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

[ForsakenRoe]

While I appreciate the reference to job fantasy and would like to try out if this suggestion also works well in practice I cannot help but notice still that accepting this as only solution to the current problems would amounht to admitting defeat. Defeat to the ongoing threat of the healer role getting gutted of its distinguishing properties.

I think the focus needs to be much more on making the healer role feel needed, valued and powerful again. I get that people prefer self-sustain versus being reliant on few others but the degree this has taken on is simply depressing. It feels to me like, taking P11S as an example, two healers are only brought because its a habit and there are mechanics that need to target two non-tank players predictably.

The push for mitigations and shields surely has not helped this either because it makes pure healers ever more obsolete. Looking at Criterion, to bring a pure healer is actually a liability compared to a shield healer.

I would tend to agree, but as has been mentioned before, I think that if we were to focus on the 'distinguishing properties' of the healer role as the sole focus for the 'solution', that being, that they heal the party, then it will fall somewhere on the sliding scale of 'too much for lower skill level players to handle' and 'won't have much lasting power with skilled players'. If we increase the healign required in EX roulettes by, say, 50%, I'm still going to be able to handle way too much of it as SGE with my, what is it, 8 OGCDs? Once the 'extra healing required' is adapted to, we're back to where we are now: the rotation we're complaining about. I don't think that my idea for WHM is the only one that works, but I think that it's the underlying philosophy of the idea: that we WILL have to do damage at some point, so we should try and tie it back into the healing in some way. Do better healing, get chances to damage more. Do more damage, get access to healing tools to slot in and keep the damage rolling. A self-feeding cycle, that would feel satisfying to 'maintain' as it were, while also being easy to 'get back into' if you accidentally fall off the loop (eg had to do Medica spam for something like a Styx). Some people might want, say, +100% healing required in all content. Some might want, say, 4 more damage buttons in the rotation for WHM for the excessive downtime we get between mandated 'heal now' moments. I'm looking at it as like... what if we do 40-50% more healing required, and 1-2 more buttons? Sort of a 'bit of both', and while it might not be enough on one side or the other by itself, the combination of the two, and the interlinking of the two (Lilies are a good example of it in action), allows for 'greater than the sum of their parts'. EG, I say 50% increased healing. But maybe, with the gauge and heal I suggested (or something similar in function), that allows SE to design the harder raids to push more towards 75% increased healing, because of that extra healing tool being available. It creates not just a solution to the current problems, but a solid foundation and identity in the jobs to build from for later expansions

The push for mitigation and shields is entirely SE's end, and if they're going to keep pushing it like they have for the past... several years at this point, why not just play into it? Let's take my idea, because I can describe it better than other examples. We have a suggested 'Afflatus Sanctuary', a 200p shield at the cost of one Lily. Now, this is weaker than SGE/SCH shields (which are 320p), but has the upside of being damage neutral. This provides options for the two healers, the WHM and the SCH/SGE in a team, to say 'I can cover this one with a Sanc so you can get an extra GCD of damage in here'. Additionally, it means that, even when a WHM finds their team is fully healed, they can spend a Lily to prep Misery, and still get some use out of it, because shields last 30s, whereas atm it's forced to be 100% overheal at times (wasteful).

And, my personal desire, giving every healer some access to shielding, allows for SE to create what I refer to as 'Shield Checks'. If you've done content, sometimes you notice that a debuff doesn't apply, because the damage was not taken from the hit that applies it. The Soccer vulns in E6S, the UpDog strat in E10S, the Vulcan Bursts of Ifrit in any version he appears in, when the damage is fully blocked by a shield the debuff doesn't apply (or KB, for Ifrit). Rather than being 'haha that's a funny quirk', SE would gain the ability to design around that interaction. Where tanks see castbars flash red and know 'I should Interrupt this', we could have a bar that flashes, say, green, and has a little shield icon at the left side of it or something, to indicate 'Block this with a Succor or such, and you'll mitigate the effect (or part of it). Here's an example. Imagine a raidwide from a dungeon boss that deals it's damage in two hits. The first hit deals exactly 200 damage, unchanged by % mitigations, it's an exact amount every time. One game-frame later, it deals the actual raidwide damage of however much. But, that 200 damage also applies a Doom to everyone with a, let's say 20s duration, that can be cleansed by topping everyone to full, or by Esuna. You as a healer now have THREE options. One, you Esuna everyone individually who got the debuff. Perhaps one healer gets an AOE Esuna that comes in handy for this, and makes this option more appealing to use? Two, you heal everyone with AOE healing to top them up to full. This takes resources, but is likely less GCDs invested than the Esuna strat, assuming you SingleTarget Esuna all four people. Third, the new option, you block the 200 damage with a shielding spell, such that the Doom wasn't applied in the first place. This can extend to raids too, UWU Ifrit originally was designed to 'ask the player to shield the KB', but now we can just Arm's/Surecast it, but there can be certain mechanics designed around the fact that shields block debuff application sometimes

