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

[ForsakenRoe]

Oh boy another of these threads, and what do you know, it got derailed by the one and only. Who could have seen that coming?

Anyway, looks like it's time to once again post 'what would I do to the healers'

WHM:

New gauge element, goes from 0-100 by using non-Lily damage and heal actions, I call it the 'Nature gauge' because no imagination
Glare now gives 1 gauge
Dia now 12s duration, 150 on cast + 70p per tick (total 430). Gives 5 total gauge over it's duration
Water/Banish added, instantcast 15s CD, 40p stronger than the relative Stone/Glare level, gives 5 gauge on cast
Maybe a shielding Lily spender (400p ST/250p AOE), down with the pure/barrier split it sucks
New healing move, Blessing of the Elementals, costs 50 'Nature gauge', 500p instantcast AOE heal GCD, grants a stack of each of Rage of the River, Wrath of the Winds, Ire of the Earth
Quake, upgrades from Glare/Stone while under 'Ire of the Earth', is 100p stronger
Tornado, upgrades from Aero/Dia while under 'Wrath of the Winds', is 30p stronger on cast and 20p per tick (total 110)
Flood, upgrades from Water/Banish while under 'Rage of the River', is 100p stronger

Quake/Tornado/Flood are meant to be balanced to total to be one Glare3 worth of damage, to refund the lost GCD spent on Blessing of the Elementals.
Quake/Tornado/Flood have 50% AOE damage falloff, so they can be used in AOE (Tornado applies it's DOT to all targets hit, kinda like old Aero 3)
Holy generates 2 Nature Gauge per enemy hit (a pack of 7 would generate 14 gauge, for example)

SCH:

These assume Broil 5 is a thing, and that it is 300p (names WIP).

Biolysisis: 30s duration, 35p per tick (total 350p)
Mias-malady: 1.5s cast time, 24s duration, 100p on cast, 30p per tick (total 340p)
Shadowflare: Instantcast, 100p AOE centered on enemy. Drops a puddle under enemy for 15s (limit of one puddle), 50p per tick. Total 350p per enemy. Due to numbers, it's a gain to upkeep in AOE, instead of just using AOW.

AST: Just gonna copypaste a post about it

Major Arcana: now autodraws one every 60s. If you have one already, it's discarded and a new one is drawn. Use it or lose it

Minor Arcana: now draws a Minor Arcana every 15s. Unlike Majors, you can stock an additional Minor Arcana. When one is held in reserve, the timer pauses (like capping on Lilies), so its not for holding to dump in burst, just to help prevent overcap

Playing Major Arcana is still OGCD, but Minor Arcana are GCD.

Additionally, Sleeve Draw would return, becoming a 2charge, 60s charge time action. When you use it, your currently drawn Minor Arcana becomes a Lady of it's suit. Just to make sure it's got some juice for the burst window

Now for Card effects (im not good with names):

Balance: 10% damage, 15s

Bole: 20% damage mitigation, 15s. Additionally, grants 3 stacks of Bole's Bulwark, causing the enemy that strikes the bearer of this buff to take 10% of that ally's Max HP as damage and consuming one stack.

Arrow: Grants 10 stacks of 'Arrow's Assault' (12 if the target is PhysRanged), increasing Autoattack rate by 400%. One stack is consumed for each Autoattack dealt under it's effect, and upon consuming all stacks, the Autoattack rate returns to normal.
Additionally, if the target of this card is the AST, grants 5 stacks of Arrow's Assault, speeding up the recast time of the AST to 1.5s for the next 5 GCD attacks, and making cast times of those spells instant.

Ewer: Grants 1000mp over 15s. Additionally, Grants 3 stacks of Ewer Overflowing, causing the next 3 attacks dealt by a healer to strike a second time for 100% of the spell's potency. Additional effects are not applied. This second strike cannot crit or DHit

Spear: 10% Physical damage, 15s, if used on the AST their attacks are considered physical for the duration

Spire: 10% Magic damage, 15s

A Note on Minor Arcana: Knaves, Lords, Ladies are 7 8 and 9 respectively. Due to not having a duration, these effects will last on the target until they are overwritten by another card, or KO removes them.

X of Staves: Increases the next 5 attacks dealt by the target ally by 60p. Additionally, increases the damage of the first attack dealt by target ally after this effect is applied, by 5 potency, multiplied by the face value of the arcana.

X of Rings: Deals 100p in counterattack damage each time the target ally is struck, up to 3 times. Additionally, deals an additional 5 potency, multiplied by the face value of the arcana, for the first counterattack only.

X of Knives: Causes the next 6 Autoattacks to deal a second strike for 50p. Additionally, a bonus potency equal to the arcana face value is applied to each of these bonus strikes.
if the concept of 'potency value not divisible by 5' is too much for the engine, make it 'first autoattack has bonus damage of '5 x face value'' like the rest

X of Cups: Causes the next 3 healer damage spells to cost half MP, and to strike a second time for 100p. Additional effects are not applied twice. Additionally, the first of these spells deals bonus damage equal to 5 potency, multiplied by the face value of the arcana

X of Crowns: Increases the next 5 instances of Magic damage dealt by 60p. Additionally, a bonus potency equal to the arcana face value is applied to each of these bonus strikes.
see arrow if game can't handle non-5 values

X of Irons: Increases the next 5 instances of Physical damage dealt by 60p. Additionally, a bonus potency equal to the arcana face value is applied to each of these bonus strikes. Additionally, if the target of this card is the AST, the next 5 instances of magic damage are instead considered physical

Lastly, Astrodyne would be condensed so that rather than being three buffs with one effect each, the reward for getting more seals is still one buff, but it consolidates all previous 'reward buffs' into itself. Buff cap is already straining at the thought of these extra Minor Arcana effects. Additionally, Astrodyne's effects are lowered in potency (in my mind) because they'd be up more often. This is because I'd have Minor Arcana give seals too, leading to much higher uptime on Astrodyne

SGE: also copypasting a post about it

1: Dosis, Pneuma, Diagnosis, Prognosis, Dyskrasia and Phlegma, and any Eukrasian variants thereof (in other words, everything that currently has MP costs) now costs ZERO MP.

