Healer DPS Identity Ideas for 6.0

[AnotherPerson]

The general direction isn't too bad, but the ideas here range from too extreme to too mild.

Reduce the potency of Combust by all means, in order to increase the potency of Card buffs.
Add in an additional effect, all cards used on yourself grant you the full effect of a Lady of Crowns. This won't be more effective than using them on the correct DPS, but it provides an alternative for when there's no Melee/Ranged DPS in the party and makes up for the Combust nerf in solo duties.

Your thinking is flawed. If you advocate WHM and SCH getting skills to make their DPS go up / introduce complex DPS options, but then nerf AST's combust and make them get a special buff only when they card themselves to make up for the combust DPS nerf, then they really haven't been buffed in solo duties since their overall damage from the combust nerf and card buff will average out back to the same - making ASTs still horrendous to play in solo duties. There's also no point in carding yourself multiple times either since the buffs will overwrite each other and all you'll be doing is still spamming one single button over and over again until the next card window.

[Seraphor]

Your thinking is flawed. If you advocate WHM and SCH getting skills to make their DPS go up / introduce complex DPS options, but then nerf AST's combust and make them get a special buff only when they card themselves to make up for the combust DPS nerf, then they really haven't been buffed in solo duties since their overall damage from the combust nerf and card buff will average out back to the same - making ASTs still horrendous to play in solo duties. There's also no point in carding yourself multiple times either since the buffs will overwrite each other and all you'll be doing is still spamming one single button over and over again until the next card window.

How is that any different to spamming one single button over and over until you need to refresh your DoT?
Draw comes off cooldown as each card effect runs out, the only exception being Sleeve Draw.
The difference is the 'DoT' alternative has a management aspect to it, to get your three seals.
AST already has the most interesting DPS rotation out of the healers, even with the ShB simplification to the card effects. If the cards are regarded as a DoT analogue (a repeated action on a medium cooldown of 30s that results in sustained damage contribution) then AST already has 2 functional DoTs, while SCH only has one...

I did say increase the card buffs.
If the increase in card buffs matches the decrease in Combust in a solo situation, then when applied to a party, that increase in card buffs will be a net buff in damage contribution.
AST, just like every other job, can manage existing solo duties just fine, the goal is merely not to reduce their solo damage, which is what I've proposed.

If each healers personal DPS kit is going to be balanced with each other, then Cards are only going to see their effects nerfed time and time again. Thus to find away to capitalise on Cards as the AST's identity, they need to be incorporated into their personal DPS.

[AnotherPerson]

How is that any different to spamming one single button over and over until you need to refresh your DoT?
The difference is the 'DoT' alternative has a management aspect to it, to get your three seals.

I did say increase the card buffs.

Increasing the card buffs still doesn't do anything to the monotonous gameplay itself. You're still using the same nuke and DoT which is the issue I'm raising with your suggestion. It's still boring to take AST in Solo duties for that very reason. There is no 'DoT' management when playing AST, especially not in a solo duty because it's just reapply combust every 30 seconds and card yourself before nuking the enemy with malefic. Rinse and repeat every 30 seconds. Until then you just fish for your 2nd seal and third seal between redraws and hold it until your current buff expires.

Also, combust nerf + card buff = made up for combust nerf, but didn't add anything extra to the table for solo duties while the other two jobs get more DPS options since the amount of DPS increased is still low enough that it isn't worth carding yourself in a regular duty as opposed to carding the other DPS.

[Seraphor]

Increasing the card buffs still doesn't do anything to the monotonous gameplay itself. You're still using the same nuke and DoT which is the issue I'm raising with your suggestion. It's still boring to take AST in Solo duties for that very reason. There is no 'DoT' management when playing AST, especially not in a solo duty because it's just reapply combust every 30 seconds and card yourself before nuking the enemy with malefic. Rinse and repeat every 30 seconds. Until then you just fish for your 2nd seal and third seal between redraws and hold it until your current buff expires.

Also, combust nerf + card buff = made up for combust nerf, but didn't add anything extra to the table for solo duties while the other two jobs get more DPS options since the amount of DPS increased is still low enough that it isn't worth carding yourself in a regular duty as opposed to carding the other DPS.

