For those who main/semi-main a DPS (e.g. DNC, RDM) but like Healers...

[ty_taurus]

If I made up my mind, I wouldn't have asked the question.

Your non-answer answers it, though. So we're all clear, the answer is that you would at least try it out - as would I. Unlike you, I freely admit this. And I'm the most "dedicated pure/whatever healer" here. Don't assume duplicity so much.

The fact that you decided to answer for me is exactly why I say that you've made up your mind on what I want. Is that not obvious to you? You're wrong by the way, because your answer severely lacks context for what happens to the other roles. In your hypothetical world where the support role is added as a 4th, are the healers fixed, or do they stay hot feces for the rest of eternity? Because if your idea of adding the support role is specifically to allow the healers to remain in the ass tier of design quality, then obviously I'm going to go for support because there is no healer role to go to. If the healer role is allowed to be fixed, then I'm going to play the healer role and would probably be a Sage one-trick. Would I try the support jobs? I suppose technically I would when I level them to 100, since I level every job to max level, but I'd probably never actively try to play it or queue as it. Depending on what the new caster DPS will be, I might either make that my back-pocket DPS for when I can't heal (like if I'm doing treasure maps with my FC and someone else wants to heal) or maybe I'd keep that as Dancer. If the caster is Onmyoji, there's a good chance I might swap to that if the healer role continues to be defecated on because I like that concept. Whether or not Dancer remains in the physical ranged DPS role or the new support role is irrelevant to me.

You have supported having a single option for people who don't enjoy DPSing on Healers, but only if it's one specific thing, which I've informed you isn't what everyone who doesn't enjoy DPSing wants. The single thing you've rejected as "shit game design" is, as I've told you, something that people want. I am curious the game you work on, as I'm wondering if it has anything I would consider a healer in it or not...

What I think you get is that some people don't like what you like.

I have proposed one specific take on a healer for healers who do not enjoy DPSing, but I am not exclusive to that design and am open to alternative suggestions. I continue to promote Astrologian for that position because it's the healer that already has an identity of being buff-focused. Any attempt at designing such a job has to consider a few things:

1. It needs to be competitive with the other healers and have a reasonable solo-playability factor, so it does need to have a certain threshold of personal DPS somehow.
2. It should be one of the existing healers both because we won't get another healer for at least another 6ish years, and because it should be available earlier in a new player's playthrough.
3. It can't depend on needing to heal in order to achieve this playstyle, because healing requirements will almost certainly never be high enough to demanding constant healing output in this game.

I have acknowledged that the two Astro players that have responded to my original takes were not entirely satisfied, and I reworked that idea as well with their feedback because I actually know how to receive feedback. I'm just not receptive to your stance of "leave one healer alone and never change it." That is the one singular healer suggestion that I am vehemently against because as a game designer, I have integrity. I thought it was good when you brought up enjoying Paladin and were open to White Mage concepts that felt more like Paladin. You also ignored every response from the few of us that tried designing a White Mage specifically for you.

1) Every Healer in this game design does.
2) If one counts 1-2-3 as a single action for non-branching combos (since there's no case you don't use them as such and it's a "fatfinger" check, not a skill check), I wonder how many Jobs meet that criteria.
3) Why 10-12, not 3-5? What's sacred about that number?

In any case, as I've said, I'm fine with those criteria for a Healer Job. I disagree it should be for all of them. Many people would not find that fun.

If you had read the post where I initially posted those criteria, something you find incredibly important to do when responding to someone's post, you would've seen that I explained your questions already. I looked at Black Mage and Gunbreaker as references--a caster DPS with a nuke-spam playstyle and a Tank, another non-DPS role. I counted Gunbreaker's 1-2-3 as one singular action where each of the 1-2-3 held an approximate 10% action usage, so 30% action usage is spent on your filler, and for Black Mage, Fire IV is also almost 30% (28% on the specific player I looked at). The 80% spent on 10-12 actions was also based on those jobs, which isn't to say 10-12 actions that had relatively equal usage, but pretty much anything that was used more than 10 times or so in a 7 minute fight. For White Mage, that would very likely include at least Afflatus Rapture/Solace. Notice I also didn't specify that any of that had to be DPS buttons specifically, just actions that you will always use regardless of the state of the party.

