Paired Threads: What would it take to make Heaker kits "complex/interesting"?

[Renathras]

I think a big part of why the healer problems aren't as immediately apparent is because I believe most players who heal at all don't play healer exclusively. They don't go through the MSQ as a healer, and they don't exclusively heal in group content either. I think most healers are flex healers, so for them, there isn't as deep of an understanding of healer optimization, and even when things do feel stale, they switch to another job.

Again, just piping in for the evening and my reply to this is simple:

This sounds eerily similar to the "real healers" argument I was told is an insult and not allowed (even though I wasn't using it) to describe people with different opinions.

Many people who play Healers exclusively are disagreeing with your position. I play Healers almost exclusively. I VERY rarely will touch a Tank or DPSer (WAR/PLD or SMN/RDM) when the Healer spots are all full. If asked what I want to play in any content, it's always Healer with "but if you need me on something else..." in the cases where I know someone else would rather be in the Healer slot(s), because I'm at least competent at all three roles and I keep my Caster and Tank gear relatively up to date (I know a lot of people only gear out for a single role and so don't have that capability). But I only do that if the situation demands it, and if given a choice, Healer is what I do.

I leveled all of ARR on WHM. HW on WHM. SB on WHM. ShB on WHM. EW on SCH (and no, I didn't swap to SMN). The Job I go through the MSQ with is always a Healer. The only exception I've made to date is Ultima Thul I played through on GNB since I had hit 90 on SCH and had gotten GNB to 89 (since I was running Roulettes on it while doing MSQ on SCH...I'm still not even quite sure HOW I managed that!) so the xp wouldn't go to waste.

I've only ever leveled up using Healers for MSQ, and I use them for my first dungeon runs of any new MSQ dungeon, as well as all the solo instances. I've also done a lot of poking about in PotD and HoH solo with them trying different runs, on all of them but AST anyway.

Contrary to your position: I think the flex Healers are the ones that dislike Healing the most at this point. The people that prefer and enjoy their DPS Jobs more and only play Healer when their friends need them to - or, in other words, the exact opposite of me. The people who main DPS but only switch to Healer if needed and do so grudgingly. Those are the people most likely to dislike Healers.

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Anyway, long story short:

No, the people who think Healers are fine are Healer mains, too. It's not only "real Healers" that think Healers are bad and only people who "aren't real Healers" who think they're okay.

Just wanting to set that straight.

[ty_taurus]

Again, just piping in for the evening and my reply to this is simple:

This sounds eerily similar to the "real healers" argument I was told is an insult and not allowed (even though I wasn't using it) to describe people with different opinions.

This is a prime example of taking what someone said and warping it into something it isn't in the effort to prove a point. The majority of players that play healer do not only play as healers. Naturally, if there is a problem that applies to the healing role and not the DPS or Tank role, or one or the other, then they obviously are not as affected by those problems because they have a way out. That's what I said. They are allowed to play healer, and they are allowed to enjoy healer, but they naturally are not subjected to the same burden as those who only play healer or who used to only heal, but left the role because of its burdens.

[RyuDragnier]

1) I agree Rilifane! DPS rotations are laughably lame right now. The very unpopular decision to take them away and over homogenize the healing jobs was a grave mistake. Should the dps be on par with traditional dps jobs? Of course not...but, spamming 1-button is just ridiculous design. Anyone responsible for stripping these jobs down to the state they are in today should be barred from touching healers again.

3-4 DPS buttons would be preferable, with some oGCD modifiers. Such as how SCH was back in SB. Miasma, Bio II, Bane to spread those, Miasma II, Shadow Flare, Energy Drain, and Broil. Didn't need much to make SCH feel really good to DPS as. Hell, just having a 2nd DoT and the capability to spread it with Deployment Tactics (it really needs to work like how it does in PvP) would be a big upgrade in how DPS feels for SCH alone.

All the healers could stand to have a 2nd DoT and a modifier. SCH getting back their ability to spread the DoTs, WHM being able to strengthen their DoTs, AST being able to detonate them for burst damage, and SGE being able to get a damage boost from the DoTs (like NIN's current Trick Attack). Small things that would make DPSing feel a lot better.

[Aravell]

Speaking of modifiers on spells, I remember that Yoshi-P mentioned WHM's Holy and how it has a stun, he did say that he wanted to add effects to the other healer's spammable AoEs as well, I think it was in the Endwalker launch LL, whatever happened to that I wonder?