2: Soteria, Krasis, Zoe now have a 5 second cooldown, and an MP cost (maybe 1000 idk). Eukrasia now has an MP cost, albeit slightly lower (maybe 700, comparatively speaking)

3: E.Diagnosis, E.Prognosis and E.Dosis now have their base form's potency, with the additional effect being just that, additional, potencies adjusted to compensate. This means E.Diagnosis is 450p, with a shield equal to 120% of HP restored. E.Prognosis is 300p, shield equal to 100% of HP restored (yes it went down by 20p, it's not a big deal). E.Dosis now does 330p up-front damage, with a DOT effect of 35 for 30sec (same total, but half of it is now frontloaded). Currently, if you accidentally Eukrasia before a cast but don't need the Eukrasia, you have to either click it off (clunky) or suck up the loss of effectiveness. With this, all you lose is the MP cost. Which still sucks, just not as much.

4: Toxicon now has a 5sec cooldown, and an MP cost. Toxicon 2 is removed. Addersting is reworked as a resource into a 0-100 gauge. Addersgall is reworked into a 0-100 gauge. Addersgall is generated both passively at a rate of 1 per second, and actively via the class's skills. All previous costs of 'one Addersgall' now cost 25 Addersgall. Yes this means you can pool 4 Druocholes instead of 3.

5: A new button, Pankardia (MP cost 1000), is added as a level 68 skill. It's effect would be 'Applies 4 stacks of PanKardion to all nearby allies. When Kardion heals, every ally with PanKardion receives a heal of the same potency, consuming one stack per Kardion heal triggered.'

6: Soteria has it's effect changed to 'Applies 4 stacks of Soteria to self. Each Kardion heal is increased by 50% of the damage dealt by the attack that triggered the heal, consuming one stack. Area-Effect skills only count the primary target.'

7: Zoe has it's effect changed to 'Applies 4 stacks of Zoe to self. Causes Kardion and Pankardion to additionally apply a barrier, equal to 25% of the amount healed by the original effect, consuming one stack. Multiple applications of this barrier may overlap, strengthening the barrier's effectiveness. Does not stack with Eukrasian Prognosis.'

8: Krasis has it's effect changed to 'Applies 4 stacks of Krasis to self. Allows any non-instant spell to be cast with zero cast time, consuming one stack.'

9: Toxicon has it's effect changed to 'Drains the Addersting Gauge to 0, and applies 4 stacks of Toxicon to self. Offensive spells have increased potency, scaling based on how much Addersting was consumed. Consumes one stack per offensive spell used.' (at the moment, I'm thinking a 1:1 rate, so 100 gauge is 100p boost for 4 hits, but this can be spent earlier if needed, to reset the gauge to 0 and re-jig when you hit 100 to line up with raidbuffs better, for optimization gamers to play with)

10: Triggering a Kardion heal in any way generates 1 Addersting. Spending Soteria, Zoe and Krasis stacks have the additional effect of 'Increases Addersting gauge by 4.' (All 4 stacks total up to 16 gauge, 20 in total due to the Kardion triggering) Eukrasia grants 8 gauge on use. Spending Toxicon charges causes the Addersgall gauge to increase by 4 each. Addersgall spenders still retain their MP restoration effects, but the MP restoration potency might be rebalanced.

11: Phlegma has a 'Eukrasian' variant, which is a target-based circle AOE (like Phlegma currently is), does 50% of your current Phlegma's damage to the target and all enemies near it (and consumes a charge of Phlegma), but additionally applies Eukrasian Dosis to all targets hit for 15 seconds (this would mean a total potency of 475 per target in an AOE, over 15 sec), and uses Phlegma's current animation. Main Phlegma now uses Toxicon 1's animation, because it's our hardest hit and that animation is in the trailer for the game so it deserves to be front and center.

12: Rhizomata has it's effect changed to 'Adds 25 Addersgall. Causes the next MP cost to be reduced to 0. Duration: 10sec.'

13: Eukrasian Diagnosis' shield break effect changed from 'Grants one Addersting' to 'Grants Phlegmatic, allowing the cast of Phlegma without spending a charge'. This would not be a 100% refund (600 vs 660 of 2x Dosis), but it's better than what we have now. Also, going into a burst window with a E.Diagnosis, then spending your Phlegmatic charge, followed by the natural 2 Phlegma charges is probably a DPS gain for those optimization types, and would be a bit like DRK banking it's Dark Arts charge for raidbuffs

14: Pepsis now costs 500mp, has a very low CD (maybe 5sec), and generates 8 Addersting on use (even if it doesn't do anything you get the gauge). When Eukrasian Diagnosis or Eukrasian Prognosis break, they leave a buff on that player called Second Opinion for about 5 seconds. When Pepsis is used, it consumes Second Opinion to heal that player for the amount of HP the barrier protected for. Essentially, if you ever played a Character Action game like Viewtiful Joe, Wonderful 101, whatever, and used the Ukemi (jump button right as you land, instantly heal back the damage you took), it's that with a bit more leniency. And it gives Pepsis a much more interesting use case.

