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

[Saraide]

On the topic though, I might have missed it at some point but has there been any ideas in the thread that pitches for AST’s damage rotation? I’ve seen WHM SCH & SGE but I don’t think I’ve seen one for AST outside from vague statements like ”give them more buffs to play with”(paraphrased).

I havent seen much in the way of thorough suggestions but I have seen people like earthly star. Job lore is about prophecies and divination so having abilities revolve around predicting to the enemy that in 20 seconds a small bomb will explode in their face could very well be something to be expanded upon (because it sounds funny).

If I were to design AST's damage capacity around that I would:
Malefic stays (not sure what to do with it)
Combust changes from a dot into a time bomb on the enemy (accelerated slightly by lightspeed)
Gravity hits for enhanced damage for 3 seconds after combust explodes
New oGCD that explodes that combust early for proportionally less damage (to have a way to deal with bosses going untargetable or otherwise invincible)
Macrocosmos applies a seperate time bomb to every enemy hit
Lord explodes combust for full value early.

I tried to funnel everything in the time bomb gimmick now while also giving means to deal with invincibility phases.

[Aravell]

Malefic stays (not sure what to do with it)

I'm not sure if XIV is capable of doing this, but maybe a charging skill type like in other MMOs would work for a time mage style Malefic. 1.5s base cast (can charge up to 3s), maybe make it a small dps gain for fully charging. Maybe implement Doublecast as well, add the small full charge dps gain if you Doublecast Malefic.

[mallleable]

Maybe a thing that could be done with AST is that each time you cast Malefic, you gain a stack of 'Gravity Ready,' and it can be stacked up to 3 times, and it makes Gravity hit for each stack you have gained while consuming all of them. And then AST gets a new filler AOE spell that can also build Gravity stacks.

[ASkellington]

Been roughly over two years now lol. Two years spent on generating chatGPT responses without actually understanding it rather than actually playing the game more that would’ve otherwise bring them the experience & a solid opinion of their own.

I joked in the past about getting more fun at sifting through official forums than actually spamming 1211111 in-game. Now that I think about it, how this rings (quite possibly) true in their case lol.

————

On the topic though, I might have missed it at some point but has there been any ideas in the thread that pitches for AST’s damage rotation? I’ve seen WHM SCH & SGE but I don’t think I’ve seen one for AST outside from vague statements like ”give them more buffs to play with”(paraphrased).

AST could have a compile like Earthly Star is that does damage only (likely meaning that the heal and damage part of ES is going to be split if that happens however - not my ideal choice) on a shorter recast (like 15-20s maybe?)

I've also seen GCD cards and having that be our "damage" and to that I say. NO. GCD cards do NOT address the real issue with AST - its TARGETING allies for console players, and crappy tab-targeting BTW - and more importantly DON'T DO A DAMN THING TO ADDRESS AST BEING CRAP IN SOLO PLAY.

[Rein_eon_Osborne]

[…]I have seen suggestions to put cards on the GCD as well, though I greatly disagree with that. AST becoming slow would be as jarring as WHM becoming an OGCD weaving beast. Although, knowing SE, GCD cards are exactly what's coming. They see people complain about weaving too much? GCD cards!

God, please not GCD cards lmao. As begrudgingly I’ve ever been to complain about the carpa tunnel syndrome that is 15s reopener every 2m, what I really wish for is to have that being more spread out throughout entire two minutes. GCD cards would’ve just remove the entirety of that APM thrill instead of trying to smooth them out.

Looking at few older titles that have time magicks, it brings me to the Time Magick of FFXII known as “Balance” that deals (Caster Max HP - Caster current HP) AoE damage. This reminds me of buttons that takes account of compiled damage/state of health such as Essential & Macro. I wonder what else can be made based upon that?

[SargeTheSeagull]

AST could have a button sorta like gemshine. On its own it’s inactive but it changes when you deal a card. Like if you deal balance or spear this new spell becomes a flat potency single target. If you deal ewer or spire this spell deals slightly less damage and debuffs the enemy. Anyone who attacks that enemy regen’s HP. Something like that.

Somewhat unrelated: should AST stances come back?

[ForsakenRoe]

No, it wouldn't. That's kind of the point. Why was P5S "hard"? It wasn't because our healing kits can't deal with the damage. It was because people were used to just popping some oGCDs and being done with healing. When a fight actually demanded people use GCDs for it, they weren't used to that. On the other hand, know who didn't have a problem with that fight? The people that used GCD heals all the time.

Damn, it's a shame he's gone, I was hoping to get an explanation of how 'People who used GCD heals all the time' didn't have an issue with P5S, when any suggestion of 'what if we had more damage buttons' is decried with 'well then people won't be able to do enough damage' (when GCD heals cost damage per use), so how did those GCD heal focused players get away without being punished by crushingly tight enrage checks? It's like the fight doesn't actually demand THAT much damage, and the supposed 'issue' being raised against 'more damage buttons in rotation' isn't actually an issue at all

Oh well I guess I'll get an answer when he returns. Based on last time he said something like that 'farewell speech', it'll be about 3-4 business days

I joked in the past about getting more fun at sifting through official forums than actually spamming 1211111 in-game. Now that I think about it, how this rings (quite possibly) true in their case lol.

