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

[ty_taurus]

I do think we have to be careful with saying "Just play WoW" because it can come across as dismissive as "Just play a DPS", it's better to explain why WoWs system works there and why it wouldn't work here (availability of AoE heals, responsiveness of actions, focus on burst/attrition, etc.).

I agree largely that if you want WoW style healing it's better to play WoW, FFXIV fights weren't designed for such healing gameplay, and naturally its healers should be designed differently from WoWs. I do at least sympathise with someone who wants to heal more, and large chunks of the game don't have enough bite for healers to feel necessary, but that still doesn't take away from the fact that we're still going to have large amounts of downtime in our fights by design, and we should be able to fill that downtime with something more interesting than Glaroilificosis.

In WoW, damage delivered to party members is done somewhat consistently throughout a fight. There are bursts of damage to heal through, but between those mechanics, you also often have examples of random individual party members suffering chip damage throughout much of the encounter. Healers have AoE healing resources, but they are far more limited and not something any healer can afford to just spam at any given point to resolve any form of damage. Those are resources generally saved for more tight healing windows. Meanwhile, you spend more time using single target healing effects to keep up with the gradual chip damage the party is suffering. You'll naturally spend a lot more time healing when you're healing one person at a time rather than 8 people at once.

A quick disclaimer is that I'm not a WoW player and that description is based on my observations of healer discussion regarding WoW, so take my description with a grain of salt, and if I'm wrong, or if my explanation is lacking detail or nuance, then please feel free to correct me. But as far as I am aware, that is the nature of WoW healing, which naturally would create an environment suited for attrition healing, because there is very often damage in need of healing that can be done through single target means. And it's not just spamming an equivalent of Cure I on each player instead of spamming an equivalent of Glare, but a more intricate involvement of healing resources that help set you up for those instances of burst damage.

In contrast, as I said, FFXIV has always featured party damage separated by long windows of downtime where only the tank is taking damage. Now, there is something to be said about how tank damage has decreased, and tank methods of recovering their own damage has greatly increased, which is one contributing factor to what has disrupted the offense-to-recovery balance FFXIV used to promote as opposed to now, but that is not the same as attrition healing. These are different styles of healer design. Trying to change FFXIV to WoW's model first of all creates a need to completely rework how encounters are designed to accommodate this refocusing of healing engagement. If we just do this with fights moving forward, then it leaves all existing content behind in a state that will not compliment the changes done to the healer kits. For example, making healers far more dependent on single target healing to comprise the volume of their gameplay naturally requires making AoE healing more restrictive and limited in function, but existing harder fights would create a huge conflict for healers in that case because many of them are designed with healing checks that require an abundance of party healing that healers would no longer be capable of performing. So you would be forced to also require all existing fights to ensure that the new healer kits were capable of clearing them, but that is a huge, unrealistic undertaking that would require a gargantuan budget and eat up an equally massive amount of development time. Just look at how much time it took to make the duty support system available for all MSQ dungeons.

Any shortcuts in trying to accomplish this, like just changing fight design but not healer design, would end in a half-baked product. Moreover, why should we rework FFXIV's healing flow into WoW's when WoW already exists? Doesn't it make more sense to have two MMOs with different healing styles rather than two that have the same healing style? Not being a healbot was what made me love FFXIV in the beginning. I loved that healing was a dance between managing recovery and having the freedom to go on the offensive, and properly balancing those two states. Losing that because the offensive side of our gameplay has been erased has single-handedly done a massive hit to my love for this game, hence why I may drop FFXIV altogether if Dawntrail does not show improvement. If I wanted WoW's healing model, I'd play WoW. I am not going to tell anyone they cannot play FFXIV. That is their freedom and their choice, but it's silly to come into this game and demand it change to another game. You can not like FFXIV's healer model, but you have to accept that that is how the foundation of the healer role has been designed in this game, and the designers should as well. This fear of rejecting the players who want WoW healing has led to a stifling of the role.

[ForsakenRoe]

A quick disclaimer is that I'm not a WoW player and that description is based on my observations of healer discussion regarding WoW, so take my description with a grain of salt, and if I'm wrong, or if my explanation is lacking detail or nuance, then please feel free to correct me. But as far as I am aware, that is the nature of WoW healing, which naturally would create an environment suited for attrition healing, because there is very often damage in need of healing that can be done through single target means. And it's not just spamming an equivalent of Cure I on each player instead of spamming an equivalent of Glare, but a more intricate involvement of healing resources that help set you up for those instances of burst damage.

