Dawntrail Wishlist top 3 desired healer additions

[Renathras]

I know it's a typo, but lol

lol!

Yeah, I'm leaving that.

I think it's a bit more complicated, and it should be interesting to see how the sample changes with time. Honestly, the biggest surprise to me is that people would rather see more damage buttons on WHM than...utility or party mitigation. I get some people want to be damage dealers, but that's an abject no brainer to me since it's WHM's biggest failing right now, especially compared to AST (which is a foot in barrier healer already) and how SCH/SGE parties are entirely viable since they have ample healing without even needing a WHM or AST.

The thing about choosing what answers to offer was a little tricky sometimes...
...
In my mind, I imagine "Arcana Gauge Changes" as changes to the tools that revolve around the gauge, such as...

Yeah, I get that. It really is hard.

One thing I would caution against, though, is assuming that people read and respond to the poll questions in the way you might have. For example, you thought of Arcana gauge as all those things, where I just thought of it as the gauge itself, and I thought Draw/Play being related to the card changes, and I thought of the star signs as being that other option about seals/New Star Sign Actions. So while you would read "Arcana Gauge Changes" and think it was all of those things, my mind segmented each into the option more directly related to those specific topics.

For WHM, I tended to think of Blood Lily Gauge and Actions as the same thing, and was confused at first what the difference would be other than maybe ways to generate it...but yeah.

...god, polling is hard. <_<

I do think it's a task worth trying/doing, though.

I can't speak for everyone who answered but I'm one of the people who want SCH to have more utility focus, the fairy gauge is in far more dire straits than SCH's utility though. The fairy gauge is currently barely relevant, it really does need some reworking, so I'm not surprised at all that it's the 2nd highest voted option.

Agreed. I think it's the best candidate for "more DoTs" for people that like DoT gameplay, but I agree that the Faerie element of it is in the most dire straights. I think I also picked something related to Faerie Gauge.

[ForsakenRoe]

Honestly, the biggest surprise to me is that people would rather see more damage buttons on WHM than...utility or party mitigation. I get some people want to be damage dealers, but that's an abject no brainer to me since it's WHM's biggest failing right now, especially compared to AST (which is a foot in barrier healer already) and how SCH/SGE parties are entirely viable since they have ample healing without even needing a WHM or AST.

Well, I can give my reason for prioritizing A over B: Because while both are very big issues WHM faces, it is still capable of clearing all content, even with the lower amount of mitigation. If we had one one of the two things added in DT, an extra mit tool would be like, 'ok cool I now have something to use as a 60s mit, this helps me keep the party alive', but after adding that addition into the list of 'what can we use on the spreadsheet to cover this raidwide' it falls off in 'wow factor' very quickly. Look at how fast people's interest in Aquaveil and Exaltation fell off. And it's effectiveness/how 'interesting' it is, is very reliant on the difficulty of the content. Turning a raidwide in EX roulette that does 20% of your max HP, into one that does 18%, not very interesting. It being the critical mit that pushes you from taking 110%, down to 99%, turning it from a oneshot to 'we barely lived', does make it feel good. This means that such a tool would be a 'fun addition' in a small fraction of the content

Changing the rotation with new damage buttons, something that helps stave off boredom (for players inclined towards enjoying such an addition) in ALL content, would have much more staying power as an addition. It does not matter to me personally, if I am in EX roulette or progging an Ultimate: I will notice the difference between current rotation, and one where I have a new damage button to press as part of the rotation. The incoming damage of the content has no bearing on whether the new button feels fun or not, as the two are not linked in the way that damage and mit are. In fact, the potential for 'big damage is happening, I don't have time to press my correct damage rotation, so I will have to adjust later' is a good thing imo. We dropped all of our damage during Harrowing Hell because we had to spam healing. If our DOT falls off during that phase, we ignore refreshing it because 'heal the 30-40k pulses of damage' takes priority

My concern with SE, and how they interpret data/feedback/etc, is that if they hear the calls for 'more damage buttons' and actually follow through on it, they go with something horrendously 2min-meta inspired. Like, 'you now have a new damage button on WHM: a 2min CD Afflatus Purgation, it does damage in a line and has zero interactivity with the kit, just press it in buffs'. Because that does technically fulfill 'more damage buttons' but it's probably the worst possible implementation, because it doesn't address the 'WHY' of 'we want more damage buttons': that pressing one button (Glare/Broil/Dosis/The other one) 11 times in a row does not really feel like good 'gameplay' to some players

In my mind, I imagine "Arcana Gauge Changes" as changes...

