The Problem with Healer Feedback, and requested changes

[ty_taurus]

The odd thing to me about that, though, is I feel if they were really worried about that, they'd make all GCD heals generate a damage neutral resource. GCDs are effectively a "resource" that we trade between healing and damage, too, but I guess the Devs don't see it that way. One could argue it's to make a higher skill ceiling, but the Devs have thus far shown they want the skill ceiling on healers to be lower, so it just seems odd they are unwilling or unable to grasp that GCDs and damage are part of that calculation with at least a good chunk of the most vocal components of the playerbase, and it's one change that wouldn't hurt the 70+% or so that are casual and never run high end content. If Jonny Casual generated more Misery stacks by casting Cure 1, it's not like that would hurt the game or his play experience.

It's true. There seems to be a resistance, an ignorance, and/or an outright rejection of how the healer role is played by the community. The way we view DPS as a resource and the GCD as a resource is something that has come up in discussion in live letters, and the response is always very lukewarm, but there's this sense of total disconnection in those responses. I really can't say how Yoshida actually feels about the topic as he obviously as to respond in a very PR friendly way, but I can't help but feel like he really wants to say something like "will you just stop worrying about that?" And I say that because there's always this really heavy dejected sigh whenever questions about healers come up.

The odd thing to me about that, though, is I feel if they were really worried about that, they'd make all GCD heals generate a damage neutral resource. GCDs are effectively a "resource" that we trade between healing and damage, too, but I guess the Devs don't see it that way. One could argue it's to make a higher skill ceiling, but the Devs have thus far shown they want the skill ceiling on healers to be lower, so it just seems odd they are unwilling or unable to grasp that GCDs and damage are part of that calculation with at least a good chunk of the most vocal components of the playerbase, and it's one change that wouldn't hurt the 70+% or so that are casual and never run high end content. If Jonny Casual generated more Misery stacks by casting Cure 1, it's not like that would hurt the game or his play experience.

When I mention the idea that healer optimization should become about generating DPS neutral healing, I don't necessarily mean locking the player out of healing, but rather, that the resources you gain allow your healing actions to refund lost DPS under specific conditions. Your healing is still available, but what Jonny Casual would lose by poor optimization is just uptime. Your ability to heal stays the same. And it also doesn't necessarily need to stem from specifically offensive tools either.
EDIT: Quick note, I read one of the above statements wrong so forgive me for thinking you took my statement as locking players out of healing. It's my early morning brain.

Here's an example of a lily system adjustment that's been floating around in my head lately. It's not something I'm entirely sold on quite yet, but it exemplifies what I'm talking about quite well. With this concept...

I'd propose changing the way the lilies work slightly. We do not have Afflatus Solace and Afflatus Rapture as we have them currently, and lilies are not generated passively over time. Instead, you have, let's call it that Budding Afflatus name I game in that same track WHM 90-100 skill example I posted earlier. This would have a cooldown of let's say 30 seconds with 2 charges on the GCD. When used, it generates 1 lily and nourishes the blood lily. While you have lilies, Cure II changes to Solace and Medica changes to Rapture, which makes them instant cast, but, while you have any amount of lilies, ALL GCD heals consume 1 lily and nourish the blood lily. If you have no lilies, they are used as normal.

Additionally, I've mentioned additional DPS actions I'd like to see on WHM, but let's actually keep it really simple and in line with current WHM for the sake of consistency. All we add is the Water spell, which later upgrades into Banish or something. Water/Banish is a GCD attack spell that's a little stronger than Stone/Glare and has a 30 second cooldown as well, but no charges. When used, it reduces the cooldown of Budding Afflatus by 10 seconds. Playing WHM optimally now means you want to make sure you're using Water/Banish on cooldown every 30 seconds, and probably trying to reserve an OGCD heal to weave after Water/Banish in case you do need healing at that 30 second window, and doing so gives you an inch more damage while also giving you more lilies throughout the fight to access DPS neutral healing more frequently. Jonny Casual can still access all of his healing actions, but if he learns to optimize his use of Water/Banish, he'll perhaps lose a little less DPS uptime throughout the fight.

