How would you solve the boring "damage rotation" of the healers?

[ThaCa]

Weaken the overall Healer kits some, combine few of the buttons that are almost always used together, then make it so that Healing builds up Big DPS buttons and Downtime DPSing builds Big Healing buttons. Maybe add Blackest Night style shield breaking rewards for Shield Healers?

[ty_taurus]

If I'm interpreting ty's challenge the way I think is intended, I don't think I qualify. It says:

"To those who believe that the issue with healer design can be completely resolved by increasing the healing requirements only, I have a challenge for you:"

If "increasing healing requirements only" means just by changing what the boss outputs in terms of status and damage, then that's not me. I think more needs to change, like the kits of the healers themselves, potencies, etc.

The comment was specifically in reference to players who regurgitate some iteration of the general statement "Why do we need to add DPS actions when we could just make healers heal more?" Additionally, while the original 'challenge' I posted specified creating 1 minute of a fight using the existing Sage kit, "increasing the healing requirements only" can also mean reworking the actual healing kit since that is in relation to healing requirements. It's not just about how much you have to heal, but what you have to heal with. If you would so choose, you can adapt the example I used with Sage to 1 minute of a fight using a reworked healer concept. If you would like to give a healer rework idea in conjunction with a 1 minute fight example, you don't need to be hyper specific with numbers, potencies, or cooldowns. You can ballpark things, or even just go of HP% values. "This spell will generally heal 40% of the party's HP" or something to that effect.

Some things to keep in mind when it comes to reworking healing tools:

1. The healers need to be capable of clearing old savage and ultimate content which does limit what you can do with healing kits. There are old fights that do require rapid, party-wide healing in a short period of time. So a suggestion to make healers more like WoW healers where there's far more emphasis on single target healing, thus greatly padding out the amount of time you spend healing each party member up one at a time rather than all at once, likely cannot work with the game's existing content. That is an example based on my own train of thought, for the record. Just want to be clear that I'm not trying to put words in your mouth or anything.

2. No matter how healthy culling various actions may be, or converting OGCDs to GCDs, there's a very real chance that there would be backlash for culling certain things. We saw this with WoW. I do believe it's possible to make healthy nerfs like that, but I personally recommend trying to find ways to offset that with something you add in place of what's lost. Try and come up with ideas that sound really appealing and can make up for what is lost--replace the toy you're taking away with a new toy that's superior. That won't work with every person, but it could work well enough if done correctly. I think if rather than just axing Kaiten, for example, they replaced it with something they feel is healthier for wherever they're trying to take Samurai in Dawntrail (or, you know, just wait until you're releasing the changes that don't work with Kaiten to actually cull it rather than needlessly drop it over a year before you even need to worry about it), that Samurai change could have been generally well-received. That's assuming whatever Kaiten gets replaced with actually justifies its removal of course, but you get my point.

[LilimoLimomo]

The comment was specifically in reference to players who regurgitate some iteration of the general statement "Why do we need to add DPS actions when we could just make healers heal more?" Additionally, while the original 'challenge' I posted specified creating 1 minute of a fight using the existing Sage kit, "increasing the healing requirements only" can also mean reworking the actual healing kit since that is in relation to healing requirements. It's not just about how much you have to heal, but what you have to heal with. If you would so choose, you can adapt the example I used with Sage to 1 minute of a fight using a reworked healer concept. If you would like to give a healer rework idea in conjunction with a 1 minute fight example, you don't need to be hyper specific with numbers, potencies, or cooldowns. You can ballpark things, or even just go of HP% values. "This spell will generally heal 40% of the party's HP" or something to that effect.

Some things to keep in mind when it comes to reworking healing tools:

1. The healers need to be capable of clearing old savage and ultimate content which does limit what you can do with healing kits. There are old fights that do require rapid, party-wide healing in a short period of time. So a suggestion to make healers more like WoW healers where there's far more emphasis on single target healing, thus greatly padding out the amount of time you spend healing each party member up one at a time rather than all at once, likely cannot work with the game's existing content. That is an example based on my own train of thought, for the record. Just want to be clear that I'm not trying to put words in your mouth or anything.

