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

[Renathras]

"2) Don't engage in hyperbole."

My god, you people are desperate for your gotchas.

To be PRECISE, I've been told it CANNOT be the solution because it can't be done. It would require changing literally - not hyperbole, LITERALLY - every last encounter in the game's entire history, and that doing so cannot be done in any way that wouldn't make parties fail content left and right as novice healers would be completely incapable of dealing with the damage, and that the damage would, with our present healing kits, require insane amounts of damage at an extremely high pace to actually tax the kits.

If you don't use "impossible" to describe that, I'm not sure what word you would use. But that sounds like "impossible" or "effectively impossible" to me.

Anyway, if you're going to pull a Sabezy, you can be put in the /ignore as well. I'll just take Thurmnmurmn's advice and not engage with the heckling.

- You don't even know what you're arguing against, and this kinda shows it.

No, but I suspect we're arguing about different things, and I'm uninterested in trading insults. When you are ready to NOT do that, hit me up.

That's not a fair comment at all and you *should* know that.

Breaking my ignore for a moment to say "see above".

Saying it cannot be done is effectively the same as saying it's impossible. Saying the damage required would be too much for anyone to deal with is also pretty close to saying it's impossible. Saying every single encounter would have to be redone and that the Devs will never do this is also pretty much saying it's impossible.

I'm not sure what you'd call that, but to me, when people tell me something CANNOT be done, that sounds like saying it's impossible. "Acshually...!", no, no "acshually". "won't happen doesn't mean it's physically impossible" is irrelevant. Won't happen means won't happen. Won't happen means impossible. There's no reason to parse it: That's the argument that has been made over and over again.

"We can't make up the boredom with healing because the healing required to stress our kits would be nearly constantly one-shotting the entire party, novice healers would be completely unable to deal with that, parties would wipe constantly, raid teams would break apart, and the devs would have to redo every encounter in the game...so the only solution for our boredom and 'bad healer design' is to have more DPS actions."

That has literally been used before, including in this thread, as an argument. I'm pretty sure even you have used some version of it. I also wasn't passing judgement. I was accurately stating that I have been told in no uncertain terms this is a thing that cannot be done successfully - in other words, it is impossible and cannot be the solution to our problem.

So the ultimatum given is "more DPS actions or nothing/no change", and of those two, I would choose "no change". We need a third option. The entire reason I push the 4 Healers Model all the time is because it IS a third option, but setting it aside, it has absolutely been the argument of the "more DPS buttons" side that "more healing" is not a valid solution or, at best, can only be a partial solution and would still require more DPS buttons alongside it to make up the gap.

I don't know why you guys are insisting this isn't true now when it's been one of the main arguments used to advocate for more DPS buttons for quite some time here.

Again, discussion about the ability for one to clear content is missing the point of his argument. Regardless of how significant or insignificant any added DPS abilities may be to a person's ability to clear, the issue is that if every healer has this new series of attacks to work with, a player who engages with that new series of attacks is going to be a "better player" than someone who doesn't perform that added depth optimally, or chooses to abstain from it. The only way you're going to convince him to accept some form of added DPS variety to White Mage (or whichever healer is selected to be the "simple healer") is if that added depth is exactly as strong as DoT + Glarespam, or is weaker than DoT + Glarespam. Because that way, the "playstyle" of wanting to perform as effectively as a master without any of the training or practice of a master is preserved.

Annnnd now I'm ignoring you.

That isn't true, we both know it's not true, and you think that attacks and slander - completely devoid of any actual argument - is now a good argument. So I'm taking Thurmnmurmn's advice and just not engaging.

What's claimed -- or what I personally believe, anyway (if I don't want to speak for others without citing them) -- to be "impossible" is replacing ALL downtime, or nearly all downtime, with healing. And I've yet to see anyone demonstrate otherwise in the context of FFXIV.

Okay, I'm confused: Is it impossible or isn't it?

I was just accused of hyperbole for saying this was impossible, but here you are saying it's...impossible, citing no one giving a valid mechanical proposal of it as evidence of it being impossible.

You're missing the point by a mile again.

/sigh

At the risk of sounding like a child: No, you are.

