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

[RitsukoSonoda]

The shear lack of creativity people have when suggesting a 1-2-3 combo to "fix" the problem for the healers, who are a Discipline of Magic--a larger role that has never featured 1-2-3 combos, makes me feel disappointed in being a human.

To me, it makes me think the people suggesting that play melee DPS most of the time and can't wrap their brain around spellcasters in general, but see that green icon in the adventurer in need bonus on roulettes and want to occupy that slot without changing how they play the game.

[Renathras]

Yes, compared to glare spam, warrior's rotation is more effort. This question can not be genuine lmao.

Well, you aren't the person I asked, but, let's roll with it:

Glare spam isn't WHM's rotation. WHM's rotation is Dia refreshing as close as practicable to duration, consuming 3 Lilies per minute, 1 Misery per minute, using Assize on CD, placing Assize and Misery into burst windows as they come up, and aligning Presence of Mind with party burst.

But that wasn't the question, either.

My question is, is WAR or PLD's rotation "effort" or "no effort"? What makes it "effort"?

And I'm not trying to be obtuse here. Let's drill down to it. People tend to throw out slogans and general statements a lot that fizzle when nailed down. Let's take these gaseous things and give them actual form so they can actually be discussed.

From a general perspective, PLD's rotation can be summarized as:

Use Fight or Flight then Requiescat on CD. Use Circle of Scorn and Expaciation on CD. Use Goring Blade and Confetior x4 on CD. Do NOT use Intervene on CD, stock 2 of them for use under Fight or Flight. Outside of that, press 1-2-3 at the start of the fight, then the rest of the fight, use 1-2-4-4-4-5-3. If in burst, use -5 after the Confetior combo before rejoining your filler rotation, already in progress. There's nothing here to upkeep at all, and everything else is a big "use on CD". There are 6 buttons that you use on CD, but you use them all together...on CD. There's no advanced thinking in place. The only things that require a modicum of thought are to try and put both Intervenes under FoF (unless you need to use them outside of that for gap closing) and if you're coming up on your burst window, to try and get a Holy Might HS into it...which is ridiculously easy. (There's a reason I question people that insist WAR is still the easiest Tank in terms of its DPS rotation since PLD has effectively nothing to optimize that has any difficulty and no plate juggling at all.)

WAR's pattern is a Melee's version of Healer's. There's a 1-2- combo that feeds into either a standard damage -3 or an upkeep buff -4. The upkeep buff is more flexible and easier to manage than any Healers' DoT, though, since it can stack to 60 and is tracked on your character making it easier to both track and maintain. Other than that, you have Upheaval on CD, Inner Release on CD, Primal Rend on CD, Onslaught x3 under Inner Release, Fell Cleave spam under Inner Release, Infuriate under Inner Release (not overcapping gauge), and...uh...that's kind of it. The filler phase is the 1-2-3/-4 that is more or less identical to how healers play just trading cast time "difficulty" for "can you count to 3?" difficulty, and continuing the "Upheaval on CD" + "Don't overcap Infuriate/gauge" thing.

If Healers are a 1, PLD would be a 2 and WAR would be a 2.5. Surely the line between "no effort" and "effort" isn't going from a 1 to a 2?

SMN, a DPS Job, has no upkeep buffs OR gauges. The only form of actual optimization is holding your 2x Festers at the 1 min mark for your 2 min burst window. Otherwise, you're either going with a standard crit build where you hit Searing Light, Summon, weave all of 5 oGCDs in there while pressing an instant cast ability, then go into your Primals which are mostly instant casts, Swiftcast Garuda, and Ifrit being the only thing that requires a modicum of thought, then a Ruin 3 before repeating the cycle. If you go spell speed, you don't even align your Summons into buffs, you just use them on CD and Searing Light on CD.

.

I didn't "compare to glare spam, warrior's rotation".

I asked of WAR's rotation is "effort" or "no effort".

This is, again, a case of someone lying about what I said/asked. Outright.

Dang you guys went in on me hard. Sheesh it was just a suggestion. Wow you guys can get really mean here. It’s cool if it’s not something you want but I thought forums was just a place where you can express yourself positively and not incur just a rash of exasperated people.

It was just an idea… just like allot of people have. It’s not a right or wrong answer. Didn’t have to be so discourteous and impolite.

Welcome to my world, friend.

For what it's worth, I didn't think your idea was bad.

My only concern with the combo breaking is if people might greed and get people killed. It happens now...but that might make even more incentive. But you could do like PLD where Clemency doesn't break the combo and that would work?

[Saraide]

Yea just looking at the length of the individual rotation summaries should tell you the answer. Even summoners lego factory takes up twice as much to explain than whm. Compared to whm warrior is effort. Compared to blackmage warrior is on the low effort side on the other hand. It almost sounds like you are trying to find an absolute here. Give us warrior levels of damage complexity on whm in dawntrail and we'll see from there. Realistically we'll probably stay a bit below tank levels since the tanking part take up way less space on tanks than the healing part on healers.

