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

[Aravell]

Something I tend to think of when people ask this kind question, "Why does this matter to you?":

If it matters to them/you, why should it not matter to me (or anyone else)?

You're missing the point by a mile again. I do not care whether or not this matters to you or anyone else, I am pointing out the fact that the damage loss from 10% shaved off filler spam is so negligible that anyone that tries to blame a healer for an enrage will look like an absolute tool. I am pointing out that "players will no longer be able to meet enrage by playing as they are now" is an extremely flawed argument.

Also, I don't know what world you live in where people who do 80%-90% of their total output is considered a bad player, but whatever. I will just say I completely disagree that a 1% difference is enough, I think effort should be rewarded and people who don't put in the effort should be nowhere close to optimal, I don't care if it makes someone feel bad. I felt bad too back when I just picked up healer and couldn't heal big pulls, I just practiced and got better, others can do the same if they choose to.

Everytime it's being pushed that people want to feel good about doing the best and any skill ceiling would be bad for them, I start to believe Ty more and more that this is about the funny coloured numbers on the numbers website, there's really no other reason to care if you're having fun.

[ForsakenRoe]

Also, I don't know what world you live in where people who do 80%-90% of their total output is considered a bad player, but whatever. I will just say I completely disagree that a 1% difference is enough, I think effort should be rewarded and people who don't put in the effort should be nowhere close to optimal, I don't care if it makes someone feel bad. I felt bad too back when I just picked up healer and couldn't heal big pulls, I just practiced and got better, others can do the same if they choose to.

Everytime it's being pushed that people want to feel good about doing the best and any skill ceiling would be bad for them, I start to believe Ty more and more that this is about the funny coloured numbers on the numbers website, there's really no other reason to care if you're having fun.

It's kind of sad that the point keeps getting exhumed like some necromancer's minion, because I already went through the back-and-forth on the point. With who? Me. I knew ahead of time, while writing the original design a year ago, that someone would invariably say 'well what about the player who drifts Banish and doesn't keep it on CD, or drops Dia at times, or overcaps on gauge because they didn't need a single heal in that whole minute?', and I made adjustments based on those self-arguments. I've already 'fixed' the issues he raises, he just never got to see the original version. I also can't help but think that it's entirely about the funny numbers. If it's because 'being suboptimal feels bad', well he said he gets green-blue on EX trials and Savages, and purples in 24mans. By definition of how the colour brackets work, he's suboptimal as is. So am I, and so is everyone who doesn't consistently get gold/pink/high orange. By contrast, the one time I got an orange on healer this expansion, my reaction was not one of joy, but of sheer confusion. I often get middle-of-purple, how on earth did I get an orange that time? By doing the same thing I always did. I probably just crit more.

But I recognise that some people want to be able to clear content without sweating about the fine details of optimization, so I did the design elements I did, so that people could make quite literally ANY mistake they want, so long as they don't make the big one: failing to keep the GCD rolling. And lo and behold, it's still not enough, it's never going to be enough. I could make Glare 3, Banish 3, and Dia, all do 350p each, so that no matter which GCD you used, it'd be the same damage. And STILL there'd be people doing more damage than others, be that because of 'some players put Blessing's refund into raidbuffs, some don't', or 'some players put Misery in raidbuffs, others don't', or 'some players use Banish and Dia effectively for mobility, others just drop GCDs entirely to move'. Or just Crit Variance, everyone's favourite feature. There's no way to make a design that is acceptable, because there's always going to be a way for someone more skilled than me or you or Ren or whoever, to deal more damage than us.

I play BLM like an ape, and RDM pretty badly too when I use them in EX roulette. I drop Thunder all the time. I sometimes forget that it's 60 gauge in AOE to do the RDM melee stuff, so I have to try and salvage it with Manafication if it's up. And god forbid I go as BRD, DOTs dropped, Songs refreshed off-sync, Refulgent procs overwritten, it's full clownshoe city. And yet, I still have enough fun that I don't think 'wow that was awful I'm never doing that again'. I don't care about how 'optimal' I was in the EX roulette, because it does not matter.