If a gap of 0-10% is negligible, than picking 1% instead of 3% or 10% shouldn't matter. If 10% is negligible, how is 1% "not enough" when 10% isn't significant? That makes no sense. That's like a person saying $1.99 is basically $2, but $1.95 is clearly not. That makes no sense.

And no, Ty is being an [expletive deleted], and so I'm not going to entertain you doing the same, either. But, unlike him, you've engaged in actual discussion here, and I still have a question I wish you'd answer.

...

Legitimately, because I think it's a far better line of discussion than ANY of the rest of this nonsense - an answer to the question I asked you before:

What did you mean by balancing healing and damage?
...
What was it you loved about healers in HW/SB?

I'm not asking to make some point or attack you or anything. I'm genuinely trying to figure out what specifically you loved about SB Healers so I can actually try to think of compromises that would offer you that. Would you please offer an answer to those questions. The "what you loved" one specifically? Please?

You're misconstruing the situation here...

Okay, an actual post that isn't heckling. Thank god. I can work with this.

Keep in mind, I speak mostly from a WHM perspective at the time. When ShB hit, we were elated. After sucking for the better part of two expansions, the Job felt REALLY good to play. I've yet to find someone complaining about Misery even to this day in terms of feel and the mechanic being good (the only complaint about it was in 6.0 since it didn't get a potency bump to keep up with Glare, which was fixed in 6.1). While SE was promising "more healing needed in encounters" even back then, at the time, no one cared. It felt good to play and "More blood for the blood lily!" chants rang throughout the land.

SCH...was a different story. AST, too. But WHM was not.

Keep in mind my position has never been not to change those two to address those issues. At any point. WHM's problem has always been its identity doesn't make sense in FFXIV of having powerful, efficient heals...and even if it DID, AST's heals are just as powerful and MORE efficient in both HPS and HPM, and also being able to be a Barrier Healer for 20 seconds out of every 2 mins. But in terms of the general play, it's far more dynamic than the other three. Recall when we broke down the healer rotations and found, to the shock of everyone (that almost instantly faded to "Ooooh, yeah. Yeah that does make sense..."), WHM is the least "Glarespamy" of the Healers, with SCH actually being the worst offender, insult to injury from its fall from once being the most DPS involved of the healers.

The problem is that not everyone IS dissatisfied with healer design now. So the discussion cannot be only "what would satisfy the people dissatisfied" with no real concern for the people who aren't in that group and are having to give things up and having nothing left for them. Solutions MUST account for both positions, and most proposals have not been. It's always "Well, this wouldn't work because the people bored might still be bored..." never "Well, THAT wouldn't work because the people currently happy would be unhappy". Why do they not matter? "Because no one cared when SCH's were gutted!"? That's not true at all. Moreover, two wrongs do not make a right anyway, even if that was true.

Also, forgive me, but I find it funny you're saying "It has been said multiple times at this point" when I just got accused of hyperbole by mentioning it. Note I didn't say "at all". I said "replace downtime with healing".

I also don't think we need an expansion of DPS tools "to find the healer role sufficient". To some people, it's already sufficient. To some to whom it is not, more GCD healing WOULD make it sufficient. But there ARE some to whom it still would not be. So it's clear we need to have some Healer Job option with more DPS options to be sufficient for those people.

The problem is, we can't do that with ALL the healers, since that would then break the first two groups.

An all of the above approach seems more in order.

You once before took the opposed extreme position to my own - in exasperation - of wanting SGE to be this thing so you'd have at least _A_ Healer Job you could enjoy playing. This is the way I've felt for two years grappling with you on this asking for at least _A_ Healer Job that I could enjoy playing - and though I still believe WHM makes the most sense, recall I said at various points any of the others and, at one point, ANY of the others. So you recognize the feeling of being isolated on an island and wanting just SOMETHING to cling to. I'm not sure why you can't extend this to the people opposed to you, but at least the concept exists in a way you understand it.

What I don't understand is why, when you in desperation would ask "Can I just have ONE?!", you would reject "How about we give you THREE?" with "No! Unless I get all FOUR, it doesn't count."

When you've already been at the rock bottom point of "Can I just have SGE?", I don't understand why you'd then reject "How about we give you SCH, AST, and SGE?"

Another potentially whacky idea is to turn a good number of healing ogcds into gcds -- they can still be instant. And rework piety so that it reduces the cast, and recast time of healing gcds, and it stacks with spell speed. And add situationally spammable dual-purpose healing, and damage spells that are both affected by new Piety, and spell speed.

