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

[TheDustyOne]

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.

Depends on the game, the first game had Dia as the undead nuke. But that's also irrelevant, this is FFXIV, a modern tab-target MMO, not IV or X. A lot of older WHM were also SMN, so they still had access to rather powerful nukes. Likewise, in most previous FF games with a job system, WHM is the counterpart to BLM; restorative vs destructive, light vs dark, etc. Both were casters that specialized in big numbers, low health, and being overall squishy. Having WHM being the healer version of BLM makes sense, and adapting BLM style mechanics to a healer like WHM would possibly even convince people who enjoy BLM to try out WHM.

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.

It's a poor proxy because some jobs will go through stupid lengths to gain a few extra points of potency while others are more or less optimal without too much effort. Again, you'd be suggesting that NIN is as hard as SMN because it has a similar gap. As far as I'm concerned the logs only really tell how punishing a job might be if you mess up, but it doesn't tell the full story behind each of those fights or how hard a job is to master. It's not a good metric to use for that.

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).

It's why I tend to say "engaging to master" rather than "hard to master". I don't consider WAR hard to master at all (although I fully admit I haven't taken it into difficult content this expansion, someone else can go over larger details on getting the most out of it), but I still consider it good fun and it has things to watch out for. Besides, Infuriate being reduced with every Fell Cleave means I have something to watch out for before I commit to a Fell Cleave, in that sense, I'm not "reacting" to it after the fact, I'm contemplating it beforehand, I'm planning out my usages of Fell Cleave and Infuriate so that I don't accidently overcap either the gauge or cooldown. What does WHM have that is similar? That I press Dia every 30s or that I have to watch Assize? These things have no interaction with each other and aren't particularly engaging or fulfilling. They're boring, they don't lead to anything else. Fell Cleave at least leads to me using Infuriate more often than not using Fell Cleave.

"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.

There's certainly a lot of people who seem to think like me then. Either way you're not doing a good job of convincing me or them.

Like I said earlier, it's a terrible proxy and doesn't tell the full story. At most it tells you how punishing a job might be to play poorly, not how hard it is to play well.

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

I need more context behind what you mean by this. Are you correcting the numbers, or are you saying that it should only be 1% between optimal and non-optimal? If it's the former it makes your argument against Roe worse, if it's the latter, then there is no common ground and you make playing well vs playing poorly meaningless. It'd be like telling your best worker, the one who shows up on time, works overtime, has incredible knowledge in his field, that he only gets 1% extra pay compared to the guy who shows up late, screws up basic things, and leaves before everyone else clocks out. It's downright insulting.

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.

That large range includes players who legitimately don't offer anything to a fight and skew what would be average play up to above average. Extremes sets a skill floor that everyone has to meet or they fail, casual content doesn't. That's fine for casual content to lower that floor considerably, but it's poor for assessing how a job is balanced for unskilled play vs skilled play because you now make "not playing your job" a viable tactic for an odd party member or 2.

Also again the gap doesn't matter, it's only smaller because the floor for clearing is higher.

[mallleable]

Any new dps rotation buttons that a healer could get should be entirely new buttons if the goal is to break up the pace of pressing the same one button over, and over again. However, most healer hotbars are already pretty loaded, and are at risk of bloat. So which healing buttons would everyone be willing to either cut or consolidate to make room for extra dps buttons?

[TheDustyOne]

Personally, I'd be fine with gutting nearly all of the oGCDs outside a couple per healer. I'd then put more interesting effects into the GCD heals, both to make their healing more interesting, but also to feed back into their damage kits in similar vein to Misery currently, ideally timed in some way so as to prevent people blindly spamming heals and getting rewarded for it. The new attacks would break up the filler spam, but also the more frequent GCD heals means that it breaks it up further and can meaningfully interact with that damage kit (like having Cure proc a powerful attack, Adloquium gives a stack of something to spend, Benefic unlocks a damage buff, etc.).

