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

[AnotherPerson]

It’s because we don’t want to be bored. Obviously. This has been said literally dozens of times by dozens of people. However, as a consequence of healers’ DPS kits being more fleshed out, there will inevitably be people who are better and people who are worse just as there are now but it will be slightly more noticeable. Obviously.

It technically becomes less noticeable since more DPS skills usually mean the average DPS of missing a filler DPS attack decreases. The exception is if you just don't DPS at all, but then it wouldn't matter because you'd still suffer from doing less damage regardless of whatever system is used.

[Aravell]

Snip

I don't want to hear the argument where your side is giving up everything and the other side isn't giving up anything. Tell me, what does the other side even have right now? They have absolutely nothing. People who enjoy the healers as they are right now have everything they want and the other side is completely starving. You are holding a pizza box and telling a person that has no food "I'm willing to give you some pizza, but you're not willing to give me anything in return, you only want to take.", does that seem fair to you? You claim the other side is not willing to compromise, they've already been compromising, SB kits IS the compromise, HW kits would be far more fulfilling to those who want complexity, but everyone is willing to compromise with the slightly simplified SB kits.

I haven't read everything in here but I don't recall seeing people advocating for a very complex dps kit. Pretty sure a lot of the suggestions still allow for the old play style to work but allow for more optimization to increase your dps.

I don't know about anyone else, but I'm asking for a 10-20% gap from current ceiling to new ceiling. An average SCH currently would lose about 600 dps if it's a 10% gap, the dps check for P9S is about 64000, 600 out of 64000 is less than 1%, it's an insane stretch to say that healer dps is a major influencer. Even more so in extremes, the current extreme can probably be beaten by both healers doing 0 damage as long as the DPS players are at least competent.

[ForsakenRoe]

SGE shouldn't be solving every problem the same way SCH does. I don't want to say "balance be damned"...but other people have been saying that a lot lately pointing out it's what's preventing Job identity and distinction in designs...

An entirely new rotation based around an entirely new gauge and several new abilities and upkeeps to juggle is a rather different animal than Diacloud or Aero 3.

I'd like to agree, but if SGE were to solve problems in a different way to the way SCH does, we'd have distinct playstyles for the healers and we wouldn't need to have all this conversation about it. Or at least, the ones about homogenization and how to avoid it. SE's made the kits so similar, that the only real way at the moment to keep parity is that if one job's 'move X' is changed, the mirror move on the other job has to be similarly adjusted. It'd be cool if eg SCH was more focused on % mit, and SGE on potency-based barriers ala Holosakos and Panhaima, but we're here with Kerachole and Holos and their 10% mitigations

You also might want to re-read the ideas I've posted. There's no 'new rotation based around a gauge', it's nothing more than Misery currently does. If anything, it's a 'gauge based around your rotation'. Instead of three heals then a damage button, it's a heal and then three damage buttons. You would, in content that does not 'require' the heal (due to low incoming damage, ala EX roulette, maps, some EX trials), not 'need' to even touch that heal. Let it overcap (like I often do with Lilies). The Glare of damage you would be gaining (via the refund) is lost when you press the heal. Just as you don't press Solaces and Misery on a target dummy, you wouldn't press the heal just for the refund. Or you could, if the heal is surplus to requirements and you feel like looking at a different colour of spell for a couple GCDs, it's whatever. And because the refund is one Glare instead of three, and it's across three button presses instead of one (one of which deals it's damage via a DOT), it's incredibly resistant to Crit Variance, something we all enjoy seeing when we press Misery and watch it noodle for 45k instead of the glorious 110k it's capable of

'Several' new abilities being... one? And one that we technically already had in ARR/HW, just it'd now be a GCD (and thus the pace of the class remains slower, so it's easier to keep on top of pressing it on time)? We also had a 12s DOT in ARR/HW. It had a cast time too, so it was even more 'strenuous' cos it'd require consideration of 'can I stand still to refresh it', Dia wouldn't regardless of it's duration. It's like, every possible reason that it'd be difficult to juggle, we had it already in the past (but harder) and people managed it fine. Also, you say Diacloud would be fine in your books. Wouldn't the RNG proc chance on it mean that sometimes (as with Thunder) it can go the whole duration without proccing, and sometimes goes Rambo and you get back to back refreshes? So if you have a situation where you go Glare Dia Glare Dia Dia, and then 40s of no procs, how are you going to keep on top of managing that DOT timer, given you have repeatedly made comment about how bad the UI is for tracking the DOT? I imagine that, like me, you'd forget to actually check exactly when it's going to naturally fall off, and so it'd time out and we'd lose ticks before realizing, at some point into the fight 'oh bugger, Dia fell off. When did that happen?'. Of course, one possible solution would be a Sharpcast CD of sorts, but then we're adding 'button bloat' and we all know that's not on

Why wouldn't you do more damage if you're doing more?

