Why Healers haven't got combos aswell?

[SamRF]

You know what, it doesn't even have to be different buttons for me. Even if just the animation would change after each use of the main dps ability I'd be pretty satisfied at this point. It would at least feel less monotone.

I remember an MSQ solo instance in which you play as Hien, and you had 1 button that automatically changed after each use to next combo (just like samurai pvp I think) and it felt pretty satisfying. Even though it was just pressing 1 button, for some reason it felt more engaging. If you think about it, kind of makes sense that spamming 1 ability as healer that is just the same animation over and over again will look and feel monotone and boring real soon.

Of course I'd prefer a more complex dps rotation, but I think this small change would for sure get me to play healer more often.

[Shurrikhan]

You know what, it doesn't even have to be different buttons for me. Even if just the animation would change after each use of the main dps ability I'd be pretty satisfied at this point. It would at least feel less monotone.

I remember an MSQ solo instance in which you play as Hien, and you had 1 button that automatically changed after each use to next combo (just like samurai pvp I think) and it felt pretty satisfying. Even though it was just pressing 1 button, for some reason it felt more engaging. If you think about it, kind of makes sense that spamming 1 ability as healer that is just the same animation over and over again will look and feel monotone and boring real soon.

Of course I'd prefer a more complex dps rotation, but I think this small change would for sure get me to play healer more often.

Kind of reminds me of a friend talking about Fell Cleave: "How is repeating the same thing 5-9 times over supposed to be interesting? If not for needing to be banked for chain-usage, I'd enjoy it a lot more if they at least ramped up in power and visuals with each use."

It's almost strange how much it can do for a sense of gameplay just to see some minor visual variation. Take Magic Missile or WoW's Arcane Missiles for instance -- suddenly firing that one or one pair more per barrage, even if for a relatively minor damage increase, just feels good. Sure, those aesthetics aren't going to work if there's no damage to back them up, and there won't be any damage to back them up without something constraining gameplay (though obviously not all constraints are bad, or combos would be entirely "clunky" and no part "tactical", and TG would be a pain to everyone and exciting to none), but that's okay. We can afford a little ebb and flow and capitalization among healers with as much free time as XIV's.

[KDSilver]

They'll never make dps spell affect healing or something else because it would push out non dpsing healer out of these boost. While I agree with many ideas and I'd like our kit to synergize better, since from SB they tried to reduce skill gap between player and make classes easier... Well. Maybe healing should give other boost even to dps. But not the contrary. This way it could encourage to contribute to damages

[Shurrikhan]

They'll never make dps spell affect healing or something else because it would push out non dpsing healer out of these boost.

Making DPS spells affect healing (i.e. have a lower healing opportunity cost) is no different from making healing spells affect damage (i.e. have a lower damage opportunity cost). We see the latter half in XIV already, via WHM's Lily skills, and the prior half isn't particularly rare even among MMO healers with far, far more intensive and chaotic healing requirements than we have in XIV.

There's literally nothing wrong with DPS skills affecting healing so long as healing isn't nerfed to require excessive ramp-up to compensate for (overpowered) damage-based effects, which is no more uniquely a problem than any single spell proc (throughput delayed) or oGCD (throughput overly bursty) being too strong.

[Mansion]

Snip

Agreed, there's already been that kind of situation for tanks, where pushing out DPS before ShB required stance dancing (understand ; dropping tank stance), but it had no effect on casual/bad tanks (like me) who could keep tank stance on and do the job just fine in casual content.

Fleshing out DPS possibilities on Healers while keeping the simple "press there to heal" part of their kit would not be detrimental to casual healers in casual content at all.

[KDSilver]

Take my reply as a whole don't isolate one sentence.

[Allegor]

I'm gonna rip off WoW just to show how WHM would be with a similar 'rotation' as a holy priest:
-Fluid Aura is now an instant burst damage that leaves a dot
-Casting Stone/Glare has a chance to reset Fluid Aura's cd
-Each cast of Stone/Glare reduces Presence of Mind's cd or the time for a lily to proc by a few seconds.