This is a pretty fair idea, though it would vary wildly between healers.

For example, Assize as a GCD (if we're talking the heal) would basically be Medica. Tetragrammton as a GCD already exists, it's Cure 2. Or Afflatus Solace, if you have a Lily. (Technically Cure 2 upgrades to do 100 more potency, but you get the idea). I do support this, don't get me wrong, but there are some oGCDs that would just go away (which...would be fine) because they're identical to a GCD the Job already has.

Piety as a sort of Det for healing Spell Speed is kind of a novel idea. Hadn't heard that one before, but it's interesting to at least think about...

[Aravell]

At the risk of sounding like a child: No, you are.

I made a point, you took a tangential point from the main point and argued against it, I told you that's not the point I'm making, and now you're telling me I'm missing the point I'm making?

Whatever. I don't care to argue that point. Here are the facts:

1) A loss of 10% from current average healer dps barely makes a dent in the total required damage to beat the dps check in a savage floor, even less of a dent in extremes.
2) A 10-20% difference is a good reward in terms of the direct output from the healer.
3) You will never be the cause of an enrage as a healer as long as you're doing your main job of keeping the party alive.
4) Arguing that suboptimal healers would be gatekept out of content if they lost any damage from being made more complex is a flawed argument and has been thoroughly debunked multiple times.

The main point: 10-20% of a healer's dps is negligible in beating any enrage, but is a suitable reward for the effort put into maximising the job.

Do you understand now? We want healers to be satisfying to master, that's the point of a skill ceiling. A 1% difference is a garbage reward for reaching the skill ceiling, that's like receiving a participation trophy. I'm going to ignore your distasteful comments in favour of keeping things civil.

As for your questions, I've already answered them a few pages back.

[ty_taurus]

I've yet to find someone complaining about Misery even to this day in terms of feel and the mechanic being good (the only complaint about it was in 6.0 since it didn't get a potency bump to keep up with Glare, which was fixed in 6.1).

There have been criticisms of the lily system. One is that Misery is learned way too late. Being the core element to White Mage's gameplay, it will take a new player several hundred hours of story before they reach the point in which they'd normally learn Misery and actually "unlock" the lily system entirely. Prior to level 74, Solace is just a no MP cost Cure II in an environment where MP costs are rarely an issue. Additionally, there's also the point that the lily system encourages unhealthy uses of Solace and Rapture, encouraging the player to burn them to avoid capping on lilies even when the healing isn't needed, and also burning them during phase changes or between pulls to fuel Misery, thus wasting the actual healing. The lilies are a good concept, but it needs polish and the perception of a designer with a more intimate understanding of how healers prioritize actions in this game.

One thing I've suggested would be to give White Mage a Six-Sided Star equivalent that doesn't do damage or anything, but nourishes the blood lily. If you aren't familiar, Monk's action "Six-Sided Star" is a potent GCD attack that elongates your GCD when its used. Instead of waiting 2.5 seconds before you can use another GCD, you have to wait 4 seconds to use another GCD after Six-Sided Star. It's supposed to function as a disengage tool for Monk... a way to throw out a hefty amount of damage before you have to leave melee range. With this White Mage tool, an instant cast spell that nourishes the blood lily but halts your GCD for 4 seconds instead of 2.5 seconds means it's a DPS loss, but allows you to nourish the blood lily between dungeon pulls or during a phase change without burning lily heals needlessly for the purposes of damage.

So the discussion cannot be only "what would satisfy the people dissatisfied"

In regards to the discussion of replacing glare spam with more intricate DPS gameplay or more healing, the people who I'm referring to when I mention those who ask "why not ask for more healing," are the ones directing that statement to the people who are complaining about the healer role. Someone pops in and doesn't understand why the proposed solution is more DPS when, in their mind, we should be asking for more healing and not asking for more DPS. And again, this is targeted specifically to the people who have a problem with healers. What I'm trying to clarify is that the stance I and others who are dissatisfied have taken is not "no, don't add more healing. Only add more damage." It's "I'm happy to see more healing, but I will still need more damage regardless, because the amount of healing we can reasonably get will not be enough to resolve the issue I have with healers."