————

On the topic though, I might have missed it at some point but has there been any ideas in the thread that pitches for AST’s damage rotation? I’ve seen WHM SCH & SGE but I don’t think I’ve seen one for AST outside from vague statements like ”give them more buffs to play with”(paraphrased).

The reason I was sometimes 'late' to respond at times was because, yes, I was writing the response between GCDs. WHM really can feel that slow at times. Nowadays, it's between things in OSRS (like cutting a tree or such)

Joking aside, I did indeed do an idea for AST, but again, it's a focus on 'more buffs to play with' since that's their core identity, I figured it'd be more fun to have them differentiate by that method. For the record, it'd mean playing a Minor Arcana card (of which there would be 6 suits to draw from, so 6 possible effects again) once every 15s, and a Major once every 60 (though that could stay at 30, potentially). Much more card use compared to current gameplay, but also, spread across the full 2min cycle instead of all piled into a single 15s window, hopefully. You can find the idea here (it's in the HB tag box). IDK how well it'd work in practice, having to targetswitch every 15s ish, I'd hope that making 'play Minor Arcana' a GCD might help, but I did have an idea of a new way to 'quick-target' players. Basically, something like 'holding the cast button brings up an 8-way radial menu, and moving your mouse/analog stick in a direction chooses a certain party member', so with practice, you would be able to quickly flick a direction and throw a card without even changing target off of the boss (without having to rely on janky macros). Monster Hunter's 'quick item menu' is an example of something similar to what I'd be thinking of. Maybe I should draw a picture to illustrate

edit: forgive the shoddiness, MSPaint is my shitposting canvas of choice

So, you'd hold the 'Play' button for a split second, and this menu would pop up (probably at your mouse cursor's position), then you just move your mouse cursor in a direction to choose the target of the card, and let go of Play to actually 'play' it. After having it in the game for a while, I think players would get very proficient at using it, allowing them to play cards at much faster speeds than we currently can (thanks to having to tab back to the boss each GCD to use a Malefic)



Fig. 2, the player has moused over the DRG to soft-target them with 'The Spear', which makes sense, as under the proposed reworked effects, Spear boosts Physical damage by 10%

A system like this could be expanded upon with additional functionality too. For example, the first thing that comes to mind is 'other skills'. Esuna, Benison, DragonSight-ing your melee buddy, any of the shareable Tank moves like Nascent or Cover, etc, could potentially benefit from something like this. Additionally, being able to customize the positions of the party members, as you can with the party list, would allow for something like the above examples. This would allow a player to set the positions of each member to their relative 'clock spots' for the fight, which also causes this system to double up as a memory helper to remind the AST 'hey, you're on the East side for Proteans'

I have seen suggestions to put cards on the GCD as well, though I greatly disagree with that. AST becoming slow would be as jarring as WHM becoming an OGCD weaving beast. Although, knowing SE, GCD cards are exactly what's coming. They see people complain about weaving too much? GCD cards!

I think the issue with GCD cards is the loss of speed. So, I would like to think that, were the CPM of the job to remain the same despite GCD cards, it'd be accepted. For example, as above I mention making Minor Arcana draw once every 15s, and that'd be automatically drawn, but you're still playing them each 15s, four times as often as currently. Additionally, the idea contains a 'Sleeve Draw' CD, which powers up your drawn Minor Arcana for your burst window, adding to the CPM again. If the CPM of the job right now is, say, 36, I don't particularly see how changing cards to be GCD is an issue, so long as we remain roughly around 36 CPM after the change. Plus, since I left Major Arcana OFF the GCD, you could do Minor > Major > Minor weaves at the 1min window. If the above 'targetting' idea were a thing, that'd mean you could 'quick-flick' three cards back to back, like your burst window could be something like Combust > Div/Sleeve > quick-flick Lady of Cups at cohealer > Sleeve/quick-flick Bole at MT > quick-flick Lady of Irons at a Melee DPS. And since Minor Arcana would be an instant GCD, it lessens the burden Lightspeed has to carry for the burst window, allowing for it to be used for mobility more often

I've also seen GCD cards and having that be our "damage" and to that I say. NO. GCD cards do NOT address the real issue with AST - its TARGETING allies for console players, and crappy tab-targeting BTW - and more importantly DON'T DO A DAMN THING TO ADDRESS AST BEING CRAP IN SOLO PLAY.

