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

[Aravell]

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'

Tbf, fights like UWU back in SB were more freeform with multiple ways to solve things. When we did UWU and we had a RDM, I baited eruptions with the p.ranged as a SCH, since while Ruin II is a loss, it's not as big a loss as RDM running and doing nothing. Let's take O8S for example as well, healers do absolutely nothing but heal on Forsaken 1, so a good healer can substitute for any mechanic that a DPS player misses.

Fights that are more freeform like that would benefit RDM greatly, since a good healer can do their mechanic instead of forcing them to take a damage loss. They just need to dispense with the idea of dance mechanics being the only way to design fights, if the healer has to dance with the rest of the party, the opportunities for recovery becomes slimmer and there's less creative ways to mitigate party damage loss. It's probably part of why people view TEA as more unforgiving than, say, UWU or UCoB, because TEA requires the healer to dance as well (so does UCoB, to a lesser extent, but you have some opportunities for recovery there).

[Nizzi]

Saying a blanket statement like that in a 52 page thread without replying to anyone means we have no idea who you're talking to/about.

What's wrong with taking inspiration from other games? We wouldn't have FFXIV as it is now if wow didn't exist first to inspire.

That's my fault for replying on mobile and evidently not seeing that the quote button wasn't pressed, but I was trying to reply to this post:

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.

Frankly, I don't see anything wrong with telling people who want how healing works in this game to shift into something like another game does to just go play that game, especially when this has never been that kind of game. I don't see it as being similar to saying "just go play a DPS job" if you want our DPS rotations to be engaging, unless it's an admission that healers aren't supposed to be engaging or fun by design.

I find it fairly ridiculous how many people will do Olympic grade cartwheels around addressing the fact that healers were and still are designed to have more than 2 DPS buttons rotationally in this game, and were designed with things like Cleric Stance and other obligations around a healer doing damage in mind, and instead say we should just radically change how the entire game has been for the past decade in order to make the downtime fun. When I say that Broil spam sucks, the solution to that is naturally to find ways to replace those filler GCDs with other things for me to track, manage - things that SCH used to have with its multiple DoTs, Quickened Aetherflow, etc, not "what if we were like spam healing 90% of the time: then you'd think 1 button spam is really fun!"

We can go back to having things like actual MP management, more pressing need to heal with GCDs in EX and Savage encounters and even casual encounters if they so desired, we can go back to ARR/HW/SB design but that's not going to make 1 DoT 1 button spam fun even if I'm pressing Adlo/Succor more. Those expansions had more DPS buttons and it was more engaging than what we have now. Turning me into a Succorbot isn't going to make me engaged, it's shifting my 1 key for my 2 key and going "look, we solved the issue! You're not spamming Broil anymore! Now you're spamming your Succor (Broil) key!" I don't want to spam 1 button, this is the crux of the issue and the biggest sin of the job designers was turning every healer into this when they were not previously.

It's fine if someone is a person who "doesn't play a healer to DPS" but this just isn't that game, all of the healers fundamentally have to DPS... so the solution to this problem naturally is to find ways to make that engaging and varied for each of the healers, not just radically overhaul the entire game's job and encounter design to suit people who can just play other games where healing is like that and built to be like that, while also keeping the 1 DoT 1 Nuke spam exactly the same. It makes no sense. I would rather this game go back to embracing the healer design it has historically had rather than just becoming like another game to address a stupid hole that they dug themselves into for absolutely no reason and are too stubborn to admit was a bad decision for the health of our role.

So many people don't seem to understand that most of the people saying that our DPS rotations are boring actually like healing in this game and main or want to main the role again. It would be really nice to be able to play with friends without going "uhhh lemme swap off healer so i'm not giving myself carpal tunnel" when they want to do something like maps, alliance raids, deep dungeons or whatever else, and making us have other game style healing in high end content doesn't change that at all. Making our DPS rotations engaging is the only pragmatic solution to the issue of "1 DoT 1 filler is boring".

[Thurmnmurmn]

That's my fault for replying on mobile and evidently not seeing that the quote button wasn't pressed, but I was trying to reply to this post:

All good. I had made a suggestion a few pages back that involved a tiny wow example.
I didn't think it was directed at me but just wanted to be sure

[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)

[Raikai]

Also, honest question here... With the healer's kits at where they are right now, and knowing that part of the hype of a new tier of levels are new 'toys', what they can even get in the healing front other than extra charges of stuff or potency adjustments? I don't see room for yet another healing action. Ogcds are already plentiful, more gcds without cooldowns would be redundant, niche healing actions are already there and seldom used (who even remembers that Synastry exists lol).

