Would you rather healers get more complex healing kits or more complex DPS kits?

[SargeTheSeagull]

You want attrition style healing where you almost never DPS? Go play WoW.

I mean “almost never” is pretty inaccurate tbh. I mean disc priest and mistweaver heal directly by dealing damage. Aside from a couple “oh shit” buttons you can’t heal without dpsing as them. Holy paladin can’t generate any of its main healing resource without dpsing (without a specific talent build) and one of its main healing avenues is an attack that debuffs the enemy and anyone who hits that enemy is healed. And a bunch of its heal cooldowns are like macrocosmos/pneuma ie damage neutral. Preservation evoker’s main avenue of maintaining MP is by evoker’s signature dps channel, plus if you go for a certain build then your fire breath attack heals party members. The only healbot healers are resto shaman and resto Druid and even then their DPS kits are way more involved than that of healers in 14.

All that to say, even in a game where you need to heal ~80% of the time you still have tons of ways and tons of time to deal damage in fun interesting ways.

[IDontPetLalas]

Damn you brought out the "f" word in a healer discussion.

[Renathras]

You keep saying this, but if that's the case, where was this discussion back in the later half of HW and all of Stormblood?

You mean the time period where damage was higher and we had less oGCDs and less powerful ones (even SCH) such that GCD healing was common (and necessary even on SCH), where half of that had Cleric Stance, and that same half was when theorycrafting was in its infancy AND where the raids were so tightly tuned that the second raid set destroyed the raiding scene and nearly killed the game a second time? Oh, and lest we forget, when many players still believed that healers were for healing, the traditional MMO view, and the idea that "healers are just Green DPS" had not fully congealed?

AND where the people who didn't like damage dealing literally could just...not. In most content, healer DPS was irrelevant, and large swaths of the community still not only had great sympathy for Pure Healers (and Support-Buffer Healers), there were people who would sometimes tell you not to DPS to prevent going OOM. There were no standards outside of the high end raid scene, and it was kind of the wild west with everyone else. Many people didn't optimize damage at all, and many didn't even DO damage when on healers.

AND the game operated under a somewhat primitive/primordial (e.g. earlier) version of the 4 Healers Model - WHM was nearly a Pure Healer's dream. It healed with GCDs and Asylum (and Assize was used more like Indom or Ixo), "rolling HoTs" was pretty normal, and it had EW WHM's rotation minus Misery. Like, SB WHM would be EW WHM if you removed Lilies and Misery and replaced them with Aero 3 and an 18 sec Aero 2 - something the "more DPS people" reject as an allowable solution for WHM now, even if we ADDED Aero 3, cut Dia's duration to 18 sec, and LEFT Misery (so we'd actually have MORE DPS actions than we did in SB!). How does that even make sense? How is literally more to do than SB a downgrade?

In other words, during that time, healer players that wanted to heal and not have a complex DPS kit played WHM. You know, the thing I suggest all the time and get told we can't do?

Yeah, the game had it back then. Probably helped with the "we had the most healer players (as a percentage of the population)" and "people weren't complaining about things" (I mean, people WERE, just DIFFERENT things) situations. Gee, maybe the 4 Healers Model IS the way to go, imagine that?

Anyway, you're comparing apples to porcupines.

I'd say "Because at that time, people had other things to be concerned about and the discussion wasn't about maximizing DPS for most of the community, nor insisting everyone else do the same". Even as late as SB, I remember healer players only healing in groups and no one cared. I only noticed when specifically looking at their cast bars and whether their DoTs were up or not due to knowing the healer kits myself.

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How many times do I have to debunk this claim.

That's a question, not a statement. Anyway THEN CUT IT IN A QUARTER.

The idea that DPS additions can be anything but healing additions can only be very specific things - specific things that detractors can say won't work - is just nonsense. The game literally had more healing, GCD healing, requirements in the past, and people liked healing more back then.

It's not some arcane, unsolvable mystery to make healing requirements more extensive.

And so you know - you don't need AOE to do more healing. Single target effects can also exist. It's not hard to come up with different ideas, especially since the argument would be to alter kits and tuning across the game.

Wildstar died because of its art style as well as its mechanics (I know quite a few people, myself included, that didn't play it for that reason). Regardless, games like Warhammer had more extensive DPS kits on healers and also died. Shall we say "Warhammer called, it wants a word with you ma'am" and throw out your arguments summarily as well? Or can we recognize that what killed those games weren't their healing kits?

Going to chime in again.

CAN work.

Of the two, if we're only going to change ONE thing, more healing is the thing to change.

