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

[Aravell]

I can only speak for myself. That being said... What you've described of what I want and what I think about other players above, is absolutely, 100% a caricature of my perspective. Things like "no amount of damage could satisfy me," that I have a distain for players who want to heal, or that I cannot believe that there are people who enjoy healing (It's almost like I've suggested there be a healer specifically designed for players who do not like DPSing on healers countless times at this point.)

The reason it becomes infuriating is that I have explained my perspective multiple times over the years, and still I am grouped into a caricature of the big bad DPS wanabee healers that you are effectively describing. That is why things break down, because after the cordial discussions and calm back and forths, it always ends up coming back to this cartoon villain description sooner or later. And surprise pikachu face, people stomp their foot down.

It's really funny when he complains that people make a caricature out of his arguments but he's totally fine with making a caricature out of other people's arguments. Like when he stretched so far to call me an elitist that doesn't want anyone worse than me to clear any content simply because I said that the skill ceiling should be higher and that job mastery should be rewarded (I often parse grey btw, so there's not many people worse than me in the first place), this is despite me going to math out how much impact that my suggested 10-20% gap would have (not much impact at all in first floor savage and below).

[Renathras]

Those who've been talking to Ren for multiple years now have already gone through the song and dance of suggesting concrete changes at adjust both in synergy after Ren finally permits at least the principle only to return to yet to "4 Healer Model" insistences that actually only one job should have DPS be anything worthy of engagement (and that only one healer should have meaningful buffs, only one healer should have... so one and so forth).

Okay, setting aside this goes both ways - the song and dance I've gone through - my position has consistently changed and moved towards your (collective) stance, with VERY little (in many cases no) movement on your part. Which is hardly what compromise comes from. Additionally, I have to deal with people constantly lying - my position has never been "only one job should have DPS be anything worthy of engagement". At the VERY least, I've always suggested two have much more extensive damage kits, and often all of them, just some in different ways that aren't too different.

The "disagreement" (and insults) quite often come from you guys lying about what I want. And despite me correcting the record over and over, not only do the lies persist, never is there an apology, like my reply to you a few pages back where I directly confronted your lying about me. There is NEVER a "Oh, we were wrong about what you want/what you're saying" at any point, despite it happening over and over and over again, and despite my position having moved a very long way from when these conversations started 2 years ago.

Originally, I wanted no changes to WHM or SCH, for AST's changes to be limited to support ability additions, and for SCH's to be its SB buttons. At this point, I've said WHM getting Aero 3 and an 18 sec Dia would be acceptable (note that this would be MORE DPS buttons than SB since we'd also have Misery AND note that this is MORE to the "more DPS buttons" side than you guys used to ask for; there was a time you guys were ONLY asking for Aero 3, then it became Aero 3 + 18 sec Dia, and now it's Aero 3 + 18 sec Dia + Quake/Tornado/Flood, some burst CDs, and a gauge), SCH I've said all the SB buttons back and even some that it didn't have, some that were SMN exclusives (like Egi Assaults or Fester), and I even made my own suggestions on additional changes that SCH could get on the DPS side. My ideas from SGE went from no changes to little changes to RDM-like rotation to BLM-like rotation. And AST I've just taken a total hands-off "do whatever you want with it" position.

I'm not sure how I could be MORE on your side, especially as your side (collectively) has moved FURTHER to "more DPS buttons".

Two years ago, the more DPS buttons camp on the Healer Forum was asking for WHM to get Aero 3, SCH to have its SB kit back, AST to have its SB/HW Cards back, and SGE to have a rotation like DNC level. At this point, that's LITERALLY more conservative than my own position, as my own position also has 18 sec Dia for WHM, SCH having an additional DPS button (or two) beyond what it had in SB, AST being whatever the heck you want, and SGE being as complex as BLM if you want it.

Hell, back then, I didn't think anything REALLY needed changing at all, and just thought some more DPS actions on a few Jobs would be nice to do to make more people happy. The same people spending 2 years badmouthing me over and over for daring to want them to be happier. Now, my position has expanded to not only include allowance for more DPS actions on ALL the healers THAN EVEN YOU GUYS WERE ASKING FOR TWO YEARS AGO, but also to overall changes to Tanks, DPSers, encounter design, and the rest of it.