And there you have it, four healers, all with very different feeling gameplay styles. WHM focused on piling up their damage refund systems so they can unload in burst windows. SCH having a bigger focus on DOTs (which is a good base to build on with interconnected systems in later expansions). AST having a more interesting card system, which has more thematic feel than the current one (where Arrow is suboptimal on the BOW user! or Bole, the protective world tree, is suboptimal if used on a TANK!) and a much higher focus on contributing damage via buffing (potentially every 15s with the reworked Minor Arcana deck) instead of the Malefic spam. And SGE, who would finally be able to 'heal by doing damage' (and might accidentally find Piety being their best substat, because of how it'd allow you more augment usage > more Toxikon gauge built > more damage from Toxikon uses)

The best part is, it actually conforms with that '4 healers' thing Ren keeps trying to bring up. SGE would remain almost entirely untouched on the damage kit side, with it's complexity stemming from optimizing the Kardia healing. And if it were up to me, I'd make it bloody hard to optimize it. But since it's healing optimization, that's acceptable, surely?

[Renathras]

Oh boy another of these threads, and what do you know, it got derailed by the one and only. Who could have seen that coming?

Yes, yet another thread Sebazy did derail. Unfortunately. At least it's back on track now.

Doesn't this fall foul of rule number 4 sir?

/ignore

You're seriously trying to goad me. I believe that's a TOS violation, but I'll move to the other part:

No, it doesn't violate rule 4. Also, I have a serious question for you: As a matter of general "good life rules", do you believe the things posted in my signature are bad rules?

You mock them and me for having them all the time. Do you believe not attacking people, not using hyperbole, realizing people are imperfect but trying to control that is good, and that being nice and not heckling people...are bad things? Considering how often you mock, I can only assume you believe that attacking people - you do me often enough as you are now, even completely unrelated to topics and uncalled for - engaging in hyperbole, being perfect, and being mean to people as you also heckle them are all the proper ways to live. Or so your actions seem to indicate.

Which do you believe?

You say this but then you also post the wesk alber thread.

The Wesk Alber thread WAS an attempt at a good faith discussion. "Before we discussed what people thinking EW was bad thought and their perspective, here is a person providing a different point of view comparing to the game's past, is he making good points or not?" The initial replies were all trying to attack me, but after those people got it out of their system, a good faith discussion was had.

That is, the bad faith seems to come from the person attacking me, not from me and my posts, and once the people attacking me stop, then good faith discussion seems to commence.

Same as this thread. When people aren't making digs at me, we're having a good faith discussion, even productive in the sense of people voicing their positions, discussing issues, and understanding one another. Oddly, when people attack me, suddenly all that breaks down. And, oddly, when they stop doing so, discussion once again commences.

It would seem the people attacking me are the ones derailing threads and destroying good discussions, and when they stop doing it, everyone else breathes a sigh of relief and has a good and productive discussion.

Can we not turn this thread into another "Renathras vs The World" thread? That would be great, thanks. We had a pretty decent discussion going before all this happened.

Yes, thank you.


Though I'm genuinely unsure what you mean here. Maybe you can clarify if I ask a question or two.

What did you mean by balancing healing and damage? On the face of it, that seems to be saying "knowing when to heal and when to do damage". Is that not what you meant? You didn't mention rotations or complexity, which is why I pointed out we do that dance right now (just most of our healing is on the oGCD instead of the GCD). Did you mean rotation specifically, or just dynamically moving between healing and damage based on the needs of the encounter?

What was it you loved about healers in HW/SB? Would giving SCH its SB kit back in its entirity and giving AST its SB kit back in its entirety (Cards and Noct, etc) NOT do that? What other things do you want back about healers in HW/SB that that would not provide? I mean straight up taking SB's SCH and AST kits and giving them to you now (if you want some extra stuff like Expedience, that works as well) would be giving you back 2/3rds of the healers in HW/SB (3/4ths if we count AST stances separate). What was it you loved about HEALERS (not just WHM, not to mention SB WHM was the worst iteration of the Job at any point in the game's history...) that this wouldn't be providing you? Do you mean encounter design? Because you know I'm all for changing that.

What was it you loved about healers in HW/SB, exactly? And I'm not asking this to be an arse, I'm genuinely trying to understand why this wouldn't at least partly scratch that itch... trying to figure out what it was, specifically, you loved, so I can understand what this doesn't address and what modifications to the proposal might address it.

...

Wasn't sure that was still viable? I'm less concerned with parsing 100 and more concerned with the damage gap (if encounters ARE tuned around healer damage) being small enough that it doesn't impair clears. The problem is, if the tuning is based on the low end, then the high end makes clears too easy and people complain. But if it's based on the high end, then the low end can no longer clear, which is also bad. So the gap has to be small, but in that case, the people wanting more complexity complain their "more work" isn't rewarding enough for them, despite them literally asking for said "more work".

