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

[ForsakenRoe]

I reckon a 4x DPS run is possible if you use the right DPSs, the reason the 'trinity breakdown' has happened is because the tanks now have so much access to healing, so if you did 4x SMN for a similar level of selfsustain, and offset who had phoenix out so the regen had more uptime I bet it's easily doable

also lmao at the idea that you're forced to GCD heal your way through ARR dungeons cos 'you dont have as many OGCDs', if you play SGE or SCH you don't need GCDs OR OGCDs, the incidental heal of Embrace/Kardia is more than enough to keep up. Real fun being a SCH, getting anything below Stone Vigil, and being able to literally /follow on the tank and afk every trash pull. Or maybe that's 'peak healer gameplay' for some people? After all, if the healing is entirely automated, it's not the healer player's 'fault' if a wipe occurs, so they don't need to worry about that crushing weight of 'responsibility'

And Abyssos was good and bad. Good in that it made healing a bit more interesting, bad in that it A: scared the 'less skilled healers' away, B: wasn't actually 'more healing' but 'more mit', and that meant we were reliant on hoping that the melee, who had so little reason to use feint in previous raids that some did not have it on their bars, would use feint or we all die (and then the healer is asked 'where shield idot'), and C: it only lasted as long as we didn't have gear, as soon as ILVL rolled in, the healing became a lot easier to deal with because it's not solved the real issue. We don't need 'more healing' as in it hits harder, we need 'more healing' as in it hits more often, so that we actually do run out of OGCDs to use.

However, due to SE's not-great implementation of Abyssos healing paradigm, the idea of 'more healing' is likely now tainted in the playerbase's mind, as they have seen what SE's idea of 'more healing' actually is. Everyone keeps asking for 'more damage' because it is the most obvious, most casual friendly (don't have time to do these extra buttons? then dont, and focus on healing), most old-content-friendly (doesn't require changing old content at all, whereas a new healing paradigm might require changing eg old ultimate healing patterns), and tbh, most devtime friendly as half of the stuff we're asking for is literally just 'can we have back 'old tool X' like we had in 'previous expansion'', so the code's already still in the game

[Renathras]

I reckon a 4x DPS run is possible if you use the right DPSs, the reason the 'trinity breakdown' has happened is because the tanks now have so much access to healing

Arguably agreed.

The issue isn't "Healers aren't needed".

The issue is "everyone's a Healer".

Tanks are Healers (for themselves, and often have some ability to be so for the party). This is the biggest offender.

SOME DPSers are Healers (RDM with Vercure, SMN with Phoenix, DNC with Curing Waltz, Melee with Bloodbath and Second Wind, and quite a few Jobs with some version of self-mitigation shielding like Third Eye or Radiant Aegis).

Provided you have enough of these, and the right mix of them, any 4 man group is capable of clearing dungeons...to a point. There are some that have healing, but the healing may be insufficient ALONE to do the job. Normally, only Healers have the ability to do the job alone, but of late, Tanks are not only able to heal themselves, but the party outright. This not only means they don't need healing from a designated Healer, but that they can replace the Healer to the rest of the party. Conversely, if you drop the Tank from the party, the enemies do low enough damage that most DPSers can survive the hits and be healed for the damage by any of the four Healer Jobs due to their greater Healing potency. And, of course, a party without either needs a stand in Healer substitute.

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It seems that the general response from the Healer community actually IS that they want more Abyssos.

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More damage isn't more casual friendly. It seems truely casual people don't agree that it's to their benefit. It's also almost exclusively proposed and supported by higher end players, suggesting it's more what they want, something hardcore friendly, not something casual friendly. More damage is going to be more difficult for casual Healers than is Cure/Medica spamming. And "old content friendly" is completely irrelevant, since SE......we've had this exact conversation before, so I'm not going to retread the ground.

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Anyway, I agree with the "Trinity Breakdown" issue. It's less that it's outright breaking and more that when you give the abilities of one branch of the Trinity to both the others, it defeats the purpose and function of the Trinity.

[ForsakenRoe]

More damage isn't more casual friendly. It seems truely casual people don't agree that it's to their benefit. It's also almost exclusively proposed and supported by higher end players, suggesting it's more what they want, something hardcore friendly, not something casual friendly. More damage is going to be more difficult for casual Healers than is Cure/Medica spamming. And "old content friendly" is completely irrelevant, since SE......we've had this exact conversation before, so I'm not going to retread the ground.

