A summary of healer issues

[Sparkthor]

It's deliberately sarcastic but this kind of remark is very condescending and quite annoying, it's exactly the same as saying that healers weren't allowed to have fun for the sake of others.

I love being judge on my char sheet when I say something. To mention I also play heal in Ex trials, and to be honest, it usually messier in last trial or normal raids than in Ex content (I didn't do savage as heal because I got many friends who play heal).

Also, as for tanks...
-> War filler is 2 combo + fell cleave
-> Drk filler is 1 combo + Bloodspiller + shadow edge
-> Gun filler is 1 combo + Burst strike + hypervelocity
PLD is a bit out here because is much more a full loop than a mix filler + burst option.

What I mean, it's I think is useless to go crazy with the filler phase for healer, one nuke and one DOT is fine. However, i would love to see more more offensive abilty with CD and charge like Phlegma or Afflatus Misery, and also more option to shine on group burst phase. This is to me way more engaging than to have proc to manage or 2 or 3 DOT to maintain.

[flowerfairy]

I love being judge on my char sheet when I say something. To mention I also play heal in Ex trials, and to be honest, it usually messier in last trial or normal raids than in Ex content (I didn't do savage as heal because I got many friends who play heal).

Also, as for tanks...
-> War filler is 2 combo + fell cleave
-> Drk filler is 1 combo + Bloodspiller + shadow edge
-> Gun filler is 1 combo + Burst strike + hypervelocity
PLD is a bit out here because is much more a full loop than a mix filler + burst option.

What I mean, it's I think is useless to go crazy with the filler phase for healer, one nuke and one DOT is fine. However, i would love to see more more offensive abilty with CD and charge like Phlegma or Afflatus Misery, and also more option to shine on group burst phase. This is to me way more engaging than to have proc to manage or 2 or 3 DOT to maintain.

Putting the tank rotations like that just solidifies the fact that you don't need anything complex to make downtime engaging. I don't see how updating the filler phase for healer is useless, I mean there was an entire healer shortage this tier because veterans got bored of Glarespam & getting blamed for mitigation issues and new healers didn't know how to keep up with P8S. Also, I don't see the appeal of Phlegma as an offensive ability, it's just a heal GCD that refunds the damage you could've done spamming Dosis. Same with Misery. Not that they aren't interesting abilities, but they aren't something you're able to constantly push in a rotation. And what do you mean with more options to shine in burst phase? 3 out of 4 healers already have 2 minute buffs. There's not much thought with pressing them.

This is my issue in general, what exactly do you like about 1 nuke 1 DoT gameplay? Do you like it because it's fun, or because it's easy? It purposefully uses no brain cells so you can spend more time healing, but... we aren't spending more time healing. That's the nature of the predictable incoming damage in ShB/EW fights. Maybe the only exception to the rule is Barb EX but even that gets invalidated as item level increases over time.

When I first joined in ShB when the free trial was updated, healing wasn't immediately easy for me. It was challenging learning to DPS and keep the tank's health up in dungeons. I was hardly doing damage and I still managed to let the tank die sometimes. But I *liked* that challenge. I felt myself improving and getting better at it up until the final patch of ShB. I feel like I hit the skill ceiling way too quickly. It was really soul crushing when I saw the EW job trailer and the only new thing SCH got was “run fast”.

Having a filler rotation on top of having to heal the party makes healers more challenging. The only opposition against this I can see is "I don't want healers to be hard", which is quite disappointing to me.

[Irenia]

Personally, whatever the filler is, it should be rewarding somehow.

If 123 is implemented and it doesn't interact with anything else in the kit, then I can see how it feels like mere busywork; it's how I feel about the current AST card system and the old one when you were skilled enough to fish for balance.

The filler should enable the killer. Merelt making the filler more complicated doesn't do much for me.

[Kabooa]

This is my issue in general, what exactly do you like about 1 nuke 1 DoT gameplay?.

I like that it doesn't waste 5-6 button slots on what is effectively the same decision.

[flowerfairy]

I like that it doesn't waste 5-6 button slots on what is effectively the same decision.

A little similar to what we have now though, right? A bunch of heals that practically do the same exact thing?