[IDontPetLalas]

3-4 DPS buttons would be preferable, with some oGCD modifiers. Such as how SCH was back in SB. Miasma, Bio II, Bane to spread those, Miasma II, Shadow Flare, Energy Drain, and Broil. Didn't need much to make SCH feel really good to DPS as. Hell, just having a 2nd DoT and the capability to spread it with Deployment Tactics (it really needs to work like how it does in PvP) would be a big upgrade in how DPS feels for SCH alone.

All the healers could stand to have a 2nd DoT and a modifier. SCH getting back their ability to spread the DoTs, WHM being able to strengthen their DoTs, AST being able to detonate them for burst damage, and SGE being able to get a damage boost from the DoTs (like NIN's current Trick Attack). Small things that would make DPSing feel a lot better.

I agree with your first sentence, however not necessarily with the part in bold as that's the part that leads to a rather dull experience- a copy/paste of each healer. by all means, let one have a few dots (likely SCH), but why not try to be a bit more creative, if possible for the other three healers? Maybe one could have a new DPS burst skill on longer CD, or another could have a proc skill, etc?

[Renathras]

This is a prime example of taking what someone said and warping it into something it isn't in the effort to prove a point. The majority of players that play healer do not only play as healers. Naturally, if there is a problem that applies to the healing role and not the DPS or Tank role, or one or the other, then they obviously are not as affected by those problems because they have a way out. That's what I said. They are allowed to play healer, and they are allowed to enjoy healer, but they naturally are not subjected to the same burden as those who only play healer or who used to only heal, but left the role because of its burdens.

That's why I said "sounds eerily similar to", not "is". (And noted that no one did that before, but this is far closer to that mark).

It seems if not you, some of the replies to you, were people saying that such people should have less of a say or be listened to less, or that they weren't knowledgeable about problems in the role or not in a good place to see and discuss them. And that players who did think Healers were okay didn't mainly play them or play through the MSQ with them, and so don't understand that angle, either.

All of which are untrue to begin with (there are many people who play multiple Jobs and/or roles and actually are masterful at them, understanding the problems and benefits of them), but even if we ignored that and pretended they were, many people that DO exclusively play healer are in disagreement (including through the MSQ and through other content like Trials, Raids, and so on).

Note also - since you mention taking what someone said and warping into into something it isn't - note I did not say there that you said they are not ALLOWED to play or enjoy healer. I didn't use the word "allowed" at all, other than saying the "not a real healer" insult was not allowed (by ForsakenRoe, I believe it was, who kept insisting I had employed it when I never did and she couldn't quote a single instance of me doing so).

So why are you defending from attacks I didn't make?

All I said was it sounds similar to something I was told not to do here (which I wasn't even doing), and seems to be downplaying either the opinions of people that like Healers or suggesting that the only people holding those positions are ones not in a good place to formulate them since they don't play Healers enough - or exclusively enough - to be aware of them. Both of which I was suggesting are untrue. You're attacking the wrong things.

Anyway, going to go back to not posting in here for a while. It's a little too echo-y in this chamber, not to mention toxic, to deal with on a regular basis.

EDIT:

All the healers could stand to have a 2nd DoT and a modifier.

Why is it always DoTs... /shakes head

Not everyone likes DoTs, and they're often boring. Some Jobs having them is great, but why does every Healer.......never mind.

I will never cease to be amazed by how people always propose DoTs as the solution to things... Not you specifically, Ryu, just in general, that's been proposed so many times. If the problem is Healers all play the same NOW, then having them all have the same solution of "another DoT" (even if they work differently) makes no sense. If the answer is "Well, if the DoT's work differently, the Healers won't feel so samey", then why not just take the ONE DoT they all have now and make them work differently instead?

WHM's Dia (with a frontloaded damage tick) and SGE's Eukrasia Dosis (being a modifier ability) already work differently. AST and SCH have a basic "place on enemy, does damage" DoT, so those are the ones that really need some window dressing. SCH getting a second DoT that has interplay with Fester and AST's having a shorter duration like 20 sec or something would make them both a bit different.

Anyway, it's whatever, but I'm constantly amazed by how many people propose that same boring solution. I personally hate DoTs in almost all their incarnations, so "more DoTs" I definitely don't agree on as a worthwhile solution. I'd rather a 1-2-3 combo, honestly; Stone, Water, Aero; Quake, Flood, Tornado...

