T/H/D/D vs T/3DPS - By the numbers

[Renathras]

Ok cool, that's one specific niche bit of side content. Now what about actual solo content. You know, MSQ, solo duties, solo fate farming?

The reason I mentioned PotD/HoH is that's the only time it's long enough to be noticeable since I'm doing the same thing for 30 mins. In other words, that's where the monotony argument would be the most prevalent.

In general solo content? I've never been bored on a Healer. I find it interesting and engaging because I'm usually focused on the encounter and story events going on, so I don't actually notice button presses at all. So in terms of MSQ and solo duties, I find Healers as fun as anything else, which is "very". I tend not to do much FATE farming (I use FATEs to level DPS Jobs sometimes because ques are longer on them, but don't find I need to do that with Healers), but I enjoyed doing Bozja and Eureka FATEs on Healers, I preferred doing ARR Relic Fates on WHM and SCH over doing them on SMN and PLD (did SCH/SMN and PLD during ShB) since it's easier to not die on the solo ones and easier to protect the NPCs on the ones like "Surprise!" north of Bronze Lake.

So I don't do it much, but when I do it on Healer Jobs, I enjoy FATE farming on them, honestly. It is pretty chill and relaxing. I do remember leveling WHM from 88-90 in Tempest and enjoyed that.

Because at least I won't be so bored stiff doing casual content on my healer.

Well, good for you, but you weren't the person I was asking the question of. These are more the comments I'm referring to:

My problem is that it shouldn't be possible.

I fully agree that it shouldn't be possible, let alone be more efficient.

And you've been around this forum long enough to know it happens more frequently and is often used for a reason of why Healers aren't working/designed right, even in this thread.

But the thing I'm pointing out is "more DPS buttons" won't fix that unless Healers also do substantially more DAMAGE (at least as much as Tanks) to make them at least as attractive as Tanks to bring to runs. It won't make Healers necessary for content and won't prevent people dropping them - all identified as problems.

What is your solution FOR THOSE PROBLEMS?

Pps you're still sidestepping how you got to 5-15%.

No, I already said it. 10% +/- 5%. I think it should be 15% +/- 5%, but it was just a quick calculation. So you know, if you catch someone on a technicality and hammer it over and over (ignoring whether it's actually meaningful - as I've pointed out, it really isn't), and especially if you're trying to discredit them overall (you likely aren't, but other people hammering the point are), that's not a good point or something worth doing. This is like the 5th time someone's asked, and I already answered the reasoning behind it. You guys can keep asking over and over, and I'll keep saying the same thing, "rough/quick in head calculation to get a ballpark estimate + 2 minutes is negligible in terms of the total amount of time that is saved overall (the weekly cap still exists) + that's only comparing the top times not average times, so not even relevant for general analysis". I can just copy that into a .txt to paste over and over every time the question is asked, if you guys prefer, or you could just move on to discussing the actual topics of the thread, I don't care which.

Notice whenever I catch someone in something like that, I only point it out and then move on. If someone acknowledges the error AT ALL, I don't hammer it, and often complement them for doing so. Roe made a mistake in Ty's General survey thread. Notice how I didn't bring it up over and over in every post to use as a rhetorical cudgel? Because in addition to being annoying and kind of a dick move, it doesn't actually support any argument nor does it defeat her other arguments. I said everyone makes mistakes, praised her for being open about it, and then went back to discussing the topic after a genuine /hug.

That's the mature way to deal with things like that, not incessant hammering to try and make someone look bad for making a minor mistake, especially one that isn't consequential. And I explained WHY it's not consequential, and no one yet has argued that 10 minutes in a week is a substantial amount of time that we should be concerned about, nor has anyone offered a rebuttal to how we should be using average times, not best times, anyway.

THIS, though:

because the role I've enjoyed playing for over 20 years has been reduced to this level of monotony.

...is what's worth discussing more. Though I doubt your answer would be the same as mine.

My answer would be "encounter damage has decreased (compared to our healing toolkit, defense values, HP pools, and even natural healing), and oGCDs have increased in power and availability (making healing GCDs unnecessary and even most healing needs relatively trivial to address with the push of a button)". Your answer would likely be more along the lines of "because they removed Aero 3", yes? (If you play SCH, there's more to it, but if we're talking WHM, there's not). But I think it's undeniable encounter design has changed, and is at least PART of the reason for the problem.

As I've noted before WHM's DPS cadence now is roughly in the same place as it was in SB. Remember that thread where I showed WHM has more non-Glare GCDs per minute now than it had non-Stone GCDs in SB? I'm sure I could find it again if you like. Though as I pointed out there, SCH's is far, far more Broil heavy than it was then, largely owing to Broil itself having a 1.5 sec cast time (rendering Ruin 2 obsolete) and the removal of Misama (most of the other DPS tools removed were oGCDs, not GCDs, such as Bane and Shadow Flare.)

