Adventurer in need: Originality

[Lodi]

EDIT: This thread is useless and I know it, it's not like any of the healer threads changed a thing since the pre-release media tour. I just wanted to post some ideas I had, knowing full well this thread will be dead in a day or two. SE made it very much clear they don't give a damn, there's no fighting fate.


Let's face it, healers don't have very original kits.

Without even considering the lack of damage abilities, which is to me a glaring issue, and the strong imbalance between healers, our abilities are rather bland and tasteless.


Cure/Cure II/Physick/Benefic/Benefic II: ST heal
Medica/Medica II/Succor/Whispering Dawn/Indomitability/Helios/Aspected Helios: AoE heal
Glare/Broil/Malefic: ST damage
Dia/Biolysis/Combust: ST DoT
Tetragrammation/Lustrate/Essential Dignity: OGCD ST heal

So many of our abilities are the same across all classes with maybe a different potency, there's only a handful of unique abilities (such as Assize, Excog, Emergency Tactics, AST Cards, Earthly Star), and it really shows when all healers' gameplay are similar to one another.

It goes like this:

Single enemy -> Glare+Dia until dead*
Several enemies -> Holy until dead*
One ally hurt -> Cure II + Regen*
Several allies hurt -> Medica II + Medica*
Above level 30-ish -> Use CDs when available, and healing CDs when needed

*Just replace the WHM spells with the SCH and AST equivalents

No rotations, extremely little interaction between our skills, nothing but flat damage, dots, flat heals, and some shields and regens. Not immensely exciting.

All classes require good knowledge of their kit to achieve decent performance. Healers? Just spam your damage spell, use your dot every 30s, use healing CDs when someone stubs their toe, and bam you're above the average already.

I honestly think we deserve a more complex kit than "click to damage, click to heal". We could use a buildup, or something that looks like a rotation.


So why don't we bring in some originality?
You know, stuff that isn't yet another Cure II copy, or Combust XII, or Broil VII (although WHM is getting close to that, Glare is just Stone V to my eyes)

I did the brainstorm thing and wrote down plenty of abilities that aren't just yet another flat and bland healing CD we never asked for, and those are the ideas I came up with (in no particular order):



Passive, converts 10% of all overheal into damage on the nearest enemy (damage converted from regen overheals is halved)

Passive, converts 100% of overheal potency into MP (ex: cast Cure II, half of it is overheal, you recover 350MP)

OGCD, ST heal that turns 100% of its overheal into damage on the closest enemy to your target

OGCD, converts your next healing spell into a damage spell with the same potency (works on AoEs, shields are counted as healing potency, regens don't count)

GCD, deals damage and heals ally closest to target, lower potencies and higher MP cost

OGCD, target an ally; for a short duration, all damage the target takes is spread across the entire party

Passive, Reduces the next damage spell's cast and recast time after landing a healing spell, and vice versa

OGCD, heals target equal to the amount of damage they did in the last 10s

OGCD, marks an enemy for a set duration, all allies get a small lifesteal effect from the marked target

GCD, ST heal and small AoE damage centered on target

OGCD, places a mark with infinite duration on the ground, any player can step on it to recover health once (doesn't trigger if the player has above 80% health)

GCD, AoE mitigation with a short cast and long recast time

Passive, increases next healing spell's potency by 50% after using a damage spell, and vice versa

Passive, using a damage/healing spell gives the player a healing/damage stack respectively; each stack is consumed upon landing a corresponding ST spell to generate
a 50 potency aoe on top of the spell (ex: you cast malefic 3 times, your next benefic will have an additional 150 healing aoe; you cast physick 4 times, your next broil will deal 200 additional damage in an aoe)

OGCD, marks an ally, the first enemy who attacks the marked player gets a DoT and damage debuff that spreads itself to nearby enemies every server tick for the remaining duration, with 50% potency

OGCD, link self to an ally, linked ally recovers health equal to 10% of the damage you deal

OGCD, cone AoE that deals damage and heals with low potencies, multiple charges

OGCD, Asylum-like AoE that follows the targeted player

GCD, ST damage spell followed by a weak but long aoe dot

OGCD, gives ally an aura that deals damage over time and heals the bearer for a small percentage of the damage dealt

GCD, ST heal followed by a short mitigation, high MP cost


There, I think that's it.
Plenty of healer spell ideas, and none of them is Stone XVI or Cure/Medica with a fancy name.

What's my idea behind those spells, you may wonder?