I agree that a good filler rotation has kit interactivity, though. But you don't need 6 slots for that.

[AmiableApkallu]

I like that it doesn't waste 5-6 button slots on what is effectively the same decision.

Can we reduce the heals to three buttons? Restore HP, Add Shield, and Reduce Damage. It's all effectively the same decision.

[Kabooa]

Can we reduce the heals to three buttons? Restore HP, Add Shield, and Reduce Damage. It's all effectively the same decision.

Advocate whatever you want. I'm not going to stop you.

[ty_taurus]

I like that it doesn't waste 5-6 button slots on what is effectively the same decision.

This is a very disingenuous take. You're siphoning every ounce of nuance out of the discussion and just writing it off as 'buttons.' Why have more buttons when you can have less? Why not just reduce every job down to 2 buttons: DPS get 1 Nuke and 1 DoT. Healers get 1 Nuke and 1 Heal, and Tanks get 1 Nuke and 1 Mitigation. That's just 2 buttons in what currently is in the ballpark of 30. Less buttons is better, right?

Obviously, that's an extreme and hyperbolic example, but you see how sophistic the argument becomes. You need to actually take into consideration what the buttons do rather than just writing them off as more buttons. And it's not just what to they do mechanically, but also what type of experience do they create for the player. The most important aspect of job design--one that is regularly forgotten--is what makes the experience fun and enjoyable, not just effective at clearing challenges the game throws at you. Phlegma may just be "more damage" for example, but the fact that it asks for melee range, and that it provides a flashy explosion dealing more damage makes it a more satisfying pop of serotonin. You may not feel that but most people would.

Too much time currently is spent spamming 1 button on all healers. A couple people may enjoy that, and most might not care much either way, but a significant chunk find it's detrimental to the experience and ruins healer gameplay because the downtime between healing makes the jobs feel like a chore and not a healthy experience.

[Kabooa]

This is a very disingenuous take. You're siphoning every ounce of nuance out of the discussion..

More buttons should equate to more choices to consider, not bloating the bar to something that should be allowed the option of being reduced to just one button slot.

There's a reason PVP design doesn't worry about the bloat.

You want a contemporary example for PVE?

Dancer. Think about the way Standard and Tech Step actively reduce button bloat. Think about the ways it should further be reduced.

Gunbreaker and the Cartridge combo.

Summoner would actually be one of the best jobs to showcase this if the attuned abilities had more significant differences between them.

More buttons should equate to more decision, and anything that can be reduced should be reduced.

I am not against more buttons.

One of the MMOs I've played was vanilla Aion, where a singular class in that game sported something like 45 active skill binds, not counting linear combos with a far more robust system for button consolidation.

What I am against is just adding buttons because someone thinks 123 is way more engaging than 111.

[Semirhage]

This is a very disingenuous take. You're siphoning every ounce of nuance out of the discussion and just writing it off as 'buttons.' Why have more buttons when you can have less? Why not just reduce every job down to 2 buttons: DPS get 1 Nuke and 1 DoT. Healers get 1 Nuke and 1 Heal, and Tanks get 1 Nuke and 1 Mitigation. That's just 2 buttons in what currently is in the ballpark of 30. Less buttons is better, right?

Obviously, that's an extreme and hyperbolic example, but you see how sophistic the argument becomes. You need to actually take into consideration what the buttons do rather than just writing them off as more buttons. And it's not just what to they do mechanically, but also what type of experience do they create for the player. The most important aspect of job design--one that is regularly forgotten--is what makes the experience fun and enjoyable, not just effective at clearing challenges the game throws at you. Phlegma may just be "more damage" for example, but the fact that it asks for melee range, and that it provides a flashy explosion dealing more damage makes it a more satisfying pop of serotonin. You may not feel that but most people would.

Too much time currently is spent spamming 1 button on all healers. A couple people may enjoy that, and most might not care much either way, but a significant chunk find it's detrimental to the experience and ruins healer gameplay because the downtime between healing makes the jobs feel like a chore and not a healthy experience.

Kabooa responds to every instance of "I want more engaging downtime" with "You just want 123 combos which are boring." You can agree 123 combos are boring until the cows come home; it doesn't matter. "I want more engaging downtime" = "You just want 123 combos". Every time.