I'm bored when I heal because I need more complex DPS rotations

[Shurrikhan]

Also, what you ask for is not "A small increase in depth". It's a big increase. It's small TO YOU but not to others, clearly.

The two ideas going into our discussion that you had been quoting were "1 more DPS action (while, say, increasing healing requirements back to HW/StB levels)" and "swapping the portion of time spent damaging with the portion of time spent healing (such that the current small numbers of downtime tools nonetheless feel fitting)".

Doing nothing to meet the extended ceiling of the first means that one does about 90% of that maximum output regardless... which you accused of being an oppressive level of difference that would cause casual healers to get flamed...

The other literally increases at-cost healing from around 0 to 12% of GCDs to 88 to 100% of GCDs... on which added likelihood of wipes and healer frustration you commented only that 'hard content is supposed to be hard'...

....

Make this make sense, please?

There is no way, whatsoever, that a difference of roughly 1% of party dps is going to invoke as much flaming as healers even in casual content needing to meet far, far higher relative healing requirements than are seen even in Ultimate and thereby frequently wiping their parties, so clearly the difference can't be concern for casual healers or their potentially getting flamed...


I get that you do not enjoy the kinds of optimization that go into damage dealing (as if that were ever separate from healing in XIV), but unlike higher skill ceilings for downtime activity and higher healing requirements, there is actual mutually exclusivity between [A] the current small amount of downtime tools feeling satisfying due to [a shift in] context (for a simple majority or greater of healers) and [B] having healing requirements that are still reasonably accessible to most players who would be interested in the given context.

The current amount of downtime engagement available is not large enough to support sufficient slack for less skilled and more skilled players alike to engage enjoyably with healing if offense and healing were flipped. Proportions of relevant actions more similar to what we had in Heavensward would be far more sustainable.


You've seen my own preferences, laid out quite a few times now: Much stronger relative healing requirements (though not nearly so far as 7x-or-more) atop a higher skill ceiling for downtime activity so that any and all healers can still feel reasonably engaged (even when the party is overgeared and/or makes few to no mistakes).

Note also that I haven't been okay with simply adding free damage, but have instead preferred options (choices made within the same set of opportunity cost); that is because in such cases the reward for optimization diminishes with each additional thing optimized. Whereas just adding an offensive oGCD has all the difference of its ppm directly, adding an offensive GCD action, for instance, has only its value-over-filler.


Thus far, you've pretty consistently disregarded accessibility and approachability the moment you'd otherwise get something more in keeping with your personal preferences, all while --the moment things step away from your personal preferences-- making out differences less than would result from typical run-to-run deviations from Crit RNG as if they would single-handedly wipe parties and nearly provoke harassment.

Wanting to heal in a game with a healer role isn't a crime. Wanting minimal dps in a game where DPS is a role but the player has selected a different role specifically to avoid it also isn't a crime.

No one has said that it is, only to be mindful that when a healer fails to optimize an additional downtime tool, the boss dies a few seconds later (because there are diminished returns for those optimizations and the output is shared enough to have high slack), while if you make relative healing requirements so high that the scarcity of downtime tools would finally feel appropriate, you leave almost zero slack and make healers a uniquely extreme bottleneck to each party.

It's not a matter of "We shouldn't increase healing requirements," but rather a matter of "(Nearly) removing healer downtime altogether is not a realistic solution to the lack of downtime engagement, because a single short-term and largely unshared output such as healing cannot by itself support so large a range as exists between highly skilled and unskilled healers; if tuned to be appropriate for the best of the best, it would be overwhelming for most of the rest, while if tuned to be appropriate even for less experienced healers, the problem would remain for those most skilled."

You've been insisting on a false binary. You can have BOTH less downtime and greater engagement in what downtime remains. The only thing you can't simultaneously have is a fulfilling experience at either end of a spectrum (player competence/experience) that is more widely varied than the tolerance of the output (healing) you vary them by (since healing is capped and bimodal, therefore lacking in slack or useful overflow).

[Renathras]

The problem -- or at the least, my problem -- with your "4 Healers Model" is, in short: the fact that Black Mage exists. Let me unpack what I mean by that.

Right, but the "4 Healers Model" is asking what Casters have. Casters do have BLM, but they also have RDM - which is FAR easier to pick up for most people even if absolute 95+ parses are difficult to achieve - and have SMN, arguably the easiest Job in the game.