The criteria I gave is very broad, and I find you saying "many people would not find that fun" to be insulting to me as a gamer because of how broad that criteria is. Also you're wrong, there are literally millions of ways you could meet that criteria in a healer. Suggesting that there are people who would never be happy with any of those is a joke.

[ForsakenRoe]

1) Every Healer in this game design does.
2) If one counts 1-2-3 as a single action for non-branching combos (since there's no case you don't use them as such and it's a "fatfinger" check, not a skill check), I wonder how many Jobs meet that criteria.
3) Why 10-12, not 3-5? What's sacred about that number?


With a 2.5 sec GCD, and 6 take by Dia and Afflatuses, that's 18 Glares, 4 Afflatuses, 2 Dias, 1.3 Assizes (oGCD), 0.5 PoMs (oGCD). Of course, if healing needs to be done, that cycles in more oGCDs, and eventually GCDs if it is insufficient. This is hardly "Glare-spam" in my book.


No one's ever quite been able to explain why it was good design in SB but not in ShB/EW to have the same rotational frequency of "Stone/Glare-spam". Arguing the DoTs made the timing different isn't an argument against the spam itself, especially when people like Ty routinely use the amount of buttons being pressed, not the pattern, in their arguments, as he did above.

Ironically, I'm the one that critiqued this by noting the difference was WHM had to rely on GCD heals more back then (more damage and less oGCDs), so some of those Stones were substituted for Medica/Cure spells by necessity. It wasn't just the oGCDs, encounter design - the thing people insist is immutable - was apparently mutable and required a different approach to healing, that is, MORE HEALING, at the time. And it's this I point to as a possible solution to the problem.


In a nutshell, though, my proposed changes would amount to:

1) Encounters that require more consistent healing. Low difficulties would still have this, but the values would be so low that novice players could cover it with GCD heal fallbacks. Harder fights would actually make this threatening where the healing has to be addressed in a consistent manner. No more fights with lots of damage and then 45 seconds of nothing at all happening. This change would reduce the ability to address all healing with oGCDs, while still allowing oGCDs to be somewhat powerful for the Jobs that would continue to rely on them.

2) More somewhat randomized damage, like boss random targeting of players or continued auto-attacks of Tanks while prepping mechanics/casting. This was done in HW and was also generally well received for what that's worth. Again, this wouldn't hurt Jonny Casual as casual content would have the damage low enough they could handle it with their fallbacks if necessary.

3) A general reduction in oGCD power for Healers...but with caveats. Specifically, some Healer Jobs would be designed to work with their oGCDs being a source of their healing, and so they would be tuned to that end.

where to start

Counting 123 as 'one skill' is an odd distinction to make but I'll go along with it, by that rule, NIN (barely), DRG (specifically because it's 123 combo is actually a 12345), MNK (if you were to count it's gameplay as 123s but I wouldn't), BLM, PLD depends if you count the Atonements after as part of the 123 or if they're a separate 123. Every healer fails the 'sub-30% check', SMN barely scrapes it with the 'needs 10-12 buttons' criteria. Other than that, every job I'm looking at passes the second two criteria (since they're not healers they can't pass the first). Even DRK passes, even GNB passes (unless you get really picky and say that Gnashing plus it's Continuations are all one combo). This was looking at highest ranked speedkills for this tier

Once again, this is a picture showing the current 1min rotation for WHM. You might not consider 75% of your GCDs being used on Glare as 'spam' but a lot of us sure do. While I'd consider Ty's 30% a little difficult to aim for (I'd accept maybe 40%, since BLM is roughly there with it's Fire4 cast rate), it is possible to reach said 30%. It's surprisingly simple to, designwise too. Though, maybe the fact Quake replaces Glare in my design bumps the Glare count up in Ty's eyes from 28% to like 32% and that means it fails the check too, idk


I don't think anyone's saying encounter design cannot change, I think they (at least I am) say that since encounter design HAS changed and we're now flooded with OGCD heals, to change it to a more GCD reliant system would require nuking those OGCD tools super hard, and people are never a fan of feeling like they've been made weaker. You try and convince the casual players that 'sorry, they had to make your Lilybell heal for 200 per pulse instead of 400, it's for the good of the game though cos now you'll be pressing Medica more often to cover it!', I don't think that's gonna fly well