For the most part yes, WOW AOE healing tools are much more gated than here in FFXIV. For example, a quick thought experiment of how we'd make WHM play 'like WOW':

- Medica 1 now has a 15s CD and is now 200p
- Medica 2 now has a 60s CD and is now 200p (with no HOT)
- Asylum now deals all of it's healing instantly, has a 60s CD and is reduced by 6sec each time you cast Medica. Also it's now 400p
- Liturgy of the Bell now has a 2min CD, and heals singletarget for 200p whenever anyone in the party drops below <HP threshold %>. Lasts for a total of 15 heals
- Cure 3 has no CD, but deals 60p healing per stack of <buff name>. You get one stack of <buff name> per spell cast (including damage) and it caps at 10 stacks (for 600p)
- Assize's damage potency is halved alongside the healing, to 200p each

Rapture is already gated by Lilies so that's probably okay to stay as it is CDwise (but it's potency gets halved too). But yeh, the point is, to make FFXIV healing 'more like WOW's healing' re: triage, fast reaction to random damage events, etc, it only works in WOW because access to AOE healing there is much heavier gated, be that by CDs, resources, or just number of abilities that are AOE heals in the first place. There's a much bigger focus on either singletarget-ing, or finding creative ways to make the single target effect multiple people. Examples include Beacon of Virtue, a modified Beacon of Light via talent, which duplicates any single target healing to up to 4 party members, at reduced effectiveness. Essentially in our terms, Synastry, if it made your ST moves hit the whole party for 10% instead of one person at 40%, for example. Or, a recent addition, Echo spreading on Evoker, duplicating any healing on an ally to the Echo'd target. And you can set up with up to 3 Echo's at once, so you could hit 3 DPS with Echo, then 'not-Cure2' the Tank, and it'd count as hitting all four targets with Cure2, including proccing any associated talents for using not-Cure2 on them.

Even the above thought experiment for the 'WOW'd WHM' is more 'complex' than what we have now, because it has a CD being reduced by another CD's use.

But, as mentioned by others, think about what that above kit would mean in practice. You can't clear TEA J-Waves with that kit. You can't do most Savage HPS checks like Styx with it. Heck, I'm not sure you could do Harrowing Hell in Normal Mode. The amount of 'change' required to get the way heal, as a paradigm, to be 'more like WOW's healing with triage and stuff', would quite literally cause incompatibility with old content. With DPS being ballooned in old Ultimates (getting Bahamut below 60% at the cast for Tenstrike in UCOB, instead of it being a close DPS check for example), at least the 'problem' there is 'well, you are able to meet the damage check much easier', but you still gotta do the mechanics, you still gotta do Heavensfall or Tenstrike without blowing the raid up. With 'the AOE healing capabilities are less now, because of the redesign', we just won't be able to keep up with the damage the old content pumps out, because it was designed around the assumption that the healers would either have a spammable Medica (or equivalent), or a spammable Succor (or equivalent)

[Lailani_Fey]

But, as mentioned by others, think about what that above kit would mean in practice. You can't clear TEA J-Waves with that kit. [...]

Personally I did not like the healer design in WoW very much, especially the rule that you would have to stand around doing nothing for 5 seconds until your MP starts regenerating was a killjoy.
Regardless, here's another idea: Similarly to PvP, create designated kits for High-End content.
The problem of the 9? years of baggage this game has, limits future design choices to "more of the same" if you do not want to break anything. More of the same has been the answer for so long, it has become the expectation. It's a dead, uninnovative end from what I have seen in ShB and EW.

One alternative is to break things and fix them afterwards. The other is to create a new environment separate from the previous.
The first seems to be not what Square usually does, at least the fixing part. Just have a look at how T7S is barely manageable with today's toolkits. Not really broken but neglected is all the synced content that just gets easier (dps-wise) by every expansion's power swell.

A seperate toolkit for high-end content could be a solution. Maybe it could be stable per expansion as to keep balancing over the course of the years.

[Saraide]

Personally I did not like the healer design in WoW very much, especially the rule that you would have to stand around doing nothing for 5 seconds until your MP starts regenerating was a killjoy.
Regardless, here's another idea: Similarly to PvP, create designated kits for High-End content.
The problem of the 9? years of baggage this game has, limits future design choices to "more of the same" if you do not want to break anything. More of the same has been the answer for so long, it has become the expectation. It's a dead, uninnovative end from what I have seen in ShB and EW.

One alternative is to break things and fix them afterwards. The other is to create a new environment separate from the previous.
The first seems to be not what Square usually does, at least the fixing part. Just have a look at how T7S is barely manageable with today's toolkits. Not really broken but neglected is all the synced content that just gets easier (dps-wise) by every expansion's power swell.