Could you imagine someone arguing that all three Casters had to be like BLM? I'm sure some people DO, but can you seriously see that catching on? Now, imagine that they're not just asking all the Casters to be BLM level of difficulty, but also that they have healing tools are are responsible for watching party health bars. That is, being asked to do something that isn't strictly their role and that people who pick DPS Jobs often want to avoid, hence why they picked a DPS Job instead of a healer one.

That, to me, is what people are asking for when they're asking for all the healers to have demanding damage kits.

Indeed, I've proposed this very thing, that SGE be like BLM, before.

The answer to your question of Why is right there - RDM and especially SMN share a role with BLM but do not share that quality. And both are generally more played (and one might be forgiven for thinking more enjoyed/enjoyed by more people) due to it. I'm asking for no more than what Casters have translated to healers as a role.

In effect, what I'm asking for with 4 Healers Model is what Casters already have. They have BLM and RDM and SMN. They don't have all SMNs (what Healers are now) nor all BLMs (what the more DPS group is asking for). They have BLM AND they have SMN and they also have RDM floating around in between.

And as for "no change", while SMN has been completely reworked, RDM plays remarkably like it has since SB. Each expansion since they've been given a new end spell for their combo, but the only other change were (1) things made into AOEs (easier/simpler), (2) Mana reductions on their combo (debateably easier), (3) a movement tool no one uses because of how it mucks with the rotation (Reprise), (4) Acceleration's change to be a limited Swiftecast merged with Sharpcast (easier/more simple and making Enchanted Reprise all but pointless), and (5) making the AOE rotation include the melee/spell combo (also easier). It's been made slightly easier on net from what it was, while also remaining essentially unchanged from SB to ShB, and pretty close to unchanged in ShB to EW with most changes being reduction in clunk. So RDM has already been the "one left alone" even before EW, and the Caster role now has SMN as an even easier Job. The biggest of those changes was (2), which took two expansions and also was accompanied by Manification being made far EASIER to use (50/50 instead of "doubles current") and Acceleration being made easier to use. No new hotbar spaces/abilities were added in EW aside from Magick Barrier (and RDM still has among the lower hotbar counts in the game right now), which isn't part of its standard rotation and is akin to Lilybell/etc being added.

Indeed, RDM is a test case for how "one left alone" works. Even the changes to it have made it, on net, approximately the same difficulty or easier and removed clunk/jank that existed, and added no new or more complex buttons to its kit. And, again, Casters have this nice spread between SMN, RDM, and BLM.

Why can't healers have this?

Ren if you are going to post something on the forums then go “I’m not gonna reply to anything about this” then you obviously have little to no faith you can defend your reasoning

Again, that's untrue. Some people just don't ENJOY debate.

I do, and I suspect you do. There are people who sometimes enjoy the verbal sparing more than the debate itself. Me personally, I like debating ideas to see different perspectives, adapting my view in light of new evidence or good argument (as I've noted before, my views on these issues have changed over time - recall I once said only one healer should have a DPS rotation at all, and that it should still be relatively simplistic, and largely rejected the idea that healing in FFXIV had any significant problems), just seeing what others have to say, testing my own positions (I have a longstanding belief that the only way one can be sure their ideas are correct is to constantly have them challenged and see if they, or adaptations of them that can be made, can hold up to said challenges), and on more rare occasions, to simply test my own mind's ability to think and respond. The big reason I do it most of the time, though, especially against "brick wall" people on the opposed side who are unwilling to listen or change, is because I know there are lurkers and third parties that haven't made up their mind, and if all they see is one position day in and day out, they will start agreeing to it by default. "There's no other position, so this one must be correct, right?" By consistently presenting a different option, that gives people an actual choice and they can see, if they didn't agree with the prevailing one, that they aren't alone and may be right to question the mainline orthodoxy.

...but not everyone does enjoy that. Just as not everyone enjoys DPSing (or tanking or healing or even videogames), there are a lot of people in life that don't like having back and forths with people. Many absolutely believe their position is sound and that they could defend it if pressed, but that's not what they derive any pleasure from, and, in fact, recoil from doing. They don't want to shout people down, put people in their place, prove people wrong, or etc. They will voice their support or opposition to a position if they feel they must or need to add their voice in opposition to something they feel is bad, but that's the extent of how much they wish to be involved.

In short, not everyone's an activist; they will speak when an issue is important enough to them they feel pressed to do so, but that doesn't mean they're going to start attending rallies or put up election signs in their yard while shouting down their neighbors.

