Openly admitting to ignoring the players

[Saefinn]

Because people aren't playing it to have a complex rotation, they're playing it because they want to heal and support their group and *gasp* don't mind having downtime to their skills.

So with that said *ahem* "Bye Felicia ♡"

Hmm, I don't like the implication here, because I know you've been around these healer forums for maybe roughly the same time as me. So you will know the biggest cause of complaint. You focus on the 'complex rotation' part, but that's only a solution to a problem. Yes, there are alternative solutions, but the making more complex DPS if anything is the most sensible one. Well, I'd say a mix of two things, making DPS more complex and making sure future encounters better utilise the healer kits.

People talk about the high downtime a lot and give huge numbers - sometimes backed with tangible data on how big that is and people often put "70%" as the average for talking points because it is a realistic number.

For those who are playing healers to heal and support (which I would argue alsoincludes many of those complaining) are they having that desire satisfied if they have a big and complex healing kit they don't get full use of because they only need use a healing skill for 30% of the time?

Let's go with how bad it is in things like dungeons, I got Anamnesis Anyder in a roulette the other day on my SAM. The healer DC'd after the first pull. We didn't get a replacement until just before the last boss. We managed the majority of the dungeon with Paladin, Samurai and Summoner. I feel like if we had maybe a Paladin, Red Mage, Samurai and Summoner set up it could have been an easy run with a higher overall DPS than a 2 DPS, 1 tank, 1 healer set up. So when I see things like that I feel the role of a healer if anything is undervalued.


The alternative solution is:

Up the healing requirement. Squash that 70% down to 10 or 20%, you'll find that I'll stop complaining except maybe in solo content.

To me and I think for many others it's acceptable because hey, they get a lot more to do and have more to focus on and get to appreciate the complexity of the healing kits they've already design for us because they're thinking most about how they can use it efficiently to keep people alive. You'll still get those who'll say "it's not WoW, I liked the healing/DPS hybrid concept we had going" but ultimately the biggest complaints are resolved and the complaints from the complaining right now will be reduced.


But there are a few problems:
- Healing is now harder (which is fine for me)
- Healing is now less accessible
- People start complaining because there's healers struggling to keep up
- It'd take a monumental amount of changes for the devs, because encounters and mechanics would need to be tweaked to accommodate this. Not just future ones but existing ones.


However, if we simply make the DPS more complex (and not to DRG or SMN levels or anything ridiculous like that) then we'd find the following:
- It respects existing game design
- Historic encounters can be left alone
- It's a lot less work on the devs to implement
- Healing is just as accessible as it is now.
- Healing remains exactly as it is
- People with long downtimes get more to do.
- Most content doesn't require healer DPS, so people don't have to jump in and embrace the complexity unless they're seeking to optimise DPS.

But if we were to say, take the SCH philosophy of 2.0 for DPS, it wouldn't be a combo rotation, so no pressure to finish it when there's healing to be done, but you keep DoTs topped up and throw in various beneficial moves as and when you can, so it's not actually that complicated.

It's reasons like this that the "complex rotation" idea is pushed. It's not so much that we don't want to heal and support our group like everybody else (and in a game where rDPS is how performance is measured, DPS contribution IS supporting the group), yes, some prefer the idea of a healer/DPS hybrid and started playing this game when that was an option (like me, for example) but hey, it'd be a lot easier to concede if the downtime was a lot lower because we're still having fun.