Healer kit adjustment idea, 40% dps to 60% heals/utility

[Renathras]

Perhaps a bit of a tangent here, but I will un-ironically say that I find SMN's current DPS kit to be less interesting and engaging than any of healers' current DPS kits. And mind, I've known nothing but Endwalker SMN, so it's not as if I'm pining for some previous iteration of the job.

Endwalker SMN is the only (combat) job where I constantly feel like I'm forgetting something. But, nope, cooldowns are on cooldown, there is no gauge to overcap, and there is no DoT to maintain.

The serious point to take away from this is that "DPS" isn't merely a matter of button count.

I don't like DPSing. Seriously. I find healer DoTs infuriating in general, to mildly obnoxious at the best of times. SMN is far and away better in that sense as the rotation is flexible and interesting, but I don't have to keep my eyes glued to my hotbars or some gauge or a DoT tracker or the like. It's refreshing in a way, and probably the most enjoyable Job outside of healers. It's the only DPS Job that DOESN'T have something or other that makes it really annoying and un-fun to play, and is generally enjoyable when I do have to swap to a DPSer role (Thalia ques where healer ques are over 10 mins but DPS are instant, for example), and I can also Raise party members, meaning if my healers go down, it's not "Well, guess we wipe now".

EW SMN is the only somewhat fun DPS Job in the game. RDM would be a second, but for the fact the optimization on it is obnoxious and it has arguably the worst movement of any Job in the game.

Oddly, I find the Tanks better DPS Jobs than the DPS Jobs. WAR, PLD, and GNB are all more fun than any of the Melee Jobs because they aren't overbloated with so many oGCD weaves or CD attacks you only use once every 2 minutes, etc.

As always, I'm glad those other Jobs exist - for the people that like those sorts of things - but I'm glad there are exceptions for people who do not. BLM? I hate BLM. I think it and MNK are the two worst designed Jobs in the game. I actually LIKED MNK okay before EW, but have never EVER liked BLM, not since they forced me to level it in ARR to get Swiftcast.

But you know what?

I'm glad they're in the game for the people that enjoy them so those people have those Jobs they can hop on and find it engaging and enjoy playing.

I truly do wish this sentiment was reciprocated, as it would make a lot of the arguments and head banging amongst the playerbase go away instantly. If the game had a lot of different Jobs that played different, had different levels of skill, and instead of badmouthing some Jobs (or fellow players), folks picked their favorites and had fun with them. That's what I try to do myself, too. I very much have some I hate, but instead of demanding they be changed to suit me, I accept they are perfectly suited to other people and instead play the ones that fit me and merely ask that they not be changed to where they no longer do.

EDIT:

10 damage buttons is far too much, I think. 4-6 damage buttons with heavy kit interaction is what I would personally welcome.

Don't we...have 4-6 on most/all of the Healers?

It would be nice if they interacted better. With few exceptions (Misery, Energy Drain, Toxicon/Pneuma), they have very little interaction with the rest of the kit or with each other. And the base nuke/DoT combo is identical on all the healers (other than a SLIGHT tweak of sharing the same button on SGE and WHM's having a base damage making it a minor movement tool) and doesn't have any interaction (other than Kardia on SGE, which is identical across all its damage abilities). Could do with some more interactions among abilities for sure. Even simple things like AST's PvP Doublecast.

EDIT2:

Fun fact:

Despite being called "one (or two) button DPS" and "braindead", SMN itself has 13 DPS (or DPS adjacent like Searing Light and Swiftcast) separate buttons for the single target rotation. This increases by 4 if you add AOE, and that DOESN'T include Radiant Aegis, Lucid Dreaming, Addle, or Summon Carby. It's also counting Bahamut/Phoenix, Enkindle Bahamut/Enkindle Phoenix, Topaz Rite/Emerald Rite/Ruby Rite, Mountain Buster/Slipstream/Crimson Cyclone/Crimson Strike/Deathflare/Rekindle, Topaz Catastrophe/Emerald Catastrophe/Ruby Catastrophe, Ruin III/Astral Impulse/Fountain of Fire, and Tri-disaster/Astral Flare/Brand of Purgatory as, respectively, one button each, despite them technically being different attacks with different parameters and conditions.