In other words, it's a proposed solution that will either fail to address the core concern from those that are dissatisfied, or if it did address that core concern, it would come at the cost of everyone else's ability to even play the role. And none of us are advocating to destroy the ability for the casual player to access the role.

Something you need to fundamentally understand with the conflict you have with people like Roe and Aravell and the like who are not satisfied with just leaving White Mage as-is is that their position is not to make White Mage inaccessible, impossible to play as, or punishing to the common healer. On the contrary, they talk about making it more approachable to the average player, but while also adding some amount of modest selection of DPS attacks that also allow them to gain a few extra inches of optimization--something that will not have an adverse effect on the common player.

Now, you have disliked this take, because it would mean that playing White Mage to the best that it can perform would require engaging in that added DPS gameplay, but being required to be a master White Mage and being required to be a successful White Mage are not the same thing. You can still feel the way you feel and want a path of little-to-no resistance to master for the job, but recognize that wanting the job to be inherently easy to master is not a requirement for it to be easy to play. What they believe in is Bushnell's Law: The best video games are easy to play and difficult to master. - Nolan Bushnell.

[fulminating]

I've been curious about this; people suggest Selene returning would free up buttons on SCH by removing one. I've never understood how that's a saved button considering Summon Selene would be an additional button? Unless we're going to use SMN as a guide and have a Eos/Selene version of Gemshine, Astral Flow, and Precious Brilliance. Kind of like Eukrasia if it was a toggle? One might do Whispering Dawn, Fey Blessing, and ??? if Eos is out, while the button would instead do Fey Illumination, ????, and ????? if Selene was out instead? Is that the idea here?

something along those lines. I just think it's beyond stupid that scholar has an introductory cutscene saying that not only is there a difference between eos and selene, but selene exists. It wasn't even removed for anything, just randomly in the middle of the expansion for no reason. Again it's the issue of SE seemingly being unable to bother giving something a rework and instead the bathwater out with the baby.

[Sebazy]

Saying it cannot be done is effectively the same as saying it's impossible.

But I literally just said that it absolutely is possible? It's not even difficult tbh.

Of course it's possible to replace the downtime with more healing.

Saying the damage required would be too much for anyone to deal with is also pretty close to saying it's impossible.

Again, that's not what I said:

A significant enough increase in healing pressure to make an actual impact in something like an Alliance raid is going to cause problems for less skilled players.

I'm not referring to you, I or likely anyone that's reading this thread, I'm referring to the calibre of healer who got overwhelmed on more difficult Alliance raids where they were forced to multi task and failed. These aren't people who make mistakes and deal sub optimal DPS, these are people that struggle to press buttons at all when they are under pressure.

Saying every single encounter would have to be redone and that the Devs will never do this is also pretty much saying it's impossible.

Slap an instant cast 6 second aoe pulse proc or something on a bosses auto attacks and you've just launched it's outgoing damage to the moon for very little effort. Do the same with a rock buster style tank hit/cleave and you're good to go. Do I think the Devs will do this? I highly doubt it. Again, remember that we've had prior history with this, and it got nerfed into the floor in a hurry. I'm not swinging my own opinion around, I'm gauging my thoughts based on SE's previous actions from back when we had a alliance boss that was a bonafide healer competency check.

If you genuinely think that this and my previous post are merely me heckling you then I don't really know what to say other than that the only impossibility here is actually having any kind of intelligent debate with you if you're just going to assume that any degree of disagreement is just people trying to farm meaningless likes from you.

I'm not sure what you'd call that, but to me, when people tell me something CANNOT be done, that sounds like saying it's impossible. "Acshually...!", no, no "acshually". "won't happen doesn't mean it's physically impossible" is irrelevant. Won't happen means won't happen. Won't happen means impossible. There's no reason to parse it: That's the argument that has been made over and over again.

Again, let me spin this round back to you: How do you increase the healing requirements on a maps farm to the point where a couple of Chocobos can't do my job for me? How do you make that scale so that it is sufficient to keep a sweaty Entropy healer in BiS engaged whilst also being manageable by a fresh out of leveling rookie who's in dungeon gear and thinks that the current alliance raids are stressful?

