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

[WaxSw]

Genuine question:

Are we talking about Savage content or normal Dungeons?

If we're talking about normal dungeons, then the healing requirement could be doubled and still be doable with Medica 2 spam. So that wouldn't hurt the casual healer at all.

If we're talking about Savage content, then the DPS contribution isn't optional.

So no, you can't use this deflection.

(That is, if we're talking casual content, then increasing EITHER is in the same boat of not mattering, so that doesn't support increasing damage and not healing; if we're talking hardcore content, then increasing EITHER is in the same both of very much mattering, so that doesn't support increasing damage and not healing, either.)

If we want a real solution it has to work regardless of difficulty.

In normal content the healing increase could easily overwhelm the casual player, there are people out there who still spam cure 1 and struggle with solo instances. Have one single bad healer and you basically have locked a party from clearing, besides to have a decent healing for our kit the damage should increase way more than 2x, usual dungeon only ask for around 4k hps for a healer and with 0GCDs healers can go way above 10k

The casuals who struggle to heal normal mode do not attempt savage so those instances of mandatory dps woudn't affect them, and besides, as harsh as this may sound, if someone struggle so much dealing damage as healer they dont belong to savage to begin with.

[AmiableApkallu]

IF the damage output is different, it isn't an "option" anymore. It's only an option when it's functionally identical. No one wants a Stone-Aero-Water rotation that does the same exact damage and effects as a Glare-Glare-Glare rotation, but that's the only thing that would be absolutely optional.

This is false.

• Is a party required to time everything to a two minute burst?
• Is anyone required to meld materia to their gear?
• Is anyone required to be in BiS gear?
• Is anyone required to use tinctures?
• Is a DNC required to start Standard Step before the pull?
• Is a DNC required to pool procs, feathers, and Espirit for Technical Finish windows?
• Is a DNC required to change their partner mid-fight to accomodate who's about to do the most damage over the next 30 seconds?
• Is a NIN required to pre-pull Huton and Hide to reset mudra charges?
• Is a AST required to dump three cards into a two minute burst?
• Is a SCH required to dump six Energy Drains into a two minute burst?
• Is a WHM required to dump lilies so that they can put Misery into a two minute burst?
• Etc. etc.

There are a whole slew of things that affect damage output. They are most certainly optional in normal mode content, and from what (relatively little) I've seen of higher end content, they can often be rendered optional with higher ilvls and simply not dying. The content dictates what's required, not some theorycrafting of what is "optimal."

This whole thing is why I pitch the 4 Healers Model idea all the time, since it addresses this by letting players who want to have to press more DPS buttons to pick the hhealer Job(s) that have them, and those who do not want to press them to choose the healer Job(s) that do not.

And thus, the problem with your "4 Healers Model": It's 4 healers only if one desires to interact with their DPS kit in a simple way, as they can choose from all 4 healers and do so. For those who desire to interact with their DPS kit in a more complex way, they can choose only from 3 healers.

[Aravell]

Is healer DPS significant or is it not?

The point I'm making here is twofold.

1) Too much damage is rolled into the single filler spell, you can drop your DoT for the entire fight and you might even do the same damage as having decent DoT uptime if your fillers crit enough.

2) Healer dps is very minor in deciding whether you hit enrage or clear. I've said before that 0 damage healers can clear every savage fight, they just need to be in a party of geared players so it takes them later into the tier to clear it, but they can clear it. If you hit a 1% enrage and you dropped your DoT a couple times, that doesn't even cover the 1% in some fights. If a party is hitting enrage, the last thing they'd look for is healer optimisation.

[ForsakenRoe]

Yes, but this is true of one-button DPS as well. This is an argument against all change. I think MOST OF US recognize that healing in this game has to have a complete revamp from the foundation to the rafters. I mean, maybe I'm wrong about that, but I think that's what all sober-minded appraisals have come down to. The problems are so fundamental, they require a complete shift to work. "We've had them for so long/grandfathered in" works just as well for one-button DPS rotations as well.

Does it? Because as far as I can see, we've had the 'current DPS rotation' design since SHB (so, 3 years, 4 by the time 7.0 launches). By comparison, we've had OGCD healing tools to support our healing output since... ARR's relaunch, 10 years ago? Granted, we had less of them back then, but what we have now, where healing is almost entirely handled via OGCDs, is a natural evolution of that, because it's not very easy to add a new GCD healing tool with a niche that makes it feel good to use, compared to an OGCD one. Look how hard it is for the devs to work out how to add a new Kenki spender in place of Kaiten

If anything is 'grandfathered in' about the damage side of things, surely it's the ARR-SB era design?

