Healers need an overhaul

[Aravell]

It's why I think having all their GCDs be damage neutral via nourishing the Blood Lily makes sense. That generates ACTUAL choice. Choice they don't (in practice) have right now. Sure, there's a "choice" but the "choice" is "doing it wrong".

The solution to avoiding the oGCD bloat IS making heals damage neutral. In a world where, say, Succor was damage neutral, it would actually be more worth casting and would reduce the need for things like Whispering Dawn or Indom.

For there to be meaningful choice, there has to be a variety of outcomes. The current situation is either you're right (this gives me damage) or you're wrong (this doesn't give me damage), in a world where all heals are damage neutral, there is only one choice because everything gives you damage, that's not meaningful choices. Picking either Afflatus Rapture or Medica becomes a meaningless choice when they both do the same thing (give you damage) because they become essentially the same thing. I maintain my position that people who think casting GCD heals when needed is a waste has a personal problem that the game should not design around.

As for skill ceiling: Some people like their skill ceiling to be based around picking heals smartly, not juggling damage buttons/a damage rotation...

I didn't mention damage buttons or a damage rotation once in my entire post. Don't push that idea onto me. I said in my post that part of being a skilled healer in previous expansions is by cutting down on unnecessary heals and freeing up extra time to do other things, that looks like I'm advocating for "smart use of healing" and not "damage rotations".

[Eisi]

Well there is no alternative. One of us needs to design actual playable mods with new healers for people to find out how they actually play because theorizing has reached its limit and goes in circles now.

True design only works when you can take the first step into actuality and then continue mutating and refining that object. It needs to be more than ideas peepz.

[Renathras]

For there to be meaningful choice, there has to be a variety of outcomes. The current situation is either you're right (this gives me damage) or you're wrong (this doesn't give me damage), in a world where all heals are damage neutral, there is only one choice because everything gives you damage, that's not meaningful choices.

Uh...I think we aren't considering the concept of "choice" to be the same thing.

RIGHT NOW:

Need an AOE heal and have 1 Lily up. Here are your choices:

1) Cast Glare (someone will die): Wrong
2) Cast Medica 1 (no one will die, but you do less damage): Wrong
3) Cast Rapture (no one will die, you will not do less damage): Right

There is only one right answer here. Your other "choices" are both wrong.

Now, suppose all GCD heals were damage neutral. NOW you have some serious choices:

Do you have a lot of MP and no need for movement? Medica might be the right choice.
Do you have a lot of MP and no immediate need for movement, but an upcoming movement where you will need an AOE heal? Medica is now really attractive since you may want to save the Rapture.
...but you could ALSO choose Medica 2 here and have the HoT carry over for that future damage.
Do you need to move right now? Rapture is a good choice in this case.
Are you low on MP? Now Medica is a lesser choice and Rapture might be the better one.
Do you need to move in the near future but NOT have to AOE heal at that time? Rapture could work now since you can use Regen on the Tank then for your movement tool.

These are actually meaningful choices related to what's happening in the fight and going to happen, and what resources you have available. It rewards fight knowledge, both of what's happening and what's going to happen, which is what "skill expression" is all about.

I maintain my position that people who think casting GCD heals when needed is a waste has a personal problem that the game should not design around.

I do agree, but I'm working in reality, not just what I think reality should be.

I didn't mention damage buttons or a damage rotation once in my entire post.

I didn't say you did. Though I also meant this more generically as "to be based around damage". If you prefer, substitute that as such:

"As for skill ceiling: Some people like their skill ceiling to be based around picking heals smartly, not dealing damage"

I said in my post that part of being a skilled healer in previous expansions is by cutting down on unnecessary heals and freeing up extra time to do other things, that looks like I'm advocating for "smart use of healing" and not "damage rotations".

To be fair, the "other things" was...

There's no skill ceiling
Part of being skilled at healer in previous expansion is cutting down on the amount of necessary healing that you do, that frees you time to help the party do damage. By making everything damage neutral or a gain, you lose this meaningful part of mastering a healer. Anyone halfway decent at any other role can easily pick up a healer and do almost as good as any veteran because there is no wrong decision to make.

"help the party do damage", "this meaningful part of mastering a healer"

Maybe you can clarify, as that seemed to me you saying "The point of mastering a healer is maximizing your damage". The mechanism is "by choosing the most optimum heal for the situation to thus free you up for dealing more damage", but that still makes the purpose of your optimization to optimize/increase damage, not healing.

This may seem a semantics argument, but I think it's significant. Is your focus to most efficiently and effectively heal your party, or to maximize your damage contribution in the fight? As those are not exactly the same thing, even if they share a road.

.

For me as an example, I try to use the most efficient heals since I grew up in older school MMOs where MP was actually a limiting resource that mattered, and I also tailor my healing to the situation - I'm not afraid to use GCD heals, especially stuff like barriers in prog runs of PF Ex where I know a bunch of people are probably going to mess up a mechanic and just try to get them through it as best as I can. Cast time is relevant in some situations where you need a faster casting or Instant spell to save someone from death, etc.

While the glut of oGCD heals makes this largely meaningless, it isn't in all situations, and it's where I think the gameplay should more focus. BLU healing is all GCD, for example, which has a very different feel to it. And White Wind DOES make it where MP management is relevant if you're having to use a lot of it, which is why you should spot cure with Pom Cure and use things like Exuviation or Angel Snack as situations demand it, and likewise Gobskin for large damage.

