I'm bored when I heal because I need more complex DPS rotations

[glamazon]

I mean, if we're going that route why not replace healers with Trust NPCs? Or permanent mid-strength passive regen effects?.

Yes ths just get rid of the role because they have shortchanged it so much it’s not worth it.

All healers should just stop and play other roles.

[ForsakenRoe]

This only works on players who actually UNDERSTAND that the last HP is all that matters. Factually, the problem isn't that healers wouldnt be able to heal as well, its that healers are already THE role that always gets the blame when things go poorly in general. Excacerbating it further with any further with even MORE things they not just 'can' but 'MUST' do to not fail would make it only worse and put even more casual people off of touching the role because of responsibility weight. Tank is already struggling because of that, beng least generally populated role in queues. Making it into Tank AND Healer is not going to solve any role population issues.

Yeh so the key part you are missing is that this is not level 1-30 we're talking about here, we're trying to make the endgame of EX dungeon daily runs and such more interesting. There's no one 'touching the role' there, they're level 90 they know how to, at the very least, keep people alive. Imagine a swimming pool. You know how there's a deep end and a shallow end right? So the newer healer is at the shallow end, able to swim in there, but able to put their feet on solid ground if they start feeling like they need to (in this case, the ground represents dropping all damage and spamming healing to keep people alive). As they get more comfortable with their kit while levelling, they can move more and more towards the deeper end of the swimming pool, as they don't need the crutch of the bottom of the pool under their feet.

Let me give everyone a personal anecdote. I never learned how to swim in primary school. I never passed the tests, and had to stay in the kiddy size pool for 6 year olds, even when I was much older. Why? Because I was tall. Very tall. So tall in fact, I could not kick my legs to swim without hitting the bottom of the pool. The instructors refused to let me just go in the shallow end of the 'adult pool' because I had not passed the basic stuff. I had to teach myself in my highschool years, way later. Why am I saying this embarrassing story? Because the adults who thought they knew how to 'keep me safe', only served to stifle my growth, because they were too overprotective. They thought they knew what was best for me, but they didn't bother to consider my unique circumstances, of being unreasonably tall compared to the average kid of my age. Just like how some people are here, re: 'newbie healers'. Not every 'newbie healer' is going to suck and let everyone die. Not every 'newbie healer' is going to start out as a curespammer. Some might actually, Twelve forbid, actually read their tooltips and work out that Cure1 kinda sucks after level 35. Some of them might have been incredibly competent players in other MMOs. Whether it's Sastasha or Savage, the same old 'what about the new player????' comes up and it's getting tiresome. People who have suggested ideas have been very clear, very many times now. We have considered the new player experience. We have made our ideas with new players in mind. In fact, it'd be even easier for a new player to adapt to the changes in the ideas we made because they don't have to unlearn the muscle memory of smashing Glare 11 times in a row.

Oh also, this 'things they MUST do' is baloney. Nobody's gonna give anyone crap for dropping damage GCDs in any content below Savage. Imagine a hypothetical 'precious new player' RPR were to just never use Gluttony, or a PLD were to never use Confetior in an EX roulette. Nobody would care. Likely nobody would even notice. So let's not pretend like these 'poor precious healers' are going to get shouted at in Smileton, because they forgot to reapply Miasma AND Bio as SCH. And guess what, if they DID get yelled at for being ever so slightly suboptimal in content that doesn't even warrant it, the TOS is there to protect them. They don't need Don Quixote fighting 'the windmills of perceived complexity' for them on the forums like this. And Tank lost a LOT of it's 'anxiety inducing' gameplay, like 'what if I lose aggro' and 'what if I take too much damage because I dropped tankstance to push more damage'. At some point, SE needs to realize the truth of the matter: No, removing the stuff that 'causes tank/healer anxiety' is not going to miraculously get people to try the role. Some DPS players just like playing DPS, and there's nothing that's going to change that. So stop trying to bribe them onto a role they don't want to be on, by mangling the role for the people that DO want to be on it.

I mean, if we're going that route why not replace healers with Trust NPCs? Or permanent mid-strength passive regen effects? If the design parameters which define healers boil down to

• can't ever fail
• must be so easy that the most nervous newbie isn't frightened by Aglaia
• must have no skill ceiling because new players have to feel like they've reasonably mastered it after an instance or two

Then what we're describing isn't a fully-formed RPG class that a human being should be expected to play. We're describing a sub-10 line script.

If we remove healer as a role and just give everyone the solo instance Blessing of Light regen effect, the content's still probably clearable. That's pretty sad isn't it

Yes ths just get rid of the role because they have shortchanged it so much it’s not worth it.

All healers should just stop and play other roles.

They already are, it would seem. But I'm of the opinion that if my kitchen sink breaks, I don't move house, I fix the sink, so here I am. Hoping that Healer role will be 'fixed'. Or at least, glued together with spit and prayers barely enough to resemble 'fun'.

[fulminating]

Maybe if we ask for a hilariously overcomplicated rotation based on phases of the moon, patron deity and party races they’ll meet us halfway?

Bane and miasma on scholar, lv50 blm on white mage and nascent flash on sage isn’t a huge request. Maybe they could give sage a low potency forced crit that can be cast instead if more healing is needed but it’s not worth hardcasting heals yet?

[Recon1o6]

Maybe if we ask for a hilariously overcomplicated rotation based on phases of the moon, patron deity and party races they’ll meet us halfway?

Bane and miasma on scholar, lv50 blm on white mage and nascent flash on sage isn’t a huge request. Maybe they could give sage a low potency forced crit that can be cast instead if more healing is needed but it’s not worth hardcasting heals yet?

you missed astrologian. 1 button dps sucked on astro even back when the cards were fun. Msq, fates, sidequests etc exist too.