Oh, my ideas would keep it roughly the same, despite the extra effort. I figure that if I were to have written 'playing this new idea properly would be a X% increase over currently, while Glarespamming with it would be equal to now' I'd get pelted with 'great so now I have to be a DPS player if I want to not feel bad for being suboptimal' or such, there was no 'winning move' on that facet I think. I did minimize the 'difference' between the absolute best player, and the 'player making every mistake possible except 'literally dropping their GCDs'', to iirc 640p a minute (for reference, 'making every possible mistake except dropping GCDs', in current game, loses you 1430p a minute) and apparently that's still not enough

I don't know about anyone else, but I'm asking for a 10-20% gap from current ceiling to new ceiling. An average SCH currently would lose about 600 dps if it's a 10% gap, the dps check for P9S is about 64000, 600 out of 64000 is less than 1%, it's an insane stretch to say that healer dps is a major influencer. Even more so in extremes, the current extreme can probably be beaten by both healers doing 0 damage as long as the DPS players are at least competent.

I think it's a very nuanced thing to try and elaborate on, really. On the one hand, the way it's worded can make it appear like you just want to make it 'more damage for the skilled players', which would make it harder for less skilled players to keep up, and apparently cause issues meeting damage checks (I don't think so, but let's humour it). But I imagine what you actually mean is, say, 10% more damage if you play perfectly compared to current perfect play, where 'the current perfect play, being done under the new system, results in 90% output, and the damage check expectations for healers are the same as current'. So where a fight might expect, say, 50% output from a healer, it'd drop (because the upper end has expanded) to become the new '45%' or so. Did I get that right?

And if so, 'get to 86% by playing 'literally the exact old rotation', without adjusting anything (so still 2 Dia's, 22 Glares per minute)' would be quite close to being on the money, given that the DPS checks for fights are usually tuned around the expectations of something like 50-60% even with week 1 gear? (which would then, assuming I've got the above understood right, become more like 45-55%)

[Aravell]

I think it's a very nuanced thing to try and elaborate on, really. On the one hand, the way it's worded can make it appear like you just want to make it 'more damage for the skilled players', which would make it harder for less skilled players to keep up, and apparently cause issues meeting damage checks (I don't think so, but let's humour it). But I imagine what you actually mean is, say, 10% more damage if you play perfectly compared to current perfect play, where 'the current perfect play, being done under the new system, results in 90% output, and the damage check expectations for healers are the same as current'. So where a fight might expect, say, 50% output from a healer, it'd drop (because the upper end has expanded) to become the new '45%' or so. Did I get that right?

And if so, 'get to 86% by playing 'literally the exact old rotation', without adjusting anything (so still 2 Dia's, 22 Glares per minute)' would be quite close to being on the money, given that the DPS checks for fights are usually tuned around the expectations of something like 50-60% even with week 1 gear? (which would then, assuming I've got the above understood right, become more like 45-55%)

Even if we take the worst possible interpretation of my words that borders on parody, for example: "I am evil elitist who wants people to do less damage than me so I feel superior". Why does it matter though? I think mastery should be rewarded, if someone is smart enough to push 100% output from their job, they should be allowed to be better than others. The most important point would be that pushing up the ceiling wouldn't cause people to be unable to clear, and if SE accounts for the ceiling increase by reducing the dps expected by the healer by the same amount (even though Yoshida has gone on record saying that healer dps is not considered, but I digress), then there should be absolutely no issue for everyone.

[Banriikku]

The gap between "sprouts" and "expierenced players" needs to be lessened. Is out of context and used as a weapon. This gap dont need to be lessened. It needs to be extened. The only moment where it is a problem is when you cant play as a "skill floor" player basic content BUT this is not true for FF14. You can play and clear all skill floor content absolutly fine and without worries.

So why does need "skill ceiling" to go or be lessened?
Is "skill ceiling" changes even a problem for the opposite party?
The short answer is, NO. The long one is:
Let us begin by defining the terms.
Skill floor means a playstyle where almost no expierence, awareness, knowledge and dextery is necessary to complete the task.
Skill ceiling is a playstyle where knowledge, awareness, teamplay, dextery, endurance are getting a mandatory thing and even with the outmost skill the vast majority of the group playing needs to be on par with the difficulty of the task. Also failures will be punished harshly.