A seperate toolkit for high-end content could be a solution. Maybe it could be stable per expansion as to keep balancing over the course of the years.

This would make it so much more difficult to make the leap into raiding for new players. PVP needs different actions because it's fundamentally a different game.

[TheDustyOne]

Personally I did not like the healer design in WoW very much, especially the rule that you would have to stand around doing nothing for 5 seconds until your MP starts regenerating was a killjoy.
Regardless, here's another idea: Similarly to PvP, create designated kits for High-End content.
The problem of the 9? years of baggage this game has, limits future design choices to "more of the same" if you do not want to break anything. More of the same has been the answer for so long, it has become the expectation. It's a dead, uninnovative end from what I have seen in ShB and EW.

One alternative is to break things and fix them afterwards. The other is to create a new environment separate from the previous.
The first seems to be not what Square usually does, at least the fixing part. Just have a look at how T7S is barely manageable with today's toolkits. Not really broken but neglected is all the synced content that just gets easier (dps-wise) by every expansion's power swell.

A seperate toolkit for high-end content could be a solution. Maybe it could be stable per expansion as to keep balancing over the course of the years.

I'll be brutally honest; a separate toolkit for high-end PvE and casual PvE is a horrible idea, it only further segregates and separates the two playerbases. A new player that wants to get into raiding now has to throw out 90 levels worth of job knowledge because raiding uses a different skillset, while someone who does lots of raiding suddenly gets disoriented just from doing MSQ and roulettes. It's one thing for some content to offer unique skills, Eureka with Logos Actions and Bozja with Lost Actions come to mind, but they don't throw out the current job kit and only add to it.

PvP and PvE is separate because how you interact is fundamentally different. A boss following a script and at most using a random number to decide how it might do a mechanic is very, very different from a thinking opponent who can react dynamically, and as such their movesets need to be designed and balanced differently.

[Lailani_Fey]

I'll be brutally honest; [...]

The idea would not be able to stand on its own, let's agree on that.
Exploring it further however there's a couple more points that have partially already been brought up and that would have synergy:
1. Reduce skill bloat. A lot of healer abiltities are redundant. Free up some buttons to make the role more accessible.
2. Leave the core of healer abilities that make FF feel like FF untouched. Keep Gcd heals without Cds generally. Allow for responsive gameplay with ogcds.
3. Leverage the syncing system to make old content stay relevant. By keeping job diversity per expansion, new and old players can (re-)experience their favourites together. I would personally love to go back to SB SCH or HW AST occasionally.

The goal is to have an everlasting staple of skills while different expansions shift focus in and explore different directions.

And usually the firsts of new raids per expansion are notoriously easy to get you accustomed to your skillset already (Alte Roite, Eden Prime, Eric).
I would of course keep roulette-reachable content out of this.

[BelegErkhten]

A lot of healer abiltities are redundant. Free up some buttons to make the role more accessible.

Redundancy is a GOOD thing when your job is to keep people alive, especially when the opportunity cost to use said skills is ZERO

[Aravell]

I more or less agree that a lot of the heal abilities are redundant, I've asked for a lot of the oGCDs to be pruned personally

I don't think they actually have to go full-on pruning on OGCD stuff, I think they could be repurposed to bring resource management back as a healer system. If they add MP costs or limit them in other ways, most of the OGCD stuff can stay as they would feed into the mini-game of resource management. Of course, in an ideal world, the strongest OGCDs should have the heftiest costs so they would be actual last resorts.

[TheDustyOne]

I don't think they actually have to go full-on pruning on OGCD stuff, I think they could be repurposed to bring resource management back as a healer system. If they add MP costs or limit them in other ways, most of the OGCD stuff can stay as they would feed into the mini-game of resource management. Of course, in an ideal world, the strongest OGCDs should have the heftiest costs so they would be actual last resorts.

Fair, SCH has always had a large number of oGCDs, but it was always managed by Aetherflow, so it wasn't particularly egregious and had to be thought through in some way compared to simple cooldowns.

[AmiableApkallu]

Regardless, here's another idea: Similarly to PvP, create designated kits for High-End content.

An idea I once had was that content from expansion X should always be done using the actions and traits (and potencies etc. etc) as they existed when expansion X @ the .55 patch was current. It would completely solve the problem of, "WhAt AbOuT oLdEr, ExIsTiNg CoNtEnT!?"

Unfortunately, the mental space required to hold that many kits in your mind while you level sync all over the place in daily roulettes, the nightmare of managing that many hotbar layouts, and so on renders the idea dead on arrival.