If the goal is to make the Healer Jobs not all feel the same, then the answer would be to give one more DoTs but not to give them all more DoTs, since that just ends up in the same position as now, just with more button bloat and everyone more annoyed.

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Asside: I'd also note that 3-4 DPS buttons is a bar already met in some cases, depending on your definition. SGE has Dosis, EuDosis, and Plegma it uses routinely, with Toxicon and Pneuma on standby. WHM uses the most GCDs on "non-Glares" of any of the Healers, with Glare, Dia, Afflatus Solace/Rapture (technically DPS buttons), and Misery, not counting the oGCD Assize. SCH has Broil, Biolysis, Ruin 2, and the oGCD Energy Drain. AST has Malific and Combust and...I guess that's it, with Earthly Star and Macrocosmos as oGCDs. Of all the oGCD attacks Healers have, only Energy Drain is actually a choice (the others are "use on CD" except Macro, which is still used as part of a healing plan, not rotationally), and ED comes at the cost of sharing a resource with healing abilities.

I think the problem with SGE is that it doesn't use Toxicon/Pneuma as part of its standard rotation and that Plegma has a longish CD so doesn't feel as active - if it had a 15 sec CD (though it'd have to do less damage), it might feel like it's being pressed more (the normal rotation would be Eu Dosis, Plegma, 5 Dosis, Plegma, 4 Dosis, Eu Dosis, Plegma...), it would break up the Dosis spam and feel a little better. And with 2 charges, it wouldn't "feelsbad" if you NEED to use a GCD heal and have to push a Plegma to the right one GCD. (And it's not like SGE uses GCD heals much anyway). Honestly, making Plegma a 15 sec CD doing 45-ish% of the damage it does now would do a lot to "fix" its rotation, but having Toxicon have more frequent use would allow things to spice up a bit more.

WHM already uses the Afflatus abilities (4 per minute) to break up its spam, though since they're heals, they feel different to use and people often don't want to count them even though they're part of its damage rotation. There's not really an answer to that other than for people to realize they're part of the damage rotation...

SCH is where we start getting into real problems since it only has 3 spamable GCD abilities, and Ruin 2 has no use case since Broil IV has a 1.5 sec cast time for weaving and extensive slidecasting for movement, making Ruin 2 MOSTLY redundant unless you have a long chain of movement and bad ping, like the Wraith boss in Delubrium (the donut attack where you have to run from one side of the field to the other without much time to stop and even get in a quick cast if you don't have super low ping), a mechanic seldom used anyway. It's pretty clear SCH needs something else added to its damage kit, but it's unclear WHAT. It also sucks because it has the most button bloat of the Healers in a general sense...but they all are useful, so there's not really a lot to trim passed having Physic upgrade to Adlo. Somehow repurposing Ruin 2 could help, and adding another DoT and making Energy Drain work more like old Fester could help as well, though that would double down on the "Don't use Aetherflow for healing abilities" thing, which kinda sucks since Excogitation and Sacred Soil have such nice effects. But another DoT and ED getting the Fester effect of doing +100 potency for each of your DoTs on the target, along with a Thundercloud-like proc where Ruin 2 becomes Ruin 4, would probably be some good changes for SCH. And if Physic is made to upgrade into Adlo, this could all be done without adding a single additional hotbar slot needed.

And then AST...is where the REAL problem is, since they only have two GCD damage abilities, and they don't even have the rare situational use Ruin 2 option. Worse still, Combust doesn't have a lead tick of damage like Dia, so AST can't even use it as a ham-fisted movement tool like WHM can if it's out of Lilies and still needs more movement. AST has Lightspeed, but Lightspeed (a) is used in the burst to not kill the player's hands and (b) doesn't change the rotation or the recast of Malaific (so it doesn't even change the cadence), it only makes it usable for movement. AST is honestly the worst offender in the DPS rotation department, which is strange considering how many people say Healers are boring right now but that AST is the one they think is the least so...

Granted, AST is also slated for a 7.0 rework/massacre, so...

Also note these are just the single target rotations. But the AOE "rotations" are all truly one button. I do agree with what Ty said in the DPS forum about potentially merging single-target (for the most part) and AOE rotations with just a few single target abilities for niche situations like Deep Dungeons and the like.