So JUST counting Ruin 3, Ruin 4, Gemshine, Astral Flow, Enkindle Bahamut, Bahamut, Energy Drain, Fester, Summon Titan, Summon Garuda, Summon Ifrit, Swiftcast, and Searing Light and literally nothing else, SMN has 13 separate actions for its single target base rotation.

Yet, people call that "braindead" and (some) people dislike it. A lot.

So having 10 DPS actions isn't a magic number/catch-all solution, is, I guess, what I'm getting at here.

[ty_taurus]

It really depends on what those buttons do though. For example:

Stone III/Glare III - Deals 350 potency damage to a single target. Generates 10 Earth gauge. 70% chance to enhance Stone IV/Glare IV.
Stone IV/Glare IV - Deals 200 potency damage in an AoE. When enhanced, potency is doubled. Generates 10 Earth gauge.
Aero III/Dia III - Deals 350 potency damage to a single target. Generates 10 Wind gauge. 70% chance to enhance Aero IV/Dia IV.
Aero IV/Dia IV - Deals 200 potency damage in an AoE. When enhanced, potency is doubled. Generates 10 Wind gauge.
Water III/Tempest III - Deals 350 potency damage to a single target. Generates 10 Water gauge. 70% chance to enhance Water IV/Tempest IV.
Water IV/Tempest IV - Deals 200 potency damage in an AoE. When enhanced, potency is doubled. Generates 10 Water gauge.
Holy III - Deals 500 potency damage in an AoE. Costs 20 Earth, Wind, and Water gauge.
Afflatus Misery - Deals 1400 potency damage in an AoE with falloff damage. Costs 1 Blood Lily.
Assize - OGCD deals 300 potency damage in an AoE, restores 5% of your MP, and heals with a potency of 300. 40 second cooldown.
Presence of Mind - OGCD Reduces own cast and recast timers by 20%. 120 second cooldown.

That's 10 DPS buttons, but it's not necessarily all that complicated. Not saying budget Red Mage is the way to go, but just using this as an example. I think trying to set a quota of what you want to achieve can give you framework to guide you on some level, but the quota itself doesn't really matter. It's what you do with those actions that matter.

[Katish]

It really depends on what those buttons do though. For example:

Stone III/Glare III - Deals 350 potency damage to a single target. Generates 10 Earth gauge. 70% chance to enhance Stone IV/Glare IV.
Stone IV/Glare IV - Deals 200 potency damage in an AoE. When enhanced, potency is doubled. Generates 10 Earth gauge.
Aero III/Dia III - Deals 350 potency damage to a single target. Generates 10 Wind gauge. 70% chance to enhance Aero IV/Dia IV.
Aero IV/Dia IV - Deals 200 potency damage in an AoE. When enhanced, potency is doubled. Generates 10 Wind gauge.
Water III/Tempest III - Deals 350 potency damage to a single target. Generates 10 Water gauge. 70% chance to enhance Water IV/Tempest IV.
Water IV/Tempest IV - Deals 200 potency damage in an AoE. When enhanced, potency is doubled. Generates 10 Water gauge.
Holy III - Deals 500 potency damage in an AoE. Costs 20 Earth, Wind, and Water gauge.
Afflatus Misery - Deals 1400 potency damage in an AoE with falloff damage. Costs 1 Blood Lily.
Assize - OGCD deals 300 potency damage in an AoE, restores 5% of your MP, and heals with a potency of 300. 40 second cooldown.
Presence of Mind - OGCD Reduces own cast and recast timers by 20%. 120 second cooldown.

That's 10 DPS buttons, but it's not necessarily all that complicated. Not saying budget Red Mage is the way to go, but just using this as an example. I think trying to set a quota of what you want to achieve can give you framework to guide you on some level, but the quota itself doesn't really matter. It's what you do with those actions that matter.

