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

[Rein_eon_Osborne]

[...]- 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[...]

Could also add Protraction into the list of "can be deployed"-buff if they're going to keep Protraction.

[Renathras]

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.

Actually, a good question related to this:

What would be the downside of Deployment having a much shorter (20-30 sec) CD like Emergency Tactics does?

It would let you put out bigger (Adlo) AOE shields more frequently, but you wouldn't have the guaranteed crit and it would still cost you a GCD and 1000 MP for the Adlo. Would this really be overpowered? It would still be optimal in most content to hold Deploy for emergencies and use your oGCD healing/mitigation tools instead for more minor damage. It would be a crutch for novice healers, but that's not really a bad thing. And a short CD could allow it to work like PvP where it can be used offensively and defensively since, say, a 30 sec CD would still allow you to line up every 3rd Deploy with a Recitation.

I'm just asking since I'm not really sure, but what are the pros/cons to just having a 30 sec Deployment Tactics that can work with both Adlo and Biolysis?

EDIT:

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.")

The SIMPLEST answer - not necessarily the BEST, mind you - would be to cut the power of oGCDs by about 75% and cut the power of GCD heals by about 50%.

Then have boss damage be split to half of what it is, but happen twice as often, not stacked all at once. Where an encounter might now deal 100% of the party's health over 5 seconds and two back-to-back attacks with 20 seconds between the two double attack sets, change it to where it does 25% each attack, but attacks come every 10 seconds instead. (Just as an example). So instead of 50% (t=0), 5 sec later 50% (t=5), 20 sec later 50% (t=25), 5 seconds later 50% (t=30) vs 25% (t=0), 10 sec later 25% (t=10), 10 sec later 25% (t=20), 10 seconds later 25% (t=30).

If both of these were done, it would result in a greater need to pair GCDs heals with oGCDs, and require more breakup of the spam filler to cast those spells.

For harder content, this would be increased. Say for Extremes, it would be 35% and for Savages 45% or even 50%, with those bigger spikes REQUIREING planning out those oGCDs to pair with the GCDs, sort of like how Tanks will often pair their 30 sec mit with one of their 90 sec mits to mimic the effect of using their 120 sec big mit.

.

Note again: I'm not saying this is the BEST way, just that this is _A_ way. It doesn't take a lot of effort to consider ways to do this.

[ty_taurus]

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.

I didn't even see their comment actually. What made me post that was agreeing with this statement:

I agree with Dusty. Healers are magic users and straight up combos, even if they share a button, would just feel wrong.

I'm sitting here on the sidewalk with my intestines hanging out of a gaping wound in my stomach, and I'm tired of people offering me a band-aid and nothing else. I know it's not intentionally an insult, but it starts to feel like one when it happens over and over. It just baffles me how the go-to solution for people uninvested in wanting an actual solution to the problem is something that is hilariously offbrand for casters and healers with the only exception being Red Mage's brief burst combo designed specifically to represent the history of Red Mage being not entirely useless with weapon attacks in Final Fantasy history unlike casters.

"Hey, pass me a soda."

*Hands me a trumpet*

[Aravell]

Snip

Ok, are you aware that what you propose would be harming WHM players who want for engagement? How many of them are there? Would you allow WHM to gain complexity if it's provable that they outnumber those who want it to remain as it is?

You are also approaching the question from the position that your 4 Healers Model would be unmitigated good, it's not. I already told you that it solves none of my issues, so I don't benefit from it, why would I then support it?

You are also not actually answering the root question of why having more damage complexity harms your enjoyment. Let me go back through the facts:

1) You don't care for parse
2) It's been proven that healer damage contribution is minimal in terms of beating enrage
3) You love seeing a good healing plan come together and do not care for damage optimisation
4) It's normal for bad parties to exist, some parties just cannot clear a fight
5) The community does not care to scrutinise and make a big issue out of any minor mistake

If your only actual argument against it is "It harms me because on very rare occasions my Glares are helpful in barely beating the dps check", then I'm sorry, but that's not a very compelling argument for blocking WHM's growth. "I don't enjoy it" is not a compelling argument either, I take the same issue with you leaving WHM as is, I don't enjoy that either.

EDIT: Meant to write this also, but queue popped. You accused me of not letting you enjoy something because I want to enjoy every healer, but you don't actually know what I enjoy. I don't care if WHM evolved in a way I don't personally enjoy, I just want to see WHM evolve, not stagnate. My main concern is the stagnation of the healer role, which would be more harmful in the long run than rounding out the kit with some more damage spells and interactivity at the cost of some people not being happy.

[TheDustyOne]

Actually, a good question related to this:

What would be the downside of Deployment having a much shorter (20-30 sec) CD like Emergency Tactics does?

The biggest downside is it would devalue Succor more as the shield on Adlo would always be stronger this way. Emergency Tactics has similar issues in that it also devalues Physick to an extent, but even then Physick still has the (admittedly not very useful) niche of only costing 400 MP compared to the 1000 of Adlo/Succor.

Adding the Bio and Chain spread to Deployment would be a net positive at least, and maybe it could have a reduced cooldown if used on a mob instead of another player so as to not disrupt single target balance while providing something more fun for dungeons.

[ForsakenRoe]

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?"

Well, I have a couple ideas...

I'm just asking since I'm not really sure, but what are the pros/cons to just having a 30 sec Deployment Tactics that can work with both Adlo and Biolysis?