The idea is to change things across the board, however.

Since SE buffed them by like 50% (or in some cases, even more), I would call that a good case study on 'actually maybe we can't just reduce OGCD power by 50%'. It wasn't just a case of people complaining because AST was struggling to compete vs WHM (and WHM being cracked for the first time in like 3.5 years), people didn't seem to like the idea of being forced to cover the healing with GCD heals because 'their OGCDs aren't enough to keep up'

Yes, because if you nerf one healer by 50% and not the other two with it...

Imagine if you cut BLM's damage by 50% but not the rest of the DPS Jobs. How well would that work? Would that be a case study we can't have a stat squish/reduction in damage numbers, or that such changes must be global if done AND encounters must be tuned around them?

Damn that's a name lost to the ages

So is Warhammer.

[Mayhemmer]

I mean “almost never” is pretty inaccurate tbh. I mean disc priest and mistweaver heal directly by dealing damage. Aside from a couple “oh shit” buttons you can’t heal without dpsing as them. Holy paladin can’t generate any of its main healing resource without dpsing (without a specific talent build) and one of its main healing avenues is an attack that debuffs the enemy and anyone who hits that enemy is healed. And a bunch of its heal cooldowns are like macrocosmos/pneuma ie damage neutral. Preservation evoker’s main avenue of maintaining MP is by evoker’s signature dps channel, plus if you go for a certain build then your fire breath attack heals party members. The only healbot healers are resto shaman and resto Druid and even then their DPS kits are way more involved than that of healers in 14.

What I would give to have even some of this level of kit interactivity in this game... I might be overestimating my understanding of the current woes of healing in 14, but it feels (to me) like they (whoever on the dev team actually pens the job design stuff) very desperately want 'healing tools' and 'damage tools' to be mostly in separate rooms, with the notable rare exceptions. They don't get to play together. Maybe I'm just pining for an entirely different approach to healer design at this point, but I just want the role to provide an experience that is both fun, and one I can't get playing other roles. I feel like I don't have the former because the latter is so underwhelming.

[Renathras]

I would love to see that...and I would especially love to see the reaction from all the "a healer's job is to heal, not deal damage" people, because they're usually the first to fail any kind of actual heal check.

Lol, name checks out.

No, the first people to fail are the more DPS people. Because "can't use a GCD on healing! muh deeps!!!"

People that are already spamming heals anyway don't tend to have much trouble healing...

Familiarity breeding boredom just as easily applies to healing as it does to dealing damage.

Agreed, but if the argument is that a couple more DPS buttons will cure boredom, my point stands: It won't. Not for any length of time. And then what?

Like an addict, the people that got their "fix" with a few DPS buttons will go back to their dealer and ask for more. This is my point: It would never be enough. Not until the DPS rotation was substantial enough to eclipse healing as the player's focus. And at that point, all the players that wanted to play healers will have left the role.

Thus that cannot be the solution, neither as the first of incremental changes nor alone. And that's ignoring that this is only talking about the people that WANT it and how it's an imperfect solution even for them. It's even worse for everyone else. I harp on the 4 Healers Model over and over again, but it's because it IS something that addresses everyone's concerns at once, especially when done with encounter and kit/tuning revisions. It can work alone OR with additional changes to healing kits, and it INCLUDES more damage buttons baseline as part of the proposal.

More healing alone can work.
The 4 Healers Model alone can work.
More DPS buttons alone cannot work and will make things worse and drive people away from the role.

But, the ideal solution, again, is doing a combination of things TOGETHER. They can be in incremental steps, but must be in incremental steps TOGETHER. Not "we'll add more DPS buttons first then wait for the next expansion to think about doing anything else". If that's the result, I'd quit healing day 1 of DT, and not be alone. And ques are already going to be terrible due to adding 2 DPS Jobs and no new Tank or Healer Jobs. If you add to that making all Healers into DPS Jobs, combined with the DC travel madness, ques for content would go through the stratosphere.

[Renathras]

You know, for someone who is constantly on people’s...

When people are talking about HW and SB - HW and SB were on that par of thing. And SOME proposals (Roe's WHM one) is effectively a second DoT (in this case a CD with a specific duration, but other than being a bit less annoying to track is effectively the same thing in terms of button cadence) and a 3 hit combo under burst.

If you like I can reword that to "a second CD, this one a GCD, and a 3 hit combo in a burst every 40 sec or so", but the end result is the same.