2. No matter how healthy culling various actions may be, or converting OGCDs to GCDs, there's a very real chance that there would be backlash for culling certain things. We saw this with WoW. I do believe it's possible to make healthy nerfs like that, but I personally recommend trying to find ways to offset that with something you add in place of what's lost. Try and come up with ideas that sound really appealing and can make up for what is lost--replace the toy you're taking away with a new toy that's superior. That won't work with every person, but it could work well enough if done correctly. I think if rather than just axing Kaiten, for example, they replaced it with something they feel is healthier for wherever they're trying to take Samurai in Dawntrail (or, you know, just wait until you're releasing the changes that don't work with Kaiten to actually cull it rather than needlessly drop it over a year before you even need to worry about it), that Samurai change could have been generally well-received. That's assuming whatever Kaiten gets replaced with actually justifies its removal of course, but you get my point.

Great considerations, all thoughtful things to keep in mind!

That said, I won't be doing the exercise. The constraints described above genuinely comprise a full-time job worth of design work (even with a dev kit for quick iteration and testing), and I simply don't have that degree of free time to spare. But I think discussing and being open about the kinds of constraints you mention here as well as the pros and cons of their potential solutions are great things for everyone to keep in mind, so even if folks don't do the exercise this can help keep us honest about how complex the systems we're trying to improve are!

[ty_taurus]

Great considerations, all thoughtful things to keep in mind!

That said, I won't be doing the exercise. The constraints described above genuinely comprise a full-time job worth of design work (even with a dev kit for quick iteration and testing), and I simply don't have that degree of free time to spare. But I think discussing and being open about the kinds of constraints you mention here as well as the pros and cons of their potential solutions are great things for everyone to keep in mind, so even if folks don't do the exercise this can help keep us honest about how complex the systems we're trying to improve are!

I'll reiterate that the experiment does not need to be a perfectly fleshed out job concept and fight design concept. You do not need to name things, talk about specific restrictions, exact potencies, specific MP costs, or consequences to those actions such as how to manage MP with any noteably higher MP costs, or any other inherent constraint one would need to answer when actually designing a job to be published, and the same goes with the fight mechanics. It can quite literally be something like:

That said, if you don't have the time or interest in doing something like that, it's totally okay. It's required of no one to do job designing for the sake of an online conversation about a game. I just want to emphasize that things don't have to be hyper specific or polished. It doesn't have to be a full time job's worth of work. But there is a lot of belief that there is no way to increase healing requirements enough that the community of skilled healers will feel satisfied enough in all difficulties of content just from changes to the healing kits and frequency of damage received without vastly overwhelming the casual healer, which is why DPS gets discussed. I've used this graph below elsewhere to describe what I mean:



On that scale, the cyan represents the range of healing requirements that the general playerbase can manage, and the vertical black bar is where we stand. There's room to add some more, and doing so would be great for many types of healer players including the pro-DPS healers, but in order for the healing alone to be sufficient enough, we'd need to increase that scale to the magenta area far above what the average player could handle. There is no overlap between the cyan and the magenta, so addressing the problems with the healer role only by approaching the healing side will either not be sufficient to the players who are upset, or alienate many if not most of the players who aren't upset.

The reason why I ask for the example of those who believe the healing alone can be sufficient is because I disagree on principle that it is possible and would like some form of evidence if they want to convince me that healing adjustments on either the healer side, the combat side, or both will be enough to make me love healing again.

[TheDustyOne]

Your analogy draws attention to an essential dilemma in class design. While I appreciate your perspective, the situation with tanks in FFXIV could be seen as a cautionary tale for healers. Consider the following:

• Tank gameplay has become less dynamic, with routine tankbusters and aggro swaps overshadowing core tanking elements like positioning or aggro management.
• Situations requiring a more adaptive approach, such as add management and crowd control in certain fights, are infrequent (P7S, E3S) and unengaging.
• While tanks do have moments to aid teammates, these are often pre-planned and not reflective of dynamic gameplay.
• The push towards a predictable, optimizable fight timeline seems to prioritize perfect execution over adaptability.