1) That depends entirely on HOW it's implemented (e.g. I've proposed some before where the difference is negligible, and generally, been told the difference was too small and not enough "reward" for the "more work"),
2) This is a very mechanical view - many people like how their Jobs feel to play, so a mechanical argument of "you're only losing out on 0.001% damage" isn't going to help if they FEEL the Job feels bad to play post-change,

1: Was this 'not enough reward (potency)' or 'not enough reward (difference in gameplay from current design)' because the two are very different things. Energy Drain's continued existence and defense by some players should prove that it doesn't matter how small a potency gain 'optimization tricks' give us, the fact there's a difference is what motivates those optimizers to do what they do. You can stand on the boss's ass the whole fight and miss two positionals a minute as NIN (the Armor Crushes) totaling 80p loss per min. You'll still see NINs go for the side positional, because it's more damage.

2: I am not entirely sure you can judge 'how a job feels' if the design hasn't even been implemented. Just seeing a DOT in the kit and going 'ew a DOT' is not really a good reason to naysay the whole design. I can just as easily posit that the average player would be ecstatic to play my design, that after just one EX roulette with it, the increased mobility the instantcasts afford them, the more powerful feeling AOE burst, the 'exhilarating heal work' they can do using not only the new gaugespending heal tool but also the new shield-applying Lily spells, they will flock to the forums to say 'thank you Yoshida WHM is so good now' and all buy the Cruise Chaser on the Mogstation to show their appreciation

[Teno]

Yes, but this is true of one-button DPS as well. This is an argument against all change. I think MOST OF US recognize that healing in this game has to have a complete revamp from the foundation to the rafters. I mean, maybe I'm wrong about that, but I think that's what all sober-minded appraisals have come down to. The problems are so fundamental, they require a complete shift to work. "We've had them for so long/grandfathered in" works just as well for one-button DPS rotations as well.[/hb]

...since when are you most of us ? You're still not any authority after the last few books you wrote. Healing doesn't need a complete revamp, it needs simple changes within the game's confines that would drastically improve gameplay, no need to reinvent the wheel.

[Rein_eon_Osborne]

[...]You're literally arguing "If they change healing to where it is the way they already play, they'll all quit! But if we change healing to something they don't already do - more DPS buttons - they'll all totally keep doing it". I'm not even sure how to argue against something so divorced from...basic logic.[...]

Read again from Zeastria's post.

I was merely questioning what was the logic behind 'making 100% uptime heal will make dps healer quit' because according to my own account & couple other's, it's usually the opposite: 100% heal uptime healer struggles & realizes how hard current healing requirement is & in its simplest way---choose to bail. Will they learn eventually? Maybe, maybe not (If they do, they're officially not Sylphies anymore ). But what makes they think they will when Abyssos have proven again that harder heal requirement has been one of the part in play that caused that healer shortage, and what makes they think this will not happen in casual content too when a good deal of healer population at that time was already babied somewhat by Asphodelos' tier---the same way that modern healer population in DF who has been babied by the lack of nuance & at some point even borderline optional? (They haven't answered it yet but oh well :shrug: I mean they did, but they misinterpret follow up reply so, whatever.)

Good side of 'Green DPSes' on the other hand more than willing & capable to adjust accordingly if they are need to, but of course I guess they're filthy dps healer cause of that one bad green dps amirite? lmao

Also, your credential doesn't match what you're saying here. You're not going to convince me that Sylphie is in a short supply when the fact is my shorter but more concentrated & doubly plentiful DF experiences has been rich with Sylphies who absolutely fumbles through their buttons.

Good thing you deleted that Lifer III rebuttal cause I was about bonk you for that -.-

[Renathras]

If we want a real solution it has to work regardless of difficulty.

Yes but also no?

Question I've not seen an answer to - Roe may have offered one that I missed, but no one else has that I can tell - what level of DPS rotation WOULD IT TAKE for you to NEVER get bored with current MSQ difficulty content?

At the end of the day, nothing is going to work for all difficulties. Jonny Casual isn't going to be healing Ultimates and Leroy Ultimate isn't going to ever NOT be bored running MSQ content. There are some truths of our reality, and those are foundational ones.

This is false.

Nope, it's true.