Some of your proposals have been more in depth, but none of them are an incremental change. And any proposal at or below Tank levels is still going to be boring within 6 months. Don't think so? Go ask the Tank Forum if they're bored with their DPS rotations or not. Really wanna bet on their answer being they're consistently thrilled and engaged by them? Their answers will probably be various flavors of how boring and samey they are, with the only saving grace to your argument being the occasional person saying "I mean, at least it's not as bad as healers, but it's still bad".

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Healing changes CAN be enough alone, but they shouldn't be alone.

Encounter design, healing kit design and potencies, the kits of other Jobs contributing to healing and mitigation, etc etc AS WELL AS dps abilities must all be on the table together.

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I'll keep asking for good faith discussions because I continue to speak to the topic and NOT misrepresent people pretty consistently. Way MORE consistently than you, at any rate Mr. ring-tailed-lemur-with-a-brain-injury. You aren't exactly one to speak to the topic of good faith discussions with quips like that...

You go play WoW. Your toxic attitude would fit right in there, at least.

What I would give to have even some of this level of kit interactivity in this game...

Same.

I would love a game where our healing and damage kits across the healers were diverse so people could play a more damage focused rotation with healing or could play a healing focus.

It's what I mean by the 4 Healers Model.

It'd be nice to have a game where people weren't insisting everyone be a Disc Priest.

[Thurmnmurmn]

You know, for someone who is constantly on people’s assholes about having good faith discussions, you do love to write off everything different players have described wanting to you, something you have specifically asked for multiple times I might add, with these insultingly uncharitable takes like “one extra DoT and a 3-hit combo every two minutes”.

Stop asking for good faith discussion when you continue to turn around and intentionally misrepresent others’ arguments simply because you don’t like them.

No, healing changes are not enough to fix healers. FFXIV healers are built to be combat medics that actively engage with DPS. That was true in ARR, and it’s even more true now. The game needs to give healers DPS tools to compliment that. Don’t like that? You want attrition style healing where you almost never DPS? Go play WoW.

Remember he's the only one who's right.

Mine is the only one that addresses the needs of all sides as currently presented. The "solutions" I'm arguing against do not, and I've said why they do not.

Imo best course of action is to just ignore him.

[SargeTheSeagull]

Very very truncated summary of what Ren said to Sebazy. I have to point this out because of how mine smashingly stupid this statement is. Ren suggested making most fights’ damage profiles roughly like harrowing hell from P10 but for the whole fight. Sebazy literally math’d out why that wouldn’t be enough to make us spend the majority of GCDs on healing spells, even if you reduced their potency by half and stated, correctly, that if you did that people would stop playing the role altogether because people now, months after p10’s release, still can’t handle HH in normal without tank LB. Ren’s answer was “THEN CUT IT (healing potency) IN A QUARTER”.

Tho I think Thur is right and it’s generally a good idea to just ignore him, that little lala sure as hell can make me laugh sometimes.

[Zairava]

Very very truncated summary of what Ren said to Sebazy. I have to point this out because of how mine smashingly stupid this statement is. Ren suggested making most fights’ damage profiles roughly like harrowing hell from P10 but for the whole fight. Sebazy literally math’d out why that wouldn’t be enough to make us spend the majority of GCDs on healing spells, even if you reduced their potency by half and stated, correctly, that if you did that people would stop playing the role altogether because people now, months after p10’s release, still can’t handle HH in normal without tank LB. Ren’s answer was “THEN CUT IT (healing potency) IN A QUARTER”.

Tho I think Thur is right and it’s generally a good idea to just ignore him, that little lala sure as hell can make me laugh sometimes.

I say just raising the amount of healing isn't enough because you will still end up with healing downtime insufferably boring and monotonous and the response boiled down to just "yes it CAN, but healing should be THE thing to change between the two if it was one or the other"

You could say "only raising the amount of healing needed isn't enough because you still end up with boring, monotonous healing downtime" till you're purple in the face and it still wouldn't get through.

[Mayhemmer]

I would love a game where our healing and damage kits across the healers were diverse so people could play a more damage focused rotation with healing or could play a healing focus.

It's frustrating that I can't articulate what I want out of a healer other than "feel good gameplay" based just off ideas I think are neat and would like to see, but I KNOW I'd like a healer (or even just a support dps caster) that focused less on stringent adherence to a rotation or 30s/60s/90s/120s, and more on something at least a bit more dynamic. That being, incoming and outgoing damage. Similar to how Sage's PvP versions of Kardia and Eukrasian Dosis III function, but fleshed out into an entire job and given more depth.

Maybe I'm naïve, maybe a concept like that wouldn't function well in 100% of content 100% of the time, but I bet it'd at least be pretty damn fun.