Yeh, the way I read it was that each change section was for it's specifically labelled thing (eg Draw/Play Actions covers a request for 'add Sleeve Draw again'), and Arcana Gauge changes is the more 'general' or 'overall' aspects of the job. Things like what buffs the cards give, how many different cards can be drawn, etc.

So the way I'd interpret the results is that 'people want varied card actions again, people want MA to be something more than a coinflip between a Malefic and a Helios, people want more interactions with the cards rather than just drawing and playing them (probably Royal Road requests), and people want something to use the Seals on other than Astrodyne (or for Seals to be removed)'.

And like above, I voted for both buffs and damage buttons, because I see both as a problem for AST. But if I had to have just one, I'd take buffs, because I think that uniquely to AST, having more damage buttons would help it feel better sure, but having a good feeling 'buff management' system would feel 'more better'. Like, take the SB AST. We had the funny cards, and we had two DOTs, Combust and Combust 2. So if we had the choice, between 'funny cards again' and 'you have a second DOT again', everyone's gonna take the cards, because the current card system is a much bigger issue for the job's gameplay than it's lack of damage buttons. In fact, the card system being how it was back then was the whole reason it had less damage buttons compared to the other jobs (and a 1.5s cast time), the card system justified that simple damage rotation. In fact, personally, I'd like a system for the cards that is so robust and 'depth enabling' that it justifies removing Combust entirely, making AST the 'no DOTs healer', I would prefer to see it be 'my hands are full' with card stuff instead

[Renathras]

My concern with SE, and how they interpret data/feedback/etc, is that if they hear the calls for 'more damage buttons' and actually follow through on it, they go with something horrendously 2min-meta inspired. Like, 'you now have a new damage button on WHM: a 2min CD Afflatus Purgation, it does damage in a line and has zero interactivity with the kit, just press it in buffs'. Because that does technically fulfill 'more damage buttons' but it's probably the worst possible implementation, because it doesn't address the 'WHY' of 'we want more damage buttons': that pressing one button (Glare/Broil/Dosis/The other one) 11 times in a row does not really feel like good 'gameplay' to some players

"Instructions Unclear: Every use of Afflatus Misery triggers "Purgation Ready" and your Misery button changes to Afflatus Purgation for the next use"?

I could see that. Honestly, I wouldn't mind that, since I like Purgation's animation, but yeah, I could see that not being the solution you pine for.

To me, I think of a healer's job as healing and shielding allies. So it seems a no brianer to me for WHM to have Protect/Shell. The reason it was removed was the former incarnation was a "set and forget" cast at the start of encounters (and every 30 mins after or when reviving someone), but that was before the era of stuff like Temperance or Holos or Kerochole. Sure, Soil existed, but was MUUUUCH smaller and debatably less effective. Now that we have this pattern of "short duration party mitigation on a 60/90/120 sec CD", it really should come back. Were I to name the most iconic White Mage spells in FF games, they would be Holy, Cure-line, and Protect/Shell. And Raise, I suppose. Across all FF games with a White Mage, they always have those spells, and have from the start with FF1.

I sometimes think that some people view the game too mechanically - even I'm bad about this sometimes - but when looking at new abilities and thinking "slot into heal plan", it just seems so...sterile and passionless, somehow.

[Icecylee]

Honestly, the biggest surprise to me is that people would rather see more damage buttons on WHM than...utility or party mitigation. I get some people want to be damage dealers, but that's an abject no brainer to me since it's WHM's biggest failing right now, especially compared to AST (which is a foot in barrier healer already) and how SCH/SGE parties are entirely viable since they have ample healing without even needing a WHM or AST.

The long and short of it is that "more mit" might make my life slightly easier but only to a relevant degree for a couple of weeks in savage or ultimates (which I am not doing anyway because I do not like how they're designed) and be nearly worthless unless i am solo healing a clownparty in casual content (and even then only maybe, but i guess if you're babysitting a party at 4+ stacks it could be useful). More DPS buttons and some semblance of a rotation would make me a less bored everywhere, tho.

[Niroken]

Honestly, the biggest surprise to me is that people would rather see more damage buttons on WHM than...utility or party mitigation. I get some people want to be damage dealers, but that's an abject no brainer to me since it's WHM's biggest failing right now, especially compared to AST (which is a foot in barrier healer already) and how SCH/SGE parties are entirely viable since they have ample healing without even needing a WHM or AST.

IMO all healers need less mitigation rather then more if they want to encourage active healing.

[Supersnow845]

IMO all healers need less mitigation rather then more if they want to encourage active healing.

I think the reverse, healers need to take back the DPS mitigation and actually make the core of the class
Miring the shield healer and still excessively relying on the DPS to press addle when they press it once every 9 pulls feels like absolute garbage