The game has been scripted and choreographed for as long as I've been playing, I remember back in SB when I started friends would describe the raids as "DDR, but you do a rotation". We've never really had those dynamic, unscripted fights. I do agree at least that boss positioning has been stripped, but that's a fight design problem, not a kit problem. Aggro was also a "do once per fight and ignore afterwards", so it was never a particularly dynamic part of the kit. I wouldn't mind if it came back in a rebalanced form, but that's a separate discussion.

This trend towards predictability and optimization in tank roles could foreshadow a similar path for healers if their damage rotations are emphasized. It's crucial to address the foundational issues in healer design first, rather than complicating their roles with more complex damage mechanics.

Again, the game has always been pretty predictable in its fight design, and every job trends towards optimizing around those fights, it isn't a uniquely tank thing. Healers will optimize their healing such that it requires as few GCDs as possible to squeeze more damage in.

I respectfully disagree with the notion that enhancing gear should primarily boost HP and defensive stats. The sense of power and progression can be adequately represented through increased damage output, without necessarily affecting survivability to a great extent. This approach could help maintain a balanced challenge in healing, regardless of gear level. Additionally, expanding healers' DPS toolkit as a solution to potential boredom risks overshadowing their primary role. The focus should be on making healing itself more engaging and dynamic, rather than shifting the role towards damage output.

While DPS increasing is one power gain, being able to shrug off an attack that would otherwise be lethal is also part of that feeling of power. Stripping that away takes part of the fun out of gearing up.

Your point about the uniqueness of each job's toolkit is well-taken. However, the issue at hand is less about simplification and more about balancing the core responsibilities of a role with its supplementary aspects. For healers, the current trend seems to be a shift towards damage dealing at the expense of dynamic healing gameplay. My argument is not for the removal of damage-dealing abilities but for a careful recalibration to ensure that healing remains a central, engaging aspect of the role.

You can increase healing responsibilities while also diversifying their DPS kit, they're not mutually exclusive. The need to heal is based on the fight at hand, and the need to DPS is because the boss needs to die, both are important to the overall gameplay of a healer.

While I concur that more varied gameplay is desirable, it is crucial to understand the concept of contribution as a zero-sum game. Enhancing one aspect of a role often requires a corresponding reduction in another. This also applies to the distribution of a player's attention among healing, damage, and movement. In my view, Endwalker raids require an excessive focus on choreographed movement, which detracts from the core responsibilities of healing and damage dealing. Therefore, the priority should be on rebalancing these aspects to ensure a more holistic and engaging experience.

Enhancing one aspect doesn't require a corresponding reduction in the other. We can remove the sheer amount of oGCD heals we have, increase our DPS kit in exchange, and also increase the amount of healing we need because the GCDs are still readily available. The healing responsibility is tied to the fights at hand and the readiness of the heals at hand, not the amount of heals available. The fact that the fights are choreographed isn't the problem, it's the fact that choreography doesn't have enough incoming damage. If anything, we should be having better choreography where the tank has to move the boss as part of the dance, where we have more frequent mitigation and healing checks than now, and the tanks and healers can then have an engaging DPS kit in between those mitigation and healing checks.

[Nizzi]

Exactly. And you know what won't decrease the boredom of many healers? DPS. With respect to the healers who do want more DPS, that's not a satisfactory solution to healers who don't want DPS. The allure healers have over other classes is the healing they do, so that's where I would aim to make the class's gameplay shine.

Here is their satisfactory solution: Go play another game or MMO where you do not have to do DPS on a healer. SE has been trying to please these people for two+ expansions and not only do they not do any of the content where healing is harder, but they aren't pleased with the fact that they have zero DPS pressure in anything below Savage and do not have to DPS at all if they do not want to.

Trying to please people who don't even engage with healer kits in the content they're designed for is a waste of time.

[Saraide]

If someone wants to stay bad and not dps as healer then they can (doesnt mean they should) just not use DPS buttons. At that point it doesnt matter if you have one only glare or an entire damage rotation. This is why this point about "well some healers dont want more than glare" is kinda pointless because you can just be bad and the game doesnt really try to stop you.