I agree with your first sentence, however not necessarily with the part in bold as that's the part that leads to a rather dull experience- a copy/paste of each healer. by all means, let one have a few dots (likely SCH), but why not try to be a bit more creative, if possible for the other three healers? Maybe one could have a new DPS burst skill on longer CD, or another could have a proc skill, etc?

Shocking as it is for both of us:

I agree with IDontPetLalas.

[ty_taurus]

If you don’t believe my original post was a comment about other players not being “real” healers, then why say anything at all?

[Allegor]

Because it's quite obvious they just like to stir the pot. There, I said it

[Renathras]

If you don’t believe my original post was a comment about other players not being “real” healers, then why say anything at all?

Because I didn't say anything like it at all and was castigated for saying something even resembling it. It was interesting seeing some of the people who attacked me (when I didn't even say "not real healers" or anything like it) agreeing with your post that was far closer to saying it instead of leveling the same attack on your post. Interesting, though not at all unexpected. Hypocrisy and double standards know many forms and names.

But, specifically, I wasn't focused on you saying that at all. It's why I said "So why are you defending from attacks I didn't make?" and "You're attacking the wrong things."

The bulk of my post - which I note you are studiously avoiding addressing - is that people who DO main Healers, mainly or even exclusively play Healers, etc, are also disagreeing with you. So what I'm attacking is your notion that the only people who think Healers are fine are people who don't play them, or who don't play them exclusively, or who primarily play other roles and only dabble in Healers and so likely don't have well formed positions on the issues the role may be facing.

That was what I was replying to you saying. Note I spent a mere one line on the first point: "This sounds eerily similar to the "real healers" argument I was told is an insult and not allowed (even though I wasn't using it) to describe people with different opinions."

The entire rest of my reply to you was talking about how your assumption is in error. Don't get stuck on one line while ignoring everything else, especially since that one line wasn't even an accusation. That's dodging the greater point. If you want, I'll even delete that line so you can focus on what I'm actually pointing out.

But why should I bother? You probably won't anyway. Besides, I didn't (contrary to the peanut gallery insisting otherwise) come here to "stir the pot". I only wanted to oppose the highly wrong notion that the only people who like Healers right now are people who do not play them and thus can't be expected to have well formed opinions in the matter. (Which is also a form of the ad hominem fallacy, in that it's attacking the people holding opinions and suggesting their opinions are likely less educated/valid, as opposed to addressing their positions/arguments.)

Because it's quite obvious they just like to stir the pot. There, I said it

No, this is because people like you and the others here saying this like to attack people that disagree with you (ad hominem fallacy) rather than discussing things rationally.

That's why you assume other people share your motivations who do not. There, I said it.

[ty_taurus]

Well it certainly sounds like you're trying to stir the pot. But let's stop dancing around the fire and just be upfront. You think that jobs are fine as-is because most people are content with them, and change is not required. My argument and the argument that many have made elsewhere is that reworking jobs like the healers, or SMN, or other hot topic jobs to appeal to the people who used to play them would either be well received or neutrally received by the vast bulk of players that play them currently, because that's just how gamers are. Unless you break the car, the mass will drive it regardless of its quality.

You are the odd one out. You think that's wrong, and what we want would destroy the game for everyone else. No one agrees with you here. At all. No amount of you yelling until you're blue in the face is going to change that. So if you're determined to change everyone's mind, then prove your point.

Gather information from a strong sample size of players on healers and present that information to the court. Ask the following questions:

1. Are you satisfied with the healers currently? If not, why?
2. Do you believe the healers could be better? If so, what would make them better?
3. Would you stop playing healer if the healers received a few more offensive spells?

I would bet money you will, by in large, receive responses similar to the following to questions 1 and 3 (of the people that enjoy healing as it is):

1. Yeah, I like playing as a healer.
3. No, I'd still enjoy playing healer/Depends on what gets added, but probably.

Question 2, you'll probably get a million different ideas, probably more specific ideas such as more spells to use lilies on, making AST cards less confusing, more things that interact with Kardia or Eukrasia, etc.

If you come back with something like "I shouldn't have to do that." Then I genuinely have no idea why you continue to parade your opinion as gospel, because no one believes or agrees with you. I don't understand what you think you're going to achieve without proving your point to the people who vehemently fight you.