I'm bored when I heal because I need more complex DPS rotations

[Rein_eon_Osborne]

I play a healer precisely because I suck at complex dps rotations. I can perform at a mediocre level as dancer or red mage, but beyond that, no, I'm bad at dps. If healer dps rotations became more complex, and I was expected to perform at a certain dps level as a healer, I could no longer play FFXIV. I don't want my healer dps rotation to become more complex. If anything has to change, I'd prefer healing itself become slightly more challenging (emphasis on the slightly). If you want complex dps rotations, there's a plethora of dps jobs that can provide that. Healer's may be capable and expected to provide dps, but that's not their primary role, and complicating their dps will just reinforce the idea that healers are just green dps. That's not a notion I think should be reinforced.

Then don't engage that 'complex dps rotation'. It's that easy. Why do you care about the 'expectation to perform at certain dps level as a healer' if you want to heal?

Oh that's right~ Because today's 'dps rotation' for healer is so braindead easy people start expecting us to actually dps. It's easy, right? So how do people even mess that up?!

Now what if the rotation is harder... maybe people wouldn't bat an eye if we make a mistake... yeah... those times existed...

[ty_taurus]

Then don't engage that 'complex dps rotation'. It's that easy. Why do you care about the 'expectation to perform at certain dps level as a healer' if you want to heal?

Oh that's right~ Because today's 'dps rotation' for healer is so braindead easy people start expecting us to actually dps. It's easy, right? So how do people even mess that up?!

Now what if the rotation is harder... maybe people wouldn't bat an eye if we make a mistake... yeah... those times existed...

If we look back at Cleric Stance days, there was a legitimate argument about whether or not a healer should DPS, and people not wanting to, but a large portion of the "I don't want to DPS" crowd, were not antagonistic sylphies, but people who were afraid to use Cleric Stance because it was a requirement to contribute any amount of DPS. Many would chime in with something to the effect of "I don't mind doing a little DPS, but I want to make sure I know the fight first." or "I don't want to cause my team to wipe if I use Cleric Stance at the wrong time." And I still think those were valid concerns and a justification as to why Cleric Stance was to be removed. But that was never who the players who promoted healer DPS were arguing against. It was the people who didn't want to touch DPS buttons on principle, because what that meant was players idling for more than half the fight doing nothing not because they can't, but because they won't.

And that's the core distinguishing factor between what DPS is expected of a healer and what isn't. What's expected is that you'll actually try--put any amount of effort into always trying to help the party regardless of whether healing is needed or not. In other words, they just want you to do your best, not freeload off the rest of the party. Very few people actually care how good of a job you do as long as you're trying. And that's true of other roles too. Once you start getting into Extreme and Savage content, you are required to have some level of competency with your job enough to meet the DPS requirements of actually clearing the fight, but few people care whether you're parsing grey or parsing pink. People care more that you're doing the mechanics correctly, because if everyone's doing the mechanics correctly, the DPS check is rarely an issue.

[Rein_eon_Osborne]

snip

Tbf, it was merely an assumption made from reading old iteration of these jobs & their intricacies without firsthand experience, so I might not be making a good judgment.

Looking back at old SCH, (CMIIW) they had Bio I at 18s, Bio II at 30s, Miasma at 24s, crossed Aero I at 18s, and Shadowflare at 30s. On top of that, those were the time when Cleric Stance merely swaps INT/MND back & forth (to my understanding), which means any dps spells cast not under Cleric would’ve just tickle the boss. After that, I took a brief look on how HW encounters looked like, I’m like… “Unless I’m seeing a live recorded gameplay, I will never believe anybody who claimed they can play this old SCH ‘perfectly’ consistently all the while responding to random mistakes.”—because I think that seems impossible to pull off.

Will I blame them for messing up their dps rotation? No, I can’t—I won’t. That monstrosity of a rotation is just unrealistic to pull off. I will not ‘expect’ them to even dps ‘decently’ either because how punishing mistakes were. I find such concern that scares healers from even turning on their Cleric Stance is such a valid, very relatable concern. Not to mention the Trashologification of nuke cast time never existed back then, we all had to sit still and cast for 2.5s!!

And that’s where I think where the beauty lies: because it was impossible to perfect, it turns into “I will try my best to mitigate any potential losses and see where this will take me.”

Today? See those “Why do you cast Medica II???”-meme. See those 1 2 1 1 1 ‘rotation’. It’s so easy that we went toward “How do you even mess up a 1 button rotation???”. Unsurprisingly, we’re also seeing similar phenomenon on today: BLM & SMN. BLM messing up and making mistake? ”That’s fine, they will learn, they had it hard”, etc. SMN make mistake? “How do you mess up with 89% mobility per minute? How can you even miss casting Addle with that many weaving space/instants/not much to weave? Etc.”

