If Healers had Tank rotations, what would they be?

[BRVV]

Monkey paw result:
Healers gets a 1-2-3 combo. It’s for their healing spells. Freecure for all!

7.0: No skills of healers deal damage anymore. Auto-attack has been disabled for healers. Battles do not have increased damage.

[Connor]

7.0: No skills of healers deal damage anymore. Auto-attack has been disabled for healers. Battles do not have increased damage.

And tanks get new self-heals and party mitigation lol.

It’s scary because its so realistic

[Renathras]

I've already said what I would want for the healers, many times. Your personal preferences of design mean that, despite me saying 'I want healers to have a kit approaching (not even fully reaching) tank complexity', you perceive such changes as DPS level complexity.

No, I don't. And that should be so clear by now that it's a lie for you to say it.

I've shown what "tank level complexity" would be, and it's not what you want. So what you want is clearly not "tank level complexity".

Also: Lest you forget, SMN is a DPS Job. By definition, that is the floor of "DPS level complexity".

I think my bigger issue with some of your proposals is they're clunky for the sake of clunky.

I want healers to have engaging damage options for the stretches of time when no healing is required.

And what is "engaging"? Can you define that? And I mean...like very clearly and precisely. I know it's one of those "No one can tell you you're in love, you just know it" things, but no one can make suggestions based on things that aren't defined. For example, I find the healing downtime rotations right now "engaging", but clearly they aren't to you. So what would be? Is WAR's rotation engaging? SMN's? Would a simple 1-2-3 rotation and discarding the DoT be engaging?

In a word: No.

When someone says, "I want A to be like B," what they mean is that B has characteristics X, Y, and Z that they'd like either to be present in A or to be strongly reminded of by A's actual characteristics.

But...it...is.*

That's kind of my point. That and this:

Importantly, those characteristics might differ from person to person.

This is also the point I'm trying to impress on people.


.

EDIT:

*More precisely on this:

As I've laid out - and part of the reason for the 1:1 comparisons - is that WHM's overall kit IS relatively similar to WAR's. The SPECIFIC differences are that WAR has a 1-2-3 instead of 1-1-1, and a -4 that requires 1-2 before it instead of -2 and which DOES stack and CANNOT be applied to multiple enemies. Other than that, most things are 1:1 other than Infuriate, which few people actually min max and, in practice, is just used on CD (1 charge) to keep the CD rolling.

These are not large changes, and some (Eye) are actually easier/less management than WHM's counterpart, leading to a comparable overall level of complexity.

As such, the only really significant differences I can see are the 1-2- part of the combo and Fell Cleave being an attack instead of a defensive CD (in the sense that Solace/Rapture being "heals" would, in this parallel, need to be defensive abilities on WAR).

So then I would say "If that is the distinction that matters - since everything else is the same - then what you're asking for is a 1-2- combo, Dia to be a self-buff that stacks to 60 instead of a DoT, and Solace/Rapture to be attacks instead of heals"?

[ForsakenRoe]

I find GNB harder than SMN. Does this mean GNB is actually DPS complexity, or SMN is actually tank complexity? Or could it be, that 'complexity' is not actually meant to be divided into these brackets (who's bounds are entirely subjective), and is instead a spectrum that every job can exist on at the same time, such that we COULD have a healer more complex to optimize than SMN if we so wished? Well, in my books I'd make that SGE and/or maybe AST (based more on learning the card effects moreso than execution). Meanwhile, I've made every attempt to add some potential to WHM for it to have depth to optimize, while keeping it as new-player friendly and 'similar to current overall gameplay' as we have now for it, but apparently we're going full #NoChanges for it specifically.

WAR builds a 0-100 gauge by doing Path/Eye, and spends it on a big hit. WHM does not. You can argue that Glare is like Path, and Dia like Eye (without the 1-2), sure. But, for WHM to be '1:1' with WAR, would require that Glare and Dia build a gauge, which can be spent on 'something', not even necessarily a damage skill, it could be a heal or mit. But it doesn't. Glare is just 'it does damage' with no additional interplay. Solace/Rapture into Misery could be argued to be similar to the IR window of FellCleave X 3, and Primal Rend being 'like Misery', but the actual gameplay of the standard Fell Cleave is not present on WHM, and that's pretty much the core of WAR's identity. The whole reason WAR uses Path instead of Eye, is quite literally 'because it gives 2x as much gauge, so you get FC faster'. Without that distinction, you'd be able to just 123 Eye combos constantly. Maybe you'd want that, though, idk