Independently of what I think on what's the best model of healing... if nothing changes about the foundations, DPS actions are the only thing I can see with room for growth.

[Renathras]

So the answer is to not be bored. However if you add new abilities, you'd assume dps would be higher since you're putting in more effort as well as are literally casting more spells than before. Why wouldn't you do more damage if you're doing more?

Because you...want this, right? You didn't want to do more damage, so why would you assume you'd do more? You WANTED to not be bored. So the goal should be that you aren't bored. If you're doing the same damage, but not bored, then the mission has been a success, has it not? The objective has been accomplished. Since the objective was not being bored, then nothing else need be done, yes?

I believe it was the YouTuber Misshapen Chair who advocated more complex DPS rotations on the healers, but he said his goal was "not being bored out of (their, including him) f-ing minds". Part of his proposal included "Leave White Mage alone" (the guy's sarcastic about it, but basically was saying for people that don't want DPS stuff), but to make the other three really complex, but approached the question of "what about the people who want to be rewarded with more damage", answering it "Tell them their reward is not HAVING FUN and not BEING BORED (out of their F-ing minds)" and to "shut up about a WHOLE 2% dps variance".

The video is "Healing In FFXIV Is Not Fun" at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbWubxOTUWU& , and is actually a good watch since he agrees with you guys on pretty much everything.

The point is, if the point is to "not be bored", then how much damage you do or don't do above someone else isn't relevant.

That's only relevant if your goal isn't simply to "not be bored" but is to "do more damage than other players". But that's also a very different argument. It ceases to be about personal enjoyment everyone can feel sympathy for you over and want to help you out to...well...an argument more akin to elitism, which most MMO players don't tend to take as kindly to.

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.

Not really. The only difference would be based on the numbers assigned to the abilities. Imagine, for example, that on SCH right now, Energy Drain did 1 potency of damage. Engaging with it optimally would, in absolute terms, give you more DPS than not doing so...but the margin wouldn't be noticeable. Granted, the margin is barely noticeable NOW. The point is, that's a matter of tuning. And when I said "Sure, so how about 1%?", people were like "NO! It needs to be like 10% or something or people won't feel rewarded". Now hang on, I thought the reward was not being bored. Which is it?

Hence why I asked the question.

If it's because you don't want to be bored, we could give you a complex rotation you could do flawlessly that did all of 0 potency different than glare spam, but you'd have that to engage with and so IN THEORY not be bored while doing the same damage. But this is the part where you say "That's not fair" or "It doesn't count unless it's meaningfully different". For example, suppose you had Stone, Air, and Water. Air does half the damage of Stone and Water does 1/4th. But when you use Stone, you get "Air Ready", and so using Air doubles in damage (doing the same as Stone). Then, using Air gives you "Water Ready" causing your next Water spell to do the same damage as Stone. Now you have a clear 1-2-3 combo (which is more complex than a 1-1-1 spam), but does the same exact damage.

Now, herein lies the question:

Do you not want to be bored, or do you want to do more damage than other players?

Because that gives you something to optimize to not be bored WHILE not doing more damage. The question is, is it that you don't want to be bored OR that you want to out damage other players? OR...that you want to not be bored but ALSO want to out damage other players?

The reason I ask the question is that "doing more damage" or "being rewarded with more damage for more work" aren't relevant concepts IF the thing you want and are asking for is ONLY to not be bored. The only reason doing more damage or the damage gap between optimal and not becomes relevant is if you want to DO more damage than other players.

So is that it?

[Renathras]

I don't want to hear the argument where your side is giving up everything and the other side isn't giving up anything.

I know you don't.

Because it makes you have to address the fact what you want isn't a zero-cost thing. It has actual costs, and you'd need to address those by making some kind of redress for the people paying those costs, or at least offer sympathy and consideration for them, which you don't want to do.

[And before you "Where was the sympathy towards us when ShB launched?!" - people like me DID have that for you. Hell, the ENTIRE REASON I propose changing 3 out of 4 healers to suit you IS because I think what was done to you was unfair and want you to have some redress. I offer you the same thing I'm noting you don't offer in return - understanding, consideration, and a healing Job (or 3) that play the way you want to play. The very things you refuse to offer in return.]