It's something YOU don't care about, but other people DO care about. If we take a REALLY wide view, we could just say everything in the game is optional, but that isn't useful to have discussions. For it to be optional to me, the gap would have to be really small. Otherwise it's not optional, and I'm not the only person who feels that way. You saying it's optional doesn't alter that. And again, note my argument here:

One CAN argue that the benefits outweigh the costs. That's a valid line of discussion. One CANNOT insist that there are NO COSTS.

The point of this rhetorical "it doesn't matter/it's optional" trick is to shift the onus onto those resisting the change when the onus for change is on those arguing for it.

This is also true of the 4 Healers Model opposition. And the irony is, if people would give on that, they'd likely get most of what they want otherwise. But the insistence that no provision may be allowed for those who don't want what you're selling is why you get nothing.

Also, keep in mind that several people (who aren't me and oppose me on most arguments) have said the 4 Healers Model COULD work (just they want to be very specific about it), though most go back on that later. Generally it's a "Well, how about this?!" And then I say yes and they're like "Waitwait, no, that isn't...!", meaning they didn't think I'd say yes so it wasn't a serious compromise proposal, they just didn't realize how expansive the idea is.

The point I'm making here is twofold.

Honestly, I didn't find this post too disagreeable. (2) is a position I've held for a while. I've been attacked every time I've said it here, though. You won't be, fortunately, since you have the "right views".

Personally, I think a different solution is in order.

Does it?

Yes.

I mean, simple answer: Yes. Not trying to be snarky, that's just...the answer.

Or did you mean that a complete rework of healing in this game isn't necessary?

As for oGCD healing - in ARR, WHM had only one oGCD heal, and it was an emergency button/one with very specific planning requirements. SCH had 3 (realistically) oGCD heals per minute. [Caveat: You could shoehorn Embrace via Macros back then, though...but lots of people didn't actually do that. Still, this is a valid SCH argument, not a valid "we've all done this since ARR" argument; and we've had this conversation enough times before that you know this already.] So no, it wasn't really a thing we've used since ARR's relaunch 10 years ago. oGCD healing became really prevalent into SB after it being picked up by tip end raiders in HW. WHM didn't get in on the act until Lilies in ShB as shoehorned "oGCD" heals.

(SB era it had only Tetra since even then people were using Assize for the damage, not healing, and it didn't really have outright oGCD heal options since things like Plenary worked off of...ugh...CURE spells. Seriously, ANYONE who thinks WHM was better in SB, you're just wrong... <_< The second Lily incarnation a patch or three in was an improvement, but it was still not great, but the original "20% chance of getting a Lily when you cast CURE ONE"? Even back then, that was terrible.)

What we have NOW (and have since ShB for WHM, since SB for SCH and AST, and only since EW for SGE given it's only existed since EW) is the oGCD healing model. Making it a mere 2 years older, in practice, than the one button DPS rotation.

...also note AST had the "1111" spam since SB (if not HW; it never had a robust DPS suite) and WHM has had it since SB Aero was normalized. So the "one button" DPS "rotation" is as old (or older) than oGCD healing for WHM, and arguably as old as it for AST.

For SCH, your argument holds water. But even I advocate for SCH to have its SB state restored, so...

.

1) Then no change at all works, right? Or something so minimal as to be irrelevant. The problem, of course, is that it's pretty normal for people to say that to get what they want at first (camel nose in the tent), then say later "Well, now that we have this thing and are doing more work..." to demand more. And the problem is, it's not like we can sign some kind of contract or something to prevent that. And we have SCH with that system in the game RIGHT NOW and are being told it's not enough...so that kind of defeats your argument in that specific case, doesn't it?

2) Well, in some specific cases we can if the proposals are things we had before. For example "Make Dia 18/12 sec duration and re-add Aero 3" is a thing we've had before. I remember playing that in SB. So I can judge how it feels since I remember how it felt before. I can also say that I enjoyed PvP (this is relevant, hold on) before the EW changes in some cases. WHM specifically; I don't like not having a filler cure spell. So the "more burst but more limited heals; do more dps" doesn't feel as good to me. The more bursty DAMAGE spells with short CDs is nice (Misery and Purgation both feel good to use, Seraph not so much since it forces melee engagement), but Cure 2 being heavily limited to 2 charges and Cure 3 locked behind Seraph and Medica 2 being locked behind Purgation all feel really bad. I find so many times I need to heal ONE MORE person but Cure 2 is on CD and Cure 3 is either not up yet (since Seraph isn't) or isn't viable (since Seraph in that situation would result in death). It's then I wish for the old Cure 1 that PvP had before.