I even asked for WHM to have this, this WAR 0-100 gauge analogue, built by using filler damage spells (to give them more purpose), and a spender to spend it on. I even made the spender a heal. You just dismissed it because it meant you'd have to deal damage to access said healing tool. I addressed this and added gauge build rates to every non-Lily heal GCD, vastly higher values than the damage skills would provide (Glare 1, Dia 5, Regen 10, Medica2 15, examples). I even had comparisons to WAR in that very post, because of how I'd have Glare upgrade to Quake for one hit, like FellCleave/Inner Chaos. You say WHM is 1:1 with WAR, I'm saying that 'if it were truly 1:1 with WAR, it'd look a lot like what I suggested'. Well, except for the Dia duration thing, but we've been over that

Healer already has more complexity in some regards than SMN: SMN only needs to worry about cast times for 3 GCDs per minute, healers have to worry about them pretty often. SMN's 'oops I messed up' is that they lose a bit of damage, but the rotation automatically realigns itself at the minute mark because if you have anything left over, you just skip it and move to the next Demi. Healer's 'oops I messed up' can be anything from 'lost a bit of damage', which is less punishing than other roles on account of having lower overall damage, all the way up to 'the party died because of your mistake'. In the grand scheme of things, adding a couple more damage buttons, which any healer worth their salt will KNOW they should ignore if healing is needed, who should KNOW to prioritize keeping people alive, those buttons will be the tiniest bump in 'complexity' compared to what SE throws at us each expansion: new healing buttons, and with them new mechanics specifically tailored to justify those buttons.

Here's an example: Harrowing Hell, Savage week 1. Imagine my WHM, who has a shorter Dia duration, a button that is 'not Glare' every 15s, and a gauge spending AOE heal. None of that stuff (maybe the heal) actually affects the situation, because the healer player thinks 'this is a lot of damage, I will use GCD healing to keep up'. Now contrast, a WHM with the current kit, but they refuse to use Lilybell on it. Or they used it early. Outside of tank LB (confirmed by the devs to be 'unintended strat'), you're screwed. You cannot keep up on damage without the plant. The 'complexity' of a mechanic like that is 100% tied up in healing, mitigating, and knowing to hold your tools for it (not using them on the wing tether-laser and stack mark web things that are about 60s before it). And 'complexity' only becomes a problem when it has a failure state with a high enough punishment factor. Messing up in Aetherfont as a BLM, the most complex (for most) Job in the game, who cares, because the punishment does not exist. You go back to Ice and go again. The punishment for WHM for messing up, depending on content difficulty, ranges from 'oops gotta sub in a GCD heal here because I didn't use my CDs right' to 'the party is dead and it's my fault'. And at no point on that spectrum, would one extra damage button and a shortened DOT timer, be the make-or-break for whether the team stays alive or not. The fact that a WHM uses Dia 5 times a minute instead of 3, does not have ANY effect on their capability to keep the party alive. If they were in the current game, those 3 extra Dia's would be Glares. If a heal is needed at that point, they swap the Glare, or Dia, or Luminaire, or Banish or whatever, for a heal.

You mistake 'what the absolute best players use at each GCD of their rotation' for 'the GCD map of what you MUST use for your rotation, with no deviation'. You mistake 'perform 100% optimally' for 'can pass the bare minimum expected by the game'. It's an innocent enough mistake to make, but you need to acknowledge that the mistake is being made. You don't need to press Banish on CD every 15s in my design. You can hold it to heal if needed, at a cost of merely 7p per GCD. You can hold it for 2-3 GCDs to have it up for a mobility section, gaining you a damaging GCD where you would otherwise drop one, turning a tiny loss into a proportionally massive gain. You lose less damage to having to cast Dia as your mobility option (if you're out of Lilies/pooling them, and have nothing else), because I had my on-cast Dia potency at 15o and currently it's 65. No matter how you slice it, my design would actually be more 'forgiving' than the current one, to the average player. Hell, I even created a way to incentivize players to put up Medica2 and then spam Cure3 for heavy healing scenarios, instead of using crappy ass Medica 1

But sure, keep making these false equivalences that WAR is equal to WHM. By the same mental gymnastics displayed, I guess we could also try and say that WHM is 1:1 with DRG, because both press a button 3 times (Solace/Nastrond) and a powerful button once (Misery/Stardiver). Or SMN, because one uses 3 Solaces and a Misery, which is like using 3 summons and then a Demi (said Demi having AkhMorn/Revelation). Trying to make these intra-role comparisons is weird, there's a reason we don't try and say 'oh RPR is just a melee MCH'. Enshroud and Overheat work kinda similarly, sure, but there's still differences that set them apart and the same is true of WHM/WAR. Namely, WHM doesn't have a 0-100 gauge, and because of the lack of such a gauge, it's damage buttons lack interplay within the kit, being just 'there for the sake of it'. Also, what clunk are you even on about? Because 'Ren does not like it' is not the condition for something to be called 'clunk' last time I checked, so I'd like a clarification. And if it is something that I already addressed at some point, I will be very disappointed. Especially if it's because of your DOTphobia

ps: If you want to make intra-role comparisons, here's one: WHM currently has less complexity in it's damage kit than ARR Bard, a Job design from 8 years and 40 levels ago. Think about that.

