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

[Renathras]

Ok then, I'll bite.

1) Why do you care about the peak of optimisation if you don't plan on engaging with it?
2) Why does losing damage hurt you so much if you yourself said you don't care about your parse?
3) Why exactly do you think people who are performing at 70-90% will suddenly be considered bad players?
4) Why are you so adamant that people should not be able to outperform others with more effort?

1) I don't care about the peak of optimization. I do care about (a) the gap size and (b) the shift in optimization focus from healing to DPS. Believe it or not, I DO try to optimize, I just don't like optimization of DPS rotations.

2) Clearing content. I've cleared a number of things where the clear came down to the wire. The whole "the screen started to fade to black as the Enrage was applying its damage to the party but the boss died mid-effect resolution and we got the clear" thing. PF is pretty wild. In those cases, had I been doing 10% less damage, that WOULD be relevant.

3) Have you met this community? Or read these threads? Is this the thread Ty said my complaint was out of a desire to be lazy and still be rewarded, which several people agreed with or was it that other one? Regardless, there's your ansewr.

4) I'm not. I'm saying for the Healer role, the "more effort" should be on healing, not on DPSing. AND, lest you forget, my 4 Healers Model means at least 1 (and more likely 2-3) of the healer Jobs WOULD be rewarded for "more effort" on DPS rotation optimization. So that would be covered under my proposal as well.

5) Why are you saying you'd quit P8S over more damage complexity when you seemingly never attempted it in the first place?

Yes I am cranky, it's late and I'm going to sleep.

This is heckling.

Also: When did I ever say I'd quit "P8S"?

You guys have far more patience than I.

He won't admit to being wrong. Ever.

I've admitted to being wrong here on 5 separate accounts, I believe.

This is also heckling.

I'm just curious if anyone has actually come close to punching their monitor yet. I wouldn't blame them at all.

This is ALSO heckling.

Just wanna add that I find it funny how sterilizing the kits would never help the grays. Their issue largely aren’t caused by the kits but rather how the pressure they’re receiving while playing overwhelms them to the point of hampering their decision making & consistency. That’s not something that kits sterilizing can achieve. It’s mostly practice practice practice practice & practice to the best of their capability.

The sarcasm aside: This is true though...but a lot of this depends on the person.

Some people just freak out easy - no matter the role or Job they're playing.

Further, some people have different strengths and weaknesses. One person might be good at optimizing for healing but not damage. Another might be good at optimizing for damage and not healing. Another might be good at both. Another might be bad at both. Some people can have 30 DPS buttons and not break a sweat but give them 3 with one optimization and they lose their minds and freeze up in battle.

But all things being equal, a person is LESS likely to freak out the LESS overwhelmed they feel, and people are also less likely to freak out/get overwhelmed when given something they're comfortable with. Like some people are great at English but suck at math, so give them a hard English test and they won't even get the least bit nervous, but give them even a basic math exam and they may psyche themselves out and fail it, even if they know the material. The reverse can also be true for people skilled with Math but bad with English. Or alternatively how an extrovert does great at parties while an introvert may freak out, but an introvert may be great in a library where an extrovert is so bored they doze off.

So this means less DPS complexity helps in two ways:

1) For people who aren't good at DPS rotations but ARE good at other things - and picked one of the "other things" roles for exactly this reason - it helps them since they aren't forced out of their comfort zone into something they dislike/aren't gifted at.
2) For people who are generally average across both types of things, there's less to juggle so less chance of being overwhelmed - it helps them since there's less overall mental loading.

The only people it doesn't help are:

3) The people good at optimizing DPS rotations but bad at optimizing healing - but we have DPS Jobs for that.
4) The people good at both who want to do both - but we have the 4 Healers Model for that.

Woah, I just visited the healer sub forum, you guys all just have the same conversation over and over again don't you? Huh.

Carry on!

Eh, there are probably about 3 conversations that we have over and over again in cycles but...more or less, yes.

We already have a more or less solution, but some people don't want it because it doesn't give them everything they want, despite asking for total sacrifice from others on their behalf, so we'll have the same conversations over and over again...and ultimately none of it will matter since the Devs/Yoshi P have outright said why they reduced healer DPS actions, that it had the effect they wanted, and that they're not going to change from that course. And because the people rejecting the one solution that would work don't seem to realize it's the only one compatible with that stated developer perspective on the issue.

So round and round we go. Every now and then we break out of the asylum and crash General, that's all.

