How would you feel if shields had no upfront healing?

[Absurdity]

I apologise if my question seemed facetious. It was a genuine question.

The reason I asked about the striking dummy is that this reduces playing a job to merely executing its DPS rotation. I submit that this is not very engaging even for DPS jobs (at least after you've learnt the rotation and developed muscle memory). At the end of day, it's just pressing buttons in a predetermined order, plus in some cases, occasionally pressing buttons in response to random events. Sure, doing Dancer's rotation may be more engaging than doing White Mage's, but the difference is small. And the difference is negligible in comparison to the difference between, say, grinding FATES and doing ultimate. It seem to me that, in terms of engaging gameplay, the difficulty of content has a much larger impact than the complexity of DPS rotation. So I find it strange to hear healers saying "Please give me a more complex DPS rotation so I can have more engaging gameplay in casual content". If it's more engaging gameplay that you want, then this will be much more effectively achieved by doing harder content.

And as it happens, I don't look down on casual content. I enjoy doing lots of casual content, including most of the things you mention. (I think I said this in a previous comment.) I just don't do them for highly engaging gameplay. I mean, isn't this what makes it casual content?

The problem however is that there is barely anything to do when you don't do the casual content. There is only 1, maybe 2, Ultimates per expansion. That means with the current design you have 1 single piece of content every 2 years that is actually engaging.
Okay, let's be generous and include Savage as well because there may or may not be fights that aren't just spamming Broil 180 times in 9 minutes.

That is still not a lot of content compared to all the casual content in the game, which you will inevitably do even as a hardcore player because you can only run the same 4 (5) fights per raid tier so many times until those become boring as well.

The problem is that the casual content does not have, and can not have, the mechanical complexity that savage or ultimate do. And because the job complexity of healers (and increasingly tanks as well) is so low when there are no complex mechanics then you become so incredibly bored that you start to consider just unsubscribing from the game until the next raid tier.

That's just not good enough. Why would it be so unreasonable to ask for atleast somewhat engaging gameplay even in content that isn't mechanically engaging?

I just don't think "you're going to be bored out of your mind in 90% of the game's combat, deal with it" is a good answer.

[BungleBear]

The problem however is that there is barely anything to do when you don't do the casual content. There is only 1, maybe 2, Ultimates per expansion. That means with the current design you have 1 single piece of content every 2 years that is actually engaging.
Okay, let's be generous and include Savage as well because there may or may not be fights that aren't just spamming Broil 180 times in 9 minutes.

That is still not a lot of content compared to all the casual content in the game, which you will inevitably do even as a hardcore player because you can only run the same 4 (5) fights per raid tier so many times until those become boring as well.

Yes, it would be nice if the game had more challenging content. But my impression is that many of the people complaining about healers being boring are not even doing Savage, let alone Ultimate.

That's just not good enough. Why would it be so unreasonable to ask for atleast somewhat engaging gameplay even in content that isn't mechanically engaging?

I'm just sceptical that you can make gameplay very engaging without mechanical complexity. Take away mechanics and you're just pushing buttons in a sequence. Making the sequence more complicated may increase the level of engagement, but only slightly in comparison with adding more difficulty.

[Liam_Harper]

Yes, it would be nice if the game had more challenging content. But my impression is that many of the people complaining about healers being boring are not even doing Savage, let alone Ultimate.

I've always found the opposite. Most of the players who complain about healer engagement have learned the class and played it through harder content, while the players who've never stepped foot in endgame are perfectly happy clipping, spamming Medica II and fishing for Freecure procs.

I'll admit, I actually enjoy playing AST at endgame in some ways. The level of planning and mapping right down to timing heals within a set GCD so your oGCD comes back up at exactly the right time later is definitely engaging. What bores and frustrates me is that it hardly matters. Often my co-healer just overheals it and getting a few noodle 250 potency Malefics rarely has any impact on the run. Even in e12s, unless the dps is barely scraping enrage, carefully planning heals for max output just doesn't have much impact compared to adding in 10 safety AspHelios over the fight and throwing out oGCD's as they come. I don't really need to play my class well. It doesn't serve enough purpose.
WHM is even worse in this regard. If I clip Dia to move, throw out a few extra Medica II, clip my oGCD's and spam away on Glare otherwise, I'd probably still log purple and it'd be a smooth clear. Barely any reward if I played perfectly. I dislike that design.

I'd say that the difference in level of engagement between 1 and 2 is much less than that between 1 and 3.

The difference in level of engagement still exists though.

Healers spend up to 60% of their total actions, including oGCD's, just pressing 1 button. No dps does that. Furthermore for the healer this results in half the dps of the actual dps and their healing is barely needed. Sure Experts suck and should be made harder, but if I had to choose between a 1 button spamming wet noodle or a lawnmower that melts mobs with a nice range of dps buttons, it's not a hard choice. It's a larger difference in engagement than you think.

[Kabooa]

The difference in level of engagement still exists though.

Healers spend up to 60% of their total actions, including oGCD's, just pressing 1 button. No dps does that. Furthermore for the healer this results in half the dps of the actual dps and their healing is barely needed. Sure Experts suck and should be made harder, but if I had to choose between a 1 button spamming wet noodle or a lawnmower that melts mobs with a nice range of dps buttons, it's not a hard choice. It's a larger difference in engagement than you think.

And his argument, which I agree with, is this difference stops existing the better you get at the individual jobs.

You keep bringing up the '60%' and I'll tell you again it's not the variety of buttons that matter, it's whether or not you're making choices about them. If you're not making choices, it doesn't matter if you're hitting one button 60% of the time, or twelve.