Firstly, to break the barrier between "Healers should dps whenever possible" and "Healers shouldn't have to dps".
I hate those two mentalities, and the "deal damage or heal, but not both at the same time" aspect of our current kits tend to exacerbate this.
Right now, one side sees healing as a dps loss, and the other sees dps as a liability. Being not only able, but encouraged to do both would make things better.
And I'm sure some of the less confident healers out there would enjoy having a damage+heal button, in order to get used to not babysit the tank at all times.

Secondly, to break the monotony.
It's a bit sad that our classes play the same at level 30 and 80, with a few extra heal OGCDs. I understand that we couldn't really make use of a hard rotation, but we could definitely make use of soft rotations like DoTs, or CDs that allow us to give heals while dealing damage.
We have a ridiculously strong damage output tied to one button, and extremely strong heals capable of topping off an entire team in seconds.
I think we should have a more dynamic playstyle with weaker potencies overall, and to be rewarded for juggling between heals and dps instead of only doing one and then maybe the other if needed.
Furthermore, you may have noticed I included some GCD mitigation skills in the list. If heals and shields are GCD-based for a good part, why would mitigation be only on cooldowns? I think we should be given the choice to sacrifice a GCD or two to push more mitigation, and this would give us more things to do than just playing Whack-a-mole with health bars.

Thirdly, to end the overheal curse.
An overzealous DPS who does all they can to deal damage will be rewarded with big dps (if they don't die, that is).
An overzealous healer who does all they can to keep the party at 100% health will be rewarded with... nothing. Worse than nothing.
This damned stat that's visible on everyone's favourite dps meter, that inavoidable number of shame that shows how much all the effort you put into keeping your team alive was wasteful, and could have been optimized. There's no avoiding overheal.
I think that converting some of it into, well, litterally anything would make the whole role feel better. There's few things worse than casting your strongest heals, and then turns out your co-healer was way ahead of you and you just wasted 1300MP for nothing.
Getting damage out of overheal would soften the loss, and getting MP from overheal could actually be used as an emergency battery, sacrificing GCDs to recover MP.


To sum it up:
More original and varied spells overall, CDs that aren't just instant versions of existing spells, and actual choices instead of "dps until someone's head falls off"

Would it be difficult to balance? Perhaps. But it's not like healers are balanced right now, so we have nothing to lose. Although keep in mind SE added a new tank and reworked another, and they were all quite balanced on release. It could also happen to healers, someday.
Would it make the classes more interesting? Probably. The current amount of decision making is a few kilometers below sea level and we could use a more interesting kit.
Would it mean we'd lose some of our current heal CDs? Yes PLEASE. We have so many of them our actual healing spells are scarcely needed. A first step towards making the role more fun would be to remove all those instant heal buttons, so we'd actually have to take our time and heal.
Would it mean we'd lose damage potencies on our current spells? Of course, having our entire dps rest within one or two buttons is plain boring and it should be spread across multiple abilities, and most importantly, interactions. Right now, we can almost reach our maximum dps output by pressing 1. That's not fun.


Goodness, what a wall. Well if you read it all, thank you for staying I guess.

Am I being too hopeful? Yes, totally. But I still want to believe SE will make healers fun to play someday, even if everything hints at the exact opposite.
I'll keep an eye on patch notes, but I don't expect to see much more than Glare reduced to 250 potency, and then nothing for half a year. Before making Combust III a 60 potency DoT. And then nothing for another half year.

[Jonnycbad]

It sounds to me like you would really rather play a damage dealer than a healer.

[Lodi]

It sounds to me like you would really rather play a damage dealer than a healer.

In case you didn't notice (you probably didn't, since the very first sentence is about healers as a whole), this entire post about making both dps and healing more interesting, because both are boring and unoriginal.

If all I cared about was dps:
1- I wouldn't be here talking about healers,
2- I wouldn't play a healer,
3- I would be playing BLM.

If all you have is the usual "you just wanna play a dps xd" rethoric, please get out. Thank you!

[IndyRevolutions]

I can't blame them for sounding like that, but at the same time healers still feel very lackluster because you still have more than enough buttons to deal with damage and only up to 4 buttons to deal damage with, and the utter lack of reward once you know how the fight runs and you can keep your entire team healthy. Sure, you get to cast throw roc- wait, it's light missile now, more often, but that's not really a reward, that's just what you do when you don't need to heal already.