Meanwhile, you guys have moved the goalposts. YOUR collective position two years ago was less DPS focused than MY current position is. The conversation, the Overton Window, continues to be pushed to "more DPS buttons", and so while I've moved TOWARDS the more DPS buttons position, to the point I'm even FARTHER towards it than you guys were 2 years ago, you guys have moved SO MUCH farther that not only do you oppose me having effectively your own position from 2 years ago, you attack me - relentlessly and brutally - for having probably the most open-minded and most inclusive position on the topic right now.

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THAT is the two years of "baggage", not your one-sided position on it.

Seriously, even my idea for WHM at this point (Aero 3 and 18 sec Dia) is MORE damage focused than the Healer forum was asking for 2 years ago (Aero 3 was the going ask back then). It's ridiculous that I'm accused of opposing all change and trying to drag people down when my own proposal at this point is MORE expansive and MORE damage focused than even you guys' was back then!

How far the Overton Window has moved...

EDIT:

That.
Said:

Both 'sides' want both things changed, even if one (e.g., those who've also done more whack-a-mole style healing elsewhere) may be more wary of simply increasing healing requirements to get there. Neither 'side' seems fond of the glut of CDs, for how much they leave the kit disjointed and may continue to do so unless/until recontextualized and redesigned through encounter changes and small changes to those skills' bankability, both. The biggest question that have split the 'two' across the last handful of threads is how much cognitive load, in total should healers be allowed to engage with, how accessible the floor should be regardless, and therefore how large a gap for skill expression ought to exist between the two.

I think this is where we should start the conversation - with those things we agree on.

The things we disagree on, we disagree on (tautology and all), and tend to drive more resentment an conflict. But if we could pull out all the things we DO agree on - both as problems and agree on the solution to them - and start with those things, that's how we could work to build a bridge to a greater Grand Bargain of sorts to solve the problem overall.

[ForsakenRoe]

What you are correct about is that I don't want to be a healbot. That's the entire reason why I fell in love with FFXIV healing in ARR, because I wasn't just a healing turret. That balance of going back and forth between healing and attacking is what FFXIV did right in the beginning. If FFXIV's healers were healing turrets from the start, which they never were, I wouldn't be here today. I wouldn't have kept up with the game probably past 2.0 even. I wouldn't have returned to future patches. I would've just finished the story, played a little of the post game, and I wouldn't have been incentivized to come back, but loving the feeling of playing Scholar brought me back and is ultimately why I'm here now.

The real question is, if T5 released today, and we had the kit of back then, the balance of back then, the jank netcode of back then... But we had the knowledge and skill of today, would we still have GCD healed and stood around so often on WHM for safety's sake? Or, knowing the fight timeline, how Twister actually works, etc, would we go balls-to-walls on damage regardless of healer, so as to get the fight down quicker, with the knowledge of how our MP costs work, how fast our MP regenerates, and how often (or not, as the case might be) damage actually goes out onto the raid? I suspect that part of the reason we didn't do damage as much back then was because we didn't know the game as well as we do now. We played safe back then in raids, to be able to see further into the fight. To try and get to Twisters again, to find out 'actually what tf is going on why are we blowing up here'. And in that regard, nothing's changed, we still play safe for prog to see further into the fight

Also same, healing a WOW raid (WOD at the time of me switching over on the account I use now) was hella boring. I never made it to level 50 as WHM on my first account, but I did make it to 58 on SCH before even entering Ishgard on this account. Playing the class was fun enough for me to want to do Levelling roulette AND MSQ roulette AND Alliance roulette, every single day. Crazy, huh

So from all that, you basically want current White Mage with minimal changes over the rest of FFXIV's lifespan, that's as competitive or the most competitive healer in terms of DPS performance, but you also want that DPS performance to be able to come from healing spells that are more GCD focused and considerably weaker in an environment that has far more frequent outgoing, constant damage, so that you can have optimal DPS through healing, but also that outgoing damage shouldn't be stronger than Barb EX in Extreme and below, somehow.