[ForsakenRoe]

I need more context behind what you mean by this. Are you correcting the numbers, or are you saying that it should only be 1% between optimal and non-optimal? If it's the former it makes your argument against Roe worse, if it's the latter, then there is no common ground and you make playing well vs playing poorly meaningless.

I'll correct some numbers: the disparity was 2%, and was 'playing my design of WHM optimally (that is, Banish every 15s and Dia every 12s) on a training dummy', versus 'playing my design of WHM as you would now against a dummy (that is, ignoring Banish because it is new, and refreshing Dia every 12s 'because it fell off'). Ignoring Dia too, or only refreshing it every 30s as it would be now (meaning 18s out of ever 30 has no Dia active), would raise that percentage. However, to be fair with the comparison, we'd have to look at ignoring Dia entirely in both versions. In my version, 15 Glares, 4 Banishes and 5 Dias totals 8200p, and using only Glare would be 7440p. That's 90.73170731707317% effectiveness (thanks percentagecalculator.net). Current WHM gets 22 Glares and 2 Dias, at a total of 8250p, and using only Glare gets you, again, 7440p, which is 90.18181818181819%. By the slimmest of margins, the design I put forth is actually less punishing than the current one!

I agree with the whole 'what is the point if the gap between suboptimal and optimal is so minimal' on one side but not on the other. I don't think it's good to make something punishing to casuals, so that only expert super pros can get anywhere with the job. But, I also don't think the class should be completely autopilot. Even if I were to make the damage potencies equalized, so Glare/Dia/Banish did the exact same damage, you'd still be incentivized in my design to use the other two skills instead of Glarespam, because while Glare gives 1 point of gauge for 'the cool strong heal move', Banish and Dia give 5 (with Dia requiring it's full duration to do so). You'd be hamstringing your gauge build speed in order to spam Glare, which means less access to the heal, which means you'd potentially have to cover elsewhere with a GCD heal like a Medica that you otherwise wouldn't. At which point, kinda defeats the argument about why Glarespam needs to be within 1%, doesn't it?

Any new dps rotation buttons that a healer could get should be entirely new buttons if the goal is to break up the pace of pressing the same one button over, and over again. However, most healer hotbars are already pretty loaded, and are at risk of bloat. So which healing buttons would everyone be willing to either cut or consolidate to make room for extra dps buttons?

My WHM suggestion requires only two buttons at minimum, and ideally, four to add an extra two Lily spenders that shield instead of heal (so when we prep Misery for raidbuffs, we can get some use from the Lily by shielding, instead of it being 100% overheal). To that end, I have quite a lot of space free on the bars, but if needed, Cure1 can upgrade into Cure2 (both being 500mp), and Medica1 can upgrade to Medica2 (both being 1000mp). After a single tick of healing, Med2 is equal to Med1, so just slap the HOT effect onto Med1 at level 50 and problem solved. That's two spaces right there, enough for the core of the idea to function. The rest of it is clever use of ability-swaps, like how WAR's Fell Cleave turns into Inner Chaos for one hit.

For SCH I'd need 2 spaces, and one can be Physick upgrading to Adlo (change Adlo's effect from 300p, 180% shield, to 450p, 120% shield, and the shield stays the same potency while the base heal matches Physick). The other one I'm not too sure on. Knowing SE they'll make the decision for me and remove Energy Drain again

For AST, I actually removed a button (Combust, it feels a bit superfluous), and instead it's entirely 'reworked effect' of existing buttons. Fully focused on making the cards feel like they have character again

For SGE, I didn't add or remove anything, everything was again 'reworked effect' of existing buttons. Making the class have more interplay with Kardia, and making it into an actual system instead of 'its a thing that exists and you sometimes forget to put up at the start of the dungeon'

[ty_taurus]

Any new dps rotation buttons that a healer could get should be entirely new buttons if the goal is to break up the pace of pressing the same one button over, and over again. However, most healer hotbars are already pretty loaded, and are at risk of bloat. So which healing buttons would everyone be willing to either cut or consolidate to make room for extra dps buttons?