Ok the meat of the meal:

1: Doesn't address the boredom of 'player who has any degree of competency while healing', as the 'lower values' would be so low as to be basically ignoreable. If it's an amount that novice healers can keep up with via 'GCD healing fallbacks', ie they're panicking, we could throw out Kerachole on CD and keep up on the healing because of it's regen effect. OFC you address this in point 3 though, so lets get there

2: Doesn't address etc etc. Same as point 1, the point of the 'rework' is that it has to address the engagement of all players, in all forms of content. If you keep stuff easier in lower content, then it doesn't solve the issue. We'd go from 'zero GCDs used' to 'Medica2 once per minute/per 30s, then business as usual'. If you're aiming for this random damage to be like... you need to spot heal that person asap, then it sounds like you're asking for those old style WOW raids where your job as a healer is to just whack a mole the HP bars, and people would argue about getting sniped by the Paladin using Flash of Light

3: To follow on from part 1, reducing the OGCD effectiveness is very unlikely to work out. You risk making certain old content (ultimates for example) unbeatable. The amount of 'reduction' you'd have to do would be so big, you'd almost be removing the skill entirely. Removal/heavy reduction in OGCD effectiveness also runs counter to the second point, of having more 'random damage' to react to, as OGCDs wouldn't even get to exist as your panic button. There's been times where I try to save a tank after a big hit, and cannot, because I'm trying to Solace but am GCD locked. I've said in the past, by my estimations, to get to a level of 'GCD healing is the main source' that would have a big enough effect on the game to change how we look at healing, you'd have to reduce the power level of every OGCD we currently have by at least 50%, potentially 75%. HW and SB to a lesser extent worked because we didn't have as many different OGCD heals. In HW, for example, AST had one 'OGCD heal', and it was by channeling the bubble. The buff did not stick to you back then, it had to be channeled. I saw a video by Momo about how he and his cohealer got down to 4 GCD heals in O12S and was impressed by it, because of how much tech they used (including a Super potion on every member after a certain raidwide). Now, 'clear the fight with zero GCDs used' is kinda commonplace, as a result of how many different tools we now have. Also, you say 'so they would be tuned to that end.' re: OGCD-based healers, so you've already set up for failure. Every healer except WHM is now an OGCD-based healer. If you only reduce their OGCD healing power by say... 25%, and WHM by 50%, then we get SB style WHM exclusion again

Incentivize GCD healing, by all means, but not at the cost of OGCD throughput. The idea of 'lets nerf OGCDs so they're forced to GCD heal' is not gonna work. Also, have you considered MP economy at all with any of this? We'll be dry in Savage after like 4 minutes if we're doing damage and AOE healing using GCDs. What's your solution to this problem? I assume 'stack piety' but that's a godawful 'solution' that we can see that everyone hates (look at 6.0 WHM complaints)

[ty_taurus]

Counting 123 as 'one skill' is an odd distinction to make but I'll go along with it...

There's definitely nuance when you start looking at melee DPS rotations especially, because it's not just a 1-2-3. Like Monk's six main rotation actions I would count as all separate because you are constantly shifting between your Raptor, Coeurl, and Opo-opo GCDs. Even the AoE 1-2-3 is a little bit unique because although there's no variation, there is a small amount of variation in using it during Perfect Balance. I count Gunbreaker's 1-2-3 as '1 action' because it's a fixed 1-2-3 that never requires any sort of deviation or decision-making. You can very easily do the PVP thing of having it condensed onto 1 hotbar button and nothing changes functionally about your performance, whereas you couldn't do that with Monk. Ninja, on the other hand, is a little bit different in that it has a 4 that it can swap its 3 for, so I'd look at that as "2 actions" for the purposes of criteria. I'm generally not a huge fan of 1-2-3 filler, but on Ninja I think it's more justifiable because Ninja has a lot going on elsewhere in its gameplay, but I digress.