My understanding of his issue with Barb is that because of his preference for the 'hard GCD heals' like Medica, the movement required in the fight screws over the cast times. Effectively, this means that making healers more reliant on said heals, would directly conflict with such a damage profile to heal (one of fast paced movement and small fast hits against the party). I think his preferred 'heal check' is the ones where you can stand and turret heals, like Styx, Harrowing Hell (normal mode), or things like True Walking Dead from SOS (the HP-to-1 thing). Again though, that goes back to what I said about the '3 kinds of heal check designs': Hit harder, hit faster, or prevent the player from healing. And that preference of 'stand still and pump' removes option 3 as a design choice, leaving us with 'hit harder' (which we tried with Abyssos), and 'hit faster' (which, without the movement restriction of Barb EX, probably doesn't do enough on it's own to impact much unless it's insanely fast). I wouldn't mind more GCD heals on WHM, I even suggested one. But I think that the ones with cast times, the basic crap like Medica, should be looked at as 'this is the last resort', not 'this is the peak of healer gameplay'. I find it more fun to effortlessly weave healing GCDs (Raptures) while moving to dodge Barb EX's Pantokrator thing, than to stand still for two whole seconds to Medica 2, and I'm quite sure a fairly sizeable portion of the playerbase would agree

Imagine the lightning dogwolf thing in Aetherfont, the second boss. Every time it jumps, spins, whenever lightning AOEs appear on the floor, we could have it do 40% max HP damage to the party, every time, as a raidwide on top of 'actually dodge the lightning too'. It'd make you need to heal more, sure, but would it make the boss 'more fun'? I don't think it'd change the 'fun', it'd just change the button that you mash from Glare to Medica (and OOM you in less than 30s unless you change MP costs)

edit

At this point, I've said WHM getting Aero 3 and an 18 sec Dia would be acceptable (note that this would be MORE DPS buttons than SB since we'd also have Misery AND note that this is MORE to the "more DPS buttons" side than you guys used to ask for; there was a time you guys were ONLY asking for Aero 3, then it became Aero 3 + 18 sec Dia, and now it's Aero 3 + 18 sec Dia + Quake/Tornado/Flood, some burst CDs, and a gauge).

I've literally only ever asked for what I've asked for. You might be conflating me asking for the 'now its' stuff, and/or people seeing that and going 'wow actually that sounds pretty cool i'd play that', with everyone who's disagreeing with you shifting positions over time to trend towards.. apparently my idea. Which makes me a cult leader of sorts I think. Shame, I'm really not big on 'leadership positions', I'm not a fan of the responsibility, but if it gets healers fixed I guess I'll carry the burden

Also, you vastly overestimate the additional complexity added by all that stuff. You have to remember that you're a level 90 WHM, you should have a solid grip on the current job design such that picking up the new changes is very intuitive, it just slots into your current knowledge as would an expansion's additions, or a patch note change for durations and CDs. And for the newer players starting after this change were implemented (eg if it were added in 7.0 and someone started in 7.2), the new durations would be starting from level 1/4/whenever low level you get those base skills, the gauge would be at level 50 (so they are introduced to systems over time, not all at once), and I don't even know what you mean by 'burst CDs'. Cleric? I dropped that from the design a couple months ago. But you also listed Dia at 18s where I ask for it to be 12 (and have done for a year), so I think maybe you're actually on about someone else's ideas. Or you've mixed mine with another, idk

[Aravell]

My understanding of his issue with Barb is that because of his preference for the 'hard GCD heals' like Medica, the movement required in the fight screws over the cast times. Effectively, this means that making healers more reliant on said heals, would directly conflict with such a damage profile to heal (one of fast paced movement and small fast hits against the party). I think his preferred 'heal check' is the ones where you can stand and turret heals, like Styx, Harrowing Hell (normal mode), or things like True Walking Dead from SOS (the HP-to-1 thing). Again though, that goes back to what I said about the '3 kinds of heal check designs': Hit harder, hit faster, or prevent the player from healing. And that preference of 'stand still and pump' removes option 3 as a design choice, leaving us with 'hit harder' (which we tried with Abyssos), and 'hit faster' (which, without the movement restriction of Barb EX, probably doesn't do enough on it's own to impact much unless it's insanely fast). I wouldn't mind more GCD heals on WHM, I even suggested one. But I think that the ones with cast times, the basic crap like Medica, should be looked at as 'this is the last resort', not 'this is the peak of healer gameplay'. I find it more fun to effortlessly weave healing GCDs (Raptures) while moving to dodge Barb EX's Pantokrator thing, than to stand still for two whole seconds to Medica 2, and I'm quite sure a fairly sizeable portion of the playerbase would agree

The 'hit faster' style isn't very interesting on its own either. As a SCH on Harrowing Hell (Savage), all you do is just stack everything, Soil, Expedient, Dissipation, Deploy at start, spam Succor as necessary, then Indom at the end after the knockback before the Bonds. Does it make you heal more? Yes. Is it interesting? Not really.