I would counter-argue maybe budget red mage would be the way to go given red mage is both white magic and black magic in one, so half the kit would basically be what white magic could go/ theoretically become...and what healers could theoretically evolve into given that's how we play anyway. Blue mage has you doing a lot more...but perhaps maybe I just like blue mage healer that much more than the original design and my opinion therefore might be perchance biased. (Blue has 6/24 split so roughly 25% healing/ mitigation, 75% dps if I need most of my heal buttons otherwise 3/24 ~12% is what I take now looking at healer as being what it is perhaps 60% healing/ 40% is a good compromise depending on what the buttons solve and do as you said.)

[Renathras]

Bit ironic, but I remember thinking when RDM was announced (so in 3.5) "So Red Mage will just be White Mage, but instead of Stone 3, Aero 1, 2, and 3, it will have Fire 3 and Thunder 1, 2, and 3? Isn't that how White Mage already plays?"

Of course, RDM gutted the "actual White Mage" part (the heals) and does the stupid thing of not learning Cure 1 until level 54 and not learning Raise until 64 (that is, the first and third spell I'd want to learn as a White Mage - simple healing and emergency revival - are some of the last spells Red Mages bother with...), and then a melee combo into a burst phase. But my naive sweet summer child self thought "Heals with some attack magic, isn't that White Mage already?" and that RDM would actually have made sense (in FFXIV) as a healer Job.

[TheDustyOne]

Bit ironic, but I remember thinking when RDM was announced (so in 3.5) "So Red Mage will just be White Mage, but instead of Stone 3, Aero 1, 2, and 3, it will have Fire 3 and Thunder 1, 2, and 3? Isn't that how White Mage already plays?"

Of course, RDM gutted the "actual White Mage" part (the heals) and does the stupid thing of not learning Cure 1 until level 54 and not learning Raise until 64 (that is, the first and third spell I'd want to learn as a White Mage - simple healing and emergency revival - are some of the last spells Red Mages bother with...), and then a melee combo into a burst phase. But my naive sweet summer child self thought "Heals with some attack magic, isn't that White Mage already?" and that RDM would actually have made sense (in FFXIV) as a healer Job.

As silly as it sounds, if this game had specs/skill trees/whatever, I'd absolutely play healer RDM, so long as it kept the basic mechanic of building up to a melee combo. Toss in a Vermedica and a few essential heals, change a few of the oGCDs to be healing oriented, and it would be my go-to healer by far.

As for the topic at hand, I don't think we need a 40/60 DPS/Heals split. I'd lean more towards 30/70, but focusing on making the kits overall more interactive with each other instead of disparate healing and dps buttons that just kinda exist in tandem. Have them interact more ala Blood Lily or Addersting (but ideally better).

[Shurrikhan]

I'd be fine with just two-thirds sustain tools (healing, mitigation, anything that keeps people alive longer) to one-third non-sustain / offensive tools (anything/everything else). A third is plenty.

Utility doesn't need to be its own static category, even if sharing a pool with healing or damage. If it results in rDPS more directly than healing does and therefore competes with other non-sustain / offensive tools instead of with sustain tools, call it a non-sustain / offensive tool and let it draw from that end. If it contributes more like sustain and therefore competes more with sustain, call it a sustain tool and let it draw from there.

______________________

A large part of making the DPS itself compelling, though, is just to have more priority conflict with the healing itself, as mitigated (but never entirely) by greater fight knowledge. Increase the healing requirements and, so long as you've added in some frequent pace-setters among the offensive tools or through interaction between sustain and offensive tools, it takes very little extra offensive kit for downtime to nonetheless be pretty darn engaging/satisfying.

That's not to say we should go so far as to cause wipes constantly even among skilled healers, but we certainly have some room there. From there, we can make healers engaging in casual and difficult content, both, without (A) little of their cognitive load coming from the actual healing or (B) feeling overly oppressive.

