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

[Shurrikhan]

I made that specific point clear. The point was that casuals and DoTs do not mix well.

Corrections: players with high affective filter (be that from low engagement, high panic, or whatever else) and hitting things in a timely fashion do not always mix well. That's not unique to DoTs.

That also depends greatly on how focus is drawn to them. When DoTs were more integral and frequent such as back in ARR and HW, you'd see even very casual Bards maintaining their 18s duration DoTs with little issue. You'd see even casual Melees maintaining their 2-3 DoTs and their 2-4 buffs, both, with relatively little issue.

Exception: Heavy Thrust after combo length was lengthened by 2 GCDs per cycle saw a whopping <10% of players not always maintaining it. Which penalized them with 17 to ~50 potency. Oh noes?

Admittedly, yeah, if you set things up so every healing spell cultivates a Blood Lily (still ridiculously broken, btw), there'd be more focus on that previously accessible-per-60-seconds Misery. Perhaps it would even reorient attention around that previously accessible-per-60-to-100 seconds skill so much that being penalized for an entire Glare's worth of damage for each GCD past every 4th GCD in which they don't immediately pop it (e.g., if they panic-GCD-heal instead of dumping immediately from losing that rhythm (as opposed to 10.8% of a Glare per GCD for which Dia is delayed) wouldn't somehow be less player-unfriendly. But I doubt it.

Even RIGHT NOW, if we LEFT HEALERS ENTIRELY ALONE, they get more than 10% of their damage from more than one button.

GCD damage. We'd been talking about offensive spells. I wanted more. You did not. Sorry for the earlier ambiguity in the quick post.

AST and SCH can get ~90% of their GCD damage off a single button alone (and, without needing heals, even WHM does the same).

If they do not hit Combust, for instance --i.e., if somehow DoTs were uniquely or disproportionately what casual players struggle with rather than GCD minimization or CD usage in general-- then those Combust casts would become Malefics. The value of Combust, or indeed any other (soft) CD with an opportunity cost (that of a Malefic), is only its bonus (its damage over Malefic).

Each job can put out 24 GCDs per minute, pre-Spell Speed. If, per minute, they put out 24 fillers instead of 22 fillers and 2 DoTs, they average 90% of their damage potential.

Those DoTs do not simply vanish into the aether with no replacement, unless the problem is with more than DoTs (e.g., an issue with spending more than 90% of their time casting at all, even despite those DoTs being instant-casts).

Also, I don't think "didn't keep a DoT up or even apply it" is in the category of "mistake". Letting a DoT fall off isn't a "mistake". Letting a DoT fall off isn't a "mistake". A mistake is when you hot a button that's not optimal, not when you lose track of something because the native UI of the game does

It is a mistake. You hit another filler when you had the opportunity to start tapping into the bonus value of your soft-CD instead. That's hitting a non-optimal button. It's a ton less punishing than accidentally hitting Gekko after Shifu because you got your combos crossed, but it is literally hitting a non-optimal button.

I've pushed for UI adjustments since ARR, such as by allowing the DoT skill's icon itself to show the remaining time on your last enemy targeted, but seriously, it's not difficult to just put the Target's Status Effects just directly above or to the side of your own priority buffs, each expanding in the opposite direction, so you can easily track both. Voila.

The UI is customizable. If looking up per 20-30s is difficult... move it so you don't have to. We've been able to stack them neatly atop each other since the game's re-release.

I've said it doesn't represent the majority.
I've said it's an echo chamber.
I've said it doesn't allow for dissenting voices.

But where did I say it has nothing of value to consider and/or dismissed it outright?

If it weren't representative of the broader playerbase (and instead so skewed in our interests as to be incompatible with any desire for 'the greater good'), then why even bother?

If you keep hearing "echoes" of only the same thing, it might because you continue to ignore the variety in warrants for a shared conclusion, let alone the many differing conclusions themselves. When you simply classify anything disagrees with you as an echo of the same thing regardless of its motive, experiences, or underlying logics, then yeah, things will sound the same. A participants selective hearing, though, isn't the fault of a place of discourse.

If these forums don't allow for dissenting voices, then why are so few voices in agreement... on virtually anything between emotional handwaving ("things are bad/we need change") and hard facts?