Further, it lends to an encounter design (which PvP is) of bursting people down rapidly and there being nothing people can do about it outside of VERY clutch maneuvers. So if we made PvE like this, it would mean even more massive spikes of damage that have to be rapidly healed, which leads to bad encounter design. How do I know this? Wrath of the Lich King into Cataclysm. WoW had this same problem, and in trying to "fix" it, they actually made it worse. It was the least fun healing in that game's history. No thank you. Making healing more like that would be less fun.

See? I DO speak from experience from time to time.

...since when are you most of us ? You're still not any authority after the last few books you wrote. Healing doesn't need a complete revamp, it needs simple changes within the game's confines that would drastically improve gameplay, no need to reinvent the wheel.

I'm not?

I'm referring to the conversations in the healer forum for months. Go read them. The majority of players there, if not everyone, seems to think that healing needs a total rework. That's not a Ren position. Roe, Sebazy, Semi, etc have all also advocated for it. This is the one thing you can't make me an island about, friend.

And who are you, new person to the conversation? I mean, everyone's view is valid, but coming on kind of jerkish with the "last few books you wrote" quip. Either make a point or don't, insults don't help your case.

Read again from Zeastria's post.

You can't reference something that hasn't happened yet.

It is accurate to say that people that enjoy DPSing on healers wouldn't like it if healing became only casting heals. That's a pretty fair argument, regardless of what you think. "You like X, so we're removing X" "Well, then I won't like it anymore" makes sense. "You like X so we're making it only X" "Great! I love X!" makes sense. "Those who like X won't like us giving them more X, but those who dislike X will be totally cool with more X" does not.

But this is, as I said before, a dumb side argument, so I'm not going to keep going on with trying to convince you to see reality.

(Oh, at first I thought you meant the dungeons one. Then I got to thinking about it. For my part, I've got close to 4,000, which is more than adequate "credentials" for a sample size. But yes, I wanted to be technically accurate.)

Also, I'm not the one saying that people can't adjust, amirite, or making caricatures about entire groups of people, lmao. That's what you're doing.

All I was saying is that people who only heal now wouldn't be upset at healers being converted to only healing, while people who like DPSing on healers would be upset by such a change. There's no rational counter argument there, since that's literally what the two sets of people want and what they'd be upset by. It'd be like if Tanks were told "You don't have agro anymore and you don't control the boss". The people that enjoy that would be upset while the people who don't mind being a budget DPS Job would be perfectly fine with it.

But again, dumb side argument, have whatever last word you want, I don't care to keep back and forth brick walling you on something so irrelevant and there's nothing else to really argue.

[ForsakenRoe]

Roe may have offered one that I missed, but no one else has that I can tell

Jonny Casual isn't going to be healing Ultimates and Leroy Ultimate isn't going to ever NOT be bored running MSQ content.

For it to be optional to me, the gap would have to be really small. Otherwise it's not optional

Or did you mean that a complete rework of healing in this game isn't necessary?

Seriously, ANYONE who thinks WHM was better in SB, you're just wrong...

Further, it lends to an encounter design (which PvP is) of bursting people down rapidly and there being nothing people can do about it outside of VERY clutch maneuvers. So if we made PvE like this, it would mean even more massive spikes of damage that have to be rapidly healed, which leads to bad encounter design. How do I know this? Wrath of the Lich King into Cataclysm. WoW had this same problem, and in trying to "fix" it, they actually made it worse. It was the least fun healing in that game's history. No thank you. Making healing more like that would be less fun.

I'm referring to the conversations in the healer forum for months. Go read them. The majority of players there, if not everyone, seems to think that healing needs a total rework. That's not a Ren position. Roe, Sebazy, Semi, etc have all also advocated for it.

1: You've gotta be doing this on purpose at this point. Nobody could possibly be this bad at seeing receipts, I refuse to believe it. Nevertheless, here you go:

I've answered this, multiple times: the rotation I suggested would be one I'd be satisfied with. The ones you've suggested, I'd have reservations about how long the 'this is enough' would last, but I'd try it. And here's the receipts for you to not read (again) because they're in a HB tag:

Can't say I didn't call it, I guess. Don't be comin back til you've read it

The rest is going in tags to save people's eyes

2: Tanks can clear dungeons by just spamming, eg, Total Eclipse, or Overpower to keep aggro. They do not need to do more than that, no need for Confiteor or Primal Rend or Fated Circles. But they do have those buttons to use, if they want to engage with that complexity. This 'optional complexity' allows for a more skilled player, to have more to do during the dungeon run. It might not be enough to fully satisfy their attention, but it's better than denying them the option to use those moves entirely, and forcing them to use just Total Eclipse/Overpower, as we are with AOW/Holy/the other two.