Yes, people who enjoy healers right now have everything. Let's use your analogy:

I have a full pizza, I'm hungry so I bought it and I'm eating it. I see you starving. I offer to give you 75% of the pizza. That way, we can both enjoy the pizza together in friendship and both not starve, because I feel compassion for you as I see you starving. You spit in my face and say I'm selfish unless I give you the whole thing, and despite the fact I'm Human and have to eat or else I'll starve, too, you're insisting that it won't hurt me if you take and eat the whole thing and give me nothing/don't let me eat ANY OF MY OWN PIZZA that I currently have all of and am offering to give 3/4ths of to you out of the goodness of my heart.

That's the analogy here.

The SB kits are NOT the compromise. SB is the starting point for most people.

Moreover, even if we submit HW as the starting point for some gods forsaken reason...SGE did not exist in HW or SB. Meaning you have no version of SGE from HW or SB to roll back to anyway. Moreover, WHM in SB was waaaaaay worse than today. It's why almost no one asks for SB WHM back, people just ask for Aero 3 and call it a day. And SGE...I guess if we're changing SCH back to SB SCH, leave SGE like it is now? Considering this is literally the only form it's ever had?

But no, you don't get to dictate what is and is not a compromise for other people. Going back to the analogy, you don't get to say you getting the whole pizza is a compromise because it's anchovy pizza and you REALLY don't like anchovies, so you're compromising just by eating the anchovies. You're getting offered 75%, demanding the whole pizza, and then saying "Well, since I don't like these toppings, it's still technically a compromise, despite me getting the whole pizza and you getting nothing."

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The solution IS right there. EW WHM, SB SCH, hell, HW AST, let's go! BAM, there's your compromise. Give WHM Aero 3 and we'll call it close enough.

Note, though, this was one reason I started the thread asking about what from EW people would want to take for the healers and what from SB. I suspect there's little from SB people want for WHM other than Aero 3 and possibly a shorter duration for Dia. I can't imagine anyone wants to go back to "Casting Cure 1/Cure 2 on party members generates Lilies" or "Casting Medica/Medical 2/Cure 3 on party members gives them Confession stacks and when you use a 1 min CD, it does healing based on that" (since if you just cast Cure 3 on people, they probably don't need more overhealing...), or "Lilies don't do healing or generate Misery, instead, they reduce the CD of the next Benison (lol), Assize (sorta lol), or Asylum by 4% (lol), 10% (sorta lol), or 20% (still kinda lol) when that ability is used while you have that many Lilies - remember, you get Lilies by casting CURE 1/2 on people...!"

...like...does ANYONE want THOSE mechanics back? Maybe, but...I kinda doubt it.

as long as the DPS players are at least competent.

As someone who does PF a lot, I can assure you - the average PF DPS players are not "at least competent". XD

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.

lol

You know what?

Fair enough, I agree. Hell, I think this is one of two things we agree on (the other being WHM needs a 1 min CD party mitigation, if I recall correctly).

I think my issue with the gauge is it's not clockwork like Misery. Since it's based on what DPS spells you cast, there are possibilities it isn't up at 1 min and 2 min, which isn't an issue with Misery/Lilies as they exist now. And I still think just turning Assize into a GCD, calling it "Water" from level 15 or so when you learn it to level 56 when it becomes Assize and level 80-90-something when it becomes Banish.

Also, for "several", it was Water/Banish, Quake, Tornado, Flood, and Blessing of the Elements. That's...5 (technically 6, but direct upgrades don't really count), 2 of which would also take up additional hotbar space.

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I do appreciate, btw, even if perhaps not for the most altruistic reasons, that you did take into consideration the idea of your goal being less boredom and not a dps gap to lord over people...sorta. I still think you're comparing the wrong thing (glarespam vs optimal play instead of optimal play now vs optimal play then). The latter is what I'm talking about.

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As to your reply to Aravell - provided encounters are tuned with current damage in mind, yes, that would work. Do you really think that would happen, though? If, as people often say, Devs tune for healer damage in mind, would they tune for that lower number or the higher one? That is, if playing like today did the same damage as now but playing the new way gets you 10% more, are the Devs going to tune Enrages for the lower number, such that people doing it are unimpacted but people doing it the new best way are finding encounters extremely easy to clear (they're doing something like 2-3% more DPS across the party if both healers are skilled with the new rotations), or do they tune it for the high end players to keep the prog experience and DPS check difficult the same, which then harms the people not doing that?

Why does it matter though?

Because it does.

If you ask someone their favorite color and they say blue, do you ask them why? If they say "It just is", do you keep demanding they have a reason for it? If you ask someone their favorite food and they tell you, do you ask them why? If they say they just do, do you demand they have a reason for it? We're talking preferences.

