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

[KenZentra]

I dont know if it has been said or not, but another issue with how healers feel like they have nothing to do, is how damage is being dealt to the raid/group.

Can you think of any raid wide that isnt just "Deals a bunch of damage that almost kills everyone" or "Deals a bunch of damage that will kill everyone with the DoT it applies afterward" (not accounting for actually using any mit for these). So of course the way healers NEED to be setup is to counter act this nearly instantly, which i think is really basic, and not engaging at all. Having more damage hitting the raid is not the same as damage hitting the raid more often.

Aside from changing the design direction of how healers should work, to keep healers busy we need encounters that have constant damage throughout the engagement. Now, that could be a light DoT applies for the entirety of the encounter, a heavy DoT that keeps jumping to other players, or a myriad of other ideas for constant or randomly-dealt damage.

Unfortunately, I believe its less likely for how encounters are setup to be changed in the future than it is for how healers are set up in the future. And with FFXIV being a really structured game, especially for boss encounters, the ideas behind how bosses are made are likely to never change.

[ForsakenRoe]

I dont know if it has been said or not, but another issue with how healers feel like they have nothing to do, is how damage is being dealt to the raid/group.

Can you think of any raid wide that isnt just "Deals a bunch of damage that almost kills everyone" or "Deals a bunch of damage that will kill everyone with the DoT it applies afterward" (not accounting for actually using any mit for these). So of course the way healers NEED to be setup is to counter act this nearly instantly, which i think is really basic, and not engaging at all. Having more damage hitting the raid is not the same as damage hitting the raid more often.

Aside from changing the design direction of how healers should work, to keep healers busy we need encounters that have constant damage throughout the engagement. Now, that could be a light DoT applies for the entirety of the encounter, a heavy DoT that keeps jumping to other players, or a myriad of other ideas for constant or randomly-dealt damage.

Unfortunately, I believe its less likely for how encounters are setup to be changed in the future than it is for how healers are set up in the future. And with FFXIV being a really structured game, especially for boss encounters, the ideas behind how bosses are made are likely to never change.

Yeh, I'm glad a lot of people have praised the format of Barbariccia's healing requirements, lots of small, but VERY fast paced hits, it makes the fight feel frantic, and actually incentivizes the regen power of Pure healers, while keeping Barrier healer's mit relevant because it's always good to reduce the damage you're taking. One of the big problems that two of the healers face (the Pures) is that if a mechanic oneshots you, your extra healing power compared to the Barrier healers means nothing. You can't save people without Mit in that situation, and WHM in particular is distinctly lacking, having only Temperance for AOE mitigation. There's 3 main ways to make a healing check 'harder': hit harder, hit faster, or prevent the player from getting their heals out in some way, and while Barb/BarbEX does the latter two of those very well imo, I've seen it be criticized for using too much of the 'stop player from healing by forcing movement' option, which admittedly does screw over WHM moreso than the other three, but imagine for example, if WHM were to have an extra bankable GCD heal tool (maybe one that stacks up to 2 uses banked), and maybe a damage button that is instantcast so you can keep your damage going more easily while remaining mobile to resolve the mechanics...? What I'm saying is, it's moreso an issue with WHM's kit than the encounter design

I also think it's less likely encounter design would change, than for the jobs to change. Because to shift encounter design, requires looking at all 19 (soon to be 21) jobs, and making sure that whatever change you do to the encounter design, works well for all of those jobs. What might be good for one job (say, a lot of movement which SMN deals well with) might screw over another (RDM can't move as well as SMN can) and so there'd be times where certain jobs have too much struggle and are excluded from PFs. We saw this in HW, with PLD being excluded because it couldn't deal with magic damage so well (and it's damage sucked). Or DRK in SB, because it had no extra mit options to help healers (thanks to SE stealing Reprisal from it and giving it to all tanks). Instead, I think they'd have to do 'what they want encounter design to look like' first, and then redesign all the jobs for that new encounter design. And that means there's a chance that some get left behind in terms of designs. Much easier, I think, to leave encounter design relatively untouched, and instead change the jobs to better suit it. If there's a mechanic where the two ranged (caster/physranged) have to do a whole lot of movement (something like eruption baiting in UWU for example), RDM would have more issues there than a SMN, or a BLM who's able to pool two Triplecasts. So, giving RDM something that helps them to maintain mobility (like making Reprise suck less) would allow for that mechanic to exist, instead of 'well we can't really do it because RDM would have trouble with it', or SE's apparent preferred solution, 'just put it in and if RDM struggles with it, lol lmao'