[ty_taurus]

Imagine the lightning dogwolf thing in Aetherfont, the second boss. Every time it jumps, spins, whenever lightning AOEs appear on the floor, we could have it do 40% max HP damage to the party, every time, as a raidwide on top of 'actually dodge the lightning too'. It'd make you need to heal more, sure, but would it make the boss 'more fun'? I don't think it'd change the 'fun', it'd just change the button that you mash from Glare to Medica (and OOM you in less than 30s unless you change MP costs)

Probably one of my favorite boss mechanics in all of EW, and perhaps even ShB, is the thunderclouds in the fight with Shishio in Mount Rokkon, where there are dozens of thin line AoEs shooting all over the arena, and none of them hit all that hard even, but there's so many and they're all going off at different timers. Honestly having lots of line AoEs shooting all over is probably my favorite long-time mechanic. I vividly remember the first time I cleared Temple of Qarn in like the first week of the game's release and thinking dodging the lasers was so much fun and feeling exited to see other fights like that in the future. In hindsight, that mechanic is actually very slow, but when the game was less than a week old, it was exciting. Ultima Weapon EX did that also, and was much quicker, but Shishio brought it back in the best way. Imagine taking it one step further and you not only have all the little line AoEs, but the really massive ones are going off as well. Ugh, why can't we have more chaos mechanics where its technically all avoidable damage, but you're intended to get clipped a few times, and the damage of each clip isn't that dangerous, but the fact that it's different each time means how you heal it isn't the same every time either.

[OgruMogru]

remember that time he made the thread asking if Sch would be happy with their SB kit back and when lots of people told him yes, he said they were wrong and they actually meant no? Sure he might advocate for Sch getting their kit back now, but this is the pattern I've seen repeatedly which riles me up at the very least and I've barely interacted at all. I've seen it happen with people going over and over every permutation of healer problems. Dismisses everyone else's PoV during a conversation only to turn around and use that same PoV at a later date to try to win arguments against a different set of people and it's ... vexing.

[Renathras]

The issue most of us have with his stance is that one healer must remain 'as is' on damage buttons, for the sake of 'people who like the current gameplay'.

While I very much think that should be true - that we do something for the sake of people who like things now - that hasn't been true for months. I've been saying since the start of the year WHM having Aero 3 back is probably acceptable, even if I personally don't think it's the best idea, and I've moved even further towards the "more DPS" side by saying Dia with an 18 sec duration, too. My position now for WHM is literally "SB WHM's damage rotation + Misery and EW WHM's rest of the kit (healing/etc)". Which is literally what you guys were asking for a year or so ago.

Remember back when you guys were saying that? "We want the SB dps kits back on healers?" And now I'm saying to do JUST THAT VERY THING and being told off for it? To do even MORE than that since WHM with Misery + Aero 3 + SB Aero 2 is already more DPS button/rotation oriented than WHM was in SB? Where I've suggested SCH that is all of SB damage buttons back and a few more? Or that other SCH proposal I made that you guys even seemed to like?

I've moved towards your position from 2 years ago - and passed it - at this point.

Note that what you're asking for is more damage focused and more damage buttons/complexity than you guys were asking for 2 years back when "give us SB back" was the battlecry of the day.

Not only that, you do realize I've agreed with - and wasn't I the one who originally proposed? - Protect -> Plenary? o.O

"look more ridiculous", indeed...

I've never opposed that particular idea at any time.

I can only speak for myself. That being said... What you've described of what I want and what I think about other players above, is absolutely, 100% a caricature of my perspective.

How can you call my position a caricature and then say "You want White Mage as it is now. You'd tolerate a tiny bit of wiggle room overall, like returning Aero III, or giving Holy a single target conditional effect, but there's very little flexibility in what you find acceptable for White Mage." when my own position has traveled far from that and is actually more damage focused than what the Healer Forum was asking about at the time - which was "Can we just have Aero 3 back?", not to mention that being the single most requested thing for WHM in your surveys?