[TheDustyOne]

Dang you guys went in on me hard. Sheesh it was just a suggestion. Wow you guys can get really mean here. It’s cool if it’s not something you want but I thought forums was just a place where you can express yourself positively and not incur just a rash of exasperated people.

It was just an idea… just like allot of people have. It’s not a right or wrong answer. Didn’t have to be so discourteous and impolite.

I think the only one that was hard on you was Ty, I just gave my thoughts on why I don't think a combo is a good fit for healers and Sarge agreed with it. I didn't mean to be hard when I suggested against it and I'm sorry if I came across otherwise.

To be fair to Ty though, he's seen it suggested several times over and doesn't see it fixing anything, and I largely agree that it doesn't fix much. The big problem with it is that it's not any different from the 111 spam we have now, it's a linear choice with no deviation or extras to work with. Procs dynamically change up what our next action could be, gauges can be spent or saved depending on ones proclivities, DoTs, debuffs, buffs, and cooldowns break up the monotony of that linear choice, even if it's on a strict timer itself.

Every job that has a 1-2-3 combo typically has that 3rd button unlock something else in the kit, more gauge to spend, stacks to spend, procs, another timer to watch, etc. It adds a layer of interactivity beyond the combo and it's less about "having the combo" and more "the combo does something interesting". I'd rather cut the middle man of the first 2 buttons and go straight to the 3rd button since that's more or less how the casters work in this game; I don't need to do Fire > Fire II > Fire III to unlock Astral Fire, I just go straight to Fire III, Fire and Fire II have other uses in the kit instead.

I don't think having a 1-2-3 combo is in itself a bad thing on a healer, but I think it's best used on one that has a melee phase rather than a base for all of them to work off of.

[Renathras]

Yea just looking at the length of the individual rotation summaries should tell you the answer.

Not really, that's more due to how I worded it and the skill names. For example, PLD has 6 things that are "use on CD in a big chunk the same way every time back to back".

But regardless, that still doesn't answer the question of "Is it 'effort' or not?"

You're stuck on the wrong question.

The question isn't "Is it more effort than healers".

The question is "If healers are 'no effort' what IS 'effort'?"

If WAR levels of effort are ALSO "no effort", then giving you that doesn't solve his problem of "no effort" players "parsing purple", was it?

What, exactly, does "effort" look like. If we've established (for the sake of argument, as I disagree, but for the sake of argument and getting a hard definition here) Healer rotations are "no effort", what IS "effort"?

[EDIT: I've seen Tank rotations AND SMN all described as "no effort" and "braindead" as well, so surely those wouldn't solve his problem, right? So I'm trying to figure out what WOULD since Tank rotations and SMN do not qualify. And if he says they DO, then I'm going to have to get what a hard definition is of "effort", because I've seen all of those described as "no effort" as well. :ENDEDIT]

To be fair to Ty though, he's seen it suggested several times over and doesn't see it fixing anything,

Sorta like me and "add a couple DPS buttons", I suppose.

Oddly, I think a 1-2-3 combo would be a better fit than most of the other proposals. I just feel like it'd be awkward if they were not instant cast, hence what I said about SGE vs MCH.

[Aravell]

Snip

Ok, now let me ask you this question.

How does giving others who care about damage optimisation a 10-20% ceiling to reach for hurt your fun in any way?

You said you enjoy planning out and executing the perfect healing plan, that's great, I'm happy that you have something you enjoy. But what do other people who do not have the same tastes as you have to enjoy? They have nothing to do after the clear, nothing to strive for, it's the same thing over and over again with no improvement to make. How does denying them their enjoyment make things better for you? How does allowing them to have their enjoyment make things worse for you? This is the part that genuinely does not make any sense to me. How would an increase of the damage ceiling by about 10-20% hurt your enjoyment of executing a perfect healing plan in any way at all?

And please don't start with the "I'll be seen as a bad player" nonsense again. I have no pink/gold funny numbers on the numbers website, by community metrics, I'm a bad player, yet I'm not attacked or gatekept out of giving my opinion on anything. Also, how is being seen as a bad player by people out of the game relevant in any way to playing in the game? I tend to play BLM occasionally in high-end content, I've never been told stuff like "Oi BLM, you didn't cast exactly 6 Fire IVs before going back into ice, we're kicking you from the party." or "BLM, where's your Thunder IV DoT? I saw it drop off for exactly 11.2 seconds, we're kicking you." People scrutinising you and kicking you over minor mistakes is simply not a thing that happens in any form of regular fashion.

[Saraide]

You are looking for an absolute answer here where you should know it makes no sense. Compared to whm warrior absolutely is effort. Compared to blackmage it's braindead easy. Going from current white mage levels to current warrior levels would be an improvement. Would it be enough? Who knows, we'll just have to see from there.