[TheDustyOne]

When I first started this game, I picked CNJ>WHM to start because my friend group were all playing DPS and I figured we'd need a healer (and at the time, tanking seemed scary to me). That was 2.55. One of the things I learned about the game that made me think 'that's cool' was that in downtime when there's nothing to heal, FFXIV healers can throw out damage spells, and they actually deal a fairly hefty amount of damage for a non-DPS role. This was by contrast to my other MMO experience at the time, having freshly fallen off of Snore-lords of Draenor (now THAT's an expansion with a lack of content), which had implemented some changes to damage profiles such that 'deal damage in downtime' was more 'possible', but as with MMO playerbases when changes occur, the players had not adapted to it yet. So there, my experience of healing was 'heal, and if no healing is needed, stand around and wait for some'.

I remember back when I started in SB, even though my primary job was PLD, when I made my current character, I wanted her to be a healer, so I started her with CNJ and picked up ACN along the way for SCH. Even early on, I was expecting to have to be constantly healing because I "only had 3 or so attacks". I got proven wrong fairly quickly, but liked that I had that downtime to throw stones and suffocate the mobs with Aero in between topping up the tank. I remember a tank back in a lvl 50 dungeon being surprised that I was actually using Holy on large mobs, getting that long cast off in the middle of a large pack felt good. I had a decent enough time upkeeping Aero and Aero III between Stone casts, but it did feel a little lackluster once I got to higher levels.

SCH however was a different story, I had 2 extra DoTs to use, and I loved making the most out of my Aetherflow between Lustrate/Indom uses and Energy Drain or Bane. It was very fun to keep those DoTs rolling, and incredibly rewarding when I took that risk on Energy Drain usages, especially when I got unlocked Quickened Aetherflow. WHM felt anemic after that, WHM had to rely on basic heals that didn't feed back into its main gameplay loop, and only had 2 DoTs and a nuke, it was no wonder I thought that people complained about it back then, that it had no identity apart from "make green number bigger". How much cooler would it have been if it followed in BLM shoes and had a focus on long cast times, managing instant casts for that needed movement, and a healing loop that fed back into that damage loop? If SCH could do it with its oGCD heals, why not a healer that wants to use its GCD heals? ShB, for all its faults in healer design, at least did that right in my opinion.

WHM I think only needs like 2 more DPS spells before I'd say it's at a stage where I'd be happy with it. I memed a bit on the healer forums with a WHM rework that copied BLM's homework, turning Astral Fire and Umbral Ice into a healing stance and dps stance respectively, but I liked the idea that Banish gives 3 buff stacks that lets you use Glare and sometimes procs Banish III, so the base filler becomes Banish > Glare x 3 > Banish / III > Glare x 3, etc. I then had Dia change from a DoT to a cooldown with charges to make it a movement tool and I'd honestly be happy with that kind of rotation, simple, but still engaging.

[mallleable]

Let SCH summon Statice as a dps fairy!

[OgruMogru]

WHM I think only needs like 2 more DPS spells before I'd say it's at a stage where I'd be happy with it. I memed a bit on the healer forums with a WHM rework that copied BLM's homework, turning Astral Fire and Umbral Ice into a healing stance and dps stance respectively, but I liked the idea that Banish gives 3 buff stacks that lets you use Glare and sometimes procs Banish III, so the base filler becomes Banish > Glare x 3 > Banish / III > Glare x 3, etc. I then had Dia change from a DoT to a cooldown with charges to make it a movement tool and I'd honestly be happy with that kind of rotation, simple, but still engaging.

ahaha the astral/umbral stance could work like in one phase you do GCD longer cast heals and oGCD damage and in the other you do GCD longer cast damage and oGCD heals.

[Aravell]

1) I don't care about the peak of optimization. I do care about (a) the gap size and (b) the shift in optimization focus from healing to DPS. Believe it or not, I DO try to optimize, I just don't like optimization of DPS rotations.

2) Clearing content. I've cleared a number of things where the clear came down to the wire. The whole "the screen started to fade to black as the Enrage was applying its damage to the party but the boss died mid-effect resolution and we got the clear" thing. PF is pretty wild. In those cases, had I been doing 10% less damage, that WOULD be relevant.

3) Have you met this community? Or read these threads? Is this the thread Ty said my complaint was out of a desire to be lazy and still be rewarded, which several people agreed with or was it that other one? Regardless, there's your ansewr.

4) I'm not. I'm saying for the Healer role, the "more effort" should be on healing, not on DPSing. AND, lest you forget, my 4 Healers Model means at least 1 (and more likely 2-3) of the healer Jobs WOULD be rewarded for "more effort" on DPS rotation optimization. So that would be covered under my proposal as well.