This was part of the reason I settled on the 4 Healers Model instead, since the idea of Glarespam doing the same relative damage (within a percent or so) of a complex/convoluted rotation was rejected outright.

Then people started saying balance doesn't matter (the 2 min meta and Job homogenization issue), so that seemed like a good alternative avenue, to vary the complexity across JOBS instead of WITHIN a Job.

I do agree that, in terms of "position of strength", the status quo is the baseline position. That is, if the community cannot agree, then the Devs are likely to go "We'll just stay the course". And while I've made that argument once before, I do feel it's a bit hamfisted since I don't want people bowing under a pressure like that, I'd rather it be "Oh, this is a good argument/idea" or at least "This is an acceptable one that does address at least some concerns".

On the part about not wanting an exact copy, yes...

I think then the problem comes to vagueness. As you say, "comparable to" or "feel like"...but what does that mean? People say these things, not realizing that they are subjective. As I laid out, WHM, to my perspective already IS comparable to WAR. Yet to someone else, it is not. The problem being that's not a rigidly defined term, so both positions are right. This makes it difficult to discuss things and reach agreement because people are (unintentionally) using terms that are too vague. I don't mean this in a negative way per se - that is, I don't think it's malicious or intended - but it does make conversations difficult unless the person defines them. That's why I try to define terms like that in my own posts (to various levels of success/failure), such as "I want X to feel like Y...and by 'feel like', I mean..."

I think sometimes people also haven't quite thought about it to that level; like they know what they want in a general sense, but not precisely in a way they can word, so to speak. Sort of like one might know the flavor of a food they want, but be unable to...describe it, exactly. For example, "WHM as complex as WAR", what does that MEAN? DPS complexity or overall complexity (including heals/defensives)? And what is complex? Is a 1-2-3 complex? Is a self-buff that stacks more or less complex than a DoT which doesn't stack (I've been told stacking to 60 seconds makes something easier/less complex...) and which can be applied to multiple targets and has breakpoints in AOE of when you want to use it or not and which has up front damage making it a movement tool. Also, is a 1-2-3 of instant cast weaponskills more or less complex than a cast time spell where positioning and slidecasting come into play?

These things aren't precisely defined in the statement "I want WHM as complex as WAR", which is why someone can come in and say "Isn't it already?"

It's kind of why I'm asking Aravell the questions above, since I'm genuinely not sure what "what I loved about healers in HW/SB" means in this context, given I would think giving her SCH and AST exactly as they were in SB would achieve that...but if it does not, then I need a better understand of specifics on what the things she loved WERE. For all the flack I get on these forums, I genuinely DO try to have good faith discussions with and understand people.

I'm also familiar with Smash. One thing they've gotten better at over time is differentiating "clones". Roy and Lucina are clones of Marth, but play differently. Marth's damage is highest striking with the very tip of his sword, which requires a finesse playstyle of precise positioning. Roy is the other way around, being stronger striking close to the hilt and has slightly greater attack power, making his combat style a more close in brawler that isn't as touchy (it's easy to just "move into the enemy hitbox" than to know precise distancing). But Lucina is the one ranked S or A tier (depending on the tier list authors) because she's more rounded; she can do more damage when precise but does higher average damage than Marth overall and is lighter on her feet and more responsive than Roy. Another good example are Fox, Falco, and Wolf, who each have the same general moveset, but with distinctions in attack angles, character speeds, and attack power, as well as hitboxes for various things like their reflect shields or some altered mechanics to stuff like their throws and blaster fire, to the point they don't feel very similar to play despite having very similar movesets.

Personally, if I was to take more mechanical inspiration for WHM, I'd rather look at BLM; a high powered turret caster that emphasises big numbers and that feeling of raw power, and long cast times that go with it. However, it shouldn't be as punishing as BLM, and should take into account that it will have to interrupt its big damage spells for heals. WHM makes a lot of sense as the holy counterpart that focuses on the natural elements and the divine compared to BLM that revels in the destructive elements and despair.

I'd agree with this if we were talking about its HEALS and a game like FFXI.

That is, imagine if FFXIV was a game where WHM was focused on casting Cure, Cure 2, Cure 3, Cure 4, and Regen all the time. In that sense, it would make sense to have a slow cast, turrety playstyle.

...but I suspect you aren't talking about that?

I also should note there's...not a lot of nuance to WAR. It's not "easy to pick up but has optimization to master". We can tell this looking at the abacus log bar length. The longer the bar (spread between 0% and 100%), the more difficult the Job is, and the shorter the bar, the easier it is. WAR has one of, if not the, narrowest bar of all Jobs in the game, meaning it has the least optimization to master of any Job. It's hard to compare across roles (since the three roles are balanced to others in the role, not to other roles), but it is mathematically shorter (64-31 on Thaliak) than WHM. Which is also saying something since it's a higher damage level, meaning it's a percentage of a higher value, so having an even smaller spread means WAR is easier to optimize than WHM is right now. (If you don't like Thaliak - I use 24 mans since they show the community as a whole, not just raiders - it's even WORSE if you look at Kokitos Savage, where WAR's spread is 64-52 vs WHM's 55-34). We don't have a perfect statistic for "complexity", but that's probably the best proxy we have, and it says WHM is actually more complex to optimize than WAR right now...which would mean WHM is more complex to play/execute.

...

