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

[Renathras]

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The prevailing view right now seems to be "Abyssos was a good step and we want more of that, but the problem is we Healers had to rely on the DPS for party mitigation and that was really hit or miss in PF, so the more healing was great, we just need mit abilities moved from DPS to Healers, since Healers will get blame/more suffering if DPSers don't use them right now and we'd rather be in charge of the whole kit an kabootle ourselves."

Relatively few seem to want more damage buttons as their preferred solution, and some outright REALLY don't want any more at all. Almost NONE want a full on DPS rotation (people answer the question differently, so some interpret this as "DPS Job like SAM or DRG" while others interpret it as "a rotation to maintain"), so answers are kind of all over the place. But the short answer seems to be that MOST people don't want more of a rotation. Even people that want more damage buttons seem to want them to not be a rotation, such as SCH having more DoTs or WHM having Aero 3 for AOE pulls but having its single-target rotation unchanged.

So far, the results seem to be more or less in agreement with what I've said for a while about rough percentages of players and what they want (like where I once said about 20-25% would like a simple Healer like WHM while about number would be neutral, and about 40%ish would like something like SB SCH), which was the impetus behind my "four healers"/"make 2/3 more complex and 2/1 keep simple, probably WHM and maybe SGE"...and overall, something vaguely in that ballpark seems to be emerging. Likewise, the viewpoint of what the problem is seems to agree with what I've long said - oGCD heals are too powerful and encounters need more of a focus on healing, especially sustained healing, and GCD healing use that needs to be seen as not a warcrime.

For all the insistence I've got the wrong of it, it seems with a broader sample of the player base, I do not. But the results are still preliminary. Should be interesting to see when more come in. Though I'm trying to think of the right way to classify the answers. I love the questions being open ended and so the respondents can really say what they want and how they want it, but classifying it more precisely is going to be a bit of a challenge. But I think it's worthwhile...

Because it's the easiest option on the devs and the players without them having to worry about them "being too complex." The devs have been trying to streamline things and simplify them, and DoTs are often the easiest method since you set them once every X seconds and don't have to interact with them again. I'd personally prefer actual buttons for each job like it once was in HW and SB, but I'm having to give a suggestion based on the arbitrary design idea the devs want things at, so sadly that limits what can be thought up or done.

I do get that, but I kind of disagree. I find 1-2-3 easier to maintain than DoT every 30 seconds. I'm MUCH more prone to forgetting about my DoT and noticing it's fallen off SOME TIME after it's fallen off (could be 1 sec, could be 15, I don't know!) than I am to forget 2 comes after 1. Especially now that spellcasting doesn't break combos anymore (hit 1-2 on PLD then cast Clemency. Now look at your -3 button. It's still good to go!)

I feel like DoTs are actually harder/higher skill ceiling than a 1-2-3 since they're easy to forget if you don't have a third party tool reminding you of them. And I've yet to find a satisfactory way to track them. I'd love to have my Focus Target be only my buffs/debuffs, because sometimes I need to know other people's debufs on the target (e.g. see if Chain is up to time Misery), so I can't just check "only show my buffs/debuffs" since it robs me of that critical information. But if I had a bar that only showed my DoT, it'd be far more visible when it's fallen off. Ideally, having Focus Target only show mine and the target bar show all would be my solution, but you can't do this with the native client/HUD as far as I can tell, and I don't break TOS to use add-ons. The only time I've found DoT upkeep not more challenging than 1-2-3s...is when it's part of the 1-2-3, like Old PLD's rotation. There was really no way TO miss it unless you just did the wrong combo for some reason.