Once again, this is a picture showing the current 1min rotation for WHM. You might not consider 75% of your GCDs being used on Glare as 'spam' but a lot of us sure do. While I'd consider Ty's 30% a little difficult to aim for (I'd accept maybe 40%, since BLM is roughly there with it's Fire4 cast rate), it is possible to reach said 30%. It's surprisingly simple to, designwise too. Though, maybe the fact Quake replaces Glare in my design bumps the Glare count up in Ty's eyes from 28% to like 32% and that means it fails the check too, idk

I think you were looking at the source of Black Mage's damage, not it's action usage. I'm not the most knowledgeable about Black Mage stuff, though so maybe this isn't a typical example of Black Mage gameplay, but this was the reference I was working with:



But something I said in my first post about those requirements is that those are soft requirements. I don't mean to imply that if you were to create a Sage redesign where Dosis III was cast 32% of the time even when performed at the most optimal level, that I'd treat that as a completely failed attempt. The actual feel of the gameplay matters too of course, but I gave those criteria to establish a ballpark objective to aim for. If something doesn't quite reach that goal, but still offers a lot of variation in the gameplay and feels good, than that's fine.

[ForsakenRoe]

stuff

I think I might have been looking at the damage page rather than casts, yes. Would explain some things, I guess. As for combo things, I was looking at each combo ender's percentage of uses, and then adding on the previous steps of the combo (for example on NIN, I'd look at Spin-Gust-Aeolian as one 'action' and then Spin-Gust-ArmorCrush as a second 'action') and see if either hit 30% of total casts. However, as pointed out, I was likely looking at 'damage source' for all of them, meaning a lot less of them which 'failed' would actually be fail-grades, because they have a load of OGCD uses that were not included. Though I figure the 'GCD loop being stale' would mean that excluding OGCDs would be of slight help to paint the picture. For example, a hell of a lot of AST's gameplay is in the 2min window, playing cards, doubleweaving etc. But that doesn't do anything to help the fact that outside the 2min window, it's Malefics and Combust refreshing all the way down. I guess having both charts ('damage sources' and 'total actions used') would help to illustrate the nuances of this kind of thing

Hmm might go make a pie chart of the SCH DOT design I had, see what kind of Broilspam it'd have, I estimate about 55% which is unfortunate but better than what we have now (75%ish). If we are including 'every action used' in that 30% number, then that makes it super easy to reach. No need to worry about 'Quake/Glare being one button and pushing over 30%' when Assize, POM, Benison/Aquaveil, potentially a 60s Cleric Stance CD, etc are involved

edit: My SCH idea ended up at 47% Broils over a 4min duration (lowest common denominator on the DOTs), when looking at just target dummy scenario, so Broil, 3 DOTs (30,24,15 duration), Aetherflow CD and spending all 12 charges on Energy Drain. Dissipation was not included

[ty_taurus]

I think I might have been looking at the damage page rather than casts, yes. Would explain some things, I guess. As for combo things, I was looking at each combo ender's percentage of uses, and then adding on the previous steps of the combo (for example on NIN, I'd look at Spin-Gust-Aeolian as one 'action' and then Spin-Gust-ArmorCrush as a second 'action') and see if either hit 30% of total casts. However, as pointed out, I was likely looking at 'damage source' for all of them, meaning a lot less of them which 'failed' would actually be fail-grades, because they have a load of OGCD uses that were not included. Though I figure the 'GCD loop being stale' would mean that excluding OGCDs would be of slight help to paint the picture. For example, a hell of a lot of AST's gameplay is in the 2min window, playing cards, doubleweaving etc. But that doesn't do anything to help the fact that outside the 2min window, it's Malefics and Combust refreshing all the way down. I guess having both charts ('damage sources' and 'total actions used') would help to illustrate the nuances of this kind of thing

Hmm might go make a pie chart of the SCH DOT design I had, see what kind of Broilspam it'd have, I estimate about 55% which is unfortunate but better than what we have now (75%ish). If we are including 'every action used' in that 30% number, then that makes it super easy to reach. No need to worry about 'Quake/Glare being one button and pushing over 30%' when Assize, POM, Benison/Aquaveil, potentially a 60s Cleric Stance CD, etc are involved

edit: My SCH idea ended up at 47% Broils over a 4min duration (lowest common denominator on the DOTs), when looking at just target dummy scenario, so Broil, 3 DOTs (30,24,15 duration), Aetherflow CD and spending all 12 charges on Energy Drain. Dissipation was not included