Pros: you bring back spreading DOT (helps with dungeon packs), you play more into the SCH theme of 'set up mitigation' (it feels more thematic to deploy a shield rather than just Succor it onto people), SCH is made stronger, button has multiple use cases

Cons: It kills SGE. A SGE/SCH shield lasts 30s, so you'd be able to put it up at literally any time, and be guaranteed that it either covers a hit, or will be 'ready again' at the same time it falls off. But, an Adlo is 540p effective shielding, and a Succor is 320p. SGE, however, has to use Zoe as their 'Deploy Adlo' equivalent, and it's already 'not as strong', making their usually 320p shield into 480p. Zoe's 90s CD, so you'd have SCH being WAY better at mitigating big hits. To keep the playing field balanced, SGE would have to see Zoe lowered to 30s in order to not get told 'you are bad class' (you can see DSR and the Holos shield addition to see that SE thought that 'not as much mit as SCH' was a very real problem for SGE on release). BUT, Zoe doesn't just affect shields, it affects all healing spells. So now SGE's base healing has just been buffed through the roof to try and keep parity with SCH, and now it's an arms race situation

Giving it a second charge though (keeping it's 'recharge time' at 90s) would maybe work, and be less 'destructive' to SGE's health in the PF-Sphere

3) You love seeing a good healing plan come together and do not care for damage optimisation

I do get a small amount of.. some feeling or another from this line, maybe schadenfreude or something similar. Because I do wonder for WHM, 'what healing plan?' Anything that happens to us, we respond 80% of the time with 'Rapture'. The 'healing plan' is something the other three healers do, rotating through their OGCDs, WHM just goes 'Magic Missile! Magic Missile!' with the same heal over and over until they have no Lilies left, at which point it's Cure 3 or Medica 2. I remember my 'healing plan' as a WHM in TEA. It was 'Temperance at 5 stacks, do 4 Medica's, use 3 Lilies with PI, spam Cure3 until phase is over'. Compared to my Noct AST partner who was doing some mad gigabrain stuff on their OGCDs, use Star here, pop it here, use CO on this stack count, use CU to cover point A to point B. WHM is just bruteforce healing power, and that can be useful in prog, fun in prog even. But once you don't NEED that power, it doesn't have much else to keep it feeling engaging.

The one time I felt clever on WHM in recent years (like the past 4 or so) was doing UCOB to help a friend's prog, and I had the idea to purposely hold Assize (at a damage loss), so I had one extra 'heal while moving' to cover Blackfire Trio's stack mark damage

[SweetPete]

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.

I understand that. No need to apologize. Just gotta have a little thick skin when posting on a public forum.

When you explain it that way I can see why it probably wouldn’t go over well with the player base. I guess my confusion is we basically spammed one button back in Stormblood too. Whm for example. You cast aero 3 then aero 2 then start spamming stone 4 and just refreshed the dots. Right? With scholar you dot bio 2 and 3 then miasma 2 spread the dots then go to broil spam.

I guess my confusion is it all went back to spamming one button when you got finish dotting. I hear most say HW and SB were the best healer iterations. I played during those times too. I just haven’t seen anyone suggest fixes that basically will be universal across all healers to make people happy. I do agree that sage should have been allot more dps heavy for healing and not just a copy paste of scholar.

[TheDustyOne]

To be fair, even though I'm a big fan of SB SCH and consider SB healers as a whole to be better than what we have here, I think the criticism of "spam filler between DoTs" still applies to then too. It was much less of an issue back then because the times on those DoTs were smaller and broke up the monotony more, or the job had other sub-mechanics to make up for it (SCH Quickened Aetherflow comes to mind, same with AST cards).

[SargeTheSeagull]

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.

Imo deployment tactics should be the backbone of SCH's aoe kit. It's such an interesting and thematic ability and being on such a long CD with such limited interaction kinda sucks.
EDIT: Obviously with MP costs, potencies, other AoE ability adjustments, how it affects (effects?) job balance taken into account.

[Aravell]

I do get a small amount of.. some feeling or another from this line, maybe schadenfreude or something similar. Because I do wonder for WHM, 'what healing plan?' Anything that happens to us, we respond 80% of the time with 'Rapture'. The 'healing plan' is something the other three healers do, rotating through their OGCDs, WHM just goes 'Magic Missile! Magic Missile!' with the same heal over and over until they have no Lilies left, at which point it's Cure 3 or Medica 2. I remember my 'healing plan' as a WHM in TEA. It was 'Temperance at 5 stacks, do 4 Medica's, use 3 Lilies with PI, spam Cure3 until phase is over'. Compared to my Noct AST partner who was doing some mad gigabrain stuff on their OGCDs, use Star here, pop it here, use CO on this stack count, use CU to cover point A to point B. WHM is just bruteforce healing power, and that can be useful in prog, fun in prog even. But once you don't NEED that power, it doesn't have much else to keep it feeling engaging.

The one time I felt clever on WHM in recent years (like the past 4 or so) was doing UCOB to help a friend's prog, and I had the idea to purposely hold Assize (at a damage loss), so I had one extra 'heal while moving' to cover Blackfire Trio's stack mark damage

I believe that's the fatal flaw with WHM, it's way too simple. While simplicity is not inherently bad (The PvP kits are extremely simple but they at least have heavy interaction), WHM does suffer from too much simplicity, most of their healing spells are just flat "Heal X amount" spells, the damage side being "Deal X damage" along with every healer also isn't helping WHM.

All that said, I don't think WHM needs to be really complex, just some nice interactions between things, delete some redundancies, add a couple of situational stuff, just a general rounding out of the kit. There's nothing wrong with the image of a powerhouse healer, it's mostly the implementation that's extremely questionable.