Not only that, I didn't call you a "big bad DPS wannabe". Again, caricature.

It's like you don't even read my posts. You kind of skim them then think of what the most absurd thing I could have said or the most insulting possible interpretation of my posts could be - even if it's something I've outright rejected and debunked before - and then insist that's what it is. Moreover, when have I ever been "against a healer that buffs instead of attacks"? That's news to me! My main proposal for AST, when I make one, is to make the buffing a continuous part of its gameplay. As in, have the Cards have a 10 sec CD so you're constantly throwing out buffs. How is that being "against a healer that buffs instead of attacks", exactly? o.O

I didn't say BarbEx was overtuned on damage. I complained it was overtuned ON MOVEMENT, disallowing consistent access to GCD heals to heal the damage. Please at least get my arguments right...

And, likewise, I've never said that every heal should be DPS neutral. The CLOSEST thing to that I've suggested is if Lilies could be used on any WHM GCD heal (allowing us an even choice of which to use, not just Cure 2/Medica 1 every 20 sec), sort of like how SCH has a lot of different options for how to spend Aetherflow. Imagine if SCH/SCH only had Lustrate/Indom or Duro/Ixo and nothing else to spend AF/AG on. Wouldn't that be dull? And as you and I (and others) agree, Lilies are basically WHM's version of THAT, but can currently only be used on Cure 2 and Medica 1 (effectively). Such a change would allow all those dead GCDs to actually get use. As opposed to "we should just remove them all because they're a waste of hotbar space". Like Eukrasia, the concept is effectively getting more use out of buttons that would otherwise be unused.

You didn't even get my oGCD position right - I believe some people DO like a playstyle based on limited use oGCD heals and establishing healing plans, so I think there should be healer Jobs that function on "DPSer first, oGCD weaves for highly technical and planned healing to defeat encounters, with emergency fallback heals (e.g. Diagnosis/Prognosis) in cases of emergency or prog". I DO think overall oGCDs need to be toned down, but I ALSO think - 4 Healers Model and all - that retaining at least one healer with an oGC focused healing style would be beneficial, with SGE likely being the best option for that (due to a combination of Kardia and oGCD healing weaves).

I've argued with people WHO WANT A 10-20% GAP that that is too large and it SHOULD BE 1-3%. That's hardly "arguing over a 1-3% difference".

Now who's using the caricatures?

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I think I see why you really hate me all the time - you aren't arguing against me at all. You're arguing against a total boogieman that doesn't even share my positions that you mentally superimpose on top of me.

It's really funny when he complains that...

Except I DON'T constantly complain about that.

The closest thing to something I constantly complain about is people attacking me and derailing threads. Not to mention that's a caricature you're making of my arguments WHILE decrying me complaining about caricatures being made of my arguments. XD Talk about proving me right by accident...

Hell, I wasn't the one that called you an elitist. YOU called YOURSELF an elitist. More specifically, you said I was stretching to call you an elitist when I...literally did not call you an elitist.

Again, when you MAKE UP things people didn't say to get mad at them over - and bring up in other conversations later as an attack on them - that's kind of messed up on your part. It certainly isn't on theirs since no one can prevent you from MAKING UP things to accuse them of saying other than recording literally every conversation ever, and even that can't prevent you from MAKING UP things, it can only defend against you having made them up.

And as for the gap - I'm glad you agree Ty's lying about it not being an argument over "1-3% difference", though you also left off the part where I explained to you from real life examples of narrowly clearing enrages that the damage in question is the difference between a clear and not. Instead of saying "Okay, so that does happen and on the margins it is relevant", you just continued to, like the Librarian at the Jedi Temple, say it doesn't happen because your math says it shouldn't matter. "Master Kenobi, if it's not in our records...then it doesn't exist!"

I've literally only ever asked for...

What part of "you guys, collectively" is difficult to understand?

Also, is this where the "One of US!! One of US!!" chants begins? I haven't had enough kool-aid for that, I don't think.

Question to you: Would you, if it was offered today, reject Aero 3 + 18 sec Dia? Have you never asked for "healers to have their SB damage kits back"? (Why I say 18 sec is: That was the SB duration of Aero 2: https://ffxiv.gamerescape.com/wiki/A...sion%20History

"Patch 4.0 Stormblood release:
Cast time has been made instant.
Damage over time duration increased from 12 to 18 seconds."