Perhaps it doesn't function exactly as the way I put it, but if it were something in that train of thought, how would you feel about something like that?

As for SGE talk...

The issue with making Toxikon a flat DPS neutral on use of E. Diagnosis/E. Prognosis is it makes SGE absolutely broken. For 100 more MP, which is negligible, SGE essentially has access to a 1-2 combo that is not only as effective as 2 Glares/Broils/Malefics from the other healers, but also offers HP recovery and prominent barriers every other GCD. Even if we retain the barrier breaking mentality, in Savage, that barrier will absolutely break within a couple GCDs anytime the boss is using a tankbuster, auto attacks, or raidwides. SGE would destroy the other healers. I 150% want Toxikon to be changed into something that isn't just a glorified Ruin II, but we really need to rethink Addersting generation to make that happen. I definitely want SGE to feel like the GNB of healers--the healer that plays like a DPS, because that's clearly something at least a fair chunk of the healer community wants. I want more GCD DPS spells and some DPS weaving for good measure. And I agree that the Kardia system is a good concept, it's just not utilized at all when we could have different offensive spells offer different effects to your Kardia target. There are countless ways this could go, and I really hope we see that shift as we move into 7.0.

But that actually leads me to a question that I would like to ask specifically you...

I have a couple references videos that I'd like to bring up for this question: Alphinaud's Reveal in the Endwalker Trailer and the Red Mage Job Actions Trailer. (Any non-healer from the job actions trailer works really, but I just think RDM's is very smooth).

First of all, I'll let it be known that I am an aesthetics snob. I desire games that look stylish. I want to look stylish in game and have stylish gameplay, and I am obsessed with SGE's design. Alphinaud's appearance in the trailer had me so excited to try out the job even knowing how unlikely it was that healer gameplay was going to improve. Even now, I keep trying to play it because I want that fantasy in as many environments as I can, but what frustrates me the most is that I do not feel like Alphinaud in that trailer. The job action trailer videos are not an accurate depiction of gameplay, but I like how stylish RDM looks in that trailer, and their gameplay does resemble that in the trailer. RDM isn't just standing their spamming Jolt, they're cycling through a variety of different, epic looking spell effects. But when I play SGE, almost all of my gameplay looks the same--me firing a bug zapper at the enemy over and over. That doesn't look stylish to me. I don't feel like I'm this amazing master of magic capable of multitasking 4 independent aether-controlled weapons firing off a rainbow laser light show while keeping my teammates healthy.

So my question is, do you feel this way about playing WHM and just seeing WHM casting the same exact spell over and over for major chunks of the gameplay? Even if that's not the part of healing that gives you dopamine, does it bore you at all that you'll spend large swaths of time in the same casting animation casting the same shiny light? Would you prefer if at the very least, your 1 filler DPS button cycled through Glare, Quake, Tornado, and Flood, or something just to give you something different to look at? Because even if SGE simply had like a 1-2 button combo that cycled through 4 or 6 animations like GNB's continuation, but was really just a glorified Cascade > Fountain without the Reverse Cascade or Fountainfall... I wouldn't be happy per say, and I would still want change, but I think I could at least tolerate playing as SGE long term and not feeling burnt out from the bug zapper after 1-2 dungeons and need to go back to DNC.

And that actually leads me into an idea of a compromise on WHM that may actually work for a change, assuming the idea I proposed before with Water/Banish was one you were okay with...

This is a slightly different rotation than the example above, but earlier in this thread I shared where my headspace is at on a WHM rotation that's similar but a little different. Basically, you have Glare as your filler, Dia becomes AoE with falloff damage (as the other healers would have more complex ways of applying AoE DoTs, like restoring SCH's Bane, WHM just innately has their DoT be AoE), Water is just a precursor to Assize, and Assize in animation is moved up to level 72. It starts off as damage only, but would gain that recast for the heal effect at level 56 and would just be in line with how it functions now. Soul Drain is a new, Aerith inspired DPS button that is half Glare's potency but restores MP and makes your next spell instant cast, and every 5 spell casts grant you Aerith's Tempest, which is a little stronger than Glare and both Soul Drain and Holy combo out of Tempest, where Soul Drain's potency is raised to be neutral, and Holy generates 1 lily when used as a combo (also DPS neutral). Also there was Aerith's Fleeting Familiar on a cooldown, which you press and will attack enemies for you over your next 5 casts of any spell dealing very small damage but nourishing the blood lily after all 5 stacks are consumed; this being a spell effect and not a pet.

