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

[Raikai]

That's a fair point! And in my opinion, I do think there should be more disparity between classes. If half the healers given a more involved damage rotation to keep their thumbs busy, I think that would be fine. I just don't agree with a solution that gives that to everyone, because not everyone wants that.

Okay, they want to keep healer dps simple, and I get the reasoning... but why does it need to be the copy paste nuke+dot for the filler actions for everyone?

Can one of the healers not have a dot and to make up for it, a complex card system to be actively used every 30s and not just in the burst windows?
Can one of the healers have a longer cast on their nukes again (with corresponding potency) since they have Ruin 2 to create double weaving windows and movement?
Can one of the healers not have a dot and have a combo system instead for filler complexity?
Can one of the healers stay as the current dps model for a simpler option?

[ty_taurus]

With respect, I think it's hasty to suggest that a set of fights using the kits this expansion is limited to offers meaningful evidence that no possible kit and no possible tuning could yield a solution. I would say that's probably fairly decent evidence that relying only on damage output won't yield a solution. But there is so much more possibility space outside of the status quo.

I do still want to see some increase to healing gameplay. Never said I only wanted more DPS. My point is that the opposite of wanting only healing isn't the solution either. It's a combination of increase the healing without alienating the larger player base and increasing the variety of DPS options. Ideally, as I said prior, I think there should be a healer designed specifically to disguise the DPS that they must provide for balance purposes as healing and support by attaching it to an engine building system. Something within that ballpark the best I can think of without disrupting the state of play.

[Aravell]

The only acceptable solution to this issue is to deal with everything wrong with the healer role equally. In no particular order:

1) Healing requirements too low
2) Healing kit power bloat
3) Tanks and DPS bringing too much healing/shielding utility
4) Uninteresting healing and damage kit

If only one aspect is addressed, that's only pleasing one subsection of the healer playerbase, that's not an acceptable solution after so many years of failing design. Most of the healer mains understand this, so it would be nice if people would stop parroting that raising healing requirements is the magical fix-all solution. My opinion is that we shouldn't accept a "single step forward" at this point, the dev team should be looking through all criticism and addressing all aspects of the problem, not just aspects that they agree with.

[RitsukoSonoda]

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.

No, you're just calling it an excuse because you are too short sighted to see the actual issues with the healer role and because you cannot formulate a proper counter argument you resort to attempting to discredit valid points brought against you. The reason the healer role discussions on this forum rarely go anywhere is because people like you only look at 1 piece of the puzzle then assume you know what the whole picture is. Healer is a role that should not have any type of rotation. The only reason people like you want a "damage rotation" is because of a compounded list of poor design choices in the overall design of all jobs and general gameplay has created a situation where the role does not play the way it should most of the time.

[IDontPetLalas]

Then you and I don't fully disagree, the existence of extra DPS buttons doesn't mean that we heal/support/mitigate/debuff less. It just means we have more to do when those aren't needed. A buffer job like AST could fill the niche for buffing allies when healing isn't needed while still meaningfully contributing to the parties damage.

We do have to be careful however when increasing healing requirements. We can only go so far before it goes from engaging and fun to frustrating, and that can vary massively with player skill. I do think it needs to be higher in all forms of content, but casual content I think can't go too much higher than what Zeromus or P10 offered.

Perhaps, however what attracted me to AST was the ability to heal, buff and DPS.

If you look at the results of this survey https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...aler-additions then the highest percentage here for AST is actually related to attacks (DPS actions) , followed closely by Draw/Play actions and changes to the the arcana gauge- actions related to buffs.

[IDontPetLalas]

No, you're just calling it an excuse because you are too short sighted to see the actual issues with the healer role and because you cannot formulate a proper counter argument you resort to attempting to discredit valid points brought against you. The reason the healer role discussions on this forum rarely go anywhere is because people like you only look at 1 piece of the puzzle then assume you know what the whole picture is. Healer is a role that should not have any type of rotation. The only reason people like you want a "damage rotation" is because of a compounded list of poor design choices in the overall design of all jobs and general gameplay has created a situation where the role does not play the way it should most of the time.

I believe that the word "rotation" is being over used here. Most (if not all) people here don't want to enforce a rigid type 1, 2, 3 combo on healers. They want DPS options. It could be procs, or actions that wouldn't break a combo.

Irrespective of the design, it is fundamental to healer gameplay that a healer makes judgement calls as to whether it is appropriate to heal or DPS in a given situation. A game designer should not remove that choice from the player. If the designer wants to, they can make the choice obvious, but Square has really underestimated their healers.

[TheDustyOne]

I remember the survey, it's worth looking at the updated results as well for it since it's pretty neck-and-neck on new attacks vs new buffs. More people overall want new attacks, but when asked on what they were most interested in seeing, it was a new buff. Of all the healers though, I'd be fine with AST having the least DPS buttons and putting more emphasis on handing out buffs.

I'd still at the very least want them to have 1 or 2 extra DPS spells.

[ty_taurus]

No, you're just calling it an excuse because you are too short sighted to see the actual issues with the healer role and because you cannot formulate a proper counter argument you resort to attempting to discredit valid points brought against you. The reason the healer role discussions on this forum rarely go anywhere is because people like you only look at 1 piece of the puzzle then assume you know what the whole picture is. Healer is a role that should not have any type of rotation. The only reason people like you want a "damage rotation" is because of a compounded list of poor design choices in the overall design of all jobs and general gameplay has created a situation where the role does not play the way it should most of the time.

Yeah yeah yeah. Just make more heal. DPS Bad! If a healer wants to DPS, they should play a DPS job, unless we're talking about tanks, they can have more DPS every expansion because they're not yucky healers. You don't think I deserve to enjoy the game. If only I had the ability to open my third eye and see the grand design that you see, then perhaps my dum dum DPS that thinks he's a healer brain could be happy.

We get it.

[IDontPetLalas]

I remember the survey, it's worth looking at the updated results as well for it since it's pretty neck-and-neck on new attacks vs new buffs. More people overall want new attacks, but when asked on what they were most interested in seeing, it was a new buff. Of all the healers though, I'd be fine with AST having the least DPS buttons and putting more emphasis on handing out buffs.

I'd still at the very least want them to have 1 or 2 extra DPS spells.

Agreed, unfortunately I know there was an excellent survey that Ty did (another one), unfortunately I didn't find it, with more responses.

[ty_taurus]

Agreed, unfortunately I know there was an excellent survey that Ty did (another one), unfortunately I didn't find it, with more responses.

This one?

It just needs more comments to keep that thread active.