How DPS complexity can make healers more forgiving

[ty_taurus]

But yeah, however it'll take me a bit of time to re-math things for a different job.

Okay, so I have something for White Mage. One thing I'd like to mention first, though, is that unlike Scholar which I could largely just build off the tools it used to have, the other healers never had anything other than just less DoTs than Scholar (which is why I'm not really a fan of the 'just bring back Aero 3' argument. I don't want the healers to just be a handful of DoTs and that's it). So I built something from scratch, and in the effort of saving time, I just kinda rolled with the first ideas that came to mind, so it's definitely unrefined, but it's a decent starting point for discussion. Oh and I'll use hidden boards this time since this one is longer.

Let me start by establishing what current White Mage looks like in terms of values. I'm still using the 26 cast reference point just because it's been what I was using previously, and like before this is only counting single target and doesn't include Assize as this is just the GCD.

Endwalker

DPS Spells

• Glare III - 310 potency
• Dia - 65 potency + 65 DoT over 30 seconds (715 total potency)
• Afflatus Misery - 1240 potency

2 Minute Potential

• Dia - 4 casts = 2860 potency
• Glare IIIx22 - 6820 potency

*Note: I'm not including Afflatus Misery since it's equal to glare use, but naturally you can sub Glare casts for Afflatus heals and Misery here or anywhere really.

Total 26 Cast Potency Potential: 26 casts = 9680 potency

Remaining Glare III Casts: 22 casts = 6820 potency

Total Possible Potency in 2 Minutes = 16500 potency
26 Cast Contribution: 58.7~%
Remaining Glare Contribution: 41.3~%
Value per Glare III: 1.9~%

Theorycraft White Mage
Now that we have a reference of what the current White Mage looks like, this is the concept. It'll need a small amount of explanation since it's a more original concept than with the Scholar examples.

On the Healing Gauge, every 60 seconds, a White Lily blooms, which an be spent on Afflatus Purgation. This works like Polyglots on Black Mage (i.e. after one generates, the cooldown for the next has already begun even before you cast Afflatus Purgation)

New Gauge: The Retribution Gauge. Each casts of Banish or Ablution raises Retribution by 1 level. At level 4, enhances the Holy III spell.

Spells

• Glare III - 165 potency
• Afflatus Misery - 660 potency
• Afflatus Purgation - 480 potency.
• Dia - 120 potency. Inflicts 4 stacks of "Dia" as a debuff on the target (no duration). When casting Banish or Ablution on the target, consumes 1 stack to deal an additional 200 potency damage. (920 total potency)
• Banish - 300 potency. No MP cost. Has a 20 second cooldown on the GCD with 2 charges. Shares a recast with Ablution. When Banish is cast, you can immediately cast a free Banish or Ablution again regardless of the cooldown (think Ogi Namikiri from Samurai).
• Ablution - 300 potency. Heals self and nearby party members with a potency of 250. 800 MP cost. Has a 20 second cooldown on the GCD with 2 charges. Shares a recast with Banish. When Ablution is cast, you can immediately cast a free Banish or Ablution again regardless of the cooldown.
• Holy III - 120 potency + 4 second stun. When at level 4 Retribution, increases to 360 potency, is instant cast, and turns Glare III into a 2 action combo of Ruach into Eschaton (Think Verflare/Verholy > Scorch). This "Combo" cannot be interrupted by casting other spells.
• Ruach - 180 potency + 180 potency DoT over 15 seconds (1080 total potency)(Although this is a DoT, it's not an uptime DoT. Think Circle of Scorn from Paladin).
• Eschaton - 480 potency.

2 Minute Potential

• Dia - 3 casts = 2760 potency
• Banish/Ablution - 12 casts = 3600 potency
• Holy III - 3 casts = 1080 potency
• Ruach - 3 casts = 3240 potency
• Eschaton - 3 casts = 1230 potency
• Afflatus Purgation - 2 casts = 960 potency

Total Non-Glare Potency Potential: 26 casts = 12870 potency

Remaining Glare III Casts: 22 casts = 3630 potency

Total Possible Potency in 2 Minutes = 16500 potency
Non-Glare Contribution: 78%
Remaining Glare Contribution: 22%
Value per Glare III: 1%

Theorycraft Summary
I know it's a lot more information because it's very new, but it's a lot more simple than it seems. Basically, Banish and Ablution share a cooldown and both do light burst damage in two casts. One costs no MP, the other heals. They have a 20 second cooldown with 2 charges, and you just want to apply Dia before you cast those. When you do so is quite flexible.