You still basically have 1 spell, but it synergizes with other abilities from your kit and makes it more engaging, without causing more button bloat. I'm not saying "make it like this" but even a 1-button rotation would be more fun to spam if we had a reason to spam it other than just to kill time.

[Shurrikhan]

Take my reply as a whole don't isolate one sentence.

I mentioned only the part I did because the rest has been talked to death across these forums or already largely proved my point.

They'll never make dps spell affect healing or something else because it would push out non dpsing healer out of these boost. While I agree with many ideas and I'd like our kit to synergize better, since from SB [1] they tried to reduce skill gap between player and make classes easier... Well. [2] Maybe healing should give other boost even to dps. But not the contrary. [3] This way it could encourage to contribute to damages

[1] Yes, they've tried to reduce the skill gap between players and make classes, especially healers, easier? How well has that been received, though? Almost everything to do with healing save for the Lily system (increased simultaneous offensive and curative output through reduced relative opportunity cost), everything they've done to make healing easier, has been heavily criticized.

[2] Healing giving a boost to damage-output is no different from damage output giving a boost to healing output. They are mutually exclusive uses of time across any given GCD to the point that, say, Lilies can as easily be called a dps tool with embedded healing (the slight margin over Cure II potency) and/or mobility in its steps to prepare Afflatus as be called a healing tool with embedded dps. It's linked output; which side tends to be used first and which second doesn't matter -- only that as near to possible to all that is generated for one output is also spent in the other before the fight ends.

Nor is there any difference between your healing output increasing your own damage output and your healing output increasing the damage output of a party member, save that as long party-based means is stronger, you're going to feel hamstrung in solo content. Yes, to a degree, support functionality and its indirect damage makes for a different feel and aesthetic than purely personal or direct damage, but only insofar as it changes the way we play -- what we pay attention to, how we weigh concerns, and which gameplay loops we participate in. But to deny healers any increase in direct throughput in favor of solely indirect, party-requiring means isn't more engaging or fitting unless the kit fully embraces that; as only a few effects tossed in haphazardly, it's just convoluted and punishing to solo play.

[3] Healers are already plenty encouraged to deal damage. Downtime itself is encouragement. The only way to increase that encouragement is to make it essential for curative or defensive functions, which is neither sustainable (since it will typically be overpowered during periods of high healing downtime and make the job infeasible if we ever were to have periods with very little healing downtime) nor what anyone here has requested. We can make that healing more fun, but encouraging it is hardly a breakpoint we need pass at this point; we passed it back at the game's launch.

[Hanayumi]

Think when they decided to start trimming out heals well prolly get some more dps skills added in. Not sure a like direct 1 2 3 combo would really work all that well on healer, hard to give healers a decent flow cause of, well... healing, also skill space as I said, healers got a fairly full hotbar as is and devs always try to keep the amount as low as they can. But yeah procs could work as combos, would be using the same skills but if they procd into something else after certain conditions that would at least mix things up.

[Inkpot]

Combos are a War thing, generally reserved for melee classes and ranged physical DPS classes excepting BRD. RDM’s physical/caster involves casting, then a physical combo, because that’s what RDM is supposed to be,

Casters’ inherent difficult is the necessity to stand still for a period of time. Phase mechanics like that which SMN and RDM work.

SCH/AST both used to have depth and complexity in the concept that you had elements that could be used aggressively or defensively, and the crux of healing was milking out all the aggression you could afford. The excitement came from knowing fights, familiarizing yourself with people and jobs, and riding the razor’s edge to see what you could get away with. Selective use of abilities gave you windows to get off things like SCH’s crit boosted double dot Bane in dungeons. Without those rewarding elements, there’s no depth- just pick whatever is easy, there’s no reason to do more than spam AoW.

Getting ED back was a step in the right direction but too little too late.