3: How small is 'small'? Name your number. Assuming you're on about singletarget damage against a boss, the only time where 'you did not have enough damage' is an issue (thanks to enrage timers), how small a gain per minute for doing 'full optimization' compared to 'spam Glare, refresh Dia' are you looking for? I've had 160p per minute shot down so I assume it's lower than that. What about if Glare4 is 320 next expansion, and Banish were 330? 325? What about if it were also 320, and the 'gain' is just that it gives more resource than Glare does? At what magical number does a design suddenly cross from 'unacceptable, people will cause enrage wipes CONSTANTLY' to 'actually this is fine =)', because I think it's pretty silly to think that, eg, a difference of 100p per minute will not cause issues, but 110p is suddenly the end of the world

4: A 'complete rework' of the way healing works in this game is just not feasible to expect from a devtime perspective. SE is a company that wants to make money, and as such it's much more likely they'll try to ducttape the current paradigm into 'functional status' for several years before admitting it's screwed and needs replacing outright. As such, when I posted my posts a year ago, I did it from this perspective: that SE is not going to be changing how the healing side of healers work much, if at all. That SE would rather take an 'easy way out' to the problem of 'satisfy veteran healers', as long as said 'out' does not also come at the harm of casual players getting into healing. That SE would want to spend as little effort and dev time on the 'rework' as possible, resulting in a preference towards solutions that make use of existing assets, such as bringing back old abilities, tuning potencies, non-intrusive changes like that, that do not require, eg, rebalancing old raid content to make sure it's still clearable after said rework.

If I wanted to suggest what I want, as a 'pie in the sky, anything goes' post, I'd have done so. Instead, I took a realist approach and went with, not 100% 'what I want', but 'what I believe is feasible for SE to deliver, with the above criteria in mind'.

5: Good thing I've seen like... zero people asking for WHM to go back to SB's design, exactly as it was in SB, and several saying 'what if WHM was designed like SB, and they applied the SHB Lily fix to it without removing Aero 3/longstretching Aero2's duration', then isn't it? SB WHM was indeed bad, as a full package. Lilies sucked, generating them sucked, having no agency over what they were spent on sucked, the effect for spending them sucked. But there were some good things about the class too that got lost in the transition to SHB. Like being able to DOT everything in a pull with Aero 3. Not just 'boo hoo Aero 3 is gone I am sad', but surely you've noticed that Holy is a 4s duration for it's first stun? So, if you cast another Holy 2.5s later, next GCD, the 1.5s that is left is replaced by a 2s duration stun, effectively extending it by 0.5s. In SB, however, you could Holy, A3 to fill for one GCD, Holy spam, and get the benefit of that 1.5s stun that you currently lose, while also DOTing everything up for more pack-melting power. Now we have to do it with Misery and I'm not a fan of burning healing resources without healing to use them on, so I don't prep Misery in trash unless the healing is actually getting used for something (in self-heal-tankWalker design, that's unlikely)

6: Isn't this... arguing that 'more healing required' is not a good idea? Or at least, one of the possible ways to implement 'more healing required'? Your stance is hard to get a handle on. You don't want sudden spiky damage on random people because it's hard to react to (true, which is why GCDlocking all the OGCDs seems really silly to me), you don't want 'raidwides we have now, but more often' because you've previously said you did not like Barb EX's damage profile. So, you want 'raidwides hit as often as now, but harder', which is the Abyssos solution (and caused the Abyssos issue), you want 'raidwides are more unpredictable so we have to react to them', which possibly has the WOTLK-Cata spiky issue if the tuning's bad, or something else? I know you're on record with Barb EX, but ignore the EX part. If we think about the hectic phase of the fight, and think not about what the 'damage taken' numbers say, but just how often 'a number' appears, would that not be better for something like EX roulette bosses? For example, if every time the thunder tiger in Aetherfont set down thunder lines by jumping or spinning, he also did proximity damage, the 'speed of damage instances' the players take would be higher. But that doesn't require that the players take obscene amounts of damage. Again, it comes down to how much damage in this game is 'avoidable' by not standing in the AOEs. They could have made the thunder guy's lightning webs deal 10k for being in the 'safe spot' and 40k damage plus a vuln for standing in the lightning tendrils, for example. The fact we can 'all or nothing' some damage, and take literally zero damage by just not standing on the bad things, is part of what makes it hard to decide 'how much healing should the game demand of the player'. Because some parties will dodge everything and some will dodge nothing at all