Every 40ish seconds (once you've cast 4 Banishes/Ablutions) you'll hit Retribution level 4, cast Holy III, followed by a double up of Ruach/Eschaton, which are just bonus actions that replace Glare after Holy III. This cannot be interrupted unlike with Red Mage, though, so if you need to heal around that time, you can. Lastly, you can toss in an Afflatus Purgation once a minute. It's probably not perfect. As I said, I really just tried to roll with what came to mind at first just to establish this as quickly as possible, but maybe it could be a starting point for a more well-fleshed out idea.

[Sebazy]

I like it a lot for single target.

Some nitpicks:

Would it be worth condensing Banish and Ablution down into a one button combo as well? Having the two on separate buttons feels sort of needless to me if I'm understanding the flow of play right.

In light of the above, losing the big potency bomb from Misery is a bit of a shame in my eyes, it's a satisfying ability to use and a rare dopamine hit for healers as is, would it be worth dropping some potency from Banish to get Misery back to it's current value?

It's out of the remit of the post but it would need some expansion on multi target for sure, multi dotting on pull and getting value out of those big potency Miseries is the core of WHM aoe gameplay and this removes both of those facets. Perhaps something like Purgation adding a bane effect to a Dia'd target turning the Banish>Ablution cycle and Ruach into aoes?

[Shurrikhan]

Would it be worth condensing Banish and Ablution down into a one button combo as well? Having the two on separate buttons feels sort of needless to me if I'm understanding the flow of play right.

I'm pretty sure they're separate actions... They share the 20s CD, and using either grants a free (regardless of CD) use again of either one. You can Banish and then (free-)Banish, Ablution and then (free-)Ablution, or Banish and then (free-)Ablution, Ablution and then (free-)Banish.

They're already as condensed as they can be outside of using the same name for both the attack and heal and having the action vary with whether you target an ally or enemy (which you could just do via macros anyways, as long as you don't mind having less lenient queuing period).

It's out of the remit of the post but it would need some expansion on multi target for sure, multi dotting on pull and getting value out of those big potency Miseries is the core of WHM aoe gameplay and this removes both of those facets.

Note also that this is just a mock-up made specifically to avoid DoTs per Ren's request.

_______________

• Dia - 120 potency. Inflicts 4 stacks of "Dia" as a debuff on the target (no duration). When casting Banish or Ablution on the target, consumes 1 stack to deal an additional 200 potency damage. (920 total potency)

This seems like it'd be a particularly wasteful way to go about applying Dia as a non-DoT, however. First, it still has the "Oh noes! I have to look at my TARGET's Status Bar instead of my own. Whatever shall I do?!" since it's still a debuff that should be tracked for optimal pacing (reapply per 40s, on average over time). Secondly, though, normally the decision of whether to DoT or not is based around TTK, allowing us to wisely not DoT if we want to nuke something down in less than its redemption period (enough ticks to overtake our filler).

In this case though, your nukes (double-Banish) rely on having Dia up to begin with, so it instead ends up one of the uninterestingly near-universal obligatory actions like Heavy Thrust so long as Banish will be off cooldown soon.

But, so far as meeting Ren's request, all this looks nifty. Would almost certainly be an improvement over current WHM's flow even with those strictures, though I suspect it could of course be improved upon further.

[ForsakenRoe]

Still a more interesting burst window (pre-Dia, window starts, 4x Banish/Ablution based on need, Holy, Ruach, Eschaton, Misery, Purgation), compared to what we have now (Dia, Misery, Glare-but-faster). The 'new' window is 9GCDs long, so it'd only fully fit into 20s buffs like Mug (thanks to the speed from POM), which might be a bad thing, or a good thing, depending on how much the individual enjoys the concept of 'reorder my skills so the hardest hits are prioritized for the raidbuffs'

I'd take it. Dia's a bit odd but it makes sense to me to do it as explained, because the alternative is that it's a standard 'GCD with a separate CD' and Banish/Ablution already fills that

Also you really went all out with the biblical theme huh, I'd never even heard of 'Ruach' till now but since we have 'Tetragrammaton' it fits pretty well

edit: when you say 'cast Banish/Ablution, and get a second free cast of Banish/Ablution', does that refer to just the CD, or does the second Ablution also have zero MP cost?

[ChonkGoblinSuprem]

Add complexity and a higher skill ceiling and the freaky geeks crawl out of the woodwork crying about jank and balance…. It will never end.