I don't do this "so I can do more damage". To me, when I have nothing to do, I fill dead GCDs with Glare, because the alternative (doing nothing) is just stupid.

But I don't try to make my healing as efficient as possible so I can do more damage. To me, the doing more damage is "when I have nothing else better to do" as opposed to something I'm actively trying to maximize. It's the consolation prize when I don't need to heal, not a reward or something I enjoy. It's like when I finish all my allotted work for the day but can't go home from work yet, so I get to sit and relax and maybe prep stuff for the next day. Those aren't things that are "fun" or "rewarding", it's just the thing to do when I don't have to do the thing I'm actually getting paid to do since it's all done for the time being. "Hurry up and wait", as is often said in the military.

While choosing the correct heals DOES work to maximize this, it isn't my focus or concern. I'm not sure a good way to explain this other than that saying about "the journey or the destination". Which one you're most wanting to focus on is actually relevant, even if they're both leading to the same general result. It also effects what changes you advocate for.

For my part, the changes I'd focus on would be to make all GCD heals viable - something that isn't possible when most of them aren't damage neutral, making oGCD heals or the few damage neutral GCD ones the only "right" choices in most situations. Right now, there's never ANY case you'd pick Medica 1 on WHM if you have a Lily up. There's also no case you'd pick Medica 1 over Medica 2. The two things that would resolve this problem, imo, would be (1) have Medica 1 trait up to Medica 2 and (2) have all GCD heals nourish the Blood Lily. Now you have a choice based on what MP you have, what healing needs may be upcoming, what movement may be upcoming, and over what pace the healing needs to occur (fast or if you have time to wait for HoT ticks). Those are relevant and interesting considerations that we, at present, do not have.

We need to trim out the heals that overlap too much, even if that means slight modifications to the other heals, and to make them all viable to use.

Part of this is removing/traiting some abilities - Medica 1 into Medica 2, for example, as Medical 2 does more healing, even with the first tick happening on application, meaning there's no case Medica 1 would be used unless you needed one of the spells and had exactly 900-999 MP but not one more nor less.

Part of this is removing the damage advantage that some carry - this means making oGCDs and Lilies NOT damage neutral OR making other GCD heals damage neutral. As I can't imagine a world where oGCDs are made damage negative (e.g. "Indominability decreases the damage of the next Broil by 100%") as practical, the logical alternative would be making the other GCDs damage neutral.

The third thing is encounter design, as we've both said, but as we both agree on that, I'm not sure it's necessary to mention here.

[Aravell]

Uh...I think we aren't considering the concept of "choice" to be the same thing.

RIGHT NOW:

Need an AOE heal and have 1 Lily up. Here are your choices:

1) Cast Glare (someone will die): Wrong
2) Cast Medica 1 (no one will die, but you do less damage): Wrong
3) Cast Rapture (no one will die, you will not do less damage): Right

There is only one right answer here. Your other "choices" are both wrong.

That's exactly what I said. You said it yourself, out of all 3 options, only 1 does your job and also gives you damage. So the only choice available to you right now is the right choice (gives you damage) or the wrong choice (doesn't give you damage).

Now, suppose all GCD heals were damage neutral. NOW you have some serious choices:

Do you have a lot of MP and no need for movement? Medica might be the right choice.
Do you have a lot of MP and no immediate need for movement, but an upcoming movement where you will need an AOE heal? Medica is now really attractive since you may want to save the Rapture.
...but you could ALSO choose Medica 2 here and have the HoT carry over for that future damage.
Do you need to move right now? Rapture is a good choice in this case.
Are you low on MP? Now Medica is a lesser choice and Rapture might be the better one.
Do you need to move in the near future but NOT have to AOE heal at that time? Rapture could work now since you can use Regen on the Tank then for your movement tool..

My point is that you can already do all these things right now, you have the freedom to make any of these choices right now. Why don't people make most of these choices? Because it loses them damage. That's log mentality and it's damaging the healer role, if you need to heal, you heal, it shouldn't matter if it loses you damage as damage shouldn't be your main focus in the first place. Making more and more heals damage neutral only feeds into this log mentality and hurts the role further, even now you'd sometimes see healers that do literally no healing if they have no free healing available, they'd rather let the party die than cast anything that loses them damage.

Making everything as damage neutral as possible also removes the need for choice. You say you'd have more choices available, yes, you would, but all the reasons for making those choices will be completely removed. Why consider your next move when they all do the same thing? If you cast a damage neutral Cure III here to top up the party, what's the difference between that and using an Afflatus Solace under Plenary?

Maybe you can clarify, as that seemed to me you saying "The point of mastering a healer is maximizing your damage". The mechanism is "by choosing the most optimum heal for the situation to thus free you up for dealing more damage", but that still makes the purpose of your optimization to optimize/increase damage, not healing.

This may seem a semantics argument, but I think it's significant. Is your focus to most efficiently and effectively heal your party, or to maximize your damage contribution in the fight? As those are not exactly the same thing, even if they share a road.

I mentioned helping the party do damage because that's literally the only thing you can do if you free up space where you don't need to heal. We have no support spells to keep up, we have no upkeep spells, we have no debilitating spells to use according to the situation. Free space = damage, that's how this game is designed. I didn't say I like it this way, it's just what it is. I have a lot more fun planning out healing and being as efficient as possible, which is why I only play healer for progression as there's nothing else to strive for after healing is efficient. This is also why I advocate for changing job design in addition to encounter design.