ED before the first raiding tier. I know they left lilies in their state forever but a rework was necessary there. ED is just something they need to give us back. With quickened AF removed I would say you could expect 1 ED per minute on average. Just take that 15 potency off of broil which in turn will also fix Ruin II for us since single weaves will no longer be a dps loss compared to broil+clip. It's a win win, better gameplay for us and no potency increase for sch (unless you really optimize in which case that's exactly how you should be rewarded).

[dezzmont]

It depends on how rotations are implemented, but in general the more in depth a rotation is, the more punished you are for healing. This is why a lot of healer damage is DOT and why SCH manages to bring in much higher DPS numbers than WHM (20% is a lot, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise when they say 'the gap isn't that big') because of its focus on oGCD healing with minor DPS sacrifices in terms of aetherflow rather than sacrificing a full cast.

If one were to make more complicated DPS rotations, you would need to make it so they didn't conflict with healing in some way. For WHM, throwing one heal out every 30 minutes maximizes the efficiency from lost DPS by refunding 2 of the 3 lost casts in effect, which is pretty good as even SCH doesn't get away with never DPSing, but is worse in scenarios where you need to triage heal, aka a heal check.

I think the best solution is either to give healers a seperate DPS resource to weave (So like Fairy trance instead of dreadwyrm trance maybe?) or just extremely short OCGDs that combo (like 10 second, so you are basically using 3 attacks oGCD every 4 casts) and reducing the basic attack spell damage down to compensate. That way missing the basic spell costs less of your overall DPS, without increasing final DPS.

Other options include baking healing into DPS skill or vice versa via the use of an assist targeting system (A lot of MMOs do this but FFXIV likely can't due to technical limitations, so an oGCD 0 cooldown 'dance partner' style skill would allow this), so that you heal and DPS at the same time, ala WoW cat heal druid (an accidental and unintended but fun build where cat spec druids, aka the DPS spec druids, had an overtuned talent that healed an ally target on some attacks for quite a lot, making a DPS spec viable as a primary or off healer, which was quite fun and fair but can't have fun or fair in WoW nowadays...), or making things like offensive lily stronger so your optimal rotation ALWAYS includes strong healing.

In terms of easy to implement solutions, fixing WHM could be as easy as moving healing Lilly abilities to oGCDs so that you never lose DPS weaving them, making SCH get a second damage ability on a 10 second oGCD, and moving its dot to an oGCD so it has its weaving back. Astros are currently muddling over their changes, but my two cents is that hunting for the match game may take more mental effort than they realize, compared to the old style of cards where you essentially didn't make decisions but it felt like you did.

This all assumes healer resource management wont get more intense. If it does, I doubt healers will be very bored, as healer resource management is a very VERY high focus activity that is far more dynamic than people seem to think. If you had a complex attack rotation with WoW healers your brain would just melt trying to do complicated mental math around your mana while doing the rotation. They may not LIKE it, it definitely isn't boring.

[Eloah]

snip.

My initial thoughts were something along the lines of this:

SCH getting their old DoTs back, as well as oGCD skills to work with their kit, like Energy Drain.

WHM would have some kind of combo system, that feeds into itself to make it nice and rewarding. Basically you cast a spell and it does its damage but applies a status, you cast the next spell and it does its damage plus something extra for the first status, and either adds to that status or replaces it with something else. Then you cast a third spell that repeats the same process the second spell did. You'd then recast the third spell to refresh the status and get an extra damage boost if that status is already on the target. They'd also have an oGCD skill that does damage based on what status is on the target. There could even be multiple oGCD moves for each status if they remain seperated.

As for AST, I can see them using their cards as both buffs and attacks. I can't give a clear cut example, but they could use this new seal system to regulate their attacks. I also picture them getting "reverse DoTs" I'll call them. Basically, a spell cast on the target that compounds the damage inflicted on them and then it bursts for compounded damage, similar to Wildfire. Basically, a variety of spells that deal with time, and ways to manipulate them as needed.