[holydiver1286]

By not worrying about damage input from healers and have encounters actually require healers to focus and provide heal/mitigate/support, with healer DPS as a distant secondary concern? If I wanted an interesting DPS rotation, I would play DPS. When I play healer, I want to heal/mitigate/support.

As someone said, you're missing the point entirely. Of course healers focusing on healing/mitigating/support is what the main focus of a healer should be. I have been a healer main since 2.0 and love healing, but let's be realistic. After a certain point there is barely anything to heal. A tank buster happened? I probably didn't even have to heal it if the tank used a cooldown or I can pop an instant heal and go back to dps'ing. Oh a raid wide happened? Instead of panic mashing heals, I can literally throw one aoe regen or if I'm feeling spicy, assize or pneuma then go back to dps'ing. Oh a mechanic that drops everyone's hp to 0 or gives everyone a bleed happened? Yet again, an aoe regen and maybe a bubble will cover that and I can go back to dps'ing. All of 1 to 2 seconds of healing negates any danger. There is simply not enough damage going out to make the healing part of healers engaging. You begin to hope that people mess up so you'll have something to do. I just started doing ultimates recently. Even in them, it seems like a lot at first, but quickly diminishes into being efficient with just a couple heals and then back to dps'ing. I'm all for focusing on healing, but make it actually needed without throwing heals out in to the wind when none are needed. When the hardest content in the game can be cleared without healers (not that it's meant to be that), then that should tell you there's room for improvement in the healing category. Either have enemies shooting out more/random damage that needs to be consistently monitored or give the healers the option to do more except spam glare/broil/etc in the vast amount of time they spend attacking.

[ty_taurus]

I just can't stand this double standard where no one yells at a Warrior asking for a new attack to spend Beast Gauge on, but a healer asks for another attack and it's "I play healer to HEAL. If I wanted to DPS, I'd play a DPS" Bet. I play tank to TANK! If I wanted to DPS, I'd play DPS.

[Shougun]

Suggested before, but imo they should make half the healers consume the concept of support damage. Remove some healing, ensure that the overall healing required for content isn't lost due to this, create a split between the healers with one being enemy focused and the other being ally focused. Support skills that focus on ally would have added damage limiters for better expectation and balance (if you have 5% damage to all party members, this would bias larger parties).

SCH and SGE would become offensive healers, much of SCH would be returned to the way it was. New healing spells could also be introduced (or remixed of current ones), like what I suggested in Dark Healer thread- curse that prevents X out going damage. Primary difference being target.
WHM and AST would become support healers. An example of a support skill that is damage limited would be an en-skill like en-stone on WHM might add 100 potency per skill to the allied target, and 50 potency per self cast to self buff that is expended on next damage skill, up to 500 potency (if not in a party both effects affect the healer). If skill issue of your allies is a concern can make the buffs last a while, or add backup mechanics like if the buff expires with potency remaining grant WHM a buff that allows them to oGCD instant cast stone/glare for 80% of the remaining potency (at no cost).

The idea being SCH and SGE would target the enemies a lot and the allies sometimes, WHM and AST target allies a lot and the enemy sometimes. Both would be dealing damage, both will have similar healing capabilities as before but less healing skills and or healing skills combined with other mechanics (like if there was a curse heal, it might be mixed with just dealing damage- as SCH deals BIO via bane all enemies also get ticked by 50 (3 or more afflicted)/100 (1 afflicted) potency of prevented damage that stacks until consumed by the enemy dealing damage).


Biggest issue is that gear linearly grows (we don't have a horizontal gearing system), content gets easier (self balancing for a large audience), and tanks are self sufficient in easier content (when players use their abilities). Now if you nerf the tanks you don't solve the issue, but would delay it a bit, and then it would be a few heals before going back to 1 2 1 2 1 2. When content is new, even in EW, there was a lot more going on because of bad gear, no echo, and no tank skills. I think the primary issue is actually the gear, then tank skills, and then any sort of content player buffs.

I think without massive changes to multiple systems the easier solution is to concentrate some of the healing actions and bring in support for some of the healers (that leads to damage) and return / reinforce the offense that other healers had liked (for example returning much of SCH, if not improving it 'in that focus').