But lets simplify just a little and hybridize these two suggestions for a moment and then I'll discuss the compromise solution. Let's go with Water being a precursor to Assize, WHM gains this take on Soul Drain and Tempest, with you getting 1 use of Tempest every 4 casts of any spell instead of 5, and rather than Tempest's combo into Holy being a free lily, it reduces the cooldown on Budding Afflatus by 5 seconds. And the concept of the Budding Afflatus and how lilies function is from the above suggestion. This would give you a DPS library of: Glare, Dia, Assize (OGCD), Tempest, Soul Drain, and Holy as your "rotation" as well as Fleeting Familiar potentially if we like that concept.

Now as for the compromise, how would you feel if you had the option to instead of setting Tempest and Soul Drain to your hotbar, you have the option to have a PVP style auto combo, which is to say, your filler button of Glare will automatically switch to Tempest whenever Tempest is available, and after Tempest will switch to Soul Drain. So pressing that 1 button will automatically send you through your basic "combo" of sorts leading you into the MP restoration and instant cast utility. You'd still need to maintain Dia on your own, and if you want to combo into Holy you need to get closer to the enemy and manually trigger that to get more lilies across the course of the fight, but the bulk of your damage contribution can optionally be on 1 button for you. Players who want to set Tempest and Soul Drain separately can still do so and have regular Glare that will not auto combo, and the auto combo only looses a small amount of optimization if you never combo into Holy.

Do you think something like that would feel like a healthier compromise? I can't speak for everyone else on if they feel that would be enough for WHM, but I'd certainly be a lot more content with something like that at least.

[ForsakenRoe]

First of all, I'll let it be known that I am an aesthetics snob. I desire games that look stylish. I want to look stylish in game and have stylish gameplay, and I am obsessed with SGE's design. Alphinaud's appearance in the trailer had me so excited to try out the job even knowing how unlikely it was that healer gameplay was going to improve. Even now, I keep trying to play it because I want that fantasy in as many environments as I can, but what frustrates me the most is that I do not feel like Alphinaud in that trailer. The job action trailer videos are not an accurate depiction of gameplay, but I like how stylish RDM looks in that trailer, and their gameplay does resemble that in the trailer. RDM isn't just standing their spamming Jolt, they're cycling through a variety of different, epic looking spell effects. But when I play SGE, almost all of my gameplay looks the same--me firing a bug zapper at the enemy over and over. That doesn't look stylish to me. I don't feel like I'm this amazing master of magic capable of multitasking 4 independent aether-controlled weapons firing off a rainbow laser light show while keeping my teammates healthy.

I had an idea of a trailer shot where someone (WOL or Alphinaud) is walking through a warzone type area. People are dropping, people are getting shot at, etc. And this hero figure is walking, unflinching and undaunted, because his nouliths are semi-autonomously healing those who need healing, shielding those who need shields, and when a massive projectile is about to hit them, it hits, you see the smoke clear, and they're still walking without even reacting to the projectile, because the nouliths got it covered. I think it's cos of this particular heroic figure

To be fair, that's just Toxicon I having a better animation than Toxicon II. Because Alphinaud really doesn't do much in the trailer other than cast Toxicon I with a dramatic camera angle. Hitting level 82 has never been so disappointing, Hope level 92's Toxicon III is better.

True and real, which is why, in this idea I had to make SGE an actual 'do damage to cause healing' kind of healer, I put Tox 1's animation onto Phlegma, Phlegma's current animation onto Eukrasian Phlegma (applies DOT in AOE, gain in 2 targets or more), and Tox 2's animation, uhh, looks like I didn't specify. Maybe we could throw it on 'Dosis when it's empowered by Toxicon', call it Toxicosis or something.

Or, to put it another way, the only reason Lillies are flat DPS neutral is because Solace/Rapture takes the place of otherwise oGCD free sources of healing (such as Durochole and Ixochole) on similarly 20s CDs. That's it. To be an otherwise perfect 20s GCD CD mirror of others' 20s oGCD CDs, it needs to refund the lost potency.

