Your Opinion on the Current State of Job Identity/Balance in 6.4?

[Shougun]

I liked your first post in this thread, but couldn't disagree more with this one.

1) Not all SCH's liked the DoT focus. /raises hand

2) SOME players appreciate WAR, many do not. Many Tanks want to play a tank and not a healer. Many Healers want to play a healer and not a tank or a DPS. Making Healer Jobs into DPSers and telling them to go play WAR if they want to heal seems bad on all counts.

3) RaionKansen is right that "more dots" isn't the answer. At best, it papers over the problem of Healers feeling unnecessary in even current content. It doesn't actually fix the problem, it just lets them be even worse and more braindead (but SLIGHTLY less braindead) DPS Jobs. Say SCH got a 15 and 18 second DoT, one with a cast time, and an AF spender that did more damage based on DoTs. Is that really going to be more compelling for long? You're not hitting Broil as much...but you're not hitting it THAT much less often. If it makes up 80% of your casts now, it'll still make up 70% of your casts after the change, and it doesn't take a lot of brainpower to go "look under boss health bar, make sure it has my three DoTs on it before hitting Bane, repeat until AF all gone".

...at WORST, it just makes the role into worse DPS and alienates people that genuinely like healing into quitting the game or leaving those classes. If someone likes healing - and I mean "filling up people's HP bars - and not DPS rotations, then all "more dots" will do is encourage them to play RDM or possibly SMN or DNC instead, maybe WAR or PLD, or quit the game, neither of which is great for the game. Groups will start dropping Healers, as why take a Green Job that has the rotation of a Tank but does even less damage and brings nothing useful to the table when you could just bring an extra WAR and an extra DPS instead and clear the encounter just fine, and faster?

I do think there's some design space in making the Healer JOBS more distinct - SCH having DoTs and SGE having a combo rotation, for example, leaving AST and WHM basically how they are now; that might work - but "more dots" won't actually fix the problem, and even giving just SCH more and SGE a combo rotation won't really fix anything, it'll just steal some of the hyperbole from the people who want to be "dps-lite Support" and want to coopt the Healer role into being that when the Tanks are already that and they don't want to play those because they don't want "the responsibility" or...something.

4) If you're going to remove Healing from the game, you'd be better off just deleting the four Jobs instead of trying to change them into "dps-lite Support". You'd also need to make Jobs for the people that play them now that they might vaguely enjoy, meaning you'd need some DPS Jobs that have an automatic DPS rotation for the people that don't really care for DPS rotations, and that would just be stupid.

No no no, you can't do that. Only agree with Shougun, no disagree. CFR 29 ShougunIsTheForums section B paren I- no disagree.

1) Prior to the change SCH was oriented for the more aggressive player. I will not say you can't change a job after made, but would it not be fair to say it changed from underneath some players and some of those players did not like what they 'gained' vs what they 'lost'? Such statement doesn't mean it has to be one way or the other, I just mean to say sure.. maybe you didn't like it but there were obviously people who did and they have not really gained anything like it back, just pure loss.

2) My post addresses this but I don't think this game can fit pure healer without substantial changes to many systems that will impact many other jobs, and I don't think people will in general appreciate those changes. To fix healers to be primarily healer I believe will cause more disruption than just to change other elements that I believe as in the other post "restore what was lost" or "offer a near equivalent experience of being supportive".

3) Disagree given that some people are wanting to do more, and while "more dots" is an over simplification but would be more to do and more particularly without heavy disruption (and in some cases "restoration" of what was something some people have wanted back). Again because it was lost doesn't mean it HAS to come back, just that it's worth noting and potentially addressing. Returning SCH to essentially what was before would be more than one or two spells for damage, especially if you kept that theme and leveled it up (as you'd likely gain more damage spells).

Again 'more dots' is an oversimplification and if it is to straw man the argument that's unfortunate, not saying you're doing that but when you see people refrence dots they're usually refrencing old scholar and by that they are /not/ simply saying add back a dot and they'll be happy. They miss all the activity and those particularly are missing specific elements of that activity (as SCH was fairly aggressive healer).

Also nothing wrong with being green dps, tanks are essentially blue dps and I like them more for it. I don't want to be just a tank when playing tank, as A it would make a terrible solo experience and B I feel it's more fun to essentially be 70% of a DPS and 100% of a tank. It's no wonder you see all tank parties sometimes, being a tank is practically OP. If healers felt similarly, cool for them. Naturally people will still play dps as it's just a popular concept and has lower overt responsibilities, sans dps checks.

Finally strongly pointing out in my suggestion there would be support healers, meaning that while you get back aggressive healers and high action on the target (and some auto-pilot healing from fairy, which brings flavor back to the job mechanically) there would also be healers that focus primarily on the allies and will help that way. In the end similar damage, just different methods. (SCH / SGE primarily target the enemy and work in targeting to allies as needed, WHM / AST primarily target the allies and work in enemy targeting as needed).

4) Didn't say remove healing entirely, as a legit suggestion- though I did flaunt it as a silly possibility. Personally I think healing potentials can stay similar, but there will be a lot of healing spells that now have bonus effects that relate to not the green bar, some spells removed, some collapsed, and multiple new actions that don't relate to exclusively making the green bar go up. By this healers constantly have more tasks to do, that are valid, and diverse, while still being able to heal approximately the same as they always have. I would not suggest 'nerf' healing in total output, simply remix and redistribute skill slots such that there is more to do without having to drastically change tank skills, gear mechanics, encounter mechanics, and sync for everyone.

Still can heal, and still can heal about the same, just more tasks to do other than 'just heal' when healing isn't really needed to that level. I think if we started earlier it would be easier to restore primarily healing, but at this point I think it's a lot easier to just accept that primarily healing is never going to happen, at least consistently / reliably, and you will make the jobs more exciting by taking the jobs into new ways of interacting with players and enemies (via offensive and 'supportive' styles).