I'll also note you didn't present a counter to her argument.

As far as your "isn't it interesting"; I hadn't read her post when I wrote that part of my reply to you. So no, not connected.

Sebazy is also being...unpleasant. Me aside, she accused that person of not being able to handle things. Whether she thinks so or not, that's kind of rude to throw in someone's face in a public setting. And what I said to Roe applies here; some people have a mind for healing but not damage dealing. They can rise up to the challenge of greater healing requirements but not DPS ones. There are tons of people who play DPSers who say they cannot wrap their heads around healing. Imagine telling them that all roles in the game are now healer roles, and so even while you're doing your Transpose lines on BLM, you need to remember to weave in your Medica 2 and upkeep your 12 sec duration Regen on the Tank with every 3rd GCD. I would wager that not going over well with DPS players in this game.

Point is, not wanting to ENGAGE FURTHER is not the same thing as INABILITY TO DEFEND a position. Especially considering how few (any, really?) people on the more DPS side have actually shown a willingness to change their minds or entertain alternate viewpoints and positions.

Also: I'd choose coils, too. GCD healing, Stoneskin, Medica 2, Regen upkeep, not casting DPS spells unless you had excess MP - sounds good to me. I healed back then. Sill remember being drafted into 1st Coils by the FC at the time and that first Twintania kill with not even a guide before being pulled in...

[AmiableApkallu]

Right, but the "4 Healers Model" is asking what Casters have.

I didn't talk about "casters" or the "magical ranged DPS role (i.e., casters)" as my reference point. I specifically talked about "Black Mage," a single job. Please, respond to what I wrote, not what you think I wrote or wish I had wrote.

If SMN had a healthy gap between it's skill floor and skill ceiling, a lot of the complaints you see on the forums would go away. But that gap does not exist, so people complain. By comparison, DNC is also an easy class to pick up, but it still has room for optimization -- it has that healthy gap between the skill floor and skill ceiling. And thus, it doesn't get the same level of complaints. This is the point, that a job can be easy to pick up and still provide complexity to those who want it.

You seem to want to accommodate people who pick a role first, and then pick whatever job happens to fulfill their other desires. Fair. I want to be able to pick a job based on its aesthetic -- which can reasonably be expected to be tied into a role -- and then find my other desires fulfilled. Thankfully for me, the latter approach subsumes the former.

SE could give AST, SCH, and SGE stupidly high levels of complexity, and it'd do nothing for me, because what I want is something resembling the not-completely-brain-damaged WHM that I fondly recall from FF1 and FF4.

[LinaAkayomi]

I believe currently this is the most pressing issue in the entire game that needs to be addressed above everything else. That is my feedback.

Play Scholar or Astrologian then

[Katish]

Play Scholar or Astrologian then

Problem exists on all healers once you learn that they are basically the same cookie cutter of a job,
i.e a pizza pie is still a pizza, even if you tack on the pie (the heal bloat).
In AST case, it has a higher button bloat but still exists within the cookie cutter once you learn the job. It doesn't really change things or shake it up after you figure how lazy it becomes.

(I healed you, probably didn't need to if in a dungeon but okay, back to spamming one button.)

[Ivtrix]

Play Scholar or Astrologian then

scholar is by far the easiest healer of them all ????

[Rein_eon_Osborne]

Wdym, I still 1 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 80% of time (or more) with those two jobs? You mean enjoying carpal tunnel syndrome for 15s then try to fight the urge to not sleep for 105s is THE rotation? Lmfao.

[ForsakenRoe]

Let's run a hypothetical. Imagine a dungeon boss. it autoattacks the tank and it does raidwides. As a demonstration of this 'increased healing required', in your opinion, how often should those raidwides occur, and how much damage should they do? Exact numbers please, no feelycraft 'often enough to require GCD healing', I want an exact number of seconds and damage value (can be rounded to the nearest thousand, eg 10k)

Still waiting on this one, for anyone 100% committed to 'ZERO more damage rotation complexity'/'more healing required of the player is the way to go' who wants to give the thought experiment a go

I do disagree with "damage feeding into healing/vice verse". I think that some Jobs can and should be made that way (SGE is), but not all of them. DIVERSITY is the solution, not trading one form of homogeneity for another. Especially as it still doesn't address the problem of people wanting to play healers to heal. Imagine if all the DPS Jobs in the game had to use a heal on someone before they could use their big attacks. BLM has to use a Cure 1 equivalent on someone, and it can't overheal, before they can use Xenoglossy. SAM must use a Physic equivalent on someone, and it can't overheal, before they can use Iaijutsu.