With that out of the way. A change for a "skill ceiling" playstyle WILL NOT change anythign for a "skill floor" playstyle.
Example:
We change WHm to an aggrive healer with a set of debuffing and buffing dps-spells that if played correctly increase the personal dps of the WHM significantly.
What would change?
For a skill floor playstyle nothing, because the playstyle is evaluated NOT with these in mind and all content can be cleared without usying them correctly in any shape or form. This means even with 4 more spells for the WHM the skill floor playstyle will not change or behave diffrently.

In conclusion the argument Skill floor and skill ceiling playstyle gap need to be reduced is a non argument and probably a strawman for "i dont wanna change anything because all good, change bad. I wann vote for xxx again because the past was sooo GOLDEN..".

On a serouis note, skill ceiling and skill floor playstyles are diffrent and should be treated diffrent. At the moment SE believes/behaves our healer community is not skilled enough and treats everything as skill floor and that is the problem. Because for the non existing diffrence of floor and ceiling many players question the reason for the healer role in itself.
Why does it exist when we are not allowed to master it ?
Why pushing when we can not and will not make a diffrence?
Why is there a diffrence between a grey parse BLM and a orange parse BLM? Should that gap with these "non arguments" not also be "lessened"?

I think 2 major things need to change.
First encounter design: make it less predictable
Second role design: The role needs to be desigend with the encounter design in mind and accordingly. This means more healer kit interaction for skill ceiling playstyles with the encounter itself. Give the healer the power to make a diffrence.

This recomandation is NOT for skill floor playstyles. This area is absolutly fine and can stay as it is. THe MSQ and all baseline activitys are playable and can be cleared even with players afk, new or even trolling players. The skill ceiling sucks for healers at the moment hard because of this thought of healer as a "spot to be filled and not a role to be played" or "the healer role is there because a BLM cant heal him/her-self" and this is just bad design.

[SweetPete]

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).

Understood. However, I think the disconnect is that when I check these forums I see more “Healers need more complex dps rotations” “Healers need more dps options” all I see is about dps. I’ve also seen some suggest more support/utility and they get scolded with “having more utility won’t fix the issues with healers” So basically since SB was loved so much then should every healer get 2 more dots to make them happy? Should they get more traits to lower the cooldown of specific abilities like sch’s quickened aetherflow?

It just seems no matter what people want rather is dps or utility they will always be told that they don’t understand healers and that’s not what will make healers better. So that’s where my confusion comes in. All I’m asking for is a thought out post on what exactly do they want to see on every healer. I think that helps more than just saying “ I want more dps options” “I want more utility”

That’s all I’m saying here.

[Aravell]

Understood. However, I think the disconnect is that when I check these forums I see more “Healers need more complex dps rotations” “Healers need more dps options” all I see is about dps. I’ve also seen some suggest more support/utility and they get scolded with “having more utility won’t fix the issues with healers” So basically since SB was loved so much then should every healer get 2 more dots to make them happy? Should they get more traits to lower the cooldown of specific abilities like sch’s quickened aetherflow?

It just seems no matter what people want rather is dps or utility they will always be told that they don’t understand healers and that’s not what will make healers better. So that’s where my confusion comes in. All I’m asking for is a thought out post on what exactly do they want to see on every healer. I think that helps more than just saying “ I want more dps options” “I want more utility”

That’s all I’m saying here.

The main reason that the dps kit is being focused on is because they deleted a lot of things that masked how often we were mashing the filler button. Old DoTs were much shorter in duration, not to mention that fights back then actually forced healers to heal through mechanics rather than resolve mechanics by running around with the rest of the party and then healing after the mechanic as the boss autoattacks the tank.

AST had the exact same thing we have right now back in SB, 1 DoT and 1 filler, but AST players were kept busy by an in-depth card system which they get to play with for the entire fight instead of saving all cards for a very specific burst window. Shaving away healer mechanics like AST's card system and SCH's fairy control means people are more aware of the fact that they're pushing 1 button 150+ times in one fight. While the healing side of the kit was also simplified and stripped of interactions, people don't notice as much because there's so many OGCD buttons they can press.

If you ask me, the lack of damage buttons/utility is only one aspect of the decay of the healer role. I've mentioned before that the issues plaguing the healer role is multifaceted. This includes lack of kit interaction, lack of resource management, fight design becoming more dance and less attrition, mechanical failure leading to instant death rather than being salvageable, stale kit design that's just pure "heal for x" or "deals x damage", far less inter-party reliance than before. Those are just some of the issues that come to mind for the healer role, I'm probably missing a few more.