On Sage:

- Pepsis
- Krasis
- Soteria
- Physis II
- Druochole
- Ixochole
- Kerachole
- Taurochole

I'd also suggest removing Haima and Panhaima as separate cooldowns and replace the animations and effects of Eukrasian Diagnosis and Prognosis with the layered barrier effects of Haima and Panhaima. But these do require expanding on Kardia and adding attacks that have more varied Kardia effects. I really just want to see Aethergall purged and replaced with something actually unique and on brand with Sage.

[Sebazy]

Any new dps rotation buttons that a healer could get should be entirely new buttons if the goal is to break up the pace of pressing the same one button over, and over again. However, most healer hotbars are already pretty loaded, and are at risk of bloat. So which healing buttons would everyone be willing to either cut or consolidate to make room for extra dps buttons?

Most healers have a few buttons that could at least be consolidated if not outright removed, eg:

Cure 1: Have it evolve into Afflatus Solace, if you try to cast it without a Lily in the bank, it casts regular Cure 1 instead. Or alternatively have it upgrade into Esuna.
Medica 1: Same deal with Rapture
Fey Blessing: Another one that's a bit of a relic and ripe to be replaced or reworked into something more interesting.
You could extend this to the fairy gauge and aether flow systems overall. At this stage they barely feel like they warrant the keys they take up, especially compared to what they once were.

The list goes on but I think that's enough examples to keep things concise? EW healers are ripe and ready for a pruning IMO, fewer abilities on shorter more punchy cooldowns is the way to go.

[ForsakenRoe]

Honestly to an extent, the whole level 86 set is a bit 'bloaty'. Did we really 'need' Aquaveil, Protraction, Exaltation and Krasis (ok Krasis gets a bit of a pass cos SGE is new)? I don't really recall any time in SHB or EW when I've thought 'damn I'm really glad we have this 15% mit on WHM now', more a case of 'I have this 15% mit and Pandaemonium's about to give the tanks special cells, guess I'll use it, because where else am I gonna use it? It's not gonna matter either way, they'll live even if I don't use it, but it's either this or I just leave it unused for the whole fight'. Not done DSR and TOP, but if that's where 'it gets it's moment to shine', that's not a justification for it, a skill that only gets to reach it's full potential in two fights in the game is a bit of a waste imo.

[Maltothoris]

Honestly to an extent, the whole level 86 set is a bit 'bloaty'. Did we really 'need' Aquaveil, Protraction, Exaltation and Krasis (ok Krasis gets a bit of a pass cos SGE is new)? I don't really recall any time in SHB or EW when I've thought 'damn I'm really glad we have this 15% mit on WHM now', more a case of 'I have this 15% mit and Pandaemonium's about to give the tanks special cells, guess I'll use it, because where else am I gonna use it? It's not gonna matter either way, they'll live even if I don't use it, but it's either this or I just leave it unused for the whole fight'. Not done DSR and TOP, but if that's where 'it gets it's moment to shine', that's not a justification for it, a skill that only gets to reach it's full potential in two fights in the game is a bit of a waste imo.

The sad thing is I've done the two Ultimates and even then their usefulness is limited in there. There were times that I forgot to be those 86 skills for some tbs and the tanks were just fine in savage and even in Ultimate as well.

[ty_taurus]

Krasis can actually be nice when paired with a Scholar, but that also means double barrier healers, which requires a modicum of coordination between both healers, and that's a HUGE no-no in FFXIV. Talking to your teammates is a sign of atrocious game design.

[Rein_eon_Osborne]

[…]So which healing buttons would everyone be willing to either cut or consolidate to make room for extra dps buttons?

In a world where I get to think my own version of SCH, I would at least get rid of:
- Protraction
- Fey Blessing or Indomitability (Pick one)
- Fey Union
- Possibly Sacred Soil

Of course this would require some adjustment on other part of the kit, such as adding Selene back (not the haste), Energy Drains, Aetherflow, making Dissipation an actual recovery button than just Spreadlo buffer and ‘extra broil’ while also more frequently interact-able than just once every 3m, & sticking some refunds onto their GCD heals. Remind me again that I have to revisit my own outdated file.