Healers need an overhaul

[Renathras]

Just a couple points on this one:

There is only "avoid excess at-cost healing". As you noted, Lilies have no cost (until less than 90 seconds remain in the fight), so they're not avoided. It's that simple.

In practice, this amounts to an "avoid GCD healing unless there's absolutely no other option; Lilies get a pass".

As I said above, I'm trying to operate in the real world here, not in what I think it should be. Yes, I think it shouldn't be this way...but I recognize it IS this way, and that means we have to design around that until such time as we can convince people to change.

Which depends on the quality of the thing being suggested, not on the mere fact that it may be different.
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...But let's not conflate "I don't like <Idea A>" with "I don't like differences among healers."

Right, but I address that. It's just ignored by people who don't want the solution.

Suppose it was possible - just pretend for a moment that it was - to design two perfectly balanced Healer Jobs/Classes in a game. They do the same healing, to the same number/specific targets, and they both do the same damage.

In one case, the class has mostly healing spells. They have a variety so they can approach situations in different ways, etc. And they have few damage spells. Since this is a "arguing the endpoint" example, let's say they have 10 healing spells and 1 damage spell, and can output overall 10,000 healing and 5,000 damage.

In the other case, the class has mostly damage spells, with only a clutch emergency heal, and they heal the party while executing their rotation. Let's say they have 10 damage spells and 1 healing spell, and can output overall 10,000 healing and 5,000 damage.

For the sake of argument, let's say this is all effective healing/damage, etc. Basically, the point being to design two healers that both arrive at the same endpoint, but arrive there different ways. Like if Disc and Holy Priest were both balanced in WoW to do the same damage and healing, but one heals by properly doing a damage rotation and the other heals by smart choice of healing tools. Or the RIFT Chloromancer which also worked by doing damage to heal, but was a Mage class. So imagine, for example, a BLM o9r RDM where its attacks heal, so to keep the party alive, it must do its DPS rotation properly.

In both cases, the objective is the same - do the appropriate amount of healing to keep the party alive, do damage to the enemy as able. But the focus is different. As I said in my prior post. The latter appeals to those who like to engage with a DPS rotation, the former to those who do not and prefer more situational and reactive decision making based on the current situation on the field.

Two completely different playstyles, but both having a place and both working within the role.

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Now, I recognize in practice things are seldom perfectly balanced, but they also don't have to be exact on it, as long as they're in the right general ballpark that all of them are viable and none are being blacklisted, something that is entirely possible to do.

That's not one doing what another does better. It's them both doing the same thing, but with a different playstyle.

BLM and SAM both do (roughly) comparable damage, but SAM players tend to like it better than BLM and BLM players tend to like it better than SAM. Why? "they're just the same", right? Except they aren't. How they do it is different. And that's relevant to players.

The problem is that the relevant emergencies are so few and scripted

This I agree with 100%, though.

Encounter design MUST change.

Pass/fail mechanics not only eliminate the need for healers (when done correctly doing no damage, I mean), they also lead to generally weird gameplay, especially when in a tab-targeting type MMO.

There's just no case sustained Cure 2 casts (more than 1 or 2, such that Solace can't answer that problem on its own) are needed, or Cure 3 is needed. The "Tradeoff" of "Rapture or Cure 3" is never relevant in practice. That needs to change somehow, and part of that requires addressing encounter design and part of it damage neutrality of abilities and part of it overlapping abilities.

Medica 2 and Cure 3 can both exist and be a choice because there are relevant times to use one or the other - Cure 3 if a bit more healing needs to be done NOW and the party can stack, Medica 2 if the healing can be over a little time and/or the party is more spread out.

Rapture breaks that equation because it adds in MP efficiency, movement efficiency, and more damage, which makes it always the better choice UNLESS you'd need to use Cure 3. And there's just no time in the current game you MUST use Cure 3, it's just slightly more efficient than Medica and slightly faster than Medica 2, neither of which are relevant under current encounter design.

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I don't think the distinction in choosing heals should be "this one does more damage". That shouldn't be relevant.

It should be "which heal is most efficient for the given situation, factoring in things like current MP, what resources I have, and what the fight will require from me in the near-term future".

But, the reason I suggest doing something different with each of the healers (the "endpoint" example above is an extreme case I'm not advocating for, btw, it was just a way of saying "we can do this without it leading to blacklisting or other things, but where each type of player has a type of rotation/gameplay they actually enjoy engaging with") is that having them all the same doesn't work. It alienates a lot of people who want something different. But changing them all to be exactly the same AGAIN just in a different way doesn't fix that. It just alienates a different set of people.

Instead, we should embrace some difference between the. If SGE became a Chloromancer, would people be upset? Sure, some would, but give that's what most people were expecting from the Job to begin with, it would probably make things better for us collectively, not worse. "But we can't do that without also making WHM a Chloromancer!!"? Why? Why can't we change the one and not the other? "Because some people will be bored!" You mean the people who are bored now and if we can't reach a compromise and thus stay with the status quo will still be bored? At worst, they're no worse off than they are now. "But the people who like the aesthetics of WHM but want the SGE/Chloromancer gameplay!" So maybe some people like BLM's aesthetic but don't like the gameplay, they like RDM's. Do we change BLM to play like RDM to suit those people? No. No we do not.