Serious question btw, none of those words are close to 'impossible' and I'm certainly not trying to suggest that it is. What I am trying to suggest is that A) It's a *LOT* of work to achieve this and likely requires things such as iLvl scaling or fixed % gear ignoring attacks (neither of which feel particularly good for the player as they both render gear progression a non entity) and B) Casual content like maps isn't even intended to be challenging content, that's not the point of it. It's relaxing stuff that you do with friends and the real fun comes from being on voice and just mindlessly gassing away whilst you run it.

Thus, if you tuned the healing requirements up so that this was where the engagement for healers came from, they would be the only role that was forced to be sweaty in this otherwise extremely casual content. The DPS and tanks can just press one button and it'll be slow but fine, but they have the option to get stuck in and actually try hard and get some small reward for doing so. Healers? Not so much. If the healer can kick back and heal it with 1 button, where's the engagement? We're back to square one again.

"We can't make up the boredom with healing because the healing required to stress our kits would be nearly constantly one-shotting the entire party, novice healers would be completely unable to deal with that, parties would wipe constantly, raid teams would break apart, and the devs would have to redo every encounter in the game...so the only solution for our boredom and 'bad healer design' is to have more DPS actions."

I did a search on the last couple of pages for 'one shot'. 1 result. Yours. I can't say I remember seeing anyone mentioned busting raid teams up either? Didn't I make it clear I was focusing on more casual content since IMHO that's where the real issue with healer engagement is?

That has literally been used before, including in this thread, as an argument. I'm pretty sure even you have used some version of it. I also wasn't passing judgement. I was accurately stating that I have been told in no uncertain terms this is a thing that cannot be done successfully - in other words, it is impossible and cannot be the solution to our problem.

Again, let me make this as simple and concise as I can:

It absolutely can be done.

The problem is that it can only be done in a manner that alienates someone

It either needs to alienate the high end of the player base or it needs to alienate the low end of the player base

Right how we have the former

The only way I can think of to help ease this disparity and appease both sides of the coin with this is to make healing checks effectively ignore gear, that neither feels good for healers who are already usually last up to get gear in Savage statics as is and also doesn't play nice with certain specific defensive cooldowns (See Sins in T13), nor does it actually fix the problem since some healers will always be significantly better than others when it comes to coping with healing pressure and reacting accordingly.

Lastly, let me close with an direct question that will be the most enlightening thing here:

Answer me honestly... Do you think that the above is heckling? If so, care to expand on why?

[Rein_eon_Osborne]

Remind me again that I have to revisit my own outdated file.

So I have finally decided to revisit and do a little bit of tweaking on my own SCH idea, just gonna drop purely damage portion of the kit since that is what the thread was talking about. Time to butcherino kits yay~:

I'd like to go backward and start with their DoT first

Miasma III
GCD | 450 MP | 1.50s Cast time
Deals unaspected damage over time.
Potency: 45
Duration: 21s

Miasma IV
GCD | 1200 MP | 2.5s Cast time | 5y Radius
Deals unaspected damage over time & inflicts ‘Virus’ on all enemies within range.
Potency: 55
Duration: 15s
Virus: Reduce damage dealt by 3%. Effectiveness increases up to 10% as target's overall HP decreases, reaching its maximum effectiveness at 30% or less overall HP.
Additional Effect: each damage over time ticks has 20% chance of increasing fae gauge by 3p.

Bio IV
GCD | 400 MP | Instant
Deals unaspected damage over time.
Potency: 70
Duration: 12s

Biolysis
GCD | 450 MP | Instant
Deals unaspected damage over time.
Potency: 70
Duration: 30s

And now, their nukes & related mentions.

Broil IV
GCD | 400 MP | 2.00s Cast time | Radius 5y
Deals unaspected damage with a potency of 240.
If target is suffering from 1 damage over time inflicted by you, potency is increased by 15 & each cast increases fae gauge by 1p.
If target is suffering from 2 damage over time inflicted by you, potency is increased by 30 & each cast increases fae gauge by 1p. Also damages the surrounding target with 70% damage fall off.
If target is suffering from 3 damage over time inflicted by you, potency is increased by 50 & each cast increases fae gauge by 2p. Also damages the surrounding target with 50% damage fall off.

