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

[ty_taurus]

Tanks in this game are essentially just a melee DPS that exchanges some damage potency to gain increased durability and enmity generation. The devs have already overtuned the enmity generation to the point it's become a braindead process. Healer however is a role that normally should be adapting and reacting to changing circumstances during combat. Hence it's lack of any sort of proper rotation for healing or damage output. The issue is everything that has been done for the sake of "accessibility" which has created a situation where a healer often feels unnecessary unless playing with extremely bad players.

All I'm hearing are excuses. So basically, there is no good reason for tanks to continue getting more and more DPS variety while healers don't, for tanks to have free speech to ask for new DPS attacks while healers get kicked in the balls every time we bring up wanting a few extra attack spells to make downtime less brain-rotting, or for tanks to not have the same miserably shallow DPS options in favor of an egregious amount of defensive cooldowns they don't need.

[TheDustyOne]

Tanks already have a full arsenal of attacks. One more attack doesn't move the needle any more than giving a DPS one more attack. But if you give a healer two more attacks you've nearly doubled their offensive kit.

And this last part is just my subjective opinion, but I think that's because tanks in FF14 are already so lacking in mechanical identity that they are little more than DPS with a bigger health pool and some defensive cooldowns. Their fight was lost long ago, while healers still have a chance.

That seems incredibly unfair then to Scholars who used to have a lot more DPS skills. Now if they ask for those back, suddenly they're asking for "triple the amount they currently have". If SCH never lost those, would you suddenly be okay with them having another DPS skill? And if it's okay for Scholars to have extra attacks in that scenario, why is WHM and AST suddenly not allowed to have that?

Tanks are also about 50/50 in DPS/defensives, the ratio is a lot higher than you realise. Aggro wasn't all that meaningful when it was there beyond the opener or someone forgetting Diversion, so it's loss wasn't felt all that painfully for most tanks. The loss of positioning is seen as more of a problem, and that's a fight design issue, not a kit issue.

DPSing as healers is ultimately going to be necessary no matter how much healing is required, and the lax healing requirements in casual content means that someone doing that with a modicum of skill behind them is going to get bored quickly. The solution is to make the downtime engaging in some way rather than forcing savage-level healing on the healer who can't keep up with that. DPS is the obvious answer because it is always useful, and buffs are just indirect DPS.

Also healers having mechanical identity... SCH and SGE say otherwise. The two are so close in design that I have the same buttons on the same places on my hotbar. Tanks have a similar issue, especially between WAR and DRK, but you don't see nearly as many people complaining about those 2 compared to the healers. WAR at least plays differently enough in how frequently it uses and generates Beast Gauge compared to Blood Gauge, while DRK is extremely oGCD heavy and requires rapid inputs. That alone gives a separate feel for the jobs.

[ty_taurus]

With respect, you're telling me this like we're not on the same page about that being a problem. We just have different ideas of how to solve it.

Unrelated to anything in this debate, as someone with hand and wrist issues myself, I strongly recommend you don't mash, especially if it's resulting in medical issues. The GCD is 2.5 seconds, so only press it that often. Your GCD slipping is not worth your physical well-being. Especially in a dungeon. Regardless of which side either of us takes in this silly debate over what will make our free-time game more fun, you're a living person and I care about your well-being.

And I don't believe your solution will make a dent in that problem, at least not for the people who actually have a problem with the lack of healing, because you will never be able to demand enough healing at all difficulty levels to demand frequent enough healing that the atrocious DPS options the healers suffer will no longer be an issue without making the role unplayable for probably most of the current healer population.

[ChrysOCE]

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.

You are just proving the point? You barely need to heal and end up DPSing for the most part. So is this good healer design? Is this good content design? It's just DPS more and have a complex DPS option because, as it currently stands, all healers are, are a DPS with healing tacked on. Is that good?

[TheDustyOne]

Healers not healing enough is a fight design problem, not a healer kit problem. It only becomes a healer kit problem when we don't have enough healing tools for the incoming damage.

That still doesn't take away from the fact that:

1. We can still have a varied DPS kit when healing isn't needed.
2. The existence of a DPS kit doesn't mean that less healing is needed. That's up for the boss to dish out.
3. Damage from the bosses should be increased in all content going forward.

Handicapping healer kits by telling them that they shouldn't have more DPS options because "hEaLeRs OnLy HeAl" is destructive to how we can design healer jobs. At least if healers have a more compelling DPS kit, they won't get bored during the lull periods where no damage is going out from the boss.

Only fixing damage output from bosses isn't good, it only solves half the issue. Only adding in DPS spells isn't good, it only solves half the issue. Both are needed to solve the healer issues.

I think I'm starting to understand how Ty feels.

[ChrysOCE]

Handicapping healer kits by telling them that they shouldn't have more DPS options because "hEaLeRs OnLy HeAl" is destructive to how we can design healer jobs.[/SIZE]

Who here has actually said "I ONLY want to heal, as a healer"?

[LilimoLimomo]

And I don't believe your solution will make a dent in that problem...

I think it's fair if you disagree with me on whether my preferred solution will work, but I hope you'll at least do me the respect of acknowledging that we both agree there's a problem. Your previous post seemed to imply that I was fine with the status quo that was contributing to your bad time, when I am very much not. You and I have been debating this issue for long enough that I would hope that you would at least understand that we agree there's a problem to be solved.

[LilimoLimomo]

All I'm hearing are excuses. So basically, there is no good reason for tanks to continue getting more and more DPS variety while healers don't, for tanks to have free speech to ask for new DPS attacks while healers get kicked in the balls every time we bring up wanting a few extra attack spells to make downtime less brain-rotting, or for tanks to not have the same miserably shallow DPS options in favor of an egregious amount of defensive cooldowns they don't need.

This is silly and reductive. Anyone who plays a class can ask for whatever they want. And anyone else is free to disagree and ask for something else. You're not being robbed of your free speech just because some people on a forum disagree with you.

[TheDustyOne]

It has cropped up in this thread in the past, and usually it comes across from people asking to keep DPS kits how they are "because I'm a healer, not a DPS, make me heal more", typically not realising how much we need to increase incoming damage to actually make us use most of our kits, or that you can have more to heal alongside extra DPS options. You yourself said in the first page:

If I wanted an interesting DPS rotation, I would play DPS. When I play healer, I want to heal/mitigate/support.

The sentiment is still very much the same. Healer kits should be bad because you're a healer and not a DPS.

[Saraide]

With respect, you're telling me this like we're not on the same page about that being a problem. We just have different ideas of how to solve it.

Unrelated to anything in this debate, as someone with hand and wrist issues myself, I strongly recommend you don't mash, especially if it's resulting in medical issues. The GCD is 2.5 seconds, so only press it that often. Your GCD slipping is not worth your physical well-being. Especially in a dungeon. Regardless of which side either of us takes in this silly debate over what will make our free-time game more fun, you're a living person and I care about your well-being.

You're not on the same page. You have been arguing against ty's point for the entire thread. You're being told that your solution is not realistic and doesnt change anything in the first place. You're arguing against that with questionable levels of experience.