Healer DPS Identity Ideas for 6.0

[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.

[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.

[Kabooa]

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.

It never ceases to amaze me how much ya'll seem to think DPS classes enjoy the solo duties.

They suck on every job.

[AnotherPerson]

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.

So... on the chance that you don't have sleeve draw up because sleeve draw has a 180 second cooldown after being used once (which is essentially once every 6 draws), you go DPS negative even if you play properly and never miss a malefic. No thanks. If AST's role is to be a party buffer, that's fine (which is why malefic does 250 compared to Broil and Glare) but what you suggested did not Improve the feel of playing the job in solo duties at all. Of course all jobs can manage solo duties fine but there's literally no reason for the job to not FEEL good to play in solo duties because the gain is so marginal. And no, that doesn't solve the buff pdps balance conundrum because if AST's cards get even more buffed, then it becomes even more difficult for devs to balance buffs on a party since buffs stack changes damage output more significantly - there's a reason why Bard's mage ballad gives 1% damage boost for 30 seconds, army's paeon gives 3% direct hit rate, and wanderer's minuet gives 2% crit hit rate when bards were known for their support play.

It never ceases to amaze me how much ya'll seem to think DPS classes enjoy the solo duties.

They suck on every job.

I enjoy solo duties on DPS classes. Unlocking Bozja the first time while fighting Bahamut as a SMN before you get the whole squad? Definitely fun. Fighting things as Nin with its burst windows since solo duties make NIN feel like an assassin with how fast Nin can drop the enemies' HP? Also fun. Spamming Broil or Art of War on SCH until something dies because you don't need to use majority of your healing kit to pass the instance? Definitely not fun.

[Semirhage]

It never ceases to amaze me how much ya'll seem to think DPS classes enjoy the solo duties.

They suck on every job.

I've done solo duties on both healer and DPS. They were kinda boring on DPS. They were unbelievably boring on healer. I chalk a lot of the tedium up to designing the MSQ to be basically impossible to fail; change that design and it'd be fun for DPS. Still boring for healers and tanks.

[ForteNightshade]

It never ceases to amaze me how much ya'll seem to think DPS classes enjoy the solo duties.

They suck on every job.

Ahem!

Seriously. The solo duties, be it on our character or the Scions are dreadfully boring from a gameplay perspective. I didn't mind the novelty of it at first but like usually, when the dev team comes up with a new idea they over use it. Spamming 111111111111111111111111111111 on Thancred is sleep inducing. Which is sad since the whole scene itself is a highlight as far as his character goes.

[Absurdity]

Ahem!

Seriously. The solo duties, be it on our character or the Scions are dreadfully boring from a gameplay perspective. I didn't mind the novelty of it at first but like usually, when the dev team comes up with a new idea they over use it. Spamming 111111111111111111111111111111 on Thancred is sleep inducing. Which is sad since the whole scene itself is a highlight as far as his character goes.

It's especially bad on the Scion parts. They significantly overestimated how "fun" playing a story character with an even more limited ability kit is. Thancred is probably the most notable example since they overtuned the boss' HP which made the boring gameplay even more obvious and turned the whole thing into a slog.