Solo play, though... honestly probably isn't worth building a kit around. It'll get better regardless, but it's never been intended to be thrilling under that role (or indeed, any role).

[Katish]

As silly as it sounds, if this game had specs/skill trees/whatever, I'd absolutely play healer RDM, so long as it kept the basic mechanic of building up to a melee combo. Toss in a Vermedica and a few essential heals, change a few of the oGCDs to be healing oriented, and it would be my go-to healer by far.

As for the topic at hand, I don't think we need a 40/60 DPS/Heals split. I'd lean more towards 30/70, but focusing on making the kits overall more interactive with each other instead of disparate healing and dps buttons that just kinda exist in tandem. Have them interact more ala Blood Lily or Addersting (but ideally better).

Technically speaking, from skills you use, we are already at or are near the 30/70 as whm assuming you removed cure and medica I from your hotkeys and don't consider cross class skills.

Dmg: POM, Afflatus Misery, Holy, Assize, Dia, Glare (6)
Heal: Liturgy, Aquaveil, Temperance, Rapture, PI, Divine Bension, TA, Tetra, Assylum, Solace, Medica II, Cure II, Cure III, Regen, Benediction, Res. (16)

For a total of 22 buttons. 6/22 being damage = 0.2727^- or roughly 27%

Personally we need more than what we have and 30% isn't going to cut it and it is also dependent on what they do if they were to add them. Like for example, a followup to Holy would still be technically a damage skill but it would have limited niche cases outside of dungeons. The 40% split definitely could work because 40% of 22 would be ~9 which is three more buttons (and would allot buttons for one niche use case skill, and two primary use case skills)...Personally could probably do for five more instead of three..so we start getting closer to 1:1 (11::16 could also rid or consolidate five healing skills in general to be perfect 1:1 [or reimagine some to answer new things so they have reason to exist])

Talking in fixed numbers gives a better ideology then looking at percentiles sometimes.

[Laerune]

The problem is encounters that allow us to use our overpowered ogcd spells and the fact that as the expansion continues we get higher ilvl gear.

Turning a healer class into Dps is not the answer, otherwise we might aswell remove the trinity and only have Dps.

[Teno]

I dont want more dps buttons! ; better rework the ones we have if need be
Also i dont want my healkit reduced - it what's gives this job(AST) depth lol.

"Depth". Ast has interesting interactions, but many spells are just different shades of the same thing, like all healers.

Besides, healers have always been green dps, can we get back to arr/hw scholar ? The job had various dots but they worked as a kit. Right now the healer singular dot is just devoid of purpose other than break the monotony of mindless '1' spam.

Also can they just do what they did with sage in pvp, but in pve please ? Now that's proper combat design for the job.

[Connor]

"

Besides, healers have always been green dps, can we get back to arr/hw scholar ? The job had various dots but they worked as a kit. Right now the healer singular dot is just devoid of purpose other than break the monotony of mindless '1' spam.

While I get the point it isn’t exactly true that ‘ARR/HW healers were more/equal amounts green dps than current design’. As I mentioned in the other healer thread healers at that point had to much more ‘actively involved’ in healing. You couldn’t just pick one of many, many oGCDs to answer every potential situation, MP management actually existed, Cleric Stance drama, etc, and that’s not accounting for the mechanics themselves (which arguably were much more toned down than now though). You could blow through your Lustrate stacks I guess, but then you’d have either no Energy Drain for MP or no fall-back heal to use while in Cleric (everyone forgets but Scholars could completely bypass Cleric Stance in ARR because Lustrate was a fixed 25% of max HP)

It wasn’t really until Stormblood removed Cleric Stance (kind of lol) that the idea of ‘green dps’ ever started to really take off; it was just too clunky and controversial to ever be a real thing while Cleric existed.

That’s not going into the whole SMN/SCH split fiasco and how it resulted in both jobs ending up with a bunch of spells from each other they probably weren’t supposed to have in the first place. But they really needed an alternative healer to CNJ/WHM, so it came out anyway and they admitted regretting it