[TheDustyOne]

Understood. However, I think the disconnect is that when I check these forums I see more “Healers need more complex dps rotations” “Healers need more dps options” all I see is about dps. I’ve also seen some suggest more support/utility and they get scolded with “having more utility won’t fix the issues with healers” So basically since SB was loved so much then should every healer get 2 more dots to make them happy? Should they get more traits to lower the cooldown of specific abilities like sch’s quickened aetherflow?

It just seems no matter what people want rather is dps or utility they will always be told that they don’t understand healers and that’s not what will make healers better. So that’s where my confusion comes in. All I’m asking for is a thought out post on what exactly do they want to see on every healer. I think that helps more than just saying “ I want more dps options” “I want more utility”

That’s all I’m saying here.

The overall message behind wanting more DPS, utility, healing moments, etc. is ultimately "I want to be engaged in the moment-to-moment gameplay". It's all in trying to achieve better engagement while playing healer. All the options have their pros and cons of course, and ideally I think we should have more DPS options, more utility, and higher healing requirements.

The problem with only raising healing requirements is that it adds a lot of potential stress on inexperienced healers, especially if it's done in casual content, as well as frustrating for the other teammates to be paired with a healer who struggles to keep up. They wouldn't be able to increase it high enough to keep experienced healers engaged without also completely blocking out new healers from even starting. It's either too low so skilled players are bored, or it's too high and unskilled players get frustrated.

I think Barbariccia, P10, and Zeromus is about as high as casual content can go, and that still has lots of time between incoming damage.

Utility is nice, but it can often be either niche, subject to long cooldowns (like Expedience being 2 minutes) or entirely fight dependent. We used to have CC be a more common thing in ARR, but moved out of that by HW, CC still has some use in dungeons and deep dungeons at least. A lot of utility is not something you can play around with on a per-GCD basis.

More utility wouldn't be bad though, Expedience is nice and I wouldn't mind seeing each healer get something unique.

DPS however is always going to be useful, it doesn't require that a new healer interact with it if they struggle to keep people alive, skilled healers have something to occupy themselves with when they have nothing to heal, and it only adds to the skill ceiling. The only potential downsides would be tunnel-visioning, which is more of a skill issue than anything else. Adding more DPS options fills that healing downtime with something they frequently interact with helps out a lot with engagement.

[Saraide]

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?"

Again showing you cant argue in good faith. Talking about levels of effort for a dps rotation absolutely has to take into account of where we are currently. Absolutes here are just an intentional distraction because you feel the arguement finally slipping from you so you engage in the most basic debate lord tactics.

What if it's not enough? Yea then we'll have to go further although I doubt that it isnt enough. Weirdest gotcha attempt I have ever seen.

Two nations at war? You good buddy? Absolutely unhinged comparison. The only one at war is you with reality. Any content you do right now will still easily be clearable with a more complex damage rotation just because how math works.

[Shougun]

The gap between "sprouts" and "expierenced players" needs to be lessened. Is out of context and used as a weapon. This gap dont need to be lessened. It needs to be extened. The only moment where it is a problem is when you cant play as a "skill floor" player basic content BUT this is not true for FF14. You can play and clear all skill floor content absolutly fine and without worries.

I was fine if cleric stance remained on a single job, but I feel it would be an example of a skill where it created way too much of a gap at the same time that it actively made doing your thematic duties more painful. Given a job that represents a harder player style just because some players might like it, like another job might be easier, that's fine though. Not that I'd intentionally aim for them to be insanely different, but general "that job is harder to play, but also is entirely valid and thematically interesting" is fine. Although I would still have had it work differently, like casting certain healing spells just cancels cleric entirely and other healing oGCD spells might have special ignore or even promotes cleric. Perhaps introducing the theme earlier as cleric but later levels as a battle cleric where well timed healing actually enhances the effect.

Particularly in places where it wont be too bad I like seeing growing pains, as an opportunity to see growth.. but I don't really like to see obtuse systems when you're being competitively partnered (like one job in ultimate doesn't shoot itself in the foot but another one.. yeah he constantly double barrels themselves in the face). Like in games where you do some gathering for a while but then you get an upgrade that shortens that because they want to show you new things (hence my 'tool' effects I had suggested for Island Sanctuary, so gathering could be gamified once you've done the default loop).

I think a thematic example of loss recently was Dragoon's jumps are essentially just attacks now due to a recent change. I would have thought they could have gained a passive perhaps that temporarily grants them dragon scales which have % max HP shield that lasts a few seconds. Turning a con quirk of the jump into a potential pro and also one you might be able to maximize strategy for.