's why I suggest 'free use of Phlegma' as the payout instead of Toxicon (that gets reworked), optimizers can bank it like Dark Arts for raidbuffs, casuals can just blow it whenever, it's a 60p loss compared to Toxicon's current 330. If someone were to spam E-Diag > PhlegmaProc over and over, they'd be losing 30p on average per GCD (60 per 2), and it'd be draining them of their MP kinda bad, because Phlegma costs 400 too. It'd be good-ish for keeping DPS up during, say, Terminal Relativity though, which would be cool.

[ty_taurus]

's why I suggest 'free use of Phlegma' as the payout instead of Toxicon (that gets reworked), optimizers can bank it like Dark Arts for raidbuffs, casuals can just blow it whenever, it's a 60p loss compared to Toxicon's current 330. If someone were to spam E-Diag > PhlegmaProc over and over, they'd be losing 30p on average per GCD (60 per 2), and it'd be draining them of their MP kinda bad, because Phlegma costs 400 too. It'd be good-ish for keeping DPS up during, say, Terminal Relativity though, which would be cool.

Ultimately, having Phlegma as a refund would accomplish a couple things. First, it makes SGE a very consistent healer in the savage fights that actually push you to GCD heal, as your losses would be minimal. Second, it would make SGE a very forgiving healer for less skilled players who overuse E. Diagnosis and E. Prognosis.

Having said that, it's important to remember that of all the healers, SGE avoids their GCD healing the most, and really doesn't need to use it ever in every piece of content under savage. This means for many SGE players, this feature may as well not exist in in probably 95+% of circumstances. Having niche back pocket tools on a job is not necessarily a bad thing, of course, but way too much of healer design fails to provide engagement for the highest level of play and those that fall somewhere along the road toward that highest level of play. We don't need more tools and features that have little to no functionality in the vast majority of the game.

But I think there's some light tweaking we can do to this concept that can address this concern.

Let's take it from Phlegma and go back to Toxikon as your Addersting spender. Toxikon II is no longer a direct upgrade of Toxikon I. Toxikon I's potency goes from being the same as Dosis to a potency of 400--still a loss; however, we create some type of proc that causes Toxikon I to Upgrade to Toxikon II for one use not unlike PVP Toxikon, and Toxikon II's potency is 800. Or instead, Toxikon I's animation becomes Toxikosis, and Toxikon II is just Toxikon. Instead of boosting the DPS to 800, this proc allows Toxikon to trigger 1 use of the OGCD Toxikosis for another 400 potency, which helps with crit variance.

A possible area to include this proc aspect would be perhaps Toxikon combos out of Eukrasian Dosis to have this potency increase. I think including a new way to generate 1 Addersting at some type of interval, maybe every 60 seconds or so, could help lessen the amount of free E. Diagnosis/E. Prognosis healing this system would generate, as it could still be a problem if you are using Toxikon every 30 seconds, but a system like this would accomplish some of what your Phlegma suggestion is trying to accomplish, but also makes it something that is consistently a part of SGE's gameplay rather than something that is exclusive to Savage when playing SGE adequately.

[Renathras]

Sure, they might not know why more veteran players are yeeting heals into the overhealth abyss, and might not therefore copy that well/sensibly/directly, but it's still going to be confusing for them if every GCD heal is DPS-neutral but through bankable refunds that then get spent during damage amp windows and therefore creates this really twisted up optimal play that they'd have to figure out at some point to progress deeper into mastery.

Right but (I may have edited while you posted this), keep in mind that this is exactly how WHM functions now. You bank Misery for the buff window. But you can only bank ONE Misery. If you have a full Blood Lily now, you can't cast 3x Solace to get a second Misery. Each one you cast is costing you 1/3rd of a Misery until you cast the Misery you already have. That is, a player couldn't spend 30 sec or whatever before the buff window chain casting Cure 2 to bank 5 Miseries to unload in the buff window. There's no allowance for that unless you can stock several Miseries, and you can't. So you have to wait for the buff window to use the one you have.