And yet this is already twice as interesting as either of the other two healers...
You have two 'functional' DoTs, one of which has an entire side system for managing seals and powering up your largest party buff Divination.
The other two (one of which is characterised as the 'DoT healer') only have one DoT.

AST is absolutely fine where it is, it just needs to capitalise on its cards more.

[AnotherPerson]

And yet this is already twice as interesting as either of the other two healers...
You have two 'functional' DoTs, one of which has an entire side system for managing seals and powering up your largest party buff Divination.
The other two (one of which is characterised as the 'DoT healer') only have one DoT.

AST is absolutely fine where it is, it just needs to capitalise on its cards more.

I'm not arguing that SCH should get its DoTs, but if you have ever taken the three healers into solo duties, you'll see the difference in how they preform the solo duties pretty easily and how AST's already terrible personal DPS won't have any change in solo duties with what you just proposed since all you did was move combust's DPS into the cards. AST's card changes only benefits in parties, which means you still wouldn't want to play them in solo duties. If you ever did solo specific content with the healers, such as HoH solo, it would be very evident that there's no actual change to doing AST in solo duties to what you proposed. And no, you don't have two functional DoTs as an AST. ASTs have a separate system to manage, but saying a card buff & Divination is like a second DoT is like telling Nin that Trick Attack is a DoT.

[Seraphor]

I'm not arguing that SCH should get its DoTs, but if you have ever taken the three healers into solo duties, you'll see the difference in how they preform the solo duties pretty easily and how AST's already terrible personal DPS won't have any change in solo duties with what you just proposed since all you did was move combust's DPS into the cards. AST's card changes only benefits in parties, which means you still wouldn't want to play them in solo duties. If you ever did solo specific content with the healers, such as HoH solo, it would be very evident that there's no actual change to doing AST in solo duties to what you proposed. And no, you don't have two functional DoTs as an AST. ASTs have a separate system to manage, but saying a card buff & Divination is like a second DoT is like telling Nin that Trick Attack is a DoT.

The cards are a semi-permanent increase in damage. Keeping them up is functionally the same as keeping up a DoT to increase your sustained damage. When it comes off cooldown/runs out, you replace it. Sustained damage.
And yeah, if NIN had to refresh Trick Attack every 30s to get 15s of passively increased damage, it would be functionally similar to a DoT. Once you math all of this out, it's all just damage dealt, what matters is how you deal it, and refreshing a cooldown is refreshing a cooldown.

The reason why AST struggles comparatively in solo duties, is because a large portion of its damage is relegated to party buffs. Healers are balanced in a party setting.
In order to strengthen AST in solo duties, you have to weaken its party buffs, and I don't think cards can afford to get any weaker.
Therefore you need to pair the two aspects up, the party buffs need to translate into something that can help increase AST's solo damage, without compromising party balance.
Therefore: All cards bestow the effect of Lady of Crowns when used on yourself.
The benefit of this is that you no longer have to choose between a 4% or 8% buff to your damage, and you don't have to choose between Minor Arcana or Divination, you can use all base cards on yourself, get the seals, and get your Divination, while still getting 8% from every card.

Secondly, if you want to strengthen the identity of AST, you need to invest more in their Cards.
Obviously that would come at the cost of their personal DPS, because healers have to be balanced.

Yes these two aspects appear to be in conflict with one another, but that's why they'd have to be done in tandem to work. Lets try some figures out:

Malefic IV: 250 pot per GCD
Combust: 60x10=600 pot per 30s
Cards: 3-8% damage increase depending on card
DPS spam over 30s with two card uses therefore equates to 250x12 + 60x10 +3-8% = 3708-3888 total potency, average 3798 potency.

Lets say you reduced Combust by 10 potency, and increase Card buffs to 4/5/8/10% instead, and installed the effect I mentioned earlier guaranteeing Lady effect.
Malefic IV: 250 pot per GCD
Combust: 50x10=500 pot per 30s
Cards: 10% damage increase
DPS spam over 30s equates to 250x12 + 50x10 +10% Lady of Crowns = 3850 total potency.
You make it more consistent, plus you get your Divination on top every 120s.

This results in AST getting a net buff in party settings, similar to the buffs the other two healers would get, but it doesn't make it any worse at solo duties, which would otherwise be the case of any buffs to the card system.

