gimme dots

[aveyond-dreams]

The irony of SMN being the reason they were vastly removed is in the fact that now it has zero DoTs and is basically a completely different job.

I think the developers could definitely re-add a couple DoTs back into the game at this point. Giving the healers a second one to manage would at least give us another button to press to break up our Glare/Malefic/Broil/Dosis monotony.

I'd rather have an attack to build up to or a combo instead of more dots to manage. One is ok, but more than that is just busywork. People don't choose to play as healers so they can be reskinned poison mages, and since there isn't that much to heal, some of the main ways of dealing damage that people enjoy seems like a better option. Bonus points if the combos actually are interrupted by casted heals so newer players learn to prioritize their cooldowns instead of Cure spam.

[HyoMinPark]

I'd rather have an attack to build up to or a combo instead of more dots to manage. One is ok, but more than that is just busywork. People don't choose to play as healers so they can be reskinned poison mages, and since there isn't that much to heal, some of the main ways of dealing damage that people enjoy seems like a better option. Bonus points if the combos actually are interrupted by casted heals so newer players learn to prioritize their cooldowns instead of Cure spam.

Respectfully, I would prefer DoTs to manage, and there have been others who have expressed similar sentiments. Since we are discussing “main ways of dealing damage that people enjoy”.

The developers would be far more likely to add a second DoT back (maybe one that can be used in single-target and AOE like Aero III) versus a full-blown combo. That would “be too hard for the baby healers”. Forced combo breaking with casted heals isn’t going to teach anyone anything. People break combos all the time on DPS jobs with them—I doubt it would actually teach healers to prioritize oGCDs over GCD heals.

Build-up attacks technically already exist in the form of Misery—and it’s technically a DPS loss to even do unless there is downtime. Since they have given zero indication they plan to address this, I’d prefer to not have this kind of mechanic added to the other three.

People don't choose to play as healers so they can be reskinned poison mages

I fail to see how adding something as simple as Aero III to all healers suddenly makes them a discount poison mage.

[aveyond-dreams]

I would not support the re-addition of an Aero III equivalent in the form of a separate dot to manage.

I would however support an Aero III that applies my dot to all enemies for mass pulls.

Too many dots -> most of my damage coming from dots -> I consider it a dot class, not interested, especially when the job is allegedly supposed to be a healer.

I do not consider Afflatus Misery to be a "buildup" attack, and I agree that it should be fixed the sooner the better. I mean, do X combo X times, get to use X finisher after building up to it. Restart. To me that is more fun than managing dots, and is gameplay I would tolerate on a "healer" which SE refuses to give anything to heal. Dot gameplay leans on passive, I lean more towards active.

[HyoMinPark]

I would not support the re-addition of an Aero III equivalent in the form of a separate dot to manage.

I would however support an Aero III that applies my dot to all enemies for mass pulls.

Too many dots -> most of my damage coming from dots -> I consider it a dot class, not interested, especially when the job is allegedly supposed to be a healer.

Even when WHM had 2 DoTs and 1 nuke, Stone IV was still the majority of your damage. DoTs didn’t make up more than 50% of your average DPS unless you just straight up ignored your nuke for very extended periods of time. They weren’t negligible, but you’re implying they were worth more than they actually were.

As for the last remark here, basically just accept we are a healer in name only. At this point, the role itself has been relegated to “gimped damage dealer”.

I do not consider Afflatus Misery to be a "buildup" attack, and I agree that it should be fixed the sooner the better. I mean, do X combo X times, get to use X finisher after building up to it. Restart. To me that is more fun than managing dots, and is gameplay I would tolerate on a "healer" which SE refuses to give anything to heal. Dot gameplay leans on passive, I lean more towards active.

Misery is a build up, though: you have to build up 3 blood lilies to actively use it. Just because it’s not a combo finisher doesn’t mean it doesn’t require a similar type of preparation.