[ty_taurus]

Also you really went all out with the biblical theme huh, I'd never even heard of 'Ruach' till now but since we have 'Tetragrammaton' it fits pretty well

edit: when you say 'cast Banish/Ablution, and get a second free cast of Banish/Ablution', does that refer to just the CD, or does the second Ablution also have zero MP cost?

"Ruach" is a name I've held onto for a while for White Mage, as with "Ablution." Something I've thought since Shadowbringers was that rather than replacing the earth/wind/water-but-not-actually trinity with raw light magic, that they should've been a combination of light and earth, light and wind, light and water (if we ever actually had a water spell). So instead of "Glare," we could have "Sepulchre." Instead of "Dia," we could have "Ruach." Instead of (HA you wish), we'd have "Ablution."

And to clarify on your and the other questions in relation to Banish and Ablution, yeah, Shurrikhan has it correct that the choice between the two is one has no MP cost while the other restores HP. The thought was since you do need to use it semi-regularly, you'd have the option to address healing needs while still working toward your Retribution and keeping the cooldown running. I imagine the second cast would just be the free CD and you'd have to spend the MP on Ablution each time if you used it twice, though having the second cast be free could be interesting; however, then it's sort of a situation of "Why wouldn't you?" Unless the party is at literal full HP, it's free healing. Something else I'm thinking more about in hindsight is it would probably feel better for these double cast actions to have fast GCDs like with Ogi Namikiri. That would mess with the numbers I've set up currently, but could easily be adjusted for if this if the concept got picked up.

Generally, new jobs and job reworks very likely begin in a similar state to this. The point is to establish ideas, then see what the rest of the team gravitates toward before finessing it into something polished for release. I can't speak to SE's design process or anything, but you always want to start with rough drafts. It's also very likely that jobs start out as very OP at first and are then gradually tuned down until you hit where you think is the right sweet spot. So yeah, this is really just a proof of concept.

This seems like it'd be a particularly wasteful way to go about applying Dia as a non-DoT, however. First, it still has the "Oh noes! I have to look at my TARGET's Status Bar instead of my own. Whatever shall I do?!" since it's still a debuff that should be tracked for optimal pacing (reapply per 40s, on average over time). Secondly, though, normally the decision of whether to DoT or not is based around TTK, allowing us to wisely not DoT if we want to nuke something down in less than its redemption period (enough ticks to overtake our filler).

In this case though, your nukes (double-Banish) rely on having Dia up to begin with, so it instead ends up one of the uninterestingly near-universal obligatory actions like Heavy Thrust so long as Banish will be off cooldown soon.

But, so far as meeting Ren's request, all this looks nifty. Would almost certainly be an improvement over current WHM's flow even with those strictures, though I suspect it could of course be improved upon further.

As far as the concern of it still being a debuff and thus still requiring the player look at the target's state, I do have a solution to that. It's a realm of UI that I think is painfully unexplored in FFXIV, which is to superimpose effects over enemies. Here's an example from Genshin:



In the above image, that character can inflict a special condition on enemies called Riptide when he lands critical hits on them, and that watery reticle effect is how you can identify what enemies are afflicted with Riptide. But we could also use the ground underneath enemies as well such as in this League example:



We could be using a boss' target ring to communicate information as well. We already do so with general information. Imagine if Dia created 4 pizza slices within the the target's hitbox, perhaps using ground visual effects similar to what you might see in some of Innocence's mechanics (though not the same to avoid confusion in that fight), like the rainbow glittering floor. And the thing is, one concern that may come up would be that kind of UI getting too confusing if multiple jobs use it and multiple players are afflicting those conditions at once to the same enemy. Could you imagine alliance raids? But we already have a solution to that in the game, which is having effects that only you can see. Consider that in P11, you can only see whether you are being targeted for light or dark mechanics, but you can't see anyone else. If you integrate that same concept, then you'd only ever see your own UI, and no one else would see yours.

I'd say in general, we should only have 1 or maybe 2 of those per job (depending on how the two interact if you have more than 1), but it's a way that could make something like Dia very easy to identify without needing to always keep track of the boss. But what I think is nice about this Dia concept is the timing of when you apply it isn't strict, which was the main thing I was trying to go for. That said, I do also respect your criticism of it feeling obligatory, and it's definitely something that could be reimagined in some capacity.