[Connor]

You mistake 'what the absolute best players use at each GCD of their rotation' for 'the GCD map of what you MUST use for your rotation, with no deviation'. You mistake 'perform 100% optimally' for 'can pass the bare minimum expected by the game'.

Isn’t the whole problem that a huge majority of the player base thinks like this though? Look at the amount of people who’ll give a healer serious shit for not spamming dps in dungeons or whatever (or they complain about you dps’ing lol).

Something being ‘technically true’ unfortunately isn't enough to make people actually realise that it’s not actually necessary.

I’m not saying that’s a reason not to add new dps stuff. But at the same time, I feel like saying ‘it’s ok not to perform optimally’ is putting aside the fact that most people don’t feel that way (even though it’s completely true). We should consider the fact that if a DPS ability is added to healers it’s one that they will be expected to use - by people who don’t understand no doubt, but getting moaned at because ‘oh no you didn’t use your auxiliary DoT you are being REPORTED’ or whatever would still suck. Especially in like, a dungeon where as you say it makes technically no difference whether the healer does 9000 dps or 0 dps lol.

[ty_taurus]

Isn’t the whole problem that a huge majority of the player base thinks like this though? Look at the amount of people who’ll give a healer serious shit for not spamming dps in dungeons or whatever (or they complain about you dps’ing lol).

Something being ‘technically true’ unfortunately isn't enough to make people actually realise that it’s not actually necessary.

I’m not saying that’s a reason not to add new dps stuff. But at the same time, I feel like saying ‘it’s ok not to perform optimally’ is putting aside the fact that most people don’t feel that way (even though it’s completely true). We should consider the fact that if a DPS ability is added to healers it’s one that they will be expected to use - by people who don’t understand no doubt, but getting moaned at because ‘oh no you didn’t use your auxiliary DoT you are being REPORTED’ or whatever would still suck. Especially in like, a dungeon where as you say it makes technically no difference whether the healer does 9000 dps or 0 dps lol.

As someone who started playing XIV when ARR launched, if I had a nickel for every time I saw someone yell at a healer for not DPSing, I’d have 1 nickel.

[ForsakenRoe]

I’m not saying that’s a reason not to add new dps stuff. But at the same time, I feel like saying ‘it’s ok not to perform optimally’ is putting aside the fact that most people don’t feel that way (even though it’s completely true). We should consider the fact that if a DPS ability is added to healers it’s one that they will be expected to use - by people who don’t understand no doubt, but getting moaned at because ‘oh no you didn’t use your auxiliary DoT you are being REPORTED’ or whatever would still suck. Especially in like, a dungeon where as you say it makes technically no difference whether the healer does 9000 dps or 0 dps lol.

Firstly, I don't think the situation of 'you didn't use your auxillary DOT, reported' happens remotely as much as implied (mostly because you can't report someone for 'playing wrong'), but also, even if we were to assume that it IS an issue, it has a similar solution as multiple other 'issues' of people not doing good damage as a healer: incentivize dealing damage, make 'doing damage' more accessible, and make 'losing damage because of something getting in the way' less punishing. Lilies are a good example, previously, good healers and not-so-good healers had wider disparity, because the good healers could work effectively with their cohealer to minimize the number of GCDs used on Medica 2, and not-so-good healers would lose more damage to Med2 casting. Now, they don't lose as much damage, because Misery provides a refund while allowing healers of all skill levels to do their job, of healing.