Question on SCH:

How would you feel if Mias-malady was instant cast and an upgrade of Ruin 2? That is, "Ruin 2 with a DoT"? Could make the base damage 200 and 15 potency per tick (same 340 total), which would make it still useful as a movement tool, but under ideal situations, used on refresh. I think I proposed something very similar once and people seemed to like the idea.

Likewise, have Shadowflare replace Energy Drain? It does the same potency as ED does now, so this would just make ED more useful in AOE and a more methodical part of the rotation - instead of burning 3x (or 6x) in burst windows, you'd want to space them out more, though you could blow them in burst if you...wanted to. It would make optimizing ED actually have more value, which might get us into trouble, but...meh.

Alternatively, make Shadowflare a GCD with a 2.5 sec cast, replacing Dissipation, which we can finally dump for all time as the horribad ability it is. (But...I kind of like it replacing ED better...)

Yes yes, this is a "button bloat" concern, but I'm curious if that would be satisfactory.

[Also, your idea doesn't leave any of the healer Jobs for people that like current healer gameplay - I don't think, will have to look at the SGE one to be sure - so it doesn't QUITE meet the requirement. Though the SCH changes wouldn't be a big diversion and might be "close enough for government work", as it were...especially if it did the things I ask about here.]

[ForsakenRoe]

How would you feel if Mias-malady was instant cast and an upgrade of Ruin 2? That is, "Ruin 2 with a DoT"? Could make the base damage 200 and 15 potency per tick (same 340 total), which would make it still useful as a movement tool, but under ideal situations, used on refresh. I think I proposed something very similar once and people seemed to like the idea.

Likewise, have Shadowflare replace Energy Drain? It does the same potency as ED does now, so this would just make ED more useful in AOE and a more methodical part of the rotation - instead of burning 3x (or 6x) in burst windows, you'd want to space them out more, though you could blow them in burst if you...wanted to. It would make optimizing ED actually have more value, which might get us into trouble, but...meh.

Alternatively, make Shadowflare a GCD with a 2.5 sec cast, replacing Dissipation, which we can finally dump for all time as the horribad ability it is. (But...I kind of like it replacing ED better...)


[Also, your idea doesn't leave any of the healer Jobs for people that like current healer gameplay - I don't think, will have to look at the SGE one to be sure - so it doesn't QUITE meet the requirement. Though the SCH changes wouldn't be a big diversion and might be "close enough for government work", as it were...especially if it did the things I ask about here.]

The problem is, people are complaining that there is not enough to fill the healer downtime with. Your suggestion would just reallocate the current buttons to have a different use, and in some cases that can work, but I think for SCH specifically, the interaction of Quickened Aetherflow and Energy Drain is an important design element for a fair amount of people. I don't really want to mess with ED considering how much of a point of contention it is, that's above my pay grade so I'd leave it unchanged and let someone else try and deal with it. Effectively, all I have here is SB SCH, with HW SCH's Shadow Flare (made less 'clunky' because it's not ground targeted). Additionally, things can just be held for mobility if needed. You see Shadowflare is 350 and so you might assume you 'need' to refresh it as soon as it falls off, but you could actually hold it to use for mobility pretty easily. The actual loss is not 350, but 'the difference between it's full power of 350, and the Broil filler it replaces' which is just 50p. Over 6 GCDs, that works out to an average of just 8.something potency, absolutely miniscule, and a smaller DPS loss than the Ruin 2/Broil difference

As for SGE, the main damage GCDs were untouched. Only Toxikon got changed, from a damage GCD to a selfbuff, which you could theoretically just smack whenever it hits 100 gauge without any care about raidbuff timings. IDK if that counts as 'too different' but I'd call it 'only as much difference as SE adds to the healers each expansion when we get a new CD we don't need'. Unlike those though, this would actually have some interplay with the kit, unlike some of the stuff they lump us with (cough Aquaveil)

[Themarvin]

Solution to it would be reducing the amount of healing clases to 2 or 3... with tanks, to two or 3 tanks, for ranged physical dps from 3 to 2... and so on and so forth.

This more jobs there in the game, this less diversity there wil be space for and that is mostly due to how complex it would be to balance it all out for all jobs being usefull, and that is how it works out.

Right now DPS, Heals, Tanking no matter pick... has similar rotations but just different graphics and what makes them special is barely noticeable whenever it get to it.

[TheDustyOne]

I'd agree with this if we were talking about its HEALS and a game like FFXI.

That is, imagine if FFXIV was a game where WHM was focused on casting Cure, Cure 2, Cure 3, Cure 4, and Regen all the time. In that sense, it would make sense to have a slow cast, turrety playstyle.

...but I suspect you aren't talking about that?

I'm talking both heals and DPS. The entire kit should be thematic to the job and not just disparate mish-mashes of abilities. Big, slow, turrety nukes where you build up to bigger, slower, more turrety nukes, and heals that are just as big, slow, and nukey.

In FFXIV every job is contributing to the downfall of a mob. And when no healing is needed, you attack to hasten that downfall. Some will baulk at that, but that's on them to accept how the game is designed rather than wishing it to be a completely different game. Current healer kits aren't compatible with what the rest of the game has designed, and it's easier to rework the kits than 10 years worth of content.

I also should note there's...not a lot of nuance to WAR.