DoT gameplay isn’t passive when you have to actively watch them and reapply them, but this is my opinion. I’m not under any illusion the developer would ever give healers a full-blown combo, so I’ll stick to requests that seem far more likely to be added to the jobs. Even if it’s more likely they’ll just remove the one DoT we have “to make things less stressful on baby healers”.

[Karni]

Every sch main I have talked to would love to have miasma, miasma2, shadowflare and/or bane back. I personally found healers across the board more interesting and enjoyable to play in previous expacs in Heavensward and Stormblood with more dots compared to Shb and EW

[Anvaire]

I would not support the re-addition of an Aero III equivalent in the form of a separate dot to manage.

I would however support an Aero III that applies my dot to all enemies for mass pulls.

Too many dots -> most of my damage coming from dots -> I consider it a dot class, not interested, especially when the job is allegedly supposed to be a healer.

I do not consider Afflatus Misery to be a "buildup" attack, and I agree that it should be fixed the sooner the better. I mean, do X combo X times, get to use X finisher after building up to it. Restart. To me that is more fun than managing dots, and is gameplay I would tolerate on a "healer" which SE refuses to give anything to heal. Dot gameplay leans on passive, I lean more towards active.

You know... you dont have to enjoy every class in the game? Honestly i think divergence of playstyle is a good thing and a dot class would be a divergent class that feels completely different from anything else.

I also dont think adding an extra dot to whm would actually do any harm or make it a discount dot mage. It would however give another thing for healers to manage dps wise and lets face it, that is something all healers sorely need.

[aveyond-dreams]

You know... you dont have to enjoy every class in the game? Honestly i think divergence of playstyle is a good thing and a dot class would be a divergent class that feels completely different from anything else.

I also dont think adding an extra dot to whm would actually do any harm or make it a discount dot mage. It would however give another thing for healers to manage dps wise and lets face it, that is something all healers sorely need.

You are correct in that I do not have to enjoy every class in the game. However I do not believe this mechanic should usurp the core fundamental class fantasy of something like a healer, which are too boring to play nowadays.

Managing multiple dots yet having only one real casted damage spell is not gameplay that I would be willing to accept on White Mage, or any healer that is not Scholar-which should absolutely receive its spells back. At present I have no reason to play White Mage, adding another dot would do nothing to pull me away from Astrologian or Sage, which are the only healers I play these days.

If you are going to add abilities, add something active and that doesn't lean towards busywork. You will never be able to convince me that watching a timer for 30 seconds is active. I like *doing* not *watching.* Adding dots for the sake of adding something will not fix the core issues with healers at the moment. The ideal solution is and always will be to give something to actually heal, but failing that I don't think watching dot timers is anymore fun than waiting for the predictable raid-wide to occur, rinse and repeat.

[HyoMinPark]

Adding DoTs wouldn’t disrupt any core fantasy. If anything, it would restore it. Since the healers in this game began with more than just a single DoT and a single nuke. WHM started with 2 DoTs in ARR (upgraded to 3 in HW), and SCH had 5 innate ones; not even counting that they could cross-class Aero back in the day. AST began with 2 as well. As it stands, the healers have no core class fantasy anymore (outside of maybe WHM in that the devs force it into being the GCD “burst” healer compared to the other 3 primarily using oGCDs).

The developers have made it abundantly clear that the only additional healing they will ever provide healers in this game is more button bloat in healing abilities that we never have to press in most content. They have outright told healers that if they want to be more engaged, go do Ultimate (which doesn’t require even 50% healing uptime).

The idea of giving healers another DoT to manage would be to not have it also be 30 seconds so the “rotation” is DoT I > DoT II > nuke > repeat when it’s time to refresh. Ideally you would make the timers different so that active management is required. Aero III was 24 seconds to Aero II’s 18 seconds in SB. Watching timers would be more engaging than doing 1-2-3, which would requires less watching. Even if you added a build-up finisher, since those are signaled usually by a job gauge sound telling you they’re ready.

The only healer that can really get away with the 1 DoT 1 nuke design is AST. And that’s only because it has something else to manage. I was fine with this design in SB while WHM and SCH had multiple DoTs to upkeep.