One of the big problems with the current formula SE's lumped healers with is how few damage buttons we have. But what I mean by this, is that to deal good damage, we have to press our filler spell. Every GCD that is not the filler (or DOT refresh), for ANY reason, including healing we're forced to do (eg safety shielding as SCH/SGE in prog) is a massive damage loss. We've seen in other threads that in ARR, SCH's Ruin spell was a mere 80p. It had 3 DOTs to put up (Bio, Bio2, Miasma), and those were a bigger source of their damage, with their total potency per tick being higher than a Ruin cast. What this meant, in practice, was that while it's higher complexity to manage 3 DOT timers, the 'punishment' of having to actually press a heal was way lower by comparison. Now, if a SCH has to use a shield, instead of losing 80p, they lose 295. Our effective 'punishment per GCD' has been vastly increased, because all of the potency that was spread across multiple skills keeps getting piled into the few that we have left. If we lost the DOT, for example, then Glare would get even stronger, making 'missing a Glare' (eg movement) even more punishing.

Please try to look at it from the point of view I'm looking at it from: that our kit as a healer is divided into two distinct halves: healing, and damage. I want to incentivize these healers with 'less damage' to be able to get 'more damage', not by removing 'wrong choices' from the kit (as has been tried by SE), but by incentivizing the 'right answer'. If we have, for example, a gauge that builds by doing damage, which can be spent on a damage-neutral heal, it incentivizes the player to try and do damage to charge that move up, and use that to cover healing required, rather than fall back on Medica spam. Then, if my whole idea were made real, that heal is then refunded by gaining access to Quake, Flood and Tornado, further incentivizing the player because these new moves look very cool and powerful. The player is incentivized to deal damage (when safe) to charge up to the cool heal (which provides cool damage moves), and rely less on Medica1 spam. Additionally, SE has said that 'they didnt know what to do with SCH' for EW, which apparently resulted in Expedient. I think that if they were open to healers having more damage buttons and interactions, then they'd open a lot more space to work with. SCH attacks that build Fairy Gauge, AST attacks that cause Minor Arcana to come back faster, SGE attacks that augment Kardia healing in various ways, etc.

As someone who started playing XIV when ARR launched, if I had a nickel for every time I saw someone yell at a healer for not DPSing, I’d have 1 nickel.

I won't say 'it never happens', I have seen it, and more than once. But it's so unbelievably rare that it is very much 'the exception, not the rule' and SE should certainly not be designing around it. I need to do an EX, I'll unbind my DOT and see if anyone raises it as an issue

edit: nobody raised it as an issue, no nickel for me

[Rein_eon_Osborne]

[...]I won't say 'it never happens', I have seen it, and more than once. But it's so unbelievably rare that it is very much 'the exception, not the rule' and SE should certainly not be designing around it. I need to do an EX, I'll unbind my DOT and see if anyone raises it as an issue

Even if it does causes an issue, most people are clever enough to just not say anything and either (a) kick the problem child or (b) leave the scene to come back later. They'll vent elsewhere that doesn't subject them to the risk of getting slapped on hand by the GMs.

[ty_taurus]

I won't say 'it never happens', I have seen it, and more than once. But it's so unbelievably rare that it is very much 'the exception, not the rule' and SE should certainly not be designing around it. I need to do an EX, I'll unbind my DOT and see if anyone raises it as an issue

edit: nobody raised it as an issue, no nickel for me

My point exactly. In all the years I've played this game, I think I've seen it happen exactly once. I've been yelled at for DPSing as a healer during ARR and HW more often than I've seen anyone yelled at for not DPSing, and that wasn't particularly common either (no one died during those examples either I might add. Literally I recall a tank saying "can you stop attacking? You're a healer." in toto-rak in like the first year of the game. I told him he never died, so what's the issue, and he never said anything again for that run)

[Connor]

Firstly, I don't think the situation of 'you didn't use your auxillary DOT, reported' happens remotely as much as implied (mostly because you can't report someone for 'playing wrong'),

It was supposed to be a humorous over exaggeration, not a statement of what people are actually doing. I probably should’ve put at an /s or something.

Please try to look at it from the point of view I'm looking at it from:

I mean, I’m not trying to say it’s an insurmountable issue. As you say having less of a separation between healing/damage removes the issue of being pressured to do one or the other. I just feel like when it comes to adding new abilities for healers, I think it’s best to consider how it fits into the toolkit as a whole rather than completely separate ‘healing’/‘damage’ kits. And again I’m not trying to accuse anyone of ‘crossing that line’ so to speak, just that I think it’s important to be aware of it.

Adding to that, I feel like the devs have a way of swinging from one extreme to the other, like going from Stormblood synergy to ShB/Endwalkers fixed auto-rotations (i.e 2-min meta). Or even healers going from having various dps abilities to just 1/2 plus cool downs. I worry that the devs will see the feedback and (through no fault of our own) will just try swinging in the complete opposite direction. So instead we’ll end up with bloated dps kits and a small selection of basic heals, in like a complete inversion of what we have now lol.