Further, healers might not have the DPS of actual DPS, but their individual GCDs are among the most beefy. Playing safe and losing those is no less a loss than doing it as, say, melee, and losing GCDs and not trying to greed before the point blank hits you. Also, a healer that can do nothing but spam their DPS spells clocks in just under 60%, not 50%. I don't know why you're trying to distort that.

[ty_taurus]

And his argument, which I agree with, is this difference stops existing the better you get at the individual jobs.

You keep bringing up the '60%' and I'll tell you again it's not the variety of buttons that matter, it's whether or not you're making choices about them. If you're not making choices, it doesn't matter if you're hitting one button 60% of the time, or twelve.

Further, healers might not have the DPS of actual DPS, but their individual GCDs are among the most beefy. Playing safe and losing those is no less a loss than doing it as, say, melee, and losing GCDs and not trying to greed before the point blank hits you. Also, a healer that can do nothing but spam their DPS spells clocks in just under 60%, not 50%. I don't know why you're trying to distort that.

This part right here is correct, but WHM and SCH are very poorly designed for this right now anyway, so what are you even defending? I know that there are a couple players who have suggested 1-2-3 spell combos and you don't like that, but that specific example is not what everyone has been pitching for, and many of the suggestions players have brought up are about adding more DPS and utility GCD actions that are trying to create this aspect of decision making a core aspect of healer design rather than a consequence of challenging content.

AST is the main exception which is why you see virtually every AST threat talking about the card system and not about its DPS actions. No one's really asking for more AST DPS.

[Kabooa]

This part right here is correct, but WHM and SCH are very poorly designed for this right now anyway, so what are you even defending? I know that there are a couple players who have suggested 1-2-3 spell combos and you don't like that, but that specific example is not what everyone has been pitching for, and many of the suggestions players have brought up are about adding more DPS and utility GCD actions that are trying to create this aspect of decision making a core aspect of healer design rather than a consequence of challenging content.

Not everyone has the same requests. Most of the time, it's just looking at the end goal, and the proposed steps to reach it, and offering my opinion on why it will fall short, or plain just not result, in the change wanted. There are only a few job designs in this game that don't get tiring to do the non-Savage content with, so rather than retread those, I will instead insist that newer avenues be chased instead.

As far as 'defending' anything goes, I don't see "And that's why the current healers are good" in my blurb there.

Correcting someone (The numbers) and countering a claim with my own (Button Count =/= Fun) isn't defending anything.

The worst (opinion, mine) scenario that can come from feedback like that is getting the second DoT back and it being hailed as some grand display of generosity. No thanks.

I do have blurbs defending certain aspects of the current healers, but this isn't one of them.

[Shurrikhan]

This part right here is correct, but WHM and SCH are very poorly designed for this right now anyway, so what are you even defending?

What part of a critique of an ill-warranted claim is a defense of the status quo?

Nothing in arguing that a variety in decision-making is more important than a variety in button-presses says that WHM and SCH aren't presently poorly designed.

[Kabooa]

What part of a critique of an ill-warranted claim is a defense of the status quo?

In fairness, it can be seen as a rather hardheaded block / gate to hold up. I'm pretty uncompromising in some regards.

That said this has gone on too far a tangent, though the topic for the thread can be utilized to show the kind of actions I would want healers to get.

Let's take a Spell option and call it "Disruption". Disruption causes barriers you have placed on a target to overload - After 6 seconds, the barrier dissipates and explodes for potency based on the Shield's initial potency.

In the case where shields are empowered while direct healing is decreased, a hefty shield can be utilized offensively. We can add a conditional or two, such as the explosion potency is based on application of Disruption, and it explodes on expiration from time or absorption. Apply a 300 shield, then Disruption, you have heavily reduced the lifespan of the shield working, but at the end of its duration, it goes boom for 300. Where as you might instead prefer to let the shield ride and pursue other options.

Expanding on this, if we use Broil as the basis of the GCD cost, then two GCDs (580) is the target to beat. At a baseline, this spell would probably have a short cooldown and a minor baseline gain in offense to be worth using, but certainly something you'd instead want to abuse as the more ideal circumstances come up instead.

Shields that do not restore HP would need another indicator, or perhaps they show their value with a Blue number instead - Restoring no health, but granting easy access to see the shield's value, or rather, when it gains a critical effect.

This in turn means you're likely to have Disruption available (After all - it's a minor potency gain at baseline) during uptime, have an additional thing to set up around when the boss moves away (Setting up a strong shield to absorb initial damage and then go boom), and you can capitalize on random or forced BIG SHULD. Giving an example of how I'd change some abilities and what sort of interactions they should have... (Also consider it a small contribution to your other thread - Did you know that reducing BLM beneath 15 buttons is really hard?)

Overload: A mechanic in which a Shield's duration is greatly reduced, but deals damage upon expiration to nearby enemies.

Adloqium: 300 potency shield.
Emergency Tactics: All applied shields dissipate and heal for their current amounts.
Deployment Tactics: The next Spell gains a Radius of 10y at reduced potency.
Disruption: Overloads the target's shield.

'Tactics' we can give a charge system to, and this is primarily how the Scholar recovers from damage, where as their first response is preventing it in the first place. Adding charges to Tactics allows the Scholar to create more complex combinations without being a preset 'combo'. It also serves as their own variant of Metamagic (Such as Surecast, Swiftcast), and an addition to the 'Tactics' category grants them increasingly varied options, but that would obviously require a fair amount of care when adding new ones.

And if we really want to get stupid, we could have the Scholar manipulate -any- barriers on a person, not just their own.