Addressing the GCD and 'targeting is jank' stuff above, but the 'feels crap in solo play' can also be addressed with unique card effects coming back. For example, I tried to make the Minor Arcana effects deal a total of 300p via their own thematic methods (compared to Malefic's 250, or SCH's Broil being 295), plus a bonus amount of 5-45p, based on the face value of the card. That, plus having all of the Major cards be stronger (Balance 10%, all other cards attempted to be balanced against that), and their effects all being made to be functional even on the AST (even Spire's Physical Damage boost) would hopefully help AST to feel less bad to solo with

[Aravell]

Damn, it's a shame he's gone, I was hoping to get an explanation of how 'People who used GCD heals all the time' didn't have an issue with P5S, when any suggestion of 'what if we had more damage buttons' is decried with 'well then people won't be able to do enough damage' (when GCD heals cost damage per use), so how did those GCD heal focused players get away without being punished by crushingly tight enrage checks? It's like the fight doesn't actually demand THAT much damage, and the supposed 'issue' being raised against 'more damage buttons in rotation' isn't actually an issue at all

I asked a few friends who raided back then and they actually have never seen P5S enrage, I myself have only seen it once due to a particularly tragic pull. I believe most people considered the P5S dps check a joke.

I think the issue with GCD cards is the loss of speed.

Yes, I would like them to not delete another speedy weave job from the game. We already lost NIN, DRK and MNK. RPR is fast, sure, but it's also mind-numbingly slow and boring outside of Enshroud.

Unfortunately, GCD cards is something I can see SE pushing while doing nothing to boost APM back to what some of us enjoy. Since there's people complaining about the weaving during the opener and people are praising the card design of PvP AST (which are on the GCD), I can see SE coming to the (very wrong) conclusion that people would greatly enjoy a slow AST with cards all on the GCD.

And thus, AST truly will become "WHM with cards".

[ASkellington]

If the CPM of the job right now is, say, 36, I don't particularly see how changing cards to be GCD is an issue, so long as we remain roughly around 36 CPM after the change.

GCD cards are an issue because of Draw/Play or both. The Major Arcana/Main Buffs are what people put on the GCD. That automatically REDUCES the apm. Even if its an instant draw the recast timer is now 1sec for example. Its something I and many AST players don't want.

Addressing the GCD and 'targeting is jank' stuff above, but the 'feels crap in solo play' can also be addressed with unique card effects coming back. For example, I tried to make the Minor Arcana effects deal a total of 300p via their own thematic methods (compared to Malefic's 250, or SCH's Broil being 295), plus a bonus amount of 5-45p, based on the face value of the card. That, plus having all of the Major cards be stronger (Balance 10%, all other cards attempted to be balanced against that), and their effects all being made to be functional even on the AST (even Spire's Physical Damage boost) would hopefully help AST to feel less bad to solo with

I disagree.

To address your reworked card system:

• Why an autodraw? This is probably the biggest gripe with it. That doesn't sound fun to interact with.
  
• I don't see the benefit of putting Major Arcana on 60s recast timer. I don't want to draw less.
  
• Minor Arcana I don't think needs to be reworked into more suits. Its an interesting concept, but completely unneeded. I'd rather have Lord/Lady be achieved by turning a Major into a Minor like in Shb so the player has more choice in a damaging or healing card and also a way to make a less needed card into a more beneficial one.

Ignoring my gripes about an extra 6 suits - I really don't see how they fix AST's solo play.
- Irons is a dead card, Cups/Crowns/Staves would be the most useful and the only ones I'd want to play.
- It has the same issue with Major in that they're buffs. You place a buff on yourself and do more damage thus:
- It doesn't address the 2 button game play other than give an extra GCD every 15s that is essentially a self buff no different than the current lackluster card system in solo play, just up more often.

I've seen Astrodyne tossed about here and honestly, I'd rather it be tossed out. I don't want to give the seals system another chance. SE had two expansions. Retire it. Permanently. A self buff on a (party) buffing class is a stupid idea. I'd rather have that extra potency permanently.

[Hyperia]

Healers shouldn't need a damage rotation, there should be sufficient incoming damage that they should be constantly busy healing the group or individuals. 80% of our GCDs should be occupied with some form of healing, the rest can be buffs or some DPS, but we should be mostly busy with healing.

I'm going to come right out and say that I believe its encounter design problems. I am also going to come out and say that not everybody can or should be a healer, its a difficult job and it should be challenging, just like tanking.

Every game I have healed since Everquest in 2001 through WoW in 2014, I had to heal and heal a lot, it was a challenge and I enjoyed it. XIV had the same feeling back in ARR 2.x but it gradually diminished the further I got into the game up through Endwalker.

I think that the Devs have spent too much time trying to make healing so easy that nobody needs healers.

Edit:

<humor> Well, if they keep simplifying healers, sometime in the future we will be down to 2 buttons. A DPS button that charges up a 2nd button that does a full group heal and then back to DPS to charge up for another big group heal. </humor>