Healer Q&A in PLL LXVIII

[Liam_Harper]

Another solution would be to nerf oGCDs. Why are your "cheap" heals (oGCDs) more powerful than your "expensive" heals (GCDs)? Shouldn't oGCDs be used for patching up the party and smoothing damage spikes and GCDs be what you use to actually deal with high damage?

False.

When you ignore the dps loss, GCD heals are far more powerful than oGCD's. Medica II and AspHelios are 1000 potency in a single button with no cooldown. Regen and AspBenefic are 1500 potency. There is a reason most inexperienced healers are GCD heal spammers, because it's an easy, mindless way to heal, just spam your near unlimited use giant heal on a stick and it will cover everything even if you forget the rest of your toolkit.

Let's compare nerfing oGCD's to nerfing GCD heals.

Nerf oGCD's. Gameplay becomes: Glare spam -> Medica II -> Glare spam -> Medica II -> Glare spam -> Medica II -> Glare spam -> Medica II
Nerf GCD's: Gameplay becomes considering when each raidwide is coming up, mapping the fight, letting your Asylums tick, checking if Assize is up before the next raidwide, getting full value from Raptures, Plenary, Temperance, keeping Benison rolling on cd, finding good use for Lilybell and so on... it would also push for classes like WHM to get better tools.

Glare spam is an issue regardless, but that's a different topic. I really don't see oGCD's as the issue though. The issue is there's not enough damage to heal and downtime filler is a single button.

[Renathras]

False.

When you ignore the dps loss, GCD heals are far more powerful than oGCD's. Medica II and AspHelios are 1000 potency in a single button with no cooldown. Regen and AspBenefic are 1500 potency. There is a reason most inexperienced healers are GCD heal spammers, because it's an easy, mindless way to heal, just spam your near unlimited use giant heal on a stick and it will cover everything even if you forget the rest of your toolkit.

Let's compare nerfing oGCD's to nerfing GCD heals.

Nerf oGCD's. Gameplay becomes: Glare spam -> Medica II -> Glare spam -> Medica II -> Glare spam -> Medica II -> Glare spam -> Medica II
Nerf GCD's: Gameplay becomes considering when each raidwide is coming up, mapping the fight, letting your Asylums tick, checking if Assize is up before the next raidwide, getting full value from Raptures, Plenary, Temperance, keeping Benison rolling on cd, finding good use for Lilybell and so on... it would also push for classes like WHM to get better tools.

Glare spam is an issue regardless, but that's a different topic. I really don't see oGCD's as the issue though. The issue is there's not enough damage to heal and downtime filler is a single button.

I agree with...your last sentence.

You very much oversell your Nerf GCDs while making a ridiculous caricature of the Nerf oGCDs case. In both cases, as you DO note, we have Glarespam interspaced with things. In the Nerf oGCDs case, you would also have use of Regen (possibly across the entire party, which would be 8 GCDs within there) as well as spot healing since you wouldn't have things like Tetra/Benison and so would have to cover that healing with Cure 2s. WHM is also kind of weird here since Lilies are GCD heals but are instants so feel a bit more like oGCDs even though they...aren't. But you'd also have Lily abilities littered in there.

Moreover, targeted heals - which you completely ignored - require taking individual actions to identify party members needing heals, targeting them, and applying those heals. While targeting doesn't factor into APM counts on things like FFLogs, ask any AST applying Cards and they can tell you that adds to the engagement level of their gameplay since it isn't automatic at all.

So Nerfing oGCDs would not be "Glarespam/Medica 2" and nothing else. Not in any encounter where the Nerf GCDs plays like you suggest (if you're having to do ALL OF THAT with the Nerf GCD view, you're going to have to do more than Medica 2 for the Nerf oGCD case with that level of damage). So be honest in making comparisons, let's be rational adults here and avoid silly caricatures.

[Liam_Harper]

I agree with...your last sentence.

You very much oversell your Nerf GCDs while making a ridiculous caricature of the Nerf oGCDs case.

Not exactly. WHM is a unique case with lilies, but in general certain GCD heals are just far too good. As I said, AspHelios and AspBenefic are 1000 and 1500 potency. You'd very rarely need much else in any sort of decent group. Sure, you might have to jam out some Cure II's in a messy run, but that doesn't make gameplay exciting when you learn a fight. It's basically the Cure vs Cure II issue. You're told to ignore Cure because Cure II is more potency per GCD. If one heal is superior to the others, it becomes your main option.

It's not as simple as "nerf GCD heals, oGCD's are good" either. There are so many factors wrong with healing that fixing one aspect still leaves lots of other flaws and creates a few new ones. There's still too little incoming damage. Downtime lasts too long sometimes. There's the issue with 1, 1, 1, 1, 1 gameplay. However, I don't feel GCD heals should be stronger than oGCD's, they should be your last resort "ran out of resources" option. So even if you nerf oGCD's, I'd tone down Medica II, AspBenefic and the like until they're slightly worse than oGCD raid heals, so inexperienced players don't just lean on them as a crutch.

Also, how much do you nerf oGCD's? To be honest, things like Normal, EX and even the first 2 Savage bosses are just overheal war with a good co-heal even spamming dps the whole fight. You'd probably have to quarter their potency to get good players to lean heavily on GCD heals. In which case, newer players would 100% ignore them and lean on the big aoe GCD's if there were no other changes. Still doesn't fix 1 spam for downtime either.

Basically, it's a very careful balance with a lot of factors and issues.