gimme dots

[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.