And what I said before applies: Whenever someone asks me why something is important to me, when it's clearly important to them, I tend to respond with "It's clearly important enough to you to argue about, thus it's important to me as well. If it's important enough to you that you won't bend on it, why should I?"

"I think mastery should be rewarded"? Again: Is the goal to do more damage than other players or to not be bored?

Frankly, I don't see anything wrong with telling people who want how healing works in this game to shift into something like another game...

The big problem I have with this argument is it HAS shifted. Healing HASN'T always been this way. In ARR, healers (at least WHM, but to a point SCH) were GCD healers. You didn't have oGCD healing plans of entire fights and optimizing to the point you didn't use a single GCD heal. WHM only had ONE oGCD heal (Benediction), and it had a longer CD (5 mins, I think?). Most WHM healing WAS on the GCD. It was often triage healing with Cure 1/Cure 2 or Regen (when time allowed).

That WAS this game.

Also, honest question here... With the healer's kits at where they are right now, and knowing that part of the hype of a new tier of levels are new 'toys', what they can even get in the healing front other than extra charges of stuff or potency adjustments? I don't see room for yet another healing action.

To be fair, isn't this true of everything?

In DT, whether we give Tanks a new defensive or attack ability, what is there left? They have short/weak, medium/medium, long/strong/big defensive CDs and a party defensive CD. What more can you give them there? They all have sword attack, better sword attack if used after sword attack, bestest sword attack if used after better sword attack that was used after sword attack, oGCD sword attack, maybe two, 1 min damage CD used on CD, ranged attack you try to avoid using, and a gap closer with charges. What else is there to give them?

All DPS have some selection of single target and aoe attacks, and some buff that increases their attack damage, and some ability that gives them attack resource, which they then have some resource spending ability to use. What else is there to give them?

I feel like we could say this about every Job/role. Yet they keep finding new things to give people. In ShB, who would have thought Expedient for SCH? Yet we got it and it was unexpected and highly lauded.

[Renathras]

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.

Yes, it's very frustrating.

And as I pointed out above, it doesn't always even make sense - WHO actually wants WHM to have to cast Cure 1 and 2 to get Lilies? And for the Lilies to just lower the CD of the next Benison (30 seconds base, 28.8 [1.2 sec faster], 27 [3 sec faster], 24 [6 sec faster]), Assize (60 seconds base, 57.6 [2.4 sec faster], 54 [6 sec faster], 48 [12 sec faster]) [Recall that Assize's base CD at this time was 60 sec, meaning you have to now cast THREE Cure 1/2s to get Assize down to a 48 sec CD, which is 8 seconds LONGER than current EW Assize is], or Asylum (90 seconds base, 86.4 [3.6 sec faster], 81 [9 sec faster], 72 [18 sec faster]). Get three Lilies then have to cast a Benison? Congratulations, you just wasted an 18 sec faster Asylum or an Assize 8 seconds LONGER than current to save all of 6 seconds on Benison. Who wants that? Who wants to have to cast Medica/Medica 2/Cure 3 THREE TIMES to get a Plenary effect? Do those things really sound fun?

What about SB WHM do people want, aside from Dia to have an 18 sec duration and Aero 3 as an AOE DoT with a 24 sec rotation? Do people genuinely WANT something else from SB WHM? What?

Despite me reminding people frequently, I think folks somehow DON'T remember how absolutely stupid SB WHM was. "Twirly staff" blocks everything else out somehow.

.

But yeah, people suggest other things and are told those things won't work. Then when anyone says that, they get told "no one ever said that" while...also saying that.

It is interesting that, when asked for a design proposal, it's often talking about the DPS with an occasional token "have Cure 1 upgrade into Cure 2" type of thing, but not really addressing the non-DPS side of the kit. There are exceptions (in the healer forum), but even they tend - TEND - to be more DPS focused.

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For what it's worth, I posted a threat to try to get people talking about the other parts of the SB kits, specific things people wanted from SB to combine with things from now: https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...ld-be-combined...

...so far, the only post was someone kinda heckling the post in a "why did you post this, we have plenty" kind of snarky reply completely missing the point.

Specifically, people all the time say they want SB kits, or parts of them, back. And I'm asking which parts. For WHM, since I'm told we CAN'T keep the EW WHM as it is, what from SB do people want back? Is it JUST 18 sec Dia and a 24 sec AOE Aero 3? Or do they want to have to cast Cure 1 to generate Lilies which cut Benison's CD by 6 seconds? Because those are pretty different things, and different than a new elemental gauge, new burst windows, or "WHM should be like BLM with big long cast time nukes", as SB WHM didn't have...well...any of those things.