But, let's you were actually right that this is a skewed echo chamber with some powerful group determining what is or is not "dissent". That would actually be damning. It'd give you, on the whole, far more reason to leave and never look back.

So which is it?

[Shurrikhan]

There's zero logic to do this [Ty's spitball compromise of revamping Classes to be non-optimal but generally viable easier options] as opposed to just adding a new Job.

I don't think there's much point in revamping Classes just to produce an Easy Mode option, but I sure as hell don't want to give rip the Elemental aspects out of WHM just to then hand them over to some new job.

That'd make no more sense than to make a new Card Dealer, Time Mage, and/or Planar Mage and then ask why AST feels cheated when all its motifs have been given over to those.

That said, I do think there are definite lucrative results possible from revamping Classes in terms of world-building and giving players a sense of customization that is sorely lacking from this game -- which is increasingly less a about creating a role for oneself as just being playing the one given to you, with only N jobs' (often barely-differed) shades on that experience.


I'd want ambitious Class revamps that try to do all that could provide, but I don't much care for building in a simplified/easy mode just so that some players can better pretend they're not holding others back by maxing out a lower ceiling instead of producing the same throughput via a middling performance with a higher ceiling job.

(And if the same amount of effort, +/- how much better or worse this or that job clicks for this player, does not result in roughly the same performance, then you have an imbalance that hurts freedom of choice, thereby having effectively done the opposite of what the additional options were intended to do.)

[ty_taurus]

I don't think there's much point in revamping Classes just to produce an Easy Mode option

I'm not even saying that's the right call, or a call I want to make. It was just one of a few examples of "bargaining chips" I brought up as things that you could do for a relatively small amount of effort to compromise on this idea that there needs to be a job someone can pick up and play perfectly without trying. Like a TAS job that corrects your gameplay for you or is designed in a way that pressing one button gives you perfect performance, or something as close to that as possible. And moving away from that is out of the question. Because it doesn't actually matter whether or not content is clearable if someone who is inexperienced can't pump out world first raider parses by mashing 1 button for over half the fight.

[ForsakenRoe]

Here's another more mid to high tier log.... 78% run, 95% on Dia, 5 Miserys.

Next in line, 57% run, 84% uptime on Dia, 2 Miserys, 5:54 kill time.

The new log that isn't a 90+ log..., 67% run, 85% uptime on Dia, 3 Miserys, 6:24 kill time.

Pressing Glare when Dia isn't up is not optimal. By your own definition, it's a mistake.

I went and looked cos curious, and found a 32% WHM with 85% Dia uptime on Nophica. More likely that people drop Glare casts to move to dodge mechanics, I'm guessing. So I threw it in that analysis site and:

-70% GCD uptime
-Overheal warnings out the wazoo
-DOT uptime warning (think this happens if you have sub-95%)

'Suggestions':
-Don't die (1 death)
-Overheal less (61% overheal)
-Try to minimize losing casts (21 casts lost due to moving)
-Use Aquaveil (4 out of 4 uses missed)
-Use lilies to prep Misery/don't overcap (1 lily overcapped (this is not that big a deal imo))
-Don't beef your weaves (2 incorrect weaves)

But yes, clearly it's the DOT uptime that was the issue. Now, it could be argued that making the DOT a bigger factor in damage dealt could cause it to be another thing on the suggestions list, but I'd argue that if they're missing 19 casts due to moving, then moving some of the potency from the nuke to the DOT actually helps this player.

It is a mistake. You hit another filler when you had the opportunity to start tapping into the bonus value of your soft-CD instead.

Ah, but consider the following: the fight will end in 10 seconds, you are 2/3 the way to a Misery, and your DOT has 2 seconds left on it. In this exceptionally specific situation, it's 'optimal' to Rapture, Misery, and then close out with Glares, because Dia would not have enough time to pay for itself versus a Glare, let alone exceed Glare's contribution. Semantics maybe, but it means there is a situation where 'refresh DOT' is not actually the best choice, and I think that's a good thing. It'd be even more boring if the 'correct choice' every time was to refresh Dia as soon as it falls off, even if the fight's 3 seconds from ending