Adding dots for the sake of adding something will not fix the core issues with healers at the moment.

It would make them less boring to play, and make them more active. It wouldn’t fix the lack of healing uptime, but neither would adding in a 1-2-3 + healer Midare build-up attack.

[Anvaire]

Adding DoTs wouldn’t disrupt any core fantasy. If anything, it would restore it. Since the healers in this game began with more than just a single DoT and a single nuke. WHM started with 2 DoTs in ARR (upgraded to 3 in HW), and SCH had 5 innate ones; not even counting that they could cross-class Aero back in the day. AST began with 2 as well. As it stands, the healers have no core class fantasy anymore (outside of maybe WHM in that the devs force it into being the GCD “burst” healer compared to the other 3 primarily using oGCDs).

The developers have made it abundantly clear that the only additional healing they will ever provide healers in this game is more button bloat in healing abilities that we never have to press in most content. They have outright told healers that if they want to be more engaged, go do Ultimate (which doesn’t require even 50% healing uptime).

The idea of giving healers another DoT to manage would be to not have it also be 30 seconds so the “rotation” is DoT I > DoT II > nuke > repeat when it’s time to refresh. Ideally you would make the timers different so that active management is required. Aero III was 24 seconds to Aero II’s 18 seconds in SB. Watching timers would be more engaging than doing 1-2-3, which would requires less watching. Even if you added a build-up finisher, since those are signaled usually by a job gauge sound telling you they’re ready.

The only healer that can really get away with the 1 DoT 1 nuke design is AST. And that’s only because it has something else to manage. I was fine with this design in SB while WHM and SCH had multiple DoTs to upkeep.



It would make them less boring to play, and make them more active. It wouldn’t fix the lack of healing uptime, but neither would adding in a 1-2-3 + healer Midare build-up attack.

The biggets problem with healer is ultimately an unfixable role issue. Healing difficulty can only ever decrease week by week as players gain more gear and are able to mitigate to a greater degree. It makes sense to me why healing ceiling in terms of tools and kit has already been reached. The fundamental core of the issue is that the holy trinity of Tank, Healer and Dps will always result in the Healer getting the short end of the stick. Ultimately Pure healers need to be Heavy Support DPS with Healing to avoid it but designating them as such would make balancing DPS almost impossible.

I think Healers need to have a core and engaging DPS rotation that is supplemented by healing toolkit over a predemoninately healing toolkit with sprinkles of DPS abilities. But even if they added a more complex dps rotation i think healers will feel underwhelming, personally, because of the natural nerf to damage as gear and player skill improve.

[tearagion]

The biggets problem with healer is ultimately an unfixable role issue. Healing difficulty can only ever decrease week by week as players gain more gear and are able to mitigate to a greater degree. It makes sense to me why healing ceiling in terms of tools and kit has already been reached. The fundamental core of the issue is that the holy trinity of Tank, Healer and Dps will always result in the Healer getting the short end of the stick. Ultimately Pure healers need to be Heavy Support DPS with Healing to avoid it but designating them as such would make balancing DPS almost impossible.

I think Healers need to have a core and engaging DPS rotation that is supplemented by healing toolkit over a predemoninately healing toolkit with sprinkles of DPS abilities. But even if they added a more complex dps rotation i think healers will feel underwhelming, personally, because of the natural nerf to damage as gear and player skill improve.

It's only a problem because their dps toolkit is so extremely lackluster and to a lesser extent the oGCD healing options being bloated, and it certainly isn't 'unfixable'. Cleric stance (as clunky as it was) theoretically solved the macro of healing and mitigation optimization, and multiple DPS skills that weren't spammable (DoTs most serviceable) solved the moment to moment gameplay of healing optimization. Things like Phlegma are a very small step in the right direction, though has problems of its own related to being a CD stacking nuke. Just making healers the shitty DPS with bandaids to hand out is a stupid solution and unnecessarily undermines the player fantasy of picking a healer job.