[Mithron]

you missed astrologian. 1 button dps sucked on astro even back when the cards were fun. Msq, fates, sidequests etc exist too.

I didn't think it sucked. I guess I wouldn't mind one extra dot or DPS button as HW/SB AST, but it certainly felt unique compared to WHM and SCH. Now WHM/SCH/SGE all play like HW/SB AST without cards, while current AST plays like flaccid bacon.

[ForsakenRoe]

Didn't AST have 2 dots at one point too, even with the wacky cards? I have vague memories of there being two Combusts, one with a cast time and one instant? Maybe the instant one was equal potency to Malefic at the time so it was more for mobility though I don't fully remember

edit: looks like I was thinking of HW, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSSlJQRMTqg

[Sparkthor]

One button astro was boring, and the "good" astro card system was fishing aoe balance. While I aggre new it feels dumb when you cannot get 3 symbols, it was way worse when you used to constantly get bole, arrow or spear (maybe spire and ewer, can't fully remember). A bit the same as noct sect which was less interssing than dia sect as extends regen duration is far more usefull than extends shields ones.

If instead of that was "good" in the past, turn to what could be good for the future ? Healer need some trim to their abilities and would probably gain to have some others dps/offensive supports tools as the game extends. But, having a 1/2 or 1/2/3 cycle would only be like a smokescreen, and systems alike the WHM lilies would be way more engaging. Also i think healers could get some tools for party burst phase.

[ForsakenRoe]

One button astro was boring, and the "good" astro card system was fishing aoe balance. While I aggre new it feels dumb when you cannot get 3 symbols, it was way worse when you used to constantly get bole, arrow or spear (maybe spire and ewer, can't fully remember). A bit the same as noct sect which was less interssing than dia sect as extends regen duration is far more usefull than extends shields ones.

If instead of that was "good" in the past, turn to what could be good for the future ? Healer need some trim to their abilities and would probably gain to have some others dps/offensive supports tools as the game extends. But, having a 1/2 or 1/2/3 cycle would only be like a smokescreen, and systems alike the WHM lilies would be way more engaging. Also i think healers could get some tools for party burst phase.

Where do we start... At the start, I guess. So as I just posted (which you may have missed due to the timing), AST wasn't always 'one button'. Personal anecdote, when I was first maining AST in 3.4 my balance draw rate was so high I'd question if it was really 1/6 equal chance for each card. Guess I was one of the lucky ones. Anyway, this whole thing of 'you just fished for balance!', I've come to realise, is emblematic of the playerbase's attitude towards game design nowadays. It seems that things can't have 'a chance of having the best result' anymore, the playerbase at large seems to feel almost... not entitled? IDK how to word it, but basically whatever the 'best result' is, they feel like they deserve only that result, and therefore rather than the 'powerful moment' being just that, a moment that comes sometimes and goes just as quickly, they feel like that 'powerful moment' is the baseline the class operates at, and anything else is just 'you got screwed by the game, devs pls fix this garbage'. This isn't just a FF thing either, I think it's just that people have adjusted their mindset over time, as they got older, etc. But I'm not a psychiatrist and IDK how brains work, so back to the topic here.

Nocturnal Sect was, unironically, 'interesting' IMO. You might disagree, and you're welcome to. But with SB, Noct got a lot more different stuff from SCH, as it got a much stronger burst AOE healing tool with Earthly Star, and it's damage mitigation bubble worked differently from Soil, becoming the blueprint for how Kerachole on Sage now works. The fact it applied a buff to people, rather than forcing them to stand in a specific ground AOE, with the downside of having it be up less often, meant it played differently to SCH. The tuning was jank, yes, SCH having Deploy Adlo and 2x as much Soil meant it was scuffed performance wise. If only they had kept doing performance-adjustments to balance it...

Lastly, speed round. We are looking to the future, by looking at what people enjoyed in the past, what originally drew them to the class in the first place. Maybe not all of it can be used, but just discarding it all because 'that's in the past now' is pretty silly IMO. Trim abilities, yes definitely, but SE is very attached to keeping their very important skills like... Physick at level 90? Literally nobody with any sense is asking for healers to get a 123 combo, that is a physical class thing. The only non-phys class with a 123 is RDM, and it's on it's melee skills. People suggest stuff more like RDM's Verfire/Verstone Ready buffs, procs that can safely be held for a long time in case of large healing suddenly being needed. Healers DO have tools for burst phase, SCH has Chain and Energy Drain spam, AST has... whatever that 2min window is, SGE has Phlegmas pooled, WHM has Misery and Presence of Mind to Glare faster. Making the 2min window slightly more interesting does not solve the issue of the other 105 seconds of each 2min cycle being boring though

[IceBlueNinja]

It's amazing you need a team that sucks just to have fun as healer in this game.

Which is why healers need more complex DPS rotations so they can have fun when not healing in the vast majority of this game's content.

I agree it shouldnt be like this and that fun was more like stress...tbh

[flowerfairy]

I didn't think it sucked. I guess I wouldn't mind one extra dot or DPS button as HW/SB AST, but it certainly felt unique compared to WHM and SCH. Now WHM/SCH/SGE all play like HW/SB AST without cards, while current AST plays like flaccid bacon.

If we're going back to SB AST's kit, I think a cool idea for a rotation would be oGCDs with a button that can reduce their cooldowns by half, kinda like the opposite of Time Dilation, taking the idea of PvP AST Double Cast Malefic. For example, there could be 2 damage oGCDs with 30s and 45s cooldown respectively, and a button (could be called Quick or Haste, from FFT?) on a 90s cooldown that reduces the cooldown of those two oGCDs and Earthly Star by 30s. Just throwing ideas out there, but in general I think oGCDs fit SB AST well since it was the only one with a 1.5s nuke.