[Renathras]

Ok, now let me ask you this question.

How does giving others who care about damage optimisation a 10-20% ceiling to reach for hurt your fun in any way?

Well, I've already answered this question before, it was the 2nd of your 4. I'll give you a two part answer this time:

a) Because - as I said before - it's relevant when it comes to getting clears.
b) I also don't mind that existing on SOME of the healers, which is why I advocate for the 4HM, so that some healer Jobs can work that way and the people driven to that kind of epeen contest can play it. We have a similar situation in the Caster role now where the tryhards have BLM and everyone else has SMN.

But what do other people who do not have the same tastes as you have to enjoy?

Four.
Healers.
Model.

Have a Healer Job (or 2 or even 3) for those people. Have I not said this over and over again? It's like you aren't listening.

How does denying them their enjoyment make things better for you?

Four.
Healers.
Model.

That wouldn't be "denying their enjoyment". However, to answer your question in the reverse - if they got what they wanted on ALL FOUR HEALERS, then that would deny me MY enjoyment of the role. How does denying me my enjoyment make things better for them? How does allowing me my enjoyment make things worse for them? Especially when I'm locked to only one Job while they have 3?

How does that not make sense to you? What doesn't make sense to me is you refusing to accept that giving them what they want on all four Healer Jobs would deny me and people like me enjoyment. Do you not care about us? Why must we be sacrificed totally for your sake when we're already offering you 75% of the healer Jobs? Why must you have them all? How does having ONE not conforming to your desired playstyle hurt you EXACTLY?

Surely there are some Jobs in this game, across all the roles, that you dislike. Why is it okay for those other Jobs to not be what you like but NOT for even a single Healer Job to be?

.

I do appreciate you asking these questions. But I feel like I've answered them before and they're all asked from only one side.

Basically, they're asked from a premise that doing the more damage thing hurts no one, and since it hurts no one, there's no cost-benefit. It's just all benefit, so there's no reason to disagree.

This is the problem, there's a definite cost. If there wasn't, people wouldn't be arguing against it. So you can't premise it that way. If you ask "Why would giving them what they want hurt you?" you also have to ask "Why would giving you what you want hurt them?", and so on for all the questions.

You are looking for an absolute answer here where you should know it makes no sense.

Wait what?

No, there has to be an absolute answer. You can't use "no effort" as a metric of bad and "effort" as a metric of good (you can't have the one without the other) if you can't define "no effort" and "effort".

That is, you can't use something for an argument/to support a position if you not only can't define it but refuse to do so.

And no, "we'll just have to see" is not a valid answer. What if it's not enough? Then you ask for more? And those of us who were only going along with you begrudgingly this far are asked to bend even more, give up even more while you take and take and take? No, that's not an answer. "We have to pass the bill to find out what's in it" is a dangerous position, not one that can be sustained and not one anyone should agree to. The famous saying applies: "Only an idiot signs a contract without reading it first". The boundaries must be clearly established.

There's a big problem with discussions when you are asking for things but can't even clearly define it. "I'll know it when I see it" sorts of things, which you can't use to build compromises or agreements with. Imagine two nations at war trying to work out a peace agreement and one saying "So where will our new boundary be?", thinking both sides make their proposals then haggle to end somewhere in between, and the other nation says "Well, if you're looking for an absolute answer, I don't have one, and that makes no sense anyway. How about we just give me some of the disputed land and I'll tell you if it's enough later?"

[LynxDubh]

A few fun, but conceptually rough, things I wanna throw into the arena for SCH:

- Make Deployment Tactics work like in PVP. Let it Bane spread Biolysis and Chain Stratagem.
- Give a a skill that grants target ally or self a buff that deals damage when struck. Like Warrior's Vengeance or Ifrit Egi's old Radiant Shield. Let it deploy with Deployment Tactics so it has more use than just Deploy Galvanize. If they want it to be safe, it could just be an aoe.

In summary, do fun stuff with Deployment Tactics. It's one of the few unique skills SCH has and it's been languishing as a crit galvanize spreader.

[AmiableApkallu]

Every job that has a 1-2-3 combo typically has that 3rd button unlock something else in the kit, more gauge to spend, stacks to spend, procs, another timer to watch, etc. It adds a layer of interactivity beyond the combo and it's less about "having the combo" and more "the combo does something interesting".

That reminds me of an attempt I made to define "filler [action]":

There are actions that do not build up anything or towards anything, and that do not themselves have the feel of ending or finishing some sequence of actions.

If I were to reformulate the nominal topic of this thread, it would be as, "How would you reduce the amount of time healers spend on filler actions?" It has the nice quality that it has a quantifiable aspect: we can look at logs for how much time healer's spend now, and we can try to work out what the time might be under a proposed solution. (And FFXIV being a game, implicit in that question would also be evaluating answers on things like "fun" and "interesting.")