Imagine a situation where a casual player is struggling to keep up with the incoming damage of the fight. Now imagine we have two universes, and in each one, one of the two suggestions was put in place. In the 'healers now have more tools to do damage with' universe, the casual player feels no difference between the 'Source universe' as it were, that we have now, and their hypothetical universe, because they're busy fighting for their lives to GCD heal through the pain. In the other hypothetical universe, the healing requirements were increased, and as such the casual who was already struggling to stay afloat versus the oncoming damage, now is unable to keep up and the party wipes. When I say 'casual friendly', I mean that 'in an emergency, this change can be ignored for the sake of keeping the party alive'. You can't ignore an extra 20% (or however much) HPS requirement, or people drop dead.

And if we were to change the healers so that they have less OGCDs, but their GCDs cost less mana and have half as much of a GCD (so, say a 1s GCD), that'd definitely have an effect on how old ultimates and savages would work re: healing patterns. Just the fact that you would have to stand still to hardcast things would be a massive change, the difference between WHM and AST mobility in UCOB frankly feels like I'm griefing if I go WHM. They can solve that by moving Rapture to 70 and PI to 76 though

oh, and if you had asked people 'which would you rather SE design fights like more, regular design where things hit like wet noodle, Abyssos with harder hitting raidwides and bleeds after to emphasize mitigation, or Barbariccia where it's not the damage that's the challenge, but the frequency it comes out at', I'd put real money on most people saying Barb, because, again, there's no difference to me if we have a raidwide every 2mins, or every 1 min, I can pretty much kitchen sink it with whatever combo of Physis, Kera, Holos, a shield, Panhaima, Pneuma after, bla bla. If the raidwides hit less hard, but came out every 20 seconds, we'd have to ration stuff out more. You can look at P6S and P7S for great examples of 'the boss hits you hard, once, then you can AFK for like a whole minute', its the same for tanks too, I'm pretty sure the first two tankbusters in P7S are EXACTLY one minute apart but I've not been in there in yonks.

[Renathras]

Imagine a situation where a casual player is struggling to keep up with the incoming damage of the fight. Now imagine we have two universes, and in each one, one of the two suggestions was put in place. In the 'healers now have more tools to do damage with' universe, the casual player feels no difference between the 'Source universe' as it were, that we have now, and their hypothetical universe, because they're busy fighting for their lives to GCD heal through the pain. In the other hypothetical universe, the healing requirements were increased, and as such the casual who was already struggling to stay afloat versus the oncoming damage, now is unable to keep up and the party wipes. When I say 'casual friendly', I mean that 'in an emergency, this change can be ignored for the sake of keeping the party alive'. You can't ignore an extra 20% (or however much) HPS requirement, or people drop dead.

There are two problems with this scenario:

1) In the more DPS scenario, now the party wipes because they didn't meet the enrage check when the casual player dropped their DoTs and DPS rotation.

2) In the "more healing" universe, the casual player shifts to spamming more GCD heals while the hardcore player would be using their oGCD toolkit more fully and sprinkling a some GCD heals into the mix. The whole reason we have the GCD heals right now (in theory) is as backups in case you run out of oGCD resources. Take P5S, for example. You can deal with the bleeds by using Regen (a GCD) and some oGCD. If you burned all your oGCDs and Lilies, you can fall back on Cure 2. This system works because the hardcore player can be efficient while the casual player isn't outright punished, they just are quicker to fall back on the "easy to use" tools. MP is so free that it's not an actual limiting factor.

The only way the more DPS buttons isn't unfriendly to casuals is if the amount of increased damage is negligible. "Yeah, you have a second DoT! It does...10 more potency than Glare! Woo!" Where it's so negligible dropping it isn't going to make or break any clears.

As for old Ultimates: That's already true. WHM doesn't get its first semi-spamable on the move heal until Afflatus Solace. While Ultimates require more care than "use on CD", Assize and Asylum are still not up all the time, and Tetra is single target. Moreover, many of those GCD heals have 1.5 sec cast times, allowing for ample slidecasting, a skill Ultimate raiders can't get by with not having. But if that was REALLY an issue, we could just make it where casting heals does not break on movement and the problem's solved. Or conversely, make all GCD heals instant cast like Lilies. I'm sure you'll reject all of those, but those would settle the issue.