That would go over like a lead balloon.

So the idea that healers must damage before being able to heal or to access some of their heals just seems counter to understanding, on a basic level, a lot of people play healers because they DON'T ENJOY dpsing. If they did enjoy dpsing, they'd probably be playing a DPS or one of the hybrids like DNC or RDM or SMN.

Well, healing feeds into damage via Misery already, so you're out of luck on the 'vice versa' part as it is. But the part we don't have, 'damage feeds into healing' (no, Kardia doesn't count. At least, not current version), doesn't have to be exclusively damage. Like, say we have a system where using damage skills (or DOT ticks) as SCH builds Fairy Gauge, and said Fairy Gauge has more uses given to it than just Union. Maybe Blessing now pulses AOE healing, maybe Illumination (the mit) has no cooldown but now costs gauge, etc. Just because the DOTs build gauge, doesn't mean that other things that are non-damage can't also build gauge. EG, they could make it so that if you cast Adlo or Succor, it also builds gauge, possibly at a much faster rate. For example, if SCH had 3 DOTs, each DOT effect could give 1 gauge per tick, for a total of 3 per tick if all 3 are up. Then, Adlo and Succor could give 10 gauge per cast. The faster gauge gain should not need to be a consideration for 'oh the SCH will have the gauge heal tools too often' because they don't want to use the GCDs that provide that accelerated gauge gain, they want to use the damage skills, and get gauge that way. So then if the heal spells also gave gauge this way, if the player is thrown into a hard healing check (cough Harrowing Hell), they don't 'lose access' to the gaugebased healing tool, because of having to drop their damage to spam Succors, the Succors themselves would be providing gauge too

And what I said to Roe applies here; some people have a mind for healing but not damage dealing. They can rise up to the challenge of greater healing requirements but not DPS ones. There are tons of people who play DPSers who say they cannot wrap their heads around healing. Imagine telling them that all roles in the game are now healer roles, and so even while you're doing your Transpose lines on BLM, you need to remember to weave in your Medica 2 and upkeep your 12 sec duration Regen on the Tank with every 3rd GCD. I would wager that not going over well with DPS players in this game.

And what I've said about that still applies and will continue to apply regardless of how often you try to make the point: Some people can rise to the challenge of greater healing requirements, but a lot cannot. Abyssos showed us this.

Why are your 'examples' always so... weird? Like, it's not just 'taken to the extreme', they're bordering on nonsensical. Setting aside the fact you went for specifically the 'most complex/optimization deep' job in the entire game for your example, you are also vastly exaggerating the amount of healing required for the sake of your example. You list Regen as 12s when it's 18, so I'm going to assume you've got your own version mentally made to suit the example, but since SE hates the idea of nerfing anything, only ever 'rebalancing' things, I expect it'd wind up similar to when they halved Med2's duration but doubled it's HOT potency, effectively keeping it's potency the same, but dealing it in half the time. So a 12s Regen would just be 'the potency of the 18s version we have now (1500), over 12s instead', which puts each tick at 375 instead of 250? Anyway besides that, you don't need to refresh a 12s HOT every 3 GCDs, it'd be every 5, you don't need the HOT's potency that constantly even in Week 1 Savage (you'd maybe use it for things like the stompy TB bleed from P10S to keep the tanks stable (and even then, not WAR because WAR) for example, but not 100% uptime like you suggest), and what damage is coming out that demands this 'weave in Medica 2'?

All of this, and it's just strawmanning at the end of the day. Might have made a little more sense if you'd used SMN for the comparison, given that you're always going on about how I'm hellbent on making WHM more complex than SMN

[Nizzi]

Play Scholar or Astrologian then

how are you still playing heavensward when we're all in endwalker

[Aravell]

Some WHMs complained about Aero 3, but a lot were also very pleased with Misery. Misery was, in fact, the most praised change to the Job going into ShB, and is an ability that has become Job defining since then, and effectively it replaced Aero 3 in the rotation (between it and the two builders that lead to it).

I don't know if this is a conscious thing you do, but do you notice that you tend to minimise things you don't agree with by saying "Some people want X" "Some people complained about X"?

Sure, some people complain about things. But if the complaints all pile up and generally hit on the same points, then it's safe to say that there's an actual problem there and it should be looked into.