Nobody Really Wants To Heal

[Shurrikhan]

That's not an inherent problem with the idea of full-uptime healing though, that's a problem with the design of healing skills. You're right that it's not fun spamming one spell over and over again, but that's not because it's a heal. Take this cure-and-medica design skeleton we have and imagine it as a DPS job and you get a caster with "basic damage spell", "bigger damage spell", "AoE damage spell", "DoT", "AoE DoT" and "Ground-effect DoT", with none of them interacting with each other or the job's central theme in any way. That would be a really boring DPS.

If the healing skills fit together into some sort of rotation, unlocking or boosting each other such that you'd get significantly more healing or spend less MP from using your skills in an intelligent order, then full-uptime healing can be as engaging as full-uptime DPS. They've sort of barely touched on this idea with things like Freecure and Enhanced Benefic and Plenary Indulgence, but those designs are all awful (Plenary less so than the other two), being on spells you wouldn't want to use anyway and/or unreliable, and incoming damage isn't high enough in the current game to always make the proc useful.

This; engaging healing, like engaging damage-dealing, requires certain self-centric and fight-centric senses of rhythm, foresight, and compromise/optimization. If there are none of the above components of gameplay, or anything similarly significant, then of course the whole will feel shallow. After all, that'd make it a toolkit that ultimately fails to provide meaningful gameplay.

[EaMett]

Did you ever actually play classic WoW? If you didn't match the specified cookie-cutter build, you'd be laughed out of parties all day. Take off the rose-tinted glasses and it's a terrible mess.

As a healer from that era in a top tier guild this isn’t entirely true. I can’t exactly remember when it started but during BC it was clear, healers would respec between fights to cater to the specific boss.

[Penthea]

If the healing skills fit together into some sort of rotation, unlocking or boosting each other such that you'd get significantly more healing or spend less MP from using your skills in an intelligent order, then full-uptime healing can be as engaging as full-uptime DPS. They've sort of barely touched on this idea with things like Freecure and Enhanced Benefic and Plenary Indulgence, but those designs are all awful (Plenary less so than the other two), being on spells you wouldn't want to use anyway and/or unreliable, and incoming damage isn't high enough in the current game to always make the proc useful.

I also would like to see spells interact with each other more. Not in any sort of rotation but things like a single target heal refreshing regen, a chance for an aoe heal to proc the next spell as an instant cast, casting a spell gives you stacks that changes how another spell acts such as potency/mana cost/mechanic, healing damaged targets with two aoe spells causes your next single target heal to do splash aoe healing...and so on. Stuff like that.

I see others say healers should have healing rotations but this won't work. It would result in players running into problems if they end up in a situation where a lot of healing needs to be done at the worst moment of their rotation. Fights would end up having to be far more scripted to avoid this problem, which would result in a very boring experience for everyone. Something like the above is better.

[Kalise]

I see others say healers should have healing rotations but this won't work. It would result in players running into problems if they end up in a situation where a lot of healing needs to be done at the worst moment of their rotation.

This is where oGCD's should fit in.

If you're in a rough spot and can't get the GCD heals you need out in time, you buy the time with the oGCD's.

As opposed to oGCD's being the end-all-be-all of healing output.

To be honest, I look at the article I linked to in a previous post that discusses the Holy Trinity and it describes healing as thus:

Healing Types

This is more simply-put than the DPS Types. To keep other players alive you either undo damage done to them, or prevent it from happening in the first place. Healers typically have multiple types of healing abilities. Some of them are slow but mana efficient, allowing you to manage your resource to keep people alive while also keeping you from running dry.

They will also typically have some emergency spells. These are very mana inefficient, and should only be used when there is a sudden need for them. This sacrifices efficiency in order to improve a situation going downhill very quickly. Sometimes this is worth it to keep people alive, because being mana inefficient is worth it if the alternative is having lots of mana, but your team is dead with you soon to follow.