7: I don't think healing needs a 'total rework', just 'a fresh insight into how the healers interact with the game content', like, maybe a new addition to the job design team wouldn't go amiss. None of my job 'reworks' would I consider a 'total rework', like what I listed for WHM or SCH is going to be far far less than what SE's going to do to AST's poor corpse in 7.0. I'd call them just 'reworks', not 'total'. No, the only thing I'd consider a 'total rework', 'total overhaul' whatever, that I've ever posted, is that I want the Pure/Barrier split dead and buried. I guess if you include the parts of the job pitches that relate to that (eg, WHM getting shielding Lily spenders), then I can see why it'd be viewed as 'total rework' territory. But I don't expect SE to accept that their 'split the healers into two categories on the PF list, without designing their kits to reflect the split whatsoever' idea was garbage for another 2 years at least, same as the 2min meta. So, the 'WHM rework' is the heal, the Banish button and the Dia rescale. The Lily spenders and 'lower level versions of stuff for making levelling feel less empty' would be nice to have, but ultimately not a 'hard requirement' for the pitch

It'd be like if Tanks were told "You don't have agro anymore and you don't control the boss". The people that enjoy that would be upset while the people who don't mind being a budget DPS Job would be perfectly fine with it.

They don't now anyway, I'm not sure if you've noticed but this has been the case for a while now. Boss teleports middle for every set mechanic (Paradeigma? one sec let me teleport 5 pixels left, which requires that I spin to face 90 degrees to the side to do so), Threat generation from tank stance makes it impossible to lose aggro to anyone other than the other tank (in which case, you should probably decide who's going to MT before pulling next time), but solving that issue is literally just a case of 'turn your stance off', or other tank doing so if you're meant to be aggroholder for that moment (eg mechanics, your invuln is needed next, etc). I was a tank that enjoyed aggro management, positioning boss, etc. Then they removed it. So I removed myself from the role, back in SHB. Now I'm a healer and it turns out they removed a lot of stuff here too. Wish I had the kind of mindset that enjoys DPS classes so I could go main those, and with the curse that seems to follow me, me being on them would get those sanded down to the design equivalent of a perfectly smooth orb too

And as a final note... JK it's actually the first note again. Read the damn quote, stop saying 'Roe hasn't answered I don't think', get some new material

[Renathras]

1: You've gotta be doing this on purpose at this point. Nobody could possibly be this bad at seeing receipts, I refuse to believe it. Nevertheless, here you go:

I literally addressed this, specifically noting you may have offered one that I hadn't read but that no one else did. I figured you had, but I haven't read that post of yours yet because I wanted to devote more time to thinking about it. Which is why I haven't addressed it specifically AND why I said you may have offered an answer but no one else has. Don't defend no one else answering when I already explicitly said you probably did.

"Roe may have offered one that I missed," is the exact opposite of "Roe hasn't answered". It was explicitly me saying you may HAVE answered and I just haven't read it yet, since I suspected you did. This is one time your animosity is particularly unwarranted.

EDIT:

Here you go:

Sorry in advance this is a long post, but if I put it in HB tags the person who needs to read it might just skip it and then claim I've not answered their questions

Alright, so I need to get around to answering all this:

1) I don't think it's possible to have content that everyone enjoys. I don't believe that's a possible thing, so I don't have an answer to the question that I personally believe the answer doesn't exist to. There is NO WAY to make casual 4 mans engaging to people that find them utterly boring now that doesn't ALSO alienate the people who find them engaging and enjoyable now. No amount of healing OR DPS rotation will make Aetherfont engaging to someone that sleepwalks through it right now that doesn't also alienate those that do not. IF you are a player that enjoys DPS rotations, then you'd need a full on DPS rotation that would keep you engaged if doing a target dummy. You say a mere 12 second Dia would keep you engaged and enjoying the content for hours. I kind of doubt that, but let's say I believe you - really? Okay... - that you would be enthralled with WHM if it was the exact same as it is right now with the only change being you press Dia 3x as often and nothing else. God, that's next to impossible to believe, but...I'll give you the benefit of the doubt. If that was enough to keep you engaged with the DPS side, then pressing Medica 2 ever 12 seconds should be enough to keep you engaged on the healing side, right?