I think Pure/Barrier split was a bad idea, because they gave Barrier too much throughput healing. But they HAD to, for it to be able to clear content. So Pure just got left in the dust. I'd rather do a slight 'homogenization' of giving back some Barrier capabilities (WHM did have Protect and Stoneskin after all), if it opens design doors for new encounter design options like above

I just feel that it really sounds like Stormblood job design is the most ideal middle ground for what everyone wants. Not as complex as HW, but not so drastically simplified as ShB/EW?

The other thing that just truly baffles me is how this dev team (or maybe just yoship, I dunno who controls these things) actively refuses to admit their redesign of healers has like, objectively failed? After FOUR years of doubling down on it.

Like everyone remembers how it was in StB (that’s when I started playing, so I can’t speak for anything before that), where tanks got instant queues because I guess a lot of people found them too intimidating. And healers had to wait a few minutes. But then with the over-simplification/homogenization of healers in ShB, now healers get instant queues, and tanks have to wait a few minutes. So their idea of “lets make healing so easy and simple that eveyone wants to play them,” has failed. Like the queue times can’t lie? It proves that objectively LESS people play healers now than when they were more complex. So what’s the dev teams’s logic for keeping healers the way they are? I just don’t understand it at all. ._.

SB is the middle ground that I'd look at. I don't want SB exactly, because that admits we've wasted four years. And some of the things we got since have been damn good (cough Lilies getting fixed, AST cards being more easily balanceable against one another). So, the 'ideal' I think is to look at what SB did right, and build off of that as the baseline, while keeping 'the things everyone appreciates about SHB/EW' in some regard. Examples are, SB WHM had Aero 3. 'SB might hold the answers' doesn't necessarily mean we HAVE to go back to SB Lilies. We could instead look at something like 'what if we had SB WHM, with EW Lilies, and then maybe one expansion of stuff to expand on that?' EG, if 'Minute-ly Misery prep and fire' is the intended gameplay loop, play into it with a rework of Cleric Stance, as a 1min CD that boosts damage by 10% for 4 GCDs or something. That way, we have a 1min mini-burst (like No Mercy or Trick Attack), and a 2min burst where it lines up with POM (which is our 2min like Bloodfest and Mug)

And for AST, the lesson I'd take (and hope SE takes) is that AOE Balance was not actually the problem, so much as it being AOE Balance. Divination, as 'ehh' as it now is, keeps the 2min window predictable, which is good for balancing the job's output. So, if the cards remain single target, it's a lot easier to add damage effects to all of them, such that they have their individual traits (Bole gives mit, Ewer gives MP, etc), while also keeping them balanced against each other in output such that you don't keep rerolling for one specific one. I linked what I'd do a lot of pages back, but as a refresher:

Major Arcana: now autodraws one every 60s. If you have one already, it's discarded and a new one is drawn. Use it or lose it

Minor Arcana: now draws a Minor Arcana every 15s. Unlike Majors, you can stock an additional Minor Arcana. When one is held in reserve, the timer pauses (like capping on Lilies), so its not for holding to dump in burst, just to help prevent overcap

Playing Major Arcana is still OGCD, but Minor Arcana are GCD.

Additionally, Sleeve Draw would return, becoming a 2charge, 60s charge time action. When you use it, your currently drawn Minor Arcana becomes a Lady of it's suit. Just to make sure it's got some juice for the burst window

Now for Card effects (im not good with names):

Balance: 10% damage, 15s

Bole: 20% damage mitigation, 15s. Additionally, grants 3 stacks of Bole's Bulwark, causing the enemy that strikes the bearer of this buff to take 10% of that ally's Max HP as damage and consuming one stack.

Arrow: Grants 10 stacks of 'Arrow's Assault' (12 if the target is PhysRanged), increasing Autoattack rate by 400%. One stack is consumed for each Autoattack dealt under it's effect, and upon consuming all stacks, the Autoattack rate returns to normal.
Additionally, if the target of this card is the AST, grants 5 stacks of Arrow's Assault, speeding up the recast time of the AST to 1.5s for the next 5 GCD attacks, and making cast times of those spells instant.