[AnotherPerson]

The cards are a semi-permanent increase in damage. Keeping them up is functionally the same as keeping up a DoT to increase your sustained damage. When it comes off cooldown/runs out, you replace it. Sustained damage.
And yeah, if NIN had to refresh Trick Attack every 30s to get 15s of passively increased damage, it would be functionally similar to a DoT. Once you math all of this out, it's all just damage dealt, what matters is how you deal it, and refreshing a cooldown is refreshing a cooldown.

Malefic IV: 250 pot per GCD
Combust: 60x10=600 pot per 30s
Cards: 3-8% damage increase depending on card
DPS spam over 30s with two card uses therefore equates to 250x12 + 60x10 +3-8% = 3708-3888 total potency, average 3798 potency.

Lets say you reduced Combust by 10 potency, and increase Card buffs to 4/5/8/10% instead, and installed the effect I mentioned earlier guaranteeing Lady effect.
Malefic IV: 250 pot per GCD
Combust: 50x10=500 pot per 30s
Cards: 10% damage increase
DPS spam over 30s equates to 250x12 + 50x10 +10% Lady of Crowns = 3850 total potency.
You make it more consistent, plus you get your Divination on top every 120s.

This results in AST getting a net buff in party settings, similar to the buffs the other two healers would get, but it doesn't make it any worse at solo duties, which would otherwise be the case of any buffs to the card system.

All you just did was just made AST's personal DPS unaffected by fishing for card buffs. Also, your math is off, a card buff only lasts for 15 seconds. Secondly, in order to guarantee a seal, ASTs have to wait around 1 GCD for the game to recognize the player is in combat before giving themselves a card, or otherwise AST won't get a seal. Finally, Combust costs a GCD, so you get 11 malefics out in 30 seconds and getting a combust within the buff window means instead of 6 malefics, you get 5 malefics + 1 Combust.

Under the assumption you don't get combust within the buff window:

So your damage over 30 seconds is actually 250 + 60x10 + 250*6*(1.03 to 1.08) + 250*4 = 3395 to 3470 => averaging out to 3432.5
So your damage over 30 seconds with proposed changes is 250 + 50x10 + 250*6*(1.1) + 250*4 = 3400

Under the assumption you get combust within the buff window:

So your previous damage over 30 seconds is actually 250 + (60x10 + 250*5)*(1.03 to 1.08) + 250*5 = 3405.5 to 3498=> averaging out to 3451.75
So your damage over 30 seconds with proposed changes is 250 + (50x10 + 250*5)*(1.1) + 250*5 = 3425

Generally that means their DPS don't drop as much (even though it dropped on average fishing), but that's also the problem. They haven't actually Improved in solo duties either while the other two jobs are getting extra DPS options that would imply their damage would improve as a result.

[Recon1o6]

At the end of the day, it doesn't change the fact that balance is not as important as how fun it is. You can change numbers around quickly but making the playstyle fun is harder. Jobs will never be numerically identical.

[Seraphor]

Maths.

I said two cards. With Sleeve draw you can pop one after the other has run out. It was an example of a 30s 'burst', hence why I said you'd also have Divination on top.

Why do they need to improve? They just need to not be any worse while still improving their identity as a party buffer.
All jobs can manage solo duties just fine.

My suggestion was about solving the buff-pdps balance conundrum while not making solo duties worse.

[Semirhage]

Why do they need to improve? They just need to not be any worse while still improving their identity as a party buffer.
All jobs can manage solo duties just fine.

Eeeeeeeeeeh I remember solo duties as a healer back in Stormblood. And while clearing them was easy enough, they had a tendency to bleed together into "Here's a miniboss, dodge ground AOEs while Stone Stone Stone Bonk Bonk Bonk Bonk Bonk Bonk..." That's manageable, but dear god is it not exactly fun. That's both on healer damage kit design and solo duty design though; we all know solo duties are designed purely around the DPS jobs while the tanks and healers can spam their boring single target rotations a few hundred times until they wake up for that anticlimactic clear. Lowest common denominator, yadda yadda, I get it- every job can do damage, while not every job can tank or heal, so they have to design solo duties to be clearable by all job types. Screw it. If I have to suffer through slowly bonking Zenos down for the fourth time using one damage spell over and over again, DPSers can get a duty action boring Cure 2 button and heal some NPCs with it.