I think it's fine to include OGCDs in that balance, which is what we see when we look at the Black Mage example I shared, as well as others. While Bard's current state is generally revered as mid in contrast to what it was during Stormblood, in both cases a lot of Bard's GCDs are dedicated to Heavy Shot/Burst Shot because it does a lot of work weaving, and I think that's okay. It does ultimately come down to how it feels when you put it all together, but I just think using those metrics... no more than 30% time spent on any singular action, spending around 80% of your gameplay on at least 10-12 actions... Creates a healthy ballpark to shoot for when designing a job--that you'll have a greater chance for success with an idea when you try and aim for that range.

And I did also look at Astro because I was curious about how its card gameplay factored into its action usage. Where Scholar has a 58% usage of Broil, an Astro in that same fight had a 53% usage of Malefic, so not a particularly significant difference, and still Malefic is used more than every other action combined. And that's P12S data.

[Shurrikhan]

I think it's fine to include OGCDs in that balance, which is what we see when we look at the Black Mage example I shared, as well as others. While Bard's current state is generally revered as mid in contrast to what it was during Stormblood, in both cases a lot of Bard's GCDs are dedicated to Heavy Shot/Burst Shot because it does a lot of work weaving, and I think that's okay.

While I agree that oGCD CPM should be accounted for, Bard is atrocious even then.

Since there is zero reason ever to use Burst over Refulgent when the latter is possible (just as there is zero reason ever to hit any other non-prepped combo action), they together really just form a single filler action: Refulgent-over-Burst. That action then makes up almost 47% of Bard's CPM. That's near to Fire IV's portion even despite the hugely higher amount of oGCD casts on Bard.

And without those oGCD actions, it's obviously far worse: R>B would comprise ~86% of GCDs, or approaching 90% in sustained combat, because it solely competes with AA->BA and IJ(over SB->CS), whereas F4 makes up only ~38.5% of BLM's GCDs.

In short, I agree with the test, but if combo steps (rightly) aren't each considered a separate action, Bard would fail that exact test.

[Renathras]

The 1-2-3 argument I specifically stated non-branching combos. This is would be PLD, DRK, GNB, maybe-DRG (since it's more than 3), RPR I think(?), MCH, and RDM. Basically all the ones auto-combo would fill out. Secondary from this would be where WAR and NIN would be placed (their -4 they use just like Healers do an average of once per 30 sec, though it's more flexible than the Healer ones since their durations can stack twice) and probably DRG would be placed more in this category. MNK and SAM are the only Jobs in the game that have combo systems that really branch (in the case of SAM) or are variable/mixed up (in the case of MNK; even if you view it as a static 21 step combo, this is still mixed up when you have Blitz since one of them calls for a 1-1-1 (3x same form, that is) to trigger one of the Nadi.

Let's see, what else...

Ty, you have made a proposal. But it's limited to matching your overall personal criteria, which as I said is you not understanding what other people want and telling them what they should want. "You think you do, but you don't", as a rather famous saying goes. As I've said, this stubbornness is why you can't propose a compromise that works, and why you aren't open to those that do. You want ever Healer to please you and your idea of good design, and you fail to understand that others have a different feeling on those issues. You think that they think like you do, just substituting "damage actions" for "buffing actions" or the like. This is why there's a fundamental failure to your proposals. It's also why people like you don't see why others actually enjoy a Job like SMN, thinking instead people must play it for reasons other than enjoyment, not understanding what it is they enjoy about it.

I think I proposed something once (not sure it as SMN or SCH) but that brought the spam down to somewhere around 50-60% of its button presses. I also think it's worth noting that most Jobs (even Healers) do use more than 10 buttons commonly. The question comes down to what is considered "Common" at that point. The top Kokytos clear right now has a 99 SCH (well above the average player, mind you), and their Broil casts are 56.91%, which is WELL below 80% in a 6:47 fight. (Also giggle worthy, amusingly under the damage tab, are 75 autoattacks. /bookwhack). Taking that exact same performance, you could make exactly one tweak and it would bring the Broil down to 50% (making Biolysis' duration 15 seconds, for example), without making any other changes. Alternatively, adding debuffs to dispell with Esuna, adding a second DoT even if it also had a 30 sec duration, or making Energy Drain a GCD, etc etc. It doesn't require complete reworks of Jobs to achieve that goal.