Ruin II
GCD | 800 MP | Instant | Radius 5y
Deals unaspected damage to target and all enemies nearby it with a potency of 270 for the first enemy, and 30% less for all remaining enemies. Increases fae gauge by 1p.
Action changes into 'Kaustra' when under the effect of 'Piercing Sight'.

Kaustra
GCD | 700 MP | Instant | 15s Cooldown | 6y Radius
Deals fire damage to target and all enemies nearby it with a potency of 370 for the first enemy and 50% less for all remaining enemies.
If target is suffering from the effects of Bio, Miasma, or Biolysis inflicted by you, the effect timer is reset and extends the effect with 60% potency fall off.
Can only be executed when under the effect of 'Piercing Sight'.

Chain Stratagem
Ability | Instant | 120s Cooldown
Increases rate at which target takes critical hits by 10%. Also grants ‘Piercing Sight’ to self.
Additional Effect: Increases critical hit chance by 1% for every scholar’s damage over time that’s currently active upon the execution.
Duration: 15s

Deployment Tactic
Ability | Instant | 2 charges | 45s Recharge timer | 15y err 30y Radius I guess lol
Extends Galvanize and Catalyze effects cast on self or target to nearby party members.
Duration: Time remaining on original effect.
When targeting enemies, extends Biolysis, Bio, Miasma, and Chain Stratagem effects to other surrounding enemies with 60% less potency.

Energy Siphon
Ability | Instant | 2 charges | 30s Recharge timer | 5y Radius
Deals unaspected damage with a potency of 120 to main target and 30% less to surrounding enemies. Increases Faerie Gauge by 15p & grants ‘Piercing Sight’ to self.
Piercing Sight: Able to execute ‘Kaustra’.
Additional Effect: Absorbs 10% of damage dealt to recover own’s HP.
Additional Effect: Restores 12% of Max MP.

That covers almost, if not all the damage related kits. Granted things like Energy Siphon & Deployment Tactic aren't made purely for dps which is to mirror the current application of Energy Drain that I skillfully remove in my full rework

Will need more brainstorming to properly refine, but this is the gist of its DPS kits.

As usual, expect the whacky potency values. Math isn't my biggest forte lol.

At the very least in my mock 1 minute rotation incl the prepull Broil IV, I counted (hopefully correctly lol) that I managed bring down 23 casts of Broil IV + 2 Biolysis casts into 14-17 Broil IV casts depending on how much Bio IV are slotted in for safety movement and/or optimization *in a perfect scenario*.

[Saraide]

So I have finally decided to revisit and do a little bit of tweaking on my own SCH idea, just gonna drop purely damage portion of the kit since that is what the thread was talking about. Time to butcherino kits yay~:

Spreading chain strategem in addition to the dots is a pretty cool idea. Getting big spreads is what makes scholar fun for me in frontline.

[Mecia]

Again, remember that we've had prior history with this, and it got nerfed into the floor in a hurry. I'm not swinging my own opinion around, I'm gauging my thoughts based on SE's previous actions from back when we had a alliance boss that was a bonafide healer competency check.

Diabolos in Dun Scaith says hello, still putting tanks and healers in their place.

That kind of incoming damage everywhere else would absolutely alienate casuals.

[Saraide]

Diabolos in Dun Scaith says hello, still putting tanks and healers in their place.

That kind of incoming damage everywhere else would absolutely alienate casuals.

Nah, havent you heard, we're all saying it's impossible. You cant have something that is impossible and also tried before. /s

[Rein_eon_Osborne]

Spreading chain strategem in addition to the dots is a pretty cool idea. Getting big spreads is what makes scholar fun for me in frontline.

Chain has been one of the few ‘partywide buff’ that never feels good to use in a wall pull, and it always gets desynced by the time the party reach each boss even if I do use it on the strongest mob (2 minutes buff normally had around 20-30s remaining before it comes off cooldown in my runs). The other similar offender was NIN’s Mug but at least Mug juices me with Ninkis to deploy Bunshin & Phantom Kamaitachi—Chain certainly did not juice me with similar dopamine.

It was also around the time when one of fellow forummonger suggested using in-game support feature to leave healer feedback: I wrote down the deployment tactic adjustment in one of those days. Fast forward to 6.1 pvp revamp, imagine both my excitement & disappointment when I saw something eerily similar to my suggestion gets implemented, but at the same time it’s not even in PvE mode lol.