2) But it is, because as I point out, there's no case where we can make casual content interesting to Savage/Ultimate players without making it inaccessible to casual ones. The solution should be to introduce different methods of obtaining tomes for the people that don't like the casual content, not making casual content into Savage. No one's arguing that Savage needs to be accessible to casuals, so people shouldn't be making the argument casual grind content should be at Savage level. I'm genuinely confused by this notion that all content must be for everyone. We already outright accept this isn't the case. The issue is that Savage players feel forced to DO Extreme roulettes, not that Extreme roulettes are, themselves, the problem.

3) It's so weird to me that you find a 12 sec Dia more engaging than more frequent uses of Holy, Assize, and Misery. Even if the proposal I made would literally have you casting Holy as often as your Dia proposal, but you'd ALSO be upkeeping Dia and keeping Assize on CD slotting int into the rotation. Like, I don't get how you think the more complicated thing is less fun than the braindead thing that you propose instead. It just...is so alien, it makes no sense. I guess if you're that alien, maybe you find pressing Dia every 4th GCD to somehow be more engaging. I don't get HOW, but if that's GENUINELY what you're into, you want an even more braindead rotation...I just have trouble getting how you're complaining about the current situation since you seem to be happy with the same thing.

4) "Tornado" Okay, now you're talking about more than just a 12 sec Dia.

5) Honestly, as little as AOE matters in this game - we don't do it in boss fights except for DPS checks where 9 times out of 10 the targets are too far apart to catch in AOE attacks anyway so it's a glorified single-target mini-phase - AOE discussions are kind of pointless in general.

6) Your suggestion is more than just 12 sec Dia, it seems. Well, that makes some more sense, but then it means you can't say you'd be satisfied with just the 12 sec Dia when you're having these other things, a new Job gauge, etc. And god, that sounds annoying. I liked NIN...up to the point they got Ninki, then it just became a chore. Not every Job needs some gauge with damage abilities associated with it, and I'm tired of people saying that they do.

7) As to the breath of change; that's kind of the point, though. The situation we have now isn't great, and changing it WOULD require major changes. Minor tweaks aren't going to make people happy. "Every 3rd Glare cast Holy" or "Now Essential Dignity has a 90 sec CD" aren't going to be welcome changes, and alone aren't going to satisfy people. We are where we are because minor changes just make things worse/upset people, but major changes are daunting.

EDIT2:

No, everyone wants to DPS, anyone who doesn't should go play a different game.

Wait, which is it, that everyone wants to DPS or you want to gatekeep the game from anyone who doesn't?

Why is that? It's not like DNC was a particularly fresh twist on the game for me, I was helping friends with P4S on DNC at the time.

Really?

I struggle not to fall asleep on DNC...

[Mithron]

No, Sebazy's right.

Not everyone actually enjoys DPSing. In games with four roles (Tank, Heal, DPS, Support), DPS makes up only around 30% of players, meaning around 2 out of 3 want to do something else. Many people pick Healers specifically because they like supporting and aiding allies and don't derive joy from big damage numbers nor satisfaction from executing a DPS rotation.

This is very much a "you think you do, but you don't" statement.

You may be correct that there are LESS people that want to be pure healers than the number of healers now, but the fact remains, there are genuinely people that would be content not dealing damage in group content. I remember in ARR being told that healers don't have MP for damage dealing, so only heal. Did that in tons of content and enjoyed it all just fine. I've also played games where healers couldn't deal damage for various reasons (generally MP), like Holy Priest and Resto Druid in BC and Wrath era WoW where you pretty much didn't hit an attack spell in group content (the whole "I'm going to WAND you to death!" meme was real for a reason), and people loved it. I loved it.

So you speak for yourself, not everyone, when you say "Everyone wants to contribute to damage in meaningful ways."

There are a lot of people who would be content only casting heals, and there are others who wouldn't, but would rather, as Sebazy says, contribute by buffing instead of damage dealing. This isn't saying there aren't people who want to deal damage and be kind of hybrid DPS/healers - there very clearly are - but not everyone "wants to contribute to damage".

No, everyone wants to DPS, anyone who doesn't should go play a different game.