Though we could also do the SMN thing and just have 3 buttons you use while having them change context as you use other things. The top SMN group (also a 99) for Kokytos has 26.1% Gemshine and 21.1 Ruin 3 (total of 47.2%) are just those two buttons. Adding in the 20.25% for Astral Flow (guy oddly didn't use Rekindle) and you have 67.45%. Lots of people seem fine with that, so that would work. Granted, that's a DPS Job so it's not factoring in any healing in that.

The first SGE in that list is using Dosis 55.04% of button presses. And the top WHM I could find was using Glare 55.56% of their casts. And the top AST (Momo? THE Momo?) was using Malific for 51.50% of casts.

I'm not sure where this 80+% number is coming from, but it doesn't seem to be coming from Savage...

I'm not going to engage with you on the Support thing anymore, either. We both know what your answer is. I didn't put words in your mouth, I asked you to stat the words in your mouth. You refused, which led me to apply a little thing called logic; you refuse because you think the answer is something that would be detrimental to your cause, so which answer would that be? By inference, that is likely your answer. When given the chance to clarify where you could have said it was not, you refused to do so; something you'd do if that was, in fact, your answer. The stupid thing is, I said it was mine as well, meaning there's literally no way I'd use it against you, yet you keep insisting I would (slander against me) to avoid giving the answer that we both know is correct (fearing it would make you look bad; and at this point your refusal is what makes you look bad, especially when you're using your refusal to fuel attacks on me instead). You'd rather use your refusal to answer as an attack on me instead of stating the truth on the record because you fear it could be used against you later, something I don't have a history of doing and that I wouldn't do anyway since I've already stated I would try it out myself. (I try out just about every Job added to the game to at least see the general flow and what it brings to the table.) Either way, I won't continue to entertain this canard.

EDIT:

While I agree that oGCD CPM should be accounted for, Bard is atrocious even then.

Since there is zero reason ever to use Burst over Refulgent when the latter is possible (just as there is zero reason ever to hit any other non-prepped combo action), they together really just form a single filler action: Refulgent-over-Burst. That action then makes up almost 47% of Bard's CPM. That's near to Fire IV's portion even despite the hugely higher amount of oGCD casts on Bard.

And without those oGCD actions, it's obviously far worse: R>B would comprise ~86% of GCDs, or approaching 90% in sustained combat, because it solely competes with AA->BA and IJ(over SB->CS), whereas F4 makes up only ~38.5% of BLM's GCDs.

In short, I agree with the test, but if combo steps (rightly) aren't each considered a separate action, Bard would fail that exact test.

Huh.

Maybe I outta try out BRD someday. XD BRD is a Job I'd like to like, but the procs going off all over the place annoys me. What I think REALLY annoys me, though, is the song optimal durations. I like the idea that they fit together in a nice, interlocking pattern of 40-40-40...but that's a total lie and not at all close to the optimal usage, lol

BRD fails the test pretty handily, and SMN isn't far off it (and fails if you consider Ruin/Gemshine/Astral Flow uses together as the "3 button Job"). WAR is probably the next closest. The 1-2-3 is 35.83% of its buttons, Fell Cleave/Chaos is 21.25%. Those two together are 57.08%, and adding in Storm's Eye makes a total of 61.66.

These are a few more buttons, though. But in terms of "core spam in the rotation", Healers aren't exactly alone so much as they're the most extensive case of.

[Sebazy]

I'm not sure where this 80+% number is coming from, but it doesn't seem to be coming from Savage...

Half asleep so apologies if I'm missing a portion of something here, the 80% number above is GCD usage I think? Looking at the log you mention, that SCH has 140 broils vs ~15 non broil GCDs.

If you look at offensive casts, you're also getting into that sort of territory as well, the same SCH lands at 76% for example.

It goes without saying but the overall cast counts in logs will include oGCDs. Sadly I don't think there's a quick and easy way to filter down to purely GCD usage?