The gap between worst and best in a job doesn't mean what you describe; it just means that it's far less punishing to mess up, even if it was harder to optimize. If anything that's what makes WAR the best representation of "easy to learn", because messing up WAR doesn't lead to the lower results of a messed up GNB. It also doesn't mean that somehow WHM is harder to optimize than WAR because the gap between the worst WHM and best WHM is bigger. What it could mean is that WHM is potentially too punishing when you have to rely on healing outside your oGCDs and Afflatus spells, the reason that isn't a problem however is because that's the nature of healing, you'll sacrifice your own DPS to help out the party, better to lose a Glare than to lose a party member. That discrepancy is going to be there as a sort of pre-requisite for healing jobs I think.

You're not going to convince anyone here that WHM is somehow harder than WAR outside maybe pressures of healing, but considering Tanxiety is also a thing, you're still not going to convince people that WHM is harder than WAR. Maybe on a complete optimization level where you remove as many GCD heals as possible (even that requires tanks being on point with their mitigation, which requires a well thought out mitigation plan), but in nearly all levels of play, it's still casting Glare over and over and over and over and over....

ForsakenRoe has proposed a WHM to you in the past where the difference between using the full DPS kit and only casting Glare would've been about 3%, that's an abysmally small difference even compared to the Warrior logs, and yet you rejected that for being too complex and/or punishing. Despite the fact that it would be less punishing than CURRENT WHM if you didn't want to use Dia and Assize. Anyway, the point I'm getting at is that the discrepancy can be down to number tuning and job requirements rather than just skill differences, otherwise you may as well say that SMN is just as hard as NIN because they have a similar gap between least and best skilled.

The problem with using Thaliak compared to using Extreme or higher content is the large discrepancy between players; some can have near-afk levels of uptime and still clear, while others will sweaty-try-hard and minimize their healing to just oGCDs and Afflatus while using Misery under buffs. Extremes and Savages at least ask players to put in an effort to meet the requirements it sets; beat this enrage or wipe, heal past this check or wipe, mitigate this attack or wipe. Casual content doesn't ask this particularly often.

[Sebazy]

Skipping the prior stuff for the sake of brevity tbh. This is worth replying to though:

Also, I have a serious question for you: As a matter of general "good life rules", do you believe the things posted in my signature are bad rules?

You mock them and me for having them all the time. Do you believe not attacking people, not using hyperbole, realizing people are imperfect but trying to control that is good, and that being nice and not heckling people...are bad things? Considering how often you mock, I can only assume you believe that attacking people - you do me often enough as you are now, even completely unrelated to topics and uncalled for - engaging in hyperbole, being perfect, and being mean to people as you also heckle them are all the proper ways to live. Or so your actions seem to indicate.

Which do you believe?

I believe that to some degree, hyperbole is inevitable in discussion and debate. You'll never stamp it out entirely and frankly, it's often required to highlight edge cases or extremes that might be more problematic than the median. And yes, conversation is absolutely better when it's kept civil.

Understand that I'm not mocking the mantra, I'm mocking the fact that you have these 'rules of conduct' in your sig despite clearly not sticking to them. It's hypocritical.

I think we can all agree that you are a highly opinionated person, that's absolutely fine, I think it's fair to say that I am too (Thus here we are). The difference is that you parade your opinions around as if they are factual even when they clearly aren't. And of course, the big sticker is that when you inevitably get it wrong at some point, you don't own it, you double down on it.

Swinging your opinion around is fine, but people are a lot more open to it when you make it clear that it's just your opinion and nothing more. Getting things wrong is fine, been there, done that, again, you just need to hold your hands up and accept the mistake. Getting things wrong isn't a problem in and of itself, it's how you handle that and learn from it that matters.

The problem is, people are complaining that there is not enough to fill the healer downtime with.

This is the crux of it in my eyes for sure, downtime will always be a thing especially in casual content. There are so many interesting concepts and ideas out there in the gaming space and to some extent, even within FF itself. As I mentioned in another thread, timed hold skills could be an avenue to explore. How about GCD Heals/buffs causing stance shifts that we can use to build combos with a short cooldown oGCD? Give me something that's going to hold people's interest over Netflix when the next Byregot rolls around and make it rewarding enough to feel like it's worthwhile pursuing.

Easy task I know

[Aravell]

What did you mean by balancing healing and damage?

I'm talking about the job kit itself, not what we do with the kit. If the job kit had a better balance between healing/damage/utility, they'd be forced to be more creative with the space that they have left. WHM could get actual interaction within its kit instead of wasting buttons on Cure/Cure but stronger/Cure but stronger and also instant/Cure but stronger and also OGCD. A kit that's segregated into separate portions is boring. Interaction within a kit should be there so it feels complete and flows well, new lilies feeding into Misery is a way of doing that, but we need more inter-kit interactions, not boring basic "does X damage" or "heals for X" spells.

What was it you loved about healers in HW/SB?

Playing healer back then was more active. Optimisation required active MP management, HP bar management, managing what little OGCDs you had, managing aggro and doing mechanics, I enjoyed every one of those aspects that some people would say is clunk because it kept me actively paying attention, SE has removed a lot of those aspects from the game and they have no intention of bringing them back. Mapping out the whole fight of Sophia EX and healing the entire thing without ever leaving Cleric Stance while also not stressing out my cohealer was one of the most engaging things I've done, no point mapping out low savage floors and extremes now, can just press buttons and fumble through, it's all so boring now. If SB SCH came back now, I would accept it, but I wouldn't enjoy it. It would be lacking MP management, area management (because Soil is the entire arena in size now) and fairy management, it would be a pale shadow of what I used to enjoy.