Obviously balances would need to be made, but those are my thoughts on possible DPS rotations each healer could have, that hopefully makes them all feel unique, rewards them for DPSing, but also doesn't punish them for healing, God forbid.

[Starflake]

First off, why do I need to know your "number 1 in the world"? Not saying you aren't, but why is that relevant. Second, and this is directed to the guy who quoted me prior and you for this post. I said nothing about SCHs DPS. Alls I said was they were top tier but the raid data shows us it's not a massive advantage over the other healers. And then in a later paragraph, that healers have the same problem tanks have. With only 3 healers one is always guaranteed a slot, that one just so happens to be SCH. The only thing I said about their DPS was what type it was, that's all.

And in regards to Energy Drain, I'm not sure if you are just confused, but you repeated the wrong info again. ED is an oGCD skill, and doesn't trigger the GCD. Ruin II is a GCD skill and does trigger it. Do you see the issue now. And while we don't know if we need to sink anymore, but we will because of eventual dated content, we don't even have the option. Our only choice is to over heal, which isnt good.

Because you said "Do YoU GuYs EveN MaiN HeAleRs?!?
I also have no idea why you are strawmanning me. Where exactly did I claim that ED is not an oGCD? Like are you even reading, friend? I am literaly saying that Ruin II is an oGCD that triggers the GCD. Not ED. And you have no idea what you are talking about with regards to current balance of healer DPS. On average an equally skilled SCH or AST will have 500-800 rDPS more on top of doing more healer DPS too in case of an AST/SCH combo. You don't seem to factor in their raid utility.
As a matter of fact WHM is currently even the lowest DPS all across the board in savage https://www.fflogs.com/zone/statistics/25#class=Healers

Throw on top that it has no rDPS at all, I don't know what you are talking about when you say that the Raid data shows that it's not at a big disadvantage. This is literally what you said:
"Look I'll be the first to say that SCH was top tier, but it's place wasn't so much above WHM or AST; the parsings from the raid communities show this." It's slightly behind AST rDPS wide on an equal skill floor.

I don't think you have any idea on how to actually read healer rDPS and are just looking at it in a simplistic way.
As for the sink in outdated content. How is that really that relevant again though? And even in outdated content, 2 times Soil and one excog and or Indom will always be useful. It's just not a good argument for ED.

[Knoahl]

Because you said "Do YoU GuYs EveN MaiN HeAleRs?!?

He didn't say that, he said you don't main Scholar do you? He was implying you were a bit out of touch with how Scholar functions, not healers in general, unless I missed that, feel free to correct me if I did. /shrug

back on topic I don't think we will ever get a decent DoT class/HoT class or improved healing until DoT's and HoT's become more like they should work in other mmos as they are so wierd and archaic in this... everything working off such a slow server tick. Losing CD's like Lustrate or benediction because of that, and the reason pvp/mobility feels so bad in this game.

[Starflake]

He didn't say that, he said you don't main Scholar do you? He was implying you were a bit out of touch with how Scholar functions, not healers in general, unless I missed that, feel free to correct me if I did. /shrug

back on topic I don't think we will ever get a decent DoT class/HoT class or improved healing until DoT's and HoT's become more like they should work in other mmos as they are so wierd and archaic in this... everything working off such a slow server tick. Losing CD's like Lustrate or benediction because of that, and the reason pvp/mobility feels so bad in this game.

It was a pedantic statement regardless. "You guys don't main SCH do you." It's to completely dismiss players as incompetent and ignorant by asking this rethorical question. No need for us to keep hammering on this point though.
We should indeed focus on either getting a dot + bane back or Shadow Flare. ED is not a good choice at all with the current healer kit we have. It would be absolutely insane to not use Soil every 30 seconds. That's already 2 stacks! Then you can just throw an Excog on there, use it as an Indom. Lustrate probably not that useful. But due to the powerful nature of our stack management and our incredibly strong oGCD heals, not only are you doing your tanks a favour, but also your co healer by openening up much more space for them to DPS as well.