Again showing you cant argue in good faith.

No, that's what you just did.

I actual make posts and arguments while you offer nothing but heckling and this weird fetish about insisting I'm posting in bad faith.

Either you can quantify your positions or you can't. If you can't, you can't use those for arguments. You can't say "people giving no effort shouldn't pull good DPS numbers" if you can't define the line between "no effort" and "effort".

I was fine if cleric stance remained on a single job,

God, Cleric Stance was SUCH an awful ability. The best way I've ever seen it described is "the worst case of rose tinted goggles in MMO history".

I agree having it on one Job could work, if the Job was actually designed around it, but it definitely shouldn't be a role-wide thing for healers.

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.

True.

Including me.

Meaning if my damage was reduced by 10-20%, that would have been the difference. The point still stands, my friend.

I do agree it'd be great if every PF clear party had excellent DPS players that never died and pulled 99s...but I've yet to be in one that does.

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.

That's great when you...have a Static or something.

Not so great when you're in PF hell with randoms trying to prog for a week and this party was the closest you got from the random Murphy lottery to an actual clear.

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

Yeah, this.

Let's just say I'm not a huge fan of EW encounter design. Savages have body checks. But even here, in EW, they seem to have more - or people are complaining more about them.

But the big issue to me is they've filtered down into Extremes. Some far less than others. Zodiark Ex only has arguably 2 and they're more soft body checks since you can sorta brute force them with enough mitigation (admittedly harder when it was current), Styx. On the other end, Golbez had by my count somewhere between 7 and 9, often several back to back. Zeromus and Barb and Hyd felt a lot more fair, with each having things that could be harder if you didn't have people (party stacks, for example), but which you could potentially get through as a party if you worked together.

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.

Yeah, "mitigation checks". "This WILL 100% the party unless you use mitigation, then it will do 90% and the healers can heal people up. Oh, and we're giving most of the mitigation to DPS and Tanks. And for parties of WHM + AST, may god have mercy upon your poor non-barrier souls."

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Okay, this is long enough. Going to stop there, cut it in half, maybe thirds...

Hm. Still long, but perhaps better...

[Thurmnmurmn]

Because you...want this, right? You didn't want to do more damage, so why would you assume you'd do more? You WANTED to not be bored. So the goal should be that you aren't bored. If you're doing the same damage, but not bored, then the mission has been a success, has it not? The objective has been accomplished. Since the objective was not being bored, then nothing else need be done, yes?

Why are you asking again what I literally just answered.
Why would I assume we do more damage? Because I'm doing more than before.
Also let's not forget we want the keep the skill floor where it is. If our damage stays the same, then it's those who don't adapt who suffer since they won't optimize.

[Lailani_Fey]

Also, honest question here... With the healer's kits at where they are right now, and knowing that part of the hype of a new tier of levels are new 'toys', what they can even get in the healing front other than extra charges of stuff or potency adjustments? I don't see room for yet another healing action. Ogcds are already plentiful, more gcds without cooldowns would be redundant, niche healing actions are already there and seldom used (who even remembers that Synastry exists lol).

Independently of what I think on what's the best model of healing... if nothing changes about the foundations, DPS actions are the only thing I can see with room for growth.

Yes, the foundation is the big problem here. Same as the general design outlook. As mentioned previously unique responsibilities and role mechanics are dwindling. For example positioning, add/threat management for tanks or target switching/single target vs aoe dps decisions/kiting/cc on dps. Fights nowadays are literally just about movement.

What remains are requirements for mitigations, shields and heals. The natural recourse is to split those off to everyone. Square would have to turn around and (re-)introduce new mechanics for this to change.

As a result we do have a varitable inflation of the same utility skills across all roles and jobs (except melee/blm yet).
Furthermore what were previously healer responsibilities got ripped off of them. For example rezzes that went to RDM. Or tank healing which tanks do themselves. Or saving teammates from mistakes that now a WAR with nascent can do. Or generally healing/shields that WAR/PLD can now easily do; Ironically Shake It Off is now a stronger skill than Holos.

The gimmicks left for healers are Rescue, Esuna or White Hole/Photon mechs.

New toys for healers would require new ideas and are therefore difficult to come by. Perspectively all roles will need new ideas as otherwise the migration of role responsibilities towards each other will just continue.

The Multihit stacks and Bell/Panhaima were new such tools on EW. It's not much ..