In a more general response to all, I think wrapping more potency into DOTs or hard-CD skills (like a Goring Blade kind of thing) and moving some potency out of the Nuke to compensate, is a perfectly functional solution to make things more casual friendly, as 'losing a Glare due to movement' would then have less per-GCD punishment. However, I don't think it's a good solution in the current game state, because we only have one DOT. Which means that, every tick that the DOT is not up has a comparatively bigger punishment, compared to previously where we had 2 or 3 DOTs with lower potency per tick. Dropping both of SCH's DOTs back in SB would be roughly the same damage lost per tick as currently, but unlike today's SCH, you could drop a tick of only one of the two (eg, you refresh Bio cos moving, but can't get Miasma at the same time), which means you're punished less compared to now, losing only eg 35 potency, versus the current 'all or nothing' of 70. Which is why I would like SCH to have several DOTs again, I'm not good at DOT management (I blame the fact we don't have to really manage anything anymore, so I'm out of practice), but by having 3 different DOTs instead of 1, the overall 'punishment for missing a tick' can be reduced. Alternatively, I guess WHM's got part of an idea going on, with the 'damage on cast', if you were to change Biolysis from 700p total to '250, plus 55p per tick for 550, full total of 700', it's the same overall damage, but you lose less damage by early refreshing it. Though, at those numbers, that'd kill Ruin 2 , but it's an example

The conflation occurring here, and leading to the faulty conclusion, is that 'casuals are automatically bad at DOT management, thus the solution of 'put more on DOT and less on nuke' is not casual friendly'. Which is not really the case. Plenty of casuals are pretty good at DOT management. I'm not casual, and I'm really bad at it. Different people find certain job mechanics to be easier or harder. I imagine there's some people that are giga-gods at DOTs (ie they play AffLock in WOW), but are not good at static 60s loop style rotations like SAM's, preferring more reactive stuff like BRD. And they could be hardcore or casual, that identifier has nothing to do with how good they are at DOT management

[Shurrikhan]

Ah, but consider the following: the fight will end in 10 seconds, you are 2/3 the way to a Misery, and your DOT has 2 seconds left on it. In this exceptionally specific situation, it's 'optimal' to Rapture, Misery, and then close out with Glares, because Dia would not have enough time to pay for itself versus a Glare, let alone exceed Glare's contribution. Semantics maybe, but it means there is a situation where 'refresh DOT' is not actually the best choice, and I think that's a good thing.

Oh, absolutely.

I've always thought of complexity increasing in the order of:

1. Filler (direct/instant) ->
2. Rigid CD (direct/instant) ->
3. Soft CD (direct/instant) ->
4. Soft CD on enemy (direct/instant) ->
5. DoT.

The second rung adds tracking.
The third adds a small degree of nuance in that you can pop it slightly early, which may be preferable at times.
The fourth means that you can now cleave (getting bonus damage from dealing with multiple enemies... up to the point that's eclipsed by AoEs anyways).
The fifth adds TTK consideration.

Note, of course, that all DoTs are inherently soft-CDs with multi-target implication (up until the point they're eclipsed by AoE spam).

That's why people tend to be fond of them, imo; they carry a lot of little implications for such a seemingly simple concept, and frequently feature utility on their soft-CDs, allowing them high functionality for their button cost. Dia is a damage bonus over Glare at 12+ seconds (+/- 2.99s for server tick sync), but it's also a mobility tool.

[ForteNightshade]

I went and looked cos curious, and found a 32% WHM with 85% Dia uptime on Nophica. More likely that people drop Glare casts to move to dodge mechanics, I'm guessing. So I threw it in that analysis site and:

The amount of healers I see completely stop casting for mechanics, especially this tier with how movement specific P10 and P11 can be, is staggering. And this is at the Savage level. Normal mode takes those same mistakes and dials them up tenfold. A lot of people either don't know how to slidecast, don't know it exists to begin with or simply can't be bothered. Hell, just last week I had a WHM accuse me of barsing when only she died to a mechanic. This is after I solo healed Styx 2 with her and a DPS dead. When I looked up the logs later, she let Assize drift like crazy. Guess what would have been available where she died if used correctly.

DoT uptime is certainly a factor for inexperienced or even downright lazy healers but I'd hazard a guess to say it isn't even in the top three of "worst case" issues.