Ewer: Grants 1000mp over 15s. Additionally, Grants 3 stacks of Ewer Overflowing, causing the next 3 attacks dealt by a healer to strike a second time for 100% of the spell's potency. Additional effects are not applied. This second strike cannot crit or DHit

Spear: 10% Physical damage, 15s. Additionally, if the target of this card is the AST, all instances of magic damage for it's duration are instead considered physical, allowing them to benefit from this effect

Spire: 10% Magic damage, 15s

A Note on Minor Arcana: Knaves, Lords, Ladies are 7 8 and 9 respectively. Due to not having a duration, these effects will last on the target until they are overwritten by another card, or KO removes them.

X of Staves: Increases the next 5 attacks dealt by the target ally by 60p. Additionally, increases the damage of the first attack dealt by target ally after this effect is applied, by 5 potency, multiplied by the face value of the arcana.

X of Rings: Deals 100p in counterattack damage each time the target ally is struck, up to 3 times. Additionally, deals an additional 5 potency, multiplied by the face value of the arcana, for the first counterattack only.

X of Knives: Causes the next 6 Autoattacks to deal a second strike for 50p. Additionally, a bonus potency equal to the arcana face value is applied to each of these bonus strikes.
if the concept of 'potency value not divisible by 5' is too much for the engine, make it 'first autoattack has bonus damage of '5 x face value'' like the rest

X of Cups: Causes the next 3 healer damage spells to cost half MP, and to strike a second time for 100p. Additional effects are not applied twice. Additionally, the first of these spells deals bonus damage equal to 5 potency, multiplied by the face value of the arcana

X of Crowns: Increases the next 5 instances of Magic damage dealt by 60p. Additionally, a bonus potency equal to the arcana face value is applied to each of these bonus strikes.
see arrow if game can't handle non-5 values

X of Irons: Increases the next 5 instances of Physical damage dealt by 60p. Additionally, a bonus potency equal to the arcana face value is applied to each of these bonus strikes. Additionally, if the target of this card is the AST, the next 5 instances of magic damage are instead considered physical, allowing them to benefit from this effect

Lastly, Astrodyne would be condensed so that rather than being three buffs with one effect each, the reward for getting more seals is still one buff, but it consolidates all previous 'reward buffs' into itself. Buff cap is already straining at the thought of these extra Minor Arcana effects. Additionally, Astrodyne's effects are lowered in potency (in my mind) because they'd be up more often. This is because I'd have Minor Arcana give seals too, leading to much higher uptime on Astrodyne


So instead of just 'is it melee vs ranged', the cards would be Role based (Balance being the 'wildcard' and working on any role to varying effectiveness), but you'd have the freedom to eat a slight damage loss to play a more 'optimal' card choice (eg giving Bole to a Melee who's targetted by a Prey instead of a tank) I can't say for sure without trying it, but the extra speed of Minor Arcana coming in (and having to target allies to play it) might actually be too much, even with one filler spell and one DOT. Like, I genuinely think that it might necessitate the removal of Combust to free up the mental load to keep up with it. IDK if anyone would miss Combust as a gameplay element, I sure wouldn't, especially if it meant getting a more interesting card system. And with Seals potentially being generated via Minor as well as Major Arcana, maybe the gameplay loop could be shifted over to 'try to maintain the speed buff of Astrodyne by getting at least 2 seals, and aim for 100% uptime' instead of it being a scuffed 'self buff burst window' that contributes less than 1% of our total damage output

SB really was like, the ideal middle ground in hindsight. We ditched old Cleric Stance clunk, and had healer damage scale off of MND, that should have been the change needed to 'help newer healers try to do some damage when it's safe to'. I'm not sure why they went so much further in SHB. Maybe they saw the data on 'percentage of playerbase playing healer as their main' drop and panicked, not realizing 'yeh that was probably because you added RDM and SAM in the same expansion, two VERY highly revered jobs from older games, so of course some healers would change mains to one of those two and not go back'. But hey, if they were able to admit their idea hasn't worked, they'd have done so after their idea of making WHM 'have a more 'Pure Healing' focus' in SB, where it was criticized heavily. It's like, because WHM is 'the posterchild healer' of the FF series, whatever IT is, is what 'healing' is in their minds. And that means since 'healing' is whatever 'WHM is', maybe they've just trapped themselves in a feedback loop of 'well we can't change it because this is what it should be'


...I gotta stop being so invested in this stuff, these posts are getting too long