And as you note, this is ALREADY a problem with old Ultimates, and hasn't been this huge issue garnering national attention or Dev changes. So it seems unreasonable to suggest that a change would force it to when it already is a problem that is already unaddressed.

oh, and if you had asked people 'which would you rather SE design fights like more, regular design where things hit like wet noodle, Abyssos with harder hitting raidwides and bleeds after to emphasize mitigation, or Barbariccia where it's not the damage that's the challenge, but the frequency it comes out at',

Probably Abyssos. I haven't seen anyone in the replies mention Barbaricca. I know a lot of hardcore players like Barbaricca, but it was murder in PF after week 1. Though part of that might have been the pretty punishing body check with the stack + 2 meteors bit.

Are you at all familiar with the concept of the "day crowd" and "night crowd" relating to the Jesus story? Not a religious thing, but the concept? The idea is that Jesus seemed to be beloved by the people, then all the sudden, they were demanding his execution. The theory goes "well, they were two different groups of people". Basically, the normal people out in the daytime loved him, but the aristocrats and elites out at night and their hangers-on hated him.

I think there's a similar concept here where the hardcore and high end raiding community likes certain things but the playerbase as a whole isn't in agreement.

But we all play the same game. So the way to handle the problem is to make the differences in the kinds of content we clear (something not shared) not in the Jobs (something shared). That is, if they add a DPS rotation to WHM, that DOES affect everyone. Remember Cleric stance? Remember casual Healers getting witched at for not using it (and hardcores getting witched at FOR using it)?

On the other hand, if the change is to CONTENT, that's far less of a problem. For example, if P9S is made like Barbaricca and Ex6 is made like Ex2 (granted, Hyd was a bit harder than the normal launch Ex) and normal/MSQ is made like it always is, then everyone wins, since the content doesn't bleed over. Savage isn't MSQ pushover easy and midcore Extremes aren't Savage hard, and people aren't witching at each other for using or not using their full DPS toolkit.

We are (I think...?) in agreement that damage should be more consistent and not 10 second of huge spike then 60 seconds of downtime.

[Sebazy]

1) In the more DPS scenario, now the party wipes because they didn't meet the enrage check when the casual player dropped their DoTs and DPS rotation.

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The only way the more DPS buttons isn't unfriendly to casuals is if the amount of increased damage is negligible. "Yeah, you have a second DoT! It does...10 more potency than Glare! Woo!" Where it's so negligible dropping it isn't going to make or break any clears.

I'm not really sure how you can actually put that down as a valid point TBH. Name one piece of casual player friendly content in recent years where an otherwise entirely average but competent group wouldn't be able to clear if they had a healer that wasn't DPSing at all. The only one I can think of is E8S, and that's most certainly not casual player content even if it wasn't exactly the most difficult Savage turn either. If someone can do Lights Rampant in PF, I suspect they can maintain dots too.

To further expand on this point - Having more of a healer's DPS come from dots vs nukes actually makes things more forging and less impactful. Reapplying your dot a GCD late is much less impactful than missing a Glare GCD. I did a fairly in depth breakdown on this in another thread some time ago. Let me see if I can find it.

I'm not sure if BarbEx was as well received by the general playerbase as it was by the hardcore playerbase.

BarbEX is actually a more interesting case study than many seem to realise.

The big kicker is that if you look at the numbers, RubiEX is actually a bigger heal check on the 2 occasions where it genuinely requires healing. It also spaces the group out around the arena at this point making it difficult to reach people. If SE just cut out the portal puzzles it would actually be a pretty respectable healer check IMO, but as is, it just allows you to dump all your big cooldowns and lolstomp the aoe output without really thinking about it.

Meanwhile, BarbEX gets the thumbs up from me not because it hits especially hard because frankly it doesn't. Where it wins out however is the pace of the fight. It feels hectic, it doesn't have huge long sections of downtime with big nothing burger animations and sequences. Instead it's just relentlessly chipping away at you and it feels great for it.

It's the same secret sauce that makes fights like TitanEX so beloved IMO.