In healer terms, that'd be something like 'change how much healing is required in all content' vs 'add a couple more buttons to the damage rotation to flesh out downtime activity a bit'. The first can work, but it's a massive undertaking and it still wouldn't address the downtime, just make there be a little less of it. And how much less is dependent entirely on the skill level of the player, and the skill level expected by the content difficulty. That is, I'd assume that SE would not be boosting the EX roulette requirements to the point where someone like me would find the healing requirements high enough to be engaging on their own merit. So it doesn't really solve the problem I have, of 'EX roulette is kinda boring'. A combination, of 'healing requirements are increased (but not by as much as if it was the only adjustment), AND we have a bit more damage options in the downtimes (but not as many as if it was the only adjustment)' is probably the solution that appeals to the most people. Or more likely, the overwhelming majority of the healer players are in the middle camp of 'oh this is what changed, ok' and they just get on with it. No overwhelming like, no vehement dislike, just 'oh ok cool' and an understanding that 'this is the new normal for this expansion'.

The first step to that though, would be to at least increase healing requirements in EX roulette to the point that we have to use at least one GCD in the whole run (or in WHM's case, a non-Lily GCD), and even that amount of increased healing might cause issues. I've seen a couple 'healbot' players in EX roulette, only using Cure/Cure2 etc, who absolutely fell apart when I did a wall-to-wall pull, because they panicked at the extra incoming damage and didn't know what to do. They've never had to deal with a high-healing-required situation (it's not high, but it's 'high by comparison to what they are used to'), so when they're suddenly thrown into the deep end they can't tread water and start to sink

[AmiableApkallu]

As I've pointed out, I've been party to enrages that barely were cleared - through me having done damage. Had my damage been 10-20% lower, they would have failed.

Technically true, but that doesn't mean your personal DPS was the one deciding factor, or the most important deciding factor. Anyone else doing 10-20% less damage would have also led to a wipe.

In an Endwalker extreme not at min ilvl, if your party is seeing enrage, the things to improve upon, in order of priority, are:

1. Reduce the number of deaths.

2. Worry about DPS rotations and execution.

3. Worry about tank rotations and execution.

4. Worry about healer rotations and execution.

I'll use Zeromus EX as an example. The enrage is at approximately 11min5sec.

Here's a group that cleared in 10min1sec, at an average rate of 67.4k. From this, we can work out that to meet the enrage, you need an average rate of 60.9k DPS to clear. So, they're 6.5k DPS above the minimum. Everything else remaining the same, one of their healers could have literally done zero DPS and they would have still cleared. And that's not because the DPS and Tanks are absolute beasts that are carrying the group's damage. As of this writing, the fastest clear is 7min27sec at 90.3k DPS, a 34% improvement.

Here's a group that cleared at 11min1sec, a couple GCDs before the enrage. For 68% of the fight, at least one party member had a Weakness debuff.

I think it's fair to say that people simply not dying lots is probably enough for most groups to clear comfortably, and that's the first thing to work on before anyone starts blaming a healer for doing only 80% of their maximum output.

[ty_taurus]

Anytime a party hits enrage at a low percent, everyone is going to feel like there are dozens of things they could’ve done differently anyway, but it’s not one person’s fault. The truth is that the run just isn’t clean enough yet. Your group needs to get a better grip on mechanics.

[Deceptus]

I think it's fair to say that people simply not dying lots is probably enough for most groups to clear comfortably, and that's the first thing to work on before anyone starts blaming a healer for doing only 80% of their maximum output.

The problem is, that CBU3's idea of difficulty is artificial. It's one shot mechanics.

[KenZentra]

The problem is, that CBU3's idea of difficulty is artificial. It's one shot mechanics.