Game systems are not something you can change, so I'm not interested in your pitch, that's all.

[Renathras]

The problem is...

Oh, I just saw what you posted above.

These assume Broil 5 is a thing, and that it is 300p (names WIP).

Biolysisis: 30s duration, 35p per tick (total 350p)
Mias-malady: 1.5s cast time, 24s duration, 100p on cast, 30p per tick (total 340p)
Shadowflare: Instantcast, 100p AOE centered on enemy. Drops a puddle under enemy for 15s (limit of one puddle), 50p per tick. Total 350p per enemy. Due to numbers, it's a gain to upkeep in AOE, instead of just using AOW.

Didn't see anything about Quickened Aetherflow there. Setting that aside:

Ruin 2 being Miasma here shouldn't be a problem as it...would be literally the same thing with the same use case. Swaping the cast time for instant and making the potency more on the initial damage preserve's Ruin 2's current use, but the DoT now gives you a judgement call on if you might choose to shift the refresh to accommodate movement and a priority system of whether you should use Bio, Miasma/Ruin, or Swiftcast for movement, depending on the situation. It still has the 24 sec refresh for optimal use, so that's no different, yes? That still allows the same "downtime filler".

Likewise, replacing Energy Drain with Shadowflare would do the same thing, pacing out damage more than making it a "dump all in burst" situation and actually requiring more thought to use. The other problem is SCH is the healer with the most button bloat issues, so what will you remove to add new buttons?

Though I'm more in the line of general complexity, I don't think Ruin 2 having a DoT is too terribly more difficult and it retaining its current use...that just seems like a good addition to me.

The first thing I saw for SGE is changing the MP costs of everything...which sounds like a pretty significant change..?

I'm talking both heals and DPS...

I guess my thinking on this is that WHM isn't about "big slow turrety nukes" in......uh...ANY Final Fantasy game, come to think of it. They tend to have Holy for that and nothing else.

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As for the gap:

It's why I called it a proxy. There will not be any "this is how hard it is to optimize" gauge or metric on any website for any Job. That's why those bars make good proxies for it. They capture how punishing failure is, but ALSO how difficult it is to optimize.

But speaking more specifically, how hard IS IT to optimize WAR? The opening is incredibly straightforward, and the priority system is really simple as well. You don't really optimize Infuriate use, you just (a) prevent over capping and (b) use charges in burst. The "using a Beast Gauge skill reduced Infuriate CD by 5 sec" isn't really something you DO, it's something you react to, and in practice, is just "Infurate has a 30 sec CD" or whatnot based on average Beast Gauge use. The extra oGCDs are likewise "use in burst" (Upheaval and Onslaught) with the caveat of saving an Onslaught if you know you need it elsewhere in the fight, and WAR can weave in between all of its abilities (2 between most, only 1 for Primal Rend, I believe it is?, due to the animation lock).

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"anyone here" - No, you and people who think like you. There are others here that might disagree. In any case, I didn't say they were easier or WHM was harder. I said using the best proxy we have, WHM is actually harder to optimize. But again, it's a proxy. The takeaway is that they're roughly comparable, or alternatively, not too far apart. Especially comparing something like WHM vs BLM or WAR vs MNK.

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I'm thinking more like 1%, not 3%.

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The reason for using Thaliak IS because of the discrepancy - we're talking about changes that affect the entire playerbase, not just Savage raiders. That's why we have to look at the entire playerbase, not just Savage raiders. And I DID use P9S as a counterpoint...and noted that the bars are even SMALLER there, did I not? That the result of looking at Savage is that the gap actually gets SMALLER, not larger, for WAR (also WHM, but WAR gets smaller still). I used both so that both arguments could be addressed.

...

/sigh

Well, again, clearly you don't think they're good ideas because you don't do them. But for the record, you try to call me out on them all the time and, as I often point out, do so wrongly. So it's less I'm a hypocrite and more you want me to be a hypocrite and insisting I am. But regardless, even if you believed it was true, doing so all the time IS heckling.

Likewise, I rarely (if ever) say my opinions ARE FACTS. I will list numbers and things, those are facts, and I will discuss things (where I neither state they are facts and often hedge on them - for example, pointing out the bars on the abacus are a proxy for optimization, but not optimization itself...something I WOULDN'T do if I was stating my position as fact or trying to mislead people). And of all of us posters on the healer forum, I'm one of only a few (about three I can think of) that ever HAVE outright owned up to mistakes, and have done so several times. Each time, instead of a "fair enough", I get badgered even more for it, and people bring it up in some cases years later to keep badgering me about, meaning if I didn't own up to them, I'd actually be better off since you wouldn't be able to say "remember that time you admitted you were wrong?!", yet I still do it anyway when a mistake is outright wrong. In fact, sometimes when doing it, I get harassed for not doing it "good enough" (if you want to mention the dungeon running thread where my REPEATED tries to get it right were met with "You refuse to admit you're wrong!!" even though I was doing so and trying to adjust to what was correct. I was harassed EVEN MORE for admitting to not being correct in a "you can't do anything right, not even admit you're wrong" way!).