Every role in this game other than Healers (and increasingly Tanks, but they're not QUITE as bad as Healers) has to make this choice. You like NIN's rotation but don't like Naruto/ninjas? Tough luck for you, it seems. You like Naruto/ninjas but hate NIN's rotation? Also tough luck for you. You like Rogues but hate ninja magic and ninja aesthetic in general? Double tough luck for you. You like rogues/ninjas but also want a rigid static rotation like DRG? Everyone's going to tell you to play DRG because we aren't going to see NIN changed to play like DRG.

Healers are, ironically, spoiled. By all having the same rotation, it means you get to pick the aesthetic you want right now and get the same (general) gameplay experience.

And people are complaining about that.

An inevitability of changing it to where the healers are not homogenized means that there WILL be people who like the aesthetics of one but the gameplay of another. And at the end of the day, we have to accept that disconnect will exist and some people will not be perfectly happy and have to choose between the gameplay or the aesthetic - like literally every other role in the game has to do. It's kind of the nature of the beast. Even in a game like WoW where classes have specs, you still get a different aesthetic. Maybe you like Frost Mage's gameplay but like Arcane Mage's spell animations better. You have to make a choice, you can't have both of them at the same time.

So the "aesthetics but want the different gameplay" isn't a valid counter, as it wouldn't be considered valid in any other discussion of any other class/role, and is something that is inevitable unless we continue to homogenize, which is something everyone says they don't want.

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So, given all that, there's no reason NOT to use something like the "4 Healers model". I say it all the time, but it's the best solution since it actually does address the problems people cite we have now, and combined with encounter design changes that need to happen, would make healing in this game better and appealing to more people while not alienating people who enjoy it currently.

It really is the best solution, and there just aren't good counters being argued as to why it isn't.

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EDIT:

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).

...y...yes?

But I feel like we're drawing different conclusions here.

My conclusion is this is bad, because it means there's no choice.

Unless I'm misunderstanding you, your conclusion seems to be that this is good, because only one right choice means skill expression. That you think every other choice being wrong is...somehow choice. Which makes no sense to me because every other choice being wrong means there IS no choice.

That's log mentality and it's damaging the healer role,

I don't disagree, but unless you have a wide angle mind-control device available to you to change it, I'm not seeing how that's relevant. It's the reality we're in. Unless you have a proposed way of changing the minds of (literally) millions of people, what of it?

Again, I'm working within the reality that is, not the reality I'd prefer exist. My efforts may be to nudge this reality to be closer to that, but I'm still proposing solutions that work within the current reality. And the current reality is "what loses you damage is wrong, don't do it unless it's absolutely necessary" as the prevailing thought...because it IS.

Making everything as damage neutral as possible also removes the need for choice.

No, it doesn't.

It's what ALLOWS choice.

Until you can change the minds of, again literally, millions of people, there is no choice unless they're damage neutral. Without that, there's only being right or wrong, there is no choice. The reasons for making those choices would exist, they wouldn't be DAMAGE. That's the point.

You say yourself that "it shouldn't matter if it loses you damage as damage shouldn't be your main focus in the first place".

That's LITERALLY what making the damage neutral would do - losing damage wouldn't matter (since it wouldn't exist aside from you just not pushing buttons), and thus damage wouldn't be your main focus. Making them damage neutral literally achieves what you say should be going on - that Healers should be concerned with healing and not what loses them damage and shouldn't be mainly focused on damage. Damage neutral GCD heals accomplishes this very goal.

Why consider your next move when they all do the same thing?

That's the point, they don't all do the same thing.

They do the same DAMAGE, but they don't do the same HPM, don't do the same HPS, and don't have the same restriction on movement. THOSE would be the metrics you'd be using for your choices. Not damage - which you said yourself shouldn't be factored into the choice at all - but movement, MP efficiency, and/or healing speed. (This is keeping it simple, I could obviously point out the difference between a 400 potency heal vs a 200 potency heal + 200 potency shield and so on; there are even more choices/metrics here than just these three.)

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?

Cure 3 doesn't allow movement and costs 1500 MP where Afflatus Solace under Plenary requires burning the Plenary CD and can be done during movement while not costing MP.

Are those NOT differences? How are they not?

If you don't want healing focused on damage, why do you want Solace to be damage neutral and Cure 3 not to be?

If you don't want healing focused on damage, what DO you want it to be focused on? Damage neutral means it would be focused on resource use (MP, Lilies) and movement requirements, HPS (how fast healing is needed) vs HPM (the most efficient healing for the MP cost), eHP (using a heal with a barrier) vs direct healing (filling up the green bar; basically the Emergency Tactics situation of do you need a barrier on top of your health bars or do you just need to fill up empty health bars faster).

Are those NOT things you want factored into choice? Why not?

If not, what DO you want factored in that isn't damage? And why would making damage neutral harm this?

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.

Then we're largely of a mind on this and it was just a misunderstanding based on word choice.