[Renathras]

Half asleep so apologies if I'm missing a portion of something here, the 80% number above is GCD usage I think? Looking at the log you mention, that SCH has 140 broils vs ~15 non broil GCDs.

If you look at offensive casts, you're also getting into that sort of territory as well, the same SCH lands at 76% for example.

It goes without saying but the overall cast counts in logs will include oGCDs. Sadly I don't think there's a quick and easy way to filter down to purely GCD usage?

Well, just doing the math.

I think it does come down to "oGCDs don't count", but that's like saying "AST has a low burst APM", which is obviously not a realistic position.

It does support the idea of making all oGCD heals into GCDs, though, since that would completely upend that system to where the nuke-spams were no longer the most used buttons. Firstly, since those oGCDs would now count no matter the metric used, and secondly because they would displace Gloialosis GCD use.

EDIT:

So I guess it comes down to "How far are you willing to go to get rid of nuke-spam?", since the absolute simplest way to accomplish that would be make all Healer Actions into Spells...which is obviously not what most people would want.

[Shurrikhan]

These are a few more buttons, though. But in terms of "core spam in the rotation", Healers aren't exactly alone so much as they're the most extensive case of.

Agreed. Which is why I wouldn't be happy with simply copying over the template of a job that's only one stepped removed from 'as awful as is theoretically possible' in these regards.

The 1-2-3 argument I specifically stated non-branching combos. This is would be PLD, DRK, GNB, maybe-DRG (since it's more than 3), RPR I think(?), MCH, and RDM. Basically all the ones auto-combo would fill out.

Fair.

Personally, I'd go one step further. Just roll into the finishers each use of its prior steps they required. For each Storm's Eye, for instance, you'd remove a cast of Heavy Swing and Maim from what'd be counted over to Storm's Path, and then see what portion of total and GCD CPM remains to the Storm's Path combo.

So, if a 4:15 parse has 36 Heavy Swings, 36 Maims, 23 Storm's Paths, and 13 Storm's Eyes, you'd have effectively 69 Storm's Path Combo GCDs and 39 Storm's Eye Combo GCDs in that time.

With a total cast count of 274, offensive cast count of 228, and a GCD action count of 173, then, Storm's Path Combo would make up 40% of GCDs, 30% of all offensive actions, and 25% of truly all actions.

BRD fails the test pretty handily, and SMN isn't far off it (and fails if you consider Ruin/Gemshine/Astral Flow uses together as the "3 button Job"). WAR is probably the next closest. The 1-2-3 is 35.83% of its buttons, Fell Cleave/Chaos is 21.25%. Those two together are 57.08%, and adding in Storm's Eye makes a total of 61.66.

Aye. Food for thought, though: I think WAR would, however, still barely pass that "takes 10+ actions to reach 80% of CPM" test. It's usually 11 actions to reach 80% of WAR's CPM, unless the particular WAR has skimped on defensives and never Sprints, at which point it still takes 10.

I'm not sure where this 80+% number is coming from, but it doesn't seem to be coming from Savage...

"Of GCDs" is almost always attached to that statement or very easily inferred from its prior context. In-game "casts" will typically refer to the categorically GCD-based Spells, after all, rather than just to any and all actions used.

XD BRD is a Job I'd like to like, but the procs going off all over the place annoys me.

If you don't want to track them, just keyswipe. Put RA next to BS and just swipe over both keys, RA to BS. Since RA requires the proc, it can't intercept the queue unless it's available.

Yep, the procs are that braindead.

So I guess it comes down to "How far are you willing to go to get rid of nuke-spam?", since the absolute simplest way to accomplish that would be make all Healer Actions into Spells...which is obviously not what most people would want.

It'd be the second simplest way in proposition (behind just reducing healing potencies or increasing incoming damage) but (A) not by far compared to simply including other offensive spells and (B) far from the simplest in practice since it produces new issues in required encounter reworks to support the lost mobility and dynamism.

It's kind of like arguing to greatly reduce traffic by making people not idiots. It's a simple idea, but not so simple to execute upon. The lack of responsive, mobile, and GCD-stackable oGCD heals would greatly change the viable tuning of fights.