This is correct. Body checks everywhere, if one person fails a mechanic making everyone die, I hate these so much along side most raid-wide damage is just "This does just so much damage" making them HP checks, and less about healing, imo. Its another problem that makes healing more about meeting HP checks than doing any consistent healing and because there is no need for constant healing, Healers tend to spend their time DPSing. Cause most times during a raid, you are either at full hp, nearly dead (from a raid wide), or dead.

[IDontPetLalas]

This is correct. Body checks everywhere, if one person fails a mechanic making everyone die, I hate these so much along side most raid-wide damage is just "This does just so much damage" making them HP checks, and less about healing, imo. Its another problem that makes healing more about meeting HP checks than doing any consistent healing and because there is no need for constant healing, Healers tend to spend their time DPSing. Cause most times during a raid, you are either at full hp, nearly dead (from a raid wide), or dead.

As Forsaken mentioned, and I agree Barbariccia has some really fun moments where there are some small intense, frequent healing periods, and I do agree that body checks cause more frustration to everyone involved than posing any challenges to healers. I have seen some people request that raidwide frequency be increased, and i agree that could also be a good compromise. However- I definitely wouldn't want to see this game turned into one where constant healing is required, that should be part of the skill- knowing when to heal and when to DPS.

[KenZentra]

As Forsaken mentioned, and I agree Barbariccia has some really fun moments where there are some small intense, frequent healing periods, and I do agree that body checks cause more frustration to everyone involved than posing any challenges to healers. I have seen some people request that raidwide frequency be increased, and i agree that could also be a good compromise. However- I definitely wouldn't want to see this game turned into one where constant healing is required, that should be part of the skill- knowing when to heal and when to DPS.

Thats a shame, because thats what i would like to see healing become, as of right now its just hitting 1 DPS button and a DoT every 30 seconds, with breaks of healing in between. The extra DPS you get as a healer is your reward for efficiently healing the party and squeezing out some extra DPS before going back to healing. Which would be just as you say, knowing when to heal and when to DPS.

[Raikai]

Thats a shame, because thats what i would like to see healing become, as of right now its just hitting 1 DPS button and a DoT every 30 seconds, with breaks of healing in between. The extra DPS you get as a healer is your reward for efficiently healing the party and squeezing out some extra DPS before going back to healing. Which would be just as you say, knowing when to heal and when to DPS.

Me too, to be honest. The "act of healing" feels unrewarding for me as a healer because the frequency you do that is not a lot... But then what's left is a bland dps mode. Healer gets the worst of both worlds (dps and healing).

I also find 'triage healing' fun in other games, but in XIV that is basically whenever someone fails a mechanic, even tanks don't require intensive healing outside of specific spots.

[KenZentra]

Me too, to be honest. The "act of healing" feels unrewarding for me as a healer because the frequency you do that is not a lot... But then what's left is a bland dps mode. Healer gets the worst of both worlds (dps and healing).

I also find 'triage healing' fun in other games, but in XIV that is basically whenever someone fails a mechanic, even tanks don't require intensive healing outside of specific spots.

I find when I heal in FFXIV, that healing is just a role that makes sure it has an ability to solve an HP Check from the boss. Sorta how if a tank doesnt have an answer to a tankbuster, they straight up just die, they need to have a form of mitigation to answer the "Mit Check". The enrage mechanics of an encounter being the DPS checks. The most rewarding being the DPS check of course as the better you do, the faster the boss dies and the encounter concludes, and can also be rewarding with skipping mechanics (dont think I'll ever forget about Zurvan EX's Soar) and the such.

Healing is such a afterthought for FFXIV, and it shows with so many people wanting a fleshed out DPS rotation for their healers. I mean, look up any video about getting into healing for FFXIV, and they will all say, "Healers also need deal damage" because otherwise you see healers doing nothing or healing when no damage is happening. It is usually the first thing any guide explains. Thats how engrained it is into the designs of the game.

DPS is mentioned first, actually fulfilling the role is 2nd, and that is exactly how SE sees the role and how it is expected to play in-game. Giving Healers the tools to heal, without interrupting their DPS because them dealing damage first and foremost is more important. We ought to just have 6 Dancers rotate Curing Waltz instead of 2 Healers, cause thats what it seems like Healers are already (as an exaggeration).