...hence I'm literally saying "People were asking for the SB healer DPS rotations for the last several YEARS, how about we do that?" "NOOO! You're a Sylphie that wants to be lazy and get clears and also you smell! Everyone laugh at Ren because I said he smelled! Look at all the Likes on my post for insulting Ren!!!"

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Plus side, at least you got my issue with Barb Ex correct, unlike a certain someone. Of all the people constantly bickering with me, and you CAN be snarky and over the top with sarcasm and caricature as well, but you typically are the most fair of an unfair lot, and I do genuinely appreciate that much.

It's also why I think the "Lilikrasia" idea has merit.

EDIT:

remember that time he made the thread asking if Sch would be happy with their SB kit back and when lots of people told him yes, he said they were wrong and they actually meant no?

Oh, look, another lie. Good GOD you people have plenty. Seems to support my "you guys aren't arguing against me, you're arguing against your own made up strawmen/boogiemen".

I didn't say "they were wrong and they actually meant no".

I said people have been asking for exactly SB SCH and was pointing out that wasn't exactly what people really wanted. Because people weren't saying "yes". People were saying "Sorta, what I really want is that plus some other stuff". One of my annoyances in life is when people aren't honest about what they're asking for, or they're asking for something that they can leverage to get more later, or when they may not realize what they're asking for isn't really what they want.

The thread overall was "We would accept that, but we really want more".

WAY TO GO lying about yet another thing.

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If you guys spent as much time reading and bothering to try understanding what I'm saying as you spend apparently daydreaming alternate made up things for me to have said so you can not only lie about them then but lie about them later to make me look bad in completely unrelated threads with different groups of people in an effort at ad hominem fallacy and you look batter/more justified in doing so, I daresay we'd already have worked out a solution everyone can agree with!

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What's telling is that only Ty answered the question put back to you on what I really think, and even he couldn't do it right, instead ending up with a mix of caricature and lies. Even Roe couldn't get it right. And as Shurrikan pointed out, we've been having these arguments and discussions for 2 years. By now, you guys should be well versed in what I think, yet not ONE OF YOU managed to get it right of the few who even bothered trying to answer the question, and of those who did try, not only did they get it wrong (special mention to Roe for getting a separate thing, the BarbEx issue, right, at least), they presented my position from more than a year ago, ignoring how far I've shifted TOWARDS your argument with time while you guys have shifted EVEN FURTHER towards more DPS. And not one of you was able to present an "At your best", despite me at least offering you that.

Because I actually DO care about your needs and what you want and what you say you want on an overall level, collectively (and in some cases, individually), and I actually DO care about having a good faith discussion that may yield something useful of a way forward.

Unlike you lot, which...don't care at all. Not to understand and certainly not to compromise or offer compassion or some agreeable middle ground. Hell, my position is more pro-DPS than your own collective position was 2 years ago!

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ALSO:

WAY TO GO!!! YOU GUYS HAVE SUCCESSFULLY DERAILED YET ANOTHER THREAD!!!

Happy now?

You've managed to take yet another thread that was good discussion, with people presenting arguments and positions for various positions, and derailed it into whatever THIS toxic nonsense is. AGAIN!

And you wonder why Yoshi P doesn't listen to you and why some people aren't inclined to give you what you want...

[Thurmnmurmn]

Sometimes I wonder if Ren forgets what he writes in his other novels sometimes.
He constantly says we're lying but I could go back and find the quotes if I wanted to.

Kinda like how podcasters see a clip of themselves and are like "oh snap! I said that?".

[Aravell]

Hell, I wasn't the one that called you an elitist. YOU called YOURSELF an elitist. More specifically, you said I was stretching to call you an elitist when I...literally did not call you an elitist.

I don't care to entertain that, so I won't other than to say that's pretty selfish and elitist

What's this? Renathras lying and gaslighting someone? THE IRONY!

Anyway, thought you said you'd ignore me, why don't you do that? I no longer have a desire to engage in good faith with you after you slandered me and others to try and win an argument against Sebazy and then attacked my person unprovoked when we were just having a discussion.