Something that comes to mind actually... The idea for the level 4 Retribution system came from this character that just got released in Genshin, Freminet. His skill creates a pressure gauge where each stack raises the pressure 1 level. At level 0, reactivating his skill has him perform a Cryo attack (ice), and reactivating it at max pressure has the attack be purely physical, where reactivating it somewhere in between does a mixture of cryo and physical. I'll share a timestamp that showcases what this looks like visually: https://youtu.be/eYgUbuYzDos?si=GqrGjKo4jE3FgRsW&t=45

Maybe Dia is something that has a cooldown with charges, and the effect changes depending on your Retribution level. It's just difficult to consider what those effects can be because if any of that has to do with damage dealt, then whatever deals the most damage is what you'll do 95% of the time.

[Renathras]

Hm...

Not a fan of adding more gauges - seriously; so don't care much for the "Retribution Gauge" (I'm also not a fan of a holy HEALER as a holy CRUSADER; priest not paladin) in name or function (though this seems like just a more convoluted variation on the 3x Glare -> 1x empowered Holy thing I suggested, so mechanically, I don't hate it, per se). Also not a fan of Polyglot. There are reasons I don't play BLM, so much as people want WHM to be a healing version of BLM, not a fan. I do like Purgation, though. Could just make it a combo action with Misery (where the 1-1 of that does 5x Glares' worth of damage), however. But that would stray into me making a proposal, not a critique, I suppose.

Let's see, Glare is Glare, nothing to write home about there.

Misery/Prugation - I'm kind of with Sebazy on Misery. Purgation I said above my issue. Purgation as a separate button also does the cardinal sin of "adding an extra, infrequently pressed button just to have an extra button". Misery arguably does that, so do we really need two of that instead of it just be one button?

Dia - Why? Just don't have it. We don't need an extra button here just to have one. Just up the damage on Banish/Ablution and get rid of Dia or reuse the name for something else.

Banish/Ablution - I'm kind of with Sebazy on this one...though not as hard as she is on it. I see what you're kind of going for here. Gives me some Doublecast (AST PvP) vibes, and you have where you can do a filler damage spell or, if you need healing, use the MP cost version, and you an do two of those for more healing (at the cost of MP) or damage. With 2 charges and free doublecast, you can cast 4 per minute, which leads to 1 empowered Holy per minute. Using Ablution as the second cast in the pairing means free healing since it woudl negate the MP cost (at least, I'm guessing that's what "free" means?). Though did you mean that the second cast does or DOES NOT require a charge to cast? If it doesn't, that makes this kinda fun. If it DOES, then that makes this pretty boring. Every 20 sec cast Banish; at 60 sec marks (40 sec later), cast Banish then Ablution. That's a lot more meh. And though I see what you're going for here, this feels a lot like "having an extra button to have an extra button". Why not just make it Assize, give Assize a 20 sec CD, 2 charges, make it GCD, and call it a day? It could do this same stuff. Not to mention everyone like's Assize's animation.

Holy - I proposed ESSENTIALLY the same idea (for the base spell itself), so yeah.

Ruach/Eschaton - Uh...why? And what do these even mean? And why a DoT? I get it's not an uptime DoT, so...WHY A DOT AT ALL? Circle/Bow Shock are some of the most mocked abilities among Tanks because there's that same question. I DO like that you're thinking hotbar economy with it, though.

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I feel like I'd just make Misery generate a stack of Purgation Ready and become Purgation for a 1-1 combo kind of thing (like Paladin swords), so you don't need to rework any gauges, make Assize a GCD with 20 sec CD and 2 charges and make it where when you use it 3/4 times you get a Holy, then make Holy use generate Dia/Banish (as your -2-3 off Glare). Though I'm not sure that's actually...hm...nah, I'll have to think about it some more...

.

I don't hate it, and I see what you're going for, but...

[ty_taurus]

Hm...

...

I don't hate it, and I see what you're going for, but...

Starting with the simple things... "Ruach" is "Wind" in Hebrew, but also is a word that reflects the human spirit. "Eschaton" means the reign of God after the end of the world basically. It was Ultima's Dealthblow in FFXII. As for "Retribution," renaming that is fine. It can be whatever, really. White Mage currently has one of the most sparce gauge systems, so there's room to comfortably add something else. And in this case it's not even really a thing to manage, just a visual placeholder for where you are in leadup to Holy III. And doing something like Ruach > Eschaton would just make it look cooler similar to Red Mage's Verholy/flare > Scorch > Resolution. And while you theoretically could just have it be empowered Glares, you could say the same about Red Mage and Jolt. Why have those burst animations if you could just raise the potency of Jolt? Sometimes the answer is simply "because it looks cool." And the DoT was just a way to spread out a very large chunk of potency. It's not that we can't have high potency nukes, and I could've split it up more between Ruach and Eschaton, but higher potency also means higher crit variance. Since you don't need to manage it, I don't see why it's a problem. Like with Circle of Scorn, you don't really need to think about it much, and the initial damage higher than Glare III anyway. But it's not super important that it's a DoT either. As long as the potency works out, I have no qualms moving numbers around.