In live, you have two options at that point. (1) is to refresh Dia and then chain cast Glare to fill out the rest of the buff window. (2) is to cast any GCD heals and have damage potency losses and see your DPS decline. Obviously, unless people are dying, this is the worse option and so not really an "option" at all. (2) is being wrong/bad.

If Cure/Medica spells generated 1/3rd Blood Lily, then you'd have the same situation. You could only stock one Misery going into the buff window. Once you use it, now you can Dia + Glarespam OR you can Dia + heal. If you heal, you can heal twice more to get in a second Misery. This would do the exact same damage as casting the 4 Glares, as all of this would occur in the buff window. But it would not do MORE damage, since you'd be sacrificing 4 Glares to do Cure 2/Medica x3 + Misery. Since they are damage neutral, the outcome would be the same. Glare x4 would be marginally safer on damage (more chances to get a crit) while the Misery would be "all or nothing" (if it crits vs doesn't crit), so the Dia + Glarespam would give more reliable damage, but the Cure x3 + Misery would be damage neutral on long fights. (They would be expected to give the same damage overall regardless of crit values or whatnot)

So there wouldn't be any "wasteful healing to prep damage". Well, no more than there is right now. That is, this change would make things no worse than they are in live with people burning Solace/Rapture to stock a Misery for the burst window.

The only real differences are (a) inside the burst window you'd have an option other than Glarespam, and casting a GCD heal (if you could do two more and a Misery after it still within the window) would not be a DPS loss, and (b) outside of the burst window, you would break up the Glarespam more frequently since you'd have other buttons to push and be getting Miseries more often by doing so. The best part is, if someone wanted to continue playing as they are today (never touching Cure/Medica), they could do so and their damage output would be (on average) identical.

I'm telling you, as a non-optimizing, not-hardcore, green-parser (rare blue on a good day, purple in 24 mans...no idea how that works, but I don't parse so just see my name captured on other people's runs from time to time), this would not make things worse for people like me.

It's strange to me you think this would widen the gap between low and high skilled players. I don't see how unless we made it where you could stock more than one Misery, which we'd be not doing... I'm a bit confused is all. I can only see it lowering the gap, not increasing it, as high end players would mostly play identically to how they do today.

I could have sworn sure they (Yoshida and Starfox, in one of the first LLs) noted exactly that factor in explaining why we were seeing double-SCH so often even in T1-4 (rather than only as a fix to Infirmity in T5, since Lustrate at the time healed for 25% HP regardless of anti-healing debuffs); since SCH had effectively auto-regen and a much less wasteful 3/4s of a Bene every minute, instead of 1 per 5 minutes... yeah, SCH was kicking WHM's butt overall simply because WHM had to drop significant damage (and mana) to do any healing while SCH didn't -- i.e., a gap in oGCD output. It wasn't particularly unknown or undiscussed even back then. It was ostensibly part of their reasoning behind adding Tetra and Asylum (or simply, a greater increase in oGCD throughput to WHM than to SCH).

I don't recall a lot of SCH/SCH comps back then, but I was paying far less attention to the meta. All of the ARR-era videos I've seen of Coils clears and Extreme clears had 1 WHM + 1 SCH. I'd have to see this Liveletter. I'm not saying I don't believe you, I just don't remember that being a thing back then.

I do remember WHM's hardcasting a lot of spells, since that's basically all the had. Including Stoneskin as a discount Divine Benison for tankbusters. Even now, WHM doesn't get a reliable oGCD heal until level 60, I think, with Tetra.

...

Oh, one thing I would like from your ideas. It'd be cool if WHM got "Water" as a spell early on. An oGCD centered around the WHM on a 40 sec CD that did let's say 200 Potency AOE damage? Big water ball that casts up into the air (the Holy animation, but instant cast, of course) then pops splashing all surrounding enemies and restoring 5% of maximum MP.

Assize would be an upgrade doubling the potency and adding the AOE heal. I think that would be a good thing since it would give WHM another lower level button but not a higher level one (since upgrade) and get leveling WHM players into the habit of watching for and using that spell when it was off CD. Would also go with the "base elements upgrading into Umbral higher forms" thing.