Also, I love how when I mentioned your idea was dumb, you claimed I attacked you. But you don't see it as an attack when you call me selfish and elitist. Double standards much?

[Sebazy]

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?

CJ_Here_we_go_again.jpg

Correction, WHM was locked out of the oGCD game, SCH was doing just fine swinging 2 distinct GCDs around.

Theorycrafting was absolutely not in it's infancy by HW, just look at the docs Solitude was putting out at the time. Fun fact, go watch Mr Happy talk about Bcob, then look at who's docs and guides he was referring to. If that's not enough, go look at stuff like Blue Gartr and whatnot. The actual theorycrafters mostly had a pretty solid handle on things by the time SCOB was rolling round (basically, people understood SMN by then). It just didn't really filter down until Gordias because it none of this really mattered outside of Coil, staying alive and pressing buttons was more important.

As for Gordias destroying the raid scene, eeeeehhhh, put it this way. After prog was done, I took a hiatus from the hardcore scene and joined team 3 in a substantial social FC called DiZ, we ended up getting 4 teams through Gordias from memory. Trying to suggest it nearly killed the game a second time is laughable. It was hard, it was very very hard, I'm not going to deny that. Yet IMHO Midas was every bit as rough, A6S was *FAR* more brutal than A2S ever was and yet you didn't see people trying to say that this tier also nearly killed the game? Why? People were just pissed that even A3S was annihilating them after we just came from T13 which I legit killed in DF. Did pre nerf T5 nearly kill the game too? What about SCOB Savage? Remember how comically evil that was? Oh....

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.

Healer DPS is still irrelevant outside of Savage to this day. Extremes are tuned to be killed with minutes to spare if people stay alive and do a bang average job of holding their rotations and GCDs. As for why healer dps has steadily become the norm, IMO it's a combination of barriers of entry being removed. Cleric Stance was the big one, but fights being slower and more visibly choreographed is another factor, as is much more abundant self sustained MP resources that aren't reliant on Ballad/Bishop anymore.

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?

If WHM got Aero 3 or an equivalent back coupled with an 18 second Dia adjustment and a replacement for Fluid Aura, I'd honestly be pretty happy. Don't get me wrong, I'd be sad that we didn't get a thundercloud proc (Maybe that could turn Dia into an oGCD proc to fill the Fluid Aura oGCD slot without needing another button++) but I'd absolutely grab that with both hands over what we have now.

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

We were at 2/3rds of our GCDs being required to keep up with sustained healing. If you slash the healer's potency in half again, how do you think that's going to work? The math doesn't math sir.

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.

Serious question, do you think that healers spammed heals on the GCD in Coil? This applies to both WHM and SCH.

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).

What?

https://www.resetera.com/threads/ex-...lopment.63594/
https://www.reddit.com/r/MMORPG/comm...wildstar_fail/

Development was a disaster, the launch was a mess, unlocking content was a nightmare etcetc. But the art style was a cause for it's downfall?

And anyway, I'm not even sure what the point of your comment is? I'm not going to sit here and preach that Warhammer Online was a perfect MMO because it absolutely wasn't. PvE content had the depth of a dinner plate, class balance was pretty awful and EA got cold feet leading into pulling the plug pretty much right out of the gate before Mythic ever really had time to straighten the game out post launch. What Warhammer did have though, was masterfully designed healers, and what Wildstar had was a level cap gameplay loop that pretty much excluded people that weren't willing to knuckle down and put some serious effort in. Thus here I am making the comments that I have.

I'm not throwing out your argument by way of comparing it to wild star, I'm highlighting that your idea of a sustained healing floor is comparable to round the clock Harrowing Hell Normal and that is all that needs to be said. IMHO it would be complete carnage not to mention that it's not really a design philosophy that can be applied to the entire game. Let's not lose sight of what I'm responding to here:

More healing alone CAN work.

Thus no, by your own words, just increasing healing requirements isn't viable as a fix all. IMHO there isn't a single magic bullet that can get healers out of the hole SE has gradually dug for them over the years. Healing needs a fundamental rethink across the board, that includes incoming damage, our kits to deal with it, the utility we can provide to the group when there isn't anything to heal etcetc. The whole damn role needs to be nuked to the ground and reworked from a clean slate IMHO.

So is Warhammer.

Oh really?

https://www.returnofreckoning.com