[Arrhin]

Ok, Ima start out with this, when did you start playing??!! The game has changed to be this way!! Many of us hate it too and it was done, for the most part in the name of "Balance". WHM, SCH, heck even AST used to be unique, colourful classes (jobs, whatever). Everyone bloody well askin' fer balance simplicity and this is where the devs brought us, and it's a common complaint for career healers. Healing in 2.X is not what healing is now, there was a calculated risk switching to Cleric stance and droppin some serious damage, the drop in healies was significant and although for SCH Eos did help bridge the gap it was still not done lightly unless you really knew yer tank. SCH and WHM teamed up nicely for 8 person stuffs since the potent group heals and regen on WHM complimented the strategic mitigation style of SCH. I really miss those days, even if there have been some nice qol improvements in the game overall. In the quest for balance and ease of use our favourite classes have lost their personality. To be clear I do believe there was need for balance, or at least to bring things closer in line. I do think it could have been done without such watering down. I do recognize that raid utility suffered a lot for some classes but there had to be a better way.

[Roxas_Andrade]

I liked some of the ideas. Specially the Healer throwing Bloodbath, Asylum who folloows someone, Synastry that heals with damage and a spot on the floor that you get healz...

I wish SE would do something like that...

[AphraelAmarantha]

I don’t like this at all. I play whm because it is easy compared to something like blm or rdm. I don’t want complex stuff or rotations I have to memorize. I suck at memorizing rotations and because of it I can never play a dps optimally. I prefer my simple dia, glare and holy damage. I don’t need anything else. And there are already plenty of healing tools as well, particularly lilies; I like the new abilities with lilies and it makes healing easier for me in expert dungeons and other higher level stuff. I don’t understand why people want to make things so complicated to the point where it’s no longer playable.

[Billythepancake]

I don’t like this at all. I play whm because it is easy compared to something like blm or rdm. I don’t want complex stuff or rotations I have to memorize. I suck at memorizing rotations and because of it I can never play a dps optimally. I prefer my simple dia, glare and holy damage. I don’t need anything else. And there are already plenty of healing tools as well, particularly lilies; I like the new abilities with lilies and it makes healing easier for me in expert dungeons and other higher level stuff. I don’t understand why people want to make things so complicated to the point where it’s no longer playable.

Just like how you prefer simplicity, many of us prefer complexity. I dont think 1 class being the simple healer is a bad thing, so long as it is not TOO simple, but not all healers should be dragged down to that level. And many of us find it completely unfair that our classes were stripped of what made them complex and fun, and that's what most of these threads are addressing.

[DiznypKC]

I don’t like this at all. I play whm because it is easy compared to something like blm or rdm. I don’t want complex stuff or rotations I have to memorize. I suck at memorizing rotations and because of it I can never play a dps optimally. I prefer my simple dia, glare and holy damage. I don’t need anything else. And there are already plenty of healing tools as well, particularly lilies; I like the new abilities with lilies and it makes healing easier for me in expert dungeons and other higher level stuff. I don’t understand why people want to make things so complicated to the point where it’s no longer playable.

It's possible to increase the complexity of a rotation without making it unplayable. As it stands, healer's "rotation" is not really a rotation at all. It's literally a single button, with another button that you press every 30 seconds.

No one is asking for a Black Mage or Red Mage rotation for Healers. It wouldn't be plausible to give us a rotation that would suffer if dropped. A Healer needs to be able to react to any situation. However, it IS possible for us to be given a system that feels like it evolves as we utilize it.

For example, take away the Lillies from White Mage and give them a three petalled lily gauge: 1 for each element that they use. Casting Stone, Aero, and Fluid Aura (with it's damage back, please and thank you), adds energy to the corresponding petal. When that petal is full, that element becomes awakened (or whatever terminology you want to use). Stone becomes Quake, Aero becomes Tornado, and Fluid Aura becomes Flood.

Boom. You've already made DPS more enjoyable but not at all more complex than what we already have. You could manage that, could you not?

[Billythepancake]

It's possible to increase the complexity of a rotation without making it unplayable. As it stands, healer's "rotation" is not really a rotation at all. It's literally a single button, with another button that you press every 30 seconds.

No one is asking for a Black Mage or Red Mage rotation for Healers. It wouldn't be plausible to give us a rotation that would suffer if dropped. A Healer needs to be able to react to any situation. However, it IS possible for us to be given a system that feels like it evolves as we utilize it.

For example, take away the Lillies from White Mage and give them a three petalled lily gauge: 1 for each element that they use. Casting Stone, Aero, and Fluid Aura (with it's damage back, please and thank you), adds energy to the corresponding petal. When that petal is full, that element becomes awakened (or whatever terminology you want to use). Stone becomes Quake, Aero becomes Tornado, and Fluid Aura becomes Flood.

Boom. You've already made DPS more enjoyable but not at all more complex than what we already have. You could manage that, could you not?

That's a pretty neat idea, I would love to see it implemented, tbh. Though, not sure a lot of WHMs would be happy to see misery go. Heh.