Fun's subjective and all, and I don't speak for everyone, but I'd imagine that being able to throw out such powerful spells as Quake/Tornado/Flood (for first/all other targets, Q: 410/205, T: 430/215, F: 450/225. Holy is 150, for comparison) in AOE pulls would be 'more fun' (compared to Holy until eyes bleed) to a lot more people than Ren cares to admit. I forgot to mention I'd make QTF have 50% AOE falloff so they can be used in AOE, and that Holy would give 2 gauge per mob hit (such that a pack of 7 mobs would give 14 gauge per cast). I'll go add that now, it might be a bit important. Problem with it though, is that it means 'having to' press the Glare/Dia/Banish keybinds, in AOE situations. 'Having to' being in quotes because you don't 'have to', nobody's got a gun to your head demanding those buttons be used. You could still use just Holy, or use Holy, and the heal to sustain the tank, and then because the pack's almost dead, hold the QTF casts for the opener on the next boss. That's an example of the 'versatility' I would like to inject into the job

It has been said multiple times at this point, which makes me confused as to why this is still being misunderstood, but I have not, nor have I seen anyone in the pro-DPS camp say that healing requirements cannot increase at all. Rather, what has been said is that they cannot be increased enough for us to be engaged in the healing role from the healing alone.

Last time I did P11S, I was not terribly engaged with the healing required (because we're all BIS now). I was engaged with healing a couple of days ago, when I was healing Garuda. In UWU. I had not been in that fight in like, 2 years, so the rust meant I was using a lot more GCD shielding than usual (to the point where it was occasionally causing LB generation problems). I'm not of the opinion that 'we cannot increase healing requirements at all', I'm of the opinion that 'in order to 'solve' the issue using just 'healing requirements' adjustments, the amount we'd have to see healing requirements go up by is too high for most players to handle'. As a certain picture showed, there is no overlap between 'amount of healing most players can handle' and 'amount of healing required to make healers engaging as a role, with 'healing' being the primary source of engagement', there is no Venn diagram, it is two separate circles

I also think that it's way easier for the devs to add to the damage side of the kit than adjust the healing requirements. There's so little there, it's easy to find new design niches for new skills, to avoid another 'we didn't know what to do with SCH' moment. And unlike healing, if you 'get it wrong' with damage you lose a bit of damage (very minimal amount, if my yelling got through to SE). Whereas if you 'get it wrong' with healing, it can lead to deaths, wipes, and the dreaded 'player friction'. That's not to say we can't have more healing requirements. It's just more like... rather than boosting healing required by 100%, they add something like what I posted for WHM, and then boost healing requirements by 30-40%.

[Aravell]

But I recognise that some people want to be able to clear content without sweating about the fine details of optimization, so I did the design elements I did, so that people could make quite literally ANY mistake they want, so long as they don't make the big one: failing to keep the GCD rolling. And lo and behold, it's still not enough, it's never going to be enough. I could make Glare 3, Banish 3, and Dia, all do 350p each, so that no matter which GCD you used, it'd be the same damage. And STILL there'd be people doing more damage than others, be that because of 'some players put Blessing's refund into raidbuffs, some don't', or 'some players put Misery in raidbuffs, others don't', or 'some players use Banish and Dia effectively for mobility, others just drop GCDs entirely to move'. Or just Crit Variance, everyone's favourite feature. There's no way to make a design that is acceptable, because there's always going to be a way for someone more skilled than me or you or Ren or whoever, to deal more damage than us.

I want to address this point by pointing to another job, MCH. MCH has a very rigid rotation with some forced crits through Reassemble, the variance is very small in high-end content, but some MCH still do more damage than others, because of crits outside of Reassemble, because of drifting their tools, etc. There is absolutely no way to make sure everyone does the exact same output no matter what, even if you make the simplest/most rigid job in the world, even SMN has variance, and a lot of people think it's really simple.

The main point though, is that content is not being gated from people if healers change. The dps check of Anabaseios is widely regarded as more lenient, and the amount a healer not performing at average loses is so negligible that it's mind-boggling that anyone is even trying to argue that they'd be gated from content. I'm thinking that people don't actually understand how little healers contribute to the total damage nowadays. The gap between a grey and high orange WHM is about 3000 dps, that's around a 62.5% gap in performance, looks like a large amount, right? That's 4.69% of the P9S dps check, the melee DPS critting some big hits would immediately cover that difference.