...contrast this with the way that _I_ behave: If someone makes a mistake, EVEN IF they initially double down on it, if they at any time own up and say so, I say "Fair enough, moving on". I don't hold it against them, and I never bring it up again. I have on one occasion brought up things from the past in a lump, exactly to point this out, and instead of getting the point, everyone attacked me for it. The same people that never call out anyone else doing so. Double standards abound. But FOR MY PART, if someone does own up to something, I actually do the mature adult thing and let it go. And I certainly don't bring it up to other people in other areas of the forum to try and discredit people, nor do I keep a list or running tally ready to pounce on people at a moments notice to discredit them.

When I do get things completely and verifiably wrong, I do say so. This is again a problem that I often don't, but you want to interpret it as, when my position is correct based on interpretation/point of view (that is, when the thing being argued isn't fact or has room for interpretation; yet even some of THOSE cases do I say that I could see people seeing it as wrong and will amend my statement to be more accurate).

But it doesn't matter, does it? Even if I started doing things to your perfect liking from now on, you'd still try to hammer me with those things. So it changes nothing either way. Hell, you even still say I never admit when I'm wrong when I've outright done so several times. So reality isn't relevant to your viewpoint on this matter.

Moreover, you don't police anyone else's viewpoint AND you started doing this to me before I posted my sig, meaning it wasn't triggered by the sig in the first place, you just wanted to call me out for things in general, especially when in threads with people that weren't part of our typical discussions to alienate them from my posts and perspectives - an ad hominem fallacy.

Regardless, it's still heckling, and it still derails threads and breaks up good faith discussions every time you do it, and yet you do it over and over again, no matter how many times this is pointed out to you, leading me to think that is your goal since it would be very easy for you to just...not...do that.

But let's stop this, shall we? Take what last word you want, I'm going to move on now. With that out of the way...

...

I agree downtime will, which is why I think the solution is some part more buttons (for some Healer Jobs) and some part just making things that interact better. For WHM before, I suggested a 3xGlare Holy Might to breakup the rotation. For SCH (when not suggesting going back to SB), I proposed things like having Energy Drain on the Faerie Gauge, having a Miasma/Ruin 2 hybrid for another DoT, and some mechanic to spread them. Those are things to address that downtime.

I think the issue here is what would prevent someone from being bored. One person's bored is another person's about right, and one person's exciting is another person's overwhelming. How do we thread that needle?

My proposal is to have different Jobs at different levels of complexity. This is what literally every other role in the game does right now. No other role has all their members equally high complex, equally hard to optimize, or every constituent Job "easy to learn, hard to master". None. Instead, they have a spread across their constituent Jobs, and people are allowed to pick and gravitate to the level of intensity, complexity, or simplicity they like personally.

That way, if there's a Tank that wants more intensity, they play GNB instead of WAR. A DPS goes BLM instead of SMN. And if they don't? Then they go with WAR or SMN. And if they want something in the middle? They go with those options (PLD/DRK or RDM). And this somehow works for EVERY other role in the game. It should work for Healers as well.

[ForsakenRoe]

I'm thinking more like 1%, not 3%.

I could make it 0%, literally identical damage whether you full sweat or just press Glare. Dia's 310 over it's full duration, Banish is 310, Glare is 310. Quite literally impossible to make a mistake, when everything is completely identical. And you know what? People would still do less damage than others on it. Because you know what the biggest thing that causes people to lose damage is? Not pressing their buttons. No amount of potency fine tuning can help someone that does not roll their GCD correctly. If anything, it'd be more beneficial to such a player if there were MORE disparity between CD/time locked skills like a DOT or Banish, because as long as the player uses those at the right times, a Glare that has way less potency has way less effect on the overall output of the player

Oh, and the SGE MP cost thing? Doesn't affect the damage rotation. It's just to make MP only be a concern for people who are trying to optimize the Kardia stuff, so if a new player tries to start learning it, makes a misplay and starts to panic, they don't need to worry about 'oh no I'm out of MP because of my mistake', Prognosis would be 0MP and always there as a safety cushion for them to stabilize and mentally reset. One of the biggest pain points I had with Disc in WOW was when I invariably messed up while learning, there just wasn't any good 'oh shit' buttons to salvage the situation, so I figured having one of those would be good for learners and/or times in raid where you don't have enough time to 'set up', and need shielding right now

And this somehow works for EVERY other role in the game. It should work for Healers as well.

I don't think this point is in contention, so much as the followup of '...and for this reason, WHM (or one of the other non-AST healers) needs to remain at it's current level of complexity (or lack thereof)'. I'm fine with WHM staying the 'beginner healer' or whatever. I just disagree with what that looks like. I think that even beginners should have more gameplay for their levelling through the story than 'refresh DOT and press Glare'. I don't think what I suggested is in any way 'too complex' for a healer, or 'as complex as a DPS'. It's just a shortened DOT and a 15s CD. Hell, we literally had that in ARR, a 12s DOT and a 15s CD (Fluid Aura), just back then, FA was an OGCD. This being GCD actually makes it 'more simple' because you don't have to worry about 'oh i have only space for one weave, do I use Temperance to save the team or do I use the damage button for damage', no you just use the damage GCD on the GCD and then weave Temp right after it, there's no conflict of priorities

[Thurmnmurmn]

@renathras my own opinion of you aside, one thing you can do to prevent thread derailing into Ren vs the forums is just simply, don't respond to people heckling you.
Since you have a habit of making rather large posts in responses, it gives lots of opportunities for people who dislike you to counter with random bullshit.
Essentially giving fuel for their fire.

This isn't meant as a jab at you (for once).