Shielding your allies from harm is also applicable, but rarely are there whole playstyles that revolve around this. This includes putting up barriers that reduce or eliminate incoming damage, using CC to keep enemies busy, or increasing ally’s resistances to certain types of damage.

Then you look at XIV's "Healers" and then laugh.

Mana efficiency? Lel oGCD's are free.

Mana inefficient "Emergency" heals? Lel oGCD's are free.

Slow but efficient heals? Lel oGCD's are instant cast (And free).

Shielding allies is rarely an entire gameplay? Lel Critlo-Deploy.

Using CC's to keep enemies busy? Lel wut's a CC?

Increasing an allies resistance to damage? Lel DaNcEr Is BuFfEr

[Clover_Blake]

I guess impopular opinion here, but I love pure healing @x@
In fact, I tried SCH up to lv 40+ and got bored because I was more expected to DPS than heal. The fairy did all the healing on her own!

Also, I'm very confused as to what the problem is supposed to be with WHM. Unless there's anything I'm missing, I understood that WHM is not going to lose Stone, (individual) Aero, or Holy, so we'll be able to dps the same as before.

[Kazrah]

Fine. Then why can't we get some buffs? They have been purging WHM of any buffs? We just lost protect-- permantently this time. The DPS classes have all the buffs. If the healers are going full support, shouldn't we be getting more buffs?

Um, White Mage gets a raid-wide 10% damage reduction cooldown and a 10% localized increase to healing received when all healers (not just White Mage) lost a spell that is the mechanical equivalent of a tinfoil hat. Scholar still has Chain Stratagem while getting things like the "Crit-lo" buff that can be applied through Deployment Tactics on top of a fairy upgrade cooldown because clearly the job didn't have enough damage absorption. Even Astrologian, while it might lose some support aspects from cards, can now more consistently provide regular damage buffs for an entire party. You're welcome.

Also, I'd argue that fighting Titania at E3 is a faulty comparison since....

1) the perspective is from people at E3 rather than players who have gotten used to the newer systems we'll be getting.
2) primal fights in leveling for both previous expansions have always been a royal pain at the start, but got easier as time progressed (because more people knew and understood the mechanics).
3) values and mechanics for specific individual fights are a lot easier to adjust without ramifications compared to adjusting jobs.

[AngelCheese77]

I think my sig says it all for me on this topic.

[NekoNova]

So do you just not pay attention? Because this info has been out in the wild for about half a month now.

I am aware of the new skills being released. I am asking who came with this being the most optimal rotation for a class, and how they determined this.
Pretty sure Yoshi-P did not say "This is how you play WHM from now on"

[Adrestia]

I am aware of the new skills being released. I am asking who came with this being the most optimal rotation for a class, and how they determined this.
Pretty sure Yoshi-P did not say "This is how you play WHM from now on"

Damage output is a pretty straightforward calculation of potency per second. The fewer abilities you could choose on any given GCD, and the shorter the expected rotation to optimize oGCD placement, the faster a computer can do the combinatorics and calculate the optimal rotation.

So basically how they determined this is they took all the potency numbers, cooldowns, etc. from the media tour, the damage formulae that people have spent the past few years reverse engineering, and threw them into a computational blender. The output was the optimal rotation.

The problem space for these DPS rotations is so small you don’t even need to use a heuristic and hope it gives you the right answer. You can literally simulate every possible rotation and pick the one that produces the best number.

“B-b-but these are beta versions and the potencies may not be final!!!!!!11111one”

So when the people with the sims get their hands on the game client at prerelease they’ll re-run the calcs and in a couple minutes post an infographic of the new optimal rotation. It’ll take longer to position the icons on a background and write the text notes than to calculate the rotation, most likely.

[Bahati]

I would rather have zero DPS skills and play content that actually hurts. I don't care if it's as simple as more unavoidable damage, more poxes upon the party I have to esuna or more bleeding mechanics I have to HOT through.

I just want to heal, is that so much to ask? It's very annoying to be expected to play a healer as if I'm a sad excuse of a DPS class with healing as an afterthought depending on who can't move in time.