I tried to avoid touching Assize in this example because that does mean the total potency would need to accommodate that loss of OGCD potency, and I was trying to keep the total potency per 2 minutes at 16500 from where White Mage is currently. But you could easily do that as well. It just requires more adjustment in numbers.

If you'd like, why not take your own shot at the challenge as well?

Current White Mage has the potential to deal 16500 potency per 2 minutes on the GCD. Try and keep Glare's potency at or less than 1% of that total, i.e. 165 potency or less. Try and still reach that 16500 potency with whatever else you want to add to your design. Identify how many casts of each tool you'd use per 2 minutes, how much potency that adds up to, and keep track of that to gauge what potencies other tools need to be to meet your 16500 quota. Try to avoid giving any one action too much burst potency. Like Roe and Shurrikhan were mentioning on the other page, you don't really want the healer to be a burst assassin. You don't need to use the formula of 26 casts for non-Glare spells, but I do recommend keeping your non-Glare casts in that ballpark because it will help moderate your potencies somewhat. The more you need to cast other things, the lower those potencies can afford to be. The less you cast them, the higher they need to be.

If you want to count something like Afflatus Misery, you technically could. I just didn't because Misery is technically optional. You don't have to use Afflatus heals, or cast Misery to reach 16500 potency in 2 minutes.

[Shurrikhan]

As far as the concern of it still being a debuff and thus still requiring the player look at the target's state, I do have a solution to that. It's a realm of UI that I think is painfully unexplored in FFXIV, which is to superimpose effects over enemies. Here's an example from Genshin:

Haven't played Genshin, but I have dabbled in other MMOs that did similar (TERA being the first to come to mind, iirc). Yeah, that'd be cool.

(Granted, Ren could make the case that making people look anywhere but at their hotbars and buff bar(s) is brain-murder, but your suggestion should suffice for most, then.)

"Ruach" is a name I've held onto for a while for White Mage, as with "Ablution." Something I've thought since Shadowbringers was that rather than replacing the earth/wind/water-but-not-actually trinity with raw light magic, that they should've been a combination of light and earth, light and wind, light and water (if we ever actually had a water spell). So instead of "Glare," we could have "Sepulchre." Instead of "Dia," we could have "Ruach." Instead of (HA you wish), we'd have "Ablution."

Sounds good.

One of the mock-ups I'm working on (WHM can take on an empowered state similar to Reaper's) does similar. (Other mock-up adds light as a separate element, though I think I'm preferring the first.)

[Sebazy]

I'm pretty sure they're separate actions... They share the 20s CD, and using either grants a free (regardless of CD) use again of either one. You can Banish and then (free-)Banish, Ablution and then (free-)Ablution, or Banish and then (free-)Ablution, Ablution and then (free-)Banish. .

Ah, I was reading it as if you would Dia > Banish > Ablution > Fill for 20 seconds and then Banish > Ablution again.

With the abilities as is, I stand by my point though. Banish > Banish brings nothing to the table at all. Meanwhile Ablution > Ablution is getting a bit more MP heavy if you're not remembering to Thin Air it but it's also a pretty hefty chunk of extra incidental HPS, perhaps too much so? Unless we're assuming that this goes hand in hand with encounter DTPS getting increased, I'm not sure that's a desirable outcome at the moment. Forcing the two abilities to be a 1 button 2 step combo curbs the incidental HPS, prevents the MP cost from being a trap for inexperienced players forgetting to Shroud/Thin Air and saves a hotkey for something else, perhaps AoE centric.

The other option would be to diversify the two abilities more within an uninterruptible 4 step combo so that the 2 buttons are both paying proper rent. Mini mudras within the Dia window? DNC Steps? Perhaps difference sequences could augment different parts of our kit? One Sequence for Misery and another for Assize etc would be pretty neat and go a long way towards giving us something to think about even if the content isn't fighting back++