Here, I'll go ahead and post it:

In practice, SB WHM cast Aero 2 3.333... times per minute and Aero 3 2.5 times per minute. This is a total of 5.833... GCD casts per minute that weren't Stone IV.

In practice, EW WHM casts Dia 2 times per minute, 3 Afflatus (Solace/Rapture) per minute, and 1 Afflatus Misery per minute. This is a total of 6 GCD casts per minute that aren't Glare III.

On balance, EW WHM is casting non-Glare damage (or damage-adjacent Solace/Rapture) spells on roughly the same average frequency as SB era WHM did.

The real difference, honestly, is on the HEALING side, where a proliferation of oGCD heals (even on WHM) and the healing done by Afflatus heals can largely push non-Afflatus GCD heals off of average use, resulting in more Glare casts. Afflatus spells are, of course, being cast, but as noted, these can be thought of as part of the DPS rotation equivalent to the lost Aero 2 and 3 casts, so the foregone casts are Medica, Medica 2, Cure 2, Cure 3, and Regens, resulting in more "dead" GCDs that are filled with Glare.

Bio II had the same cadence as Biolysis today, so we can consider that in parity. 30 sec duration vs 30 sec duration, nothing really to discuss. The big changes (to the GCD cadence) were the following:

Miasma 2.5 casts per minute were removed.

Ruin II at least 1 cast per minute was removed (I say "at least" since even with 2x natural Bio II refreshes for AF oGCD weaves, you'd need one more. Remember that Broil at this time did not allow weaving without clipping. It would be more than 1 per minute if you were needing to weave more things). Ruin II was also niche useful as a MP management tool owing to the lower MP cost vs Broil III, something that is not shared with EW's Ruin II vs Broil IV. "At least" 1 is due to needing to burn at least 3 AFs per minute (for Faerie Gauge - lol - if nothing else, and obviously burning with ED since you don't want to leave that potency on the table), though this could be higher depending on whether or not you were able to use natural Bio II refreshes for oGCD weaves and that SCH also has a lot of OTHER oGCD weaves besides just AF.

Miasma II was a single target loss against Broil III and only situational as a replacement for Ruin II for movement or weaves. So we can say it's here, but it kind of also wasn't EXACTLY part of the GCD cadence and is more properly looked at, in a general sense, as a wonky version of Art of War. Still, you could trade that "at least 1 cast per minute" from Ruin 2 down here for hyper-optimization. The MP cost was so prohibitive that this would often be passed up for Ruin II anyway.

...short list, but actually more significant than it seems. As I noted above, unlike WHM, there were no replacements for these "at least" 3.5 GCDs per minute, so they were shunted to additional Broil casts. Broil IV allowing oGCD weaves also removed Ruin II/Miasma II's use in single target situations away from being optimal parts of the rotation and an MP management tool for Ruin 2 into being situational for heavy movement (in the case of Ruin 2) or high levels of oGCD weave needs, and in the case of Miasma II, being shunted to a strictly AOE role in the form of Art of War. So while "at least" 3.5 stands, in practice, it was probably closer to 6 assuming weaving 2-3 oGCDs per minute.

Note that this is largely an EW change, not a ShB one, since using Ruin II for oGCD weaves was still commonplace in ShB due to Broil's longer cast time. Broil's shorter cast time today is what really changed things for SCH honestly more than anything else, since Miasma I's removal aside, it altered how many Ruin IIs were used in the standard/general rotation for BOTH weaving AND movement - a 1.5 sec Broil IV allows for a lot more slidecasting, which can handle all but the longest distance and longest duration movements.

Unlike WHM, which filled those "dead" GCDs with 2.66... Afflatus abilities in ShB and now 4 in EW, SCH not only replaced the missing 2.5 Miasma casts with Broil IV, but it also replace a lot of the situational Ruin II and Miasma II casts with Broil IV, compounding the problem even more. And unlike WHM, which got better from ShB to EW, SCH actually GOT WORSE.

...

The actual issue seems to be the removal of Miasma, Miasma 2/Art of War no longer having any use (even situational) in single target fights, and Ruin 2 having a MUCH reduced presence with Broil's shorter cast time.

oGCDs don't affect GCD cadence (for obvious reasons), and since collectively everyone discounts oGCDs (no one counts Assize or using Tetra as "breaking up Glarespam", so the only time ED or the like should count is if Broil has to be substituted with Ruin 2/Miasma 2 to cast them; that substitution is the actual break in the GCD Broilspam, not the oGCD weave), isn't the actual issue.

Indeed, it seems Broil's shorter cast time and Art of War not having single target applications are actually the big changes here. Broil's shorter cast means no need to switch up spells for oGCD weaves most of the time, and slidecasting is a stronger movement utility, removing as much need for casting Ruin 2 instead of Broil. Add in Art of War not being a single target gain over Ruin 2 and you basically eliminate everything other than the two natural Bio refreshes per minute.

(I should also note, these are some of the only posts I've made in this subforum that actually got a decent amount of Likes/Upvotes, so I think people kind of agreed with the analysis.)