1) The gap size will always be large as long as you lump both experienced and inexperienced players into the same measurements. However, that doesn't mean that the gap itself is relevant in relation to the content itself. A WHM at grey does about 5000, a WHM at high orange does about 8000, the grey WHM is still able to clear content as shown by how they have a clear log. Why can we not have optimisation of both damage and healing? Why is that in particular not allowed?

2) I've already shown you the math that healer damage losses are extremely miniscule in terms of meeting an enrage. There's a reason that the DPS are always the first to be blamed for an enrage, as they should be. I have been doing reclears in PF on multiple characters since HW, there's only very few clears where healer damage is relevant to beating enrage, and that's only if the DPS players die more than once.

3) Why does it matter what others think though? Statistics speak for themselves. 70-90% is well above average and nothing to be ashamed of.

4) Again, why can it not be both? We already have healing optimisation during prog, why can we not have more to optimise if we choose to after prog is done? Why is this point in particular a pain point? Why can only one side be happy here instead of everyone being happy? After a fight is cleared, those who do not wish to optimise damage could simply choose to not do so, they already cleared anyway, what's the point in optimising if they don't want to?

[TheDustyOne]

ahaha the astral/umbral stance could work like in one phase you do GCD longer cast heals and oGCD damage and in the other you do GCD longer cast damage and oGCD heals.

I was thinking more "heal stance builds up blood lily but blows through MP quickly" and "DPS stance builds up MP reasonably quickly and spends blood lily". So the gameplay loop is somewhat similar to BLM where it's about spending and rebuilding MP, albeit at a rate that's more balanced to healers, and the healing stance feeds back into the DPS stance with Misery acting kinda like Paradox where it would replace the next Banish cast and refunds any lost damage.

[Saraide]

snip

He's so clearly not arguing in good faith and the only person who seemingly doesnt realize this is himself. He even thinks the wesk alber thread was made in good faith.

[ty_taurus]

And another piece is that you are (and it IS understandable, mind you) so concerned with addressing the needs of the dissatisfied, you lose sight of the needs of the satisfied. You genuinely think either it won't hurt anyone to get the changes that address your needs, or you don't care (I think you're a good person, so I'm assuming the former), despite people telling you it will harm them.

Because adding a few DPS spells to the healers will not bother the vast majority of players currently. I've said before that the majority of players do not care either way. And we have evidence of this in the fact that the healer population, in terms of the percentage of the total player base, was highest during Heavensward, when healer DPS was at its most complex state.

You talk under the assumption that most players feel the way that you do, and adding an eyedropper's worth of more DPS gameplay will ruin the jobs completely and make them unplayable. And yet you also played as a healer during Heavensward, no? Clearly, the presence of Aero, Aero II, and Aero III as separate DoTs with different timers, Fluid Aura having damage, and Cleric Stance existing was not enough to make you dislike playing healer. Yet the removal of those options has made the role uplayable for me and many others according to these forums. We are also not the majority of players, but we are less of a minority than you are. Your mentality is far less common even in this space.

Unless you can prove with actual data that adding a few more attacks to healers, note that I'm not saying a full DPS role's rotation's worth, just a few, would cause more people to stop playing healer than it would bring players like me back, you are arguing based purely on your own perspective. As I said, the fact that Heavensward's healer population was statistically higher by percentage indicates that DPS complexity is not a deterrent for the majority of players. The lack of it may not be a deterrent either, but adding more of it would return many who have abandoned the game and would not bother the vast majority of players. Show me data of the opposite, and I'll believe you.

[Thurmnmurmn]

And because the people rejecting the one solution that would work don't seem to realize it's the only one compatible with that stated developer perspective on the issue.

I can't imagine what goes on in your mind.

Mostly every one here is against your idea(s). And apparently you have this same discussion over and over again. Yet you still have balls (stubbornness? stupidity?) to claim your solution is the only one compatible. As if devs don't change their mind, ever.

Most people are even saying "why not both?" to your responses but you're just so set on being right and any added DPS effort is the devil's work!

Get over yourself. You're a lala, you would think that to be easy.

[Boblawblah]

I'm curious, if you could make a single relatively small change (no, "revert all changes to 'x'" isn't a small change imo) to improve healers, what would it be?

For me, I only have level 60 healers, but already I can see how much I'm just pressing the same dps button over and over again with a single dot thrown out now and then. I don't know how much that changes, but it'd be nice to have another ability that I could press regularly (not on a 60 second CD) that did damage. That would be my one change.

Note, I know nothing about healers, but as I'm levelling all my other jobs, I'm slowly learning.