I’m not even asking for ‘red dps complexity’ rotation or wanting the janky cleric stance back. But I also don’t want this craptastic 1 2 1 1 1. I want the middle ground.

[ty_taurus]

I’m not even asking for ‘red dps complexity’ rotation or wanting the janky cleric stance back. But I also don’t want this craptastic 1 2 1 1 1. I want the middle ground.

Literally no one is, which is why it baffles me every time someone breaks the damn door down and sprays spit yelling at everyone how DPS rotations that are as complex as DPS jobs will ruin healers.

And yeah, if you casted your DPS spells outside of Cleric Stance, the damage was so low that it wouldn't be worth the MP you spent. Hop on Summoner and heal with Physick. Those are the kind of numbers you'd be seeing with healer DPS outside of Cleric Stance back then. Inversely, when you were in Cleric Stance, that's the kind of healing you'd put out if you were healing in that stance. It was an OGCD action in an era with very little weaving windows. Like I think the only way White Mage could weave it without clipping was through casting Regen first, but it didn't actually take a weave slot to drop the stance. You just had to not be casting and it would fall off without animation. That said, once you entered Cleric Stance, it had a cooldown of about 10 or 15 seconds I think (I don't remember exactly) before you could remove it, locking you into DPS for that period, but there was no cooldown after you ended the stance. You could very easily double-cast it, dropping the stance and then immediately restart it without meaning to, if you clicked it more than once, which given how much laggier the game used to be was also quite scary.

This is why it was ultimately removed and healer DPS was changed to scale off Mind instead. Which was the only change they really needed to make to end the conflict. Even with the healers having almost as many DPS spells as they had in Heavensward, suddenly there were far less arguments about healer DPS.

[Mithron]

Literally no one is, which is why it baffles me every time someone breaks the damn door down and sprays spit yelling at everyone how DPS rotations that are as complex as DPS jobs will ruin healers.

And yeah, if you casted your DPS spells outside of Cleric Stance, the damage was so low that it wouldn't be worth the MP you spent. Hop on Summoner and heal with Physick. Those are the kind of numbers you'd be seeing with healer DPS outside of Cleric Stance back then. Inversely, when you were in Cleric Stance, that's the kind of healing you'd put out if you were healing in that stance. It was an OGCD action in an era with very little weaving windows. Like I think the only way White Mage could weave it without clipping was through casting Regen first, but it didn't actually take a weave slot to drop the stance. You just had to not be casting and it would fall off without animation. That said, once you entered Cleric Stance, it had a cooldown of about 10 or 15 seconds I think (I don't remember exactly) before you could remove it, locking you into DPS for that period, but there was no cooldown after you ended the stance. You could very easily double-cast it, dropping the stance and then immediately restart it without meaning to, if you clicked it more than once, which given how much laggier the game used to be was also quite scary.

This is why it was ultimately removed and healer DPS was changed to scale off Mind instead. Which was the only change they really needed to make to end the conflict. Even with the healers having almost as many DPS spells as they had in Heavensward, suddenly there were far less arguments about healer DPS.

Cleric Stance would lock you in for 4 seconds, so it was a commitment to DPS during that time. That was largely what made it so dang fun; you had to think about when to use it, and it came with the risk of you using it at the exact same time some party members made mistakes. You could still Raise just fine with it on, and Benediction. Certain other actions like Aquaveil would've been great to use as well since they just use damage reduction % independent of your own stats, but it was gone well before then.

I really enjoyed Cleric Stance (and tank stance) stance dancing, it was some of the most fun I've ever had in any video game ever. Instead of removing it, they should've just made it less clunky. That 4 seconds of commitment isn't much different than you doing RDM sword combos currently; there's a large time window between you doing damage and being able to use Verraise viably, doubly moreso now that the sword combo is a lot longer and you do 3 of them at a time sometimes. It makes for very interesting and fun decisions that are dynamic per fight based on your party members, which is even more variable in DF/PF.

I play a healer precisely because I suck at complex dps rotations. I can perform at a mediocre level as dancer or red mage, but beyond that, no, I'm bad at dps. If healer dps rotations became more complex, and I was expected to perform at a certain dps level as a healer, I could no longer play FFXIV. I don't want my healer dps rotation to become more complex. If anything has to change, I'd prefer healing itself become slightly more challenging (emphasis on the slightly). If you want complex dps rotations, there's a plethora of dps jobs that can provide that. Healer's may be capable and expected to provide dps, but that's not their primary role, and complicating their dps will just reinforce the idea that healers are just green dps. That's not a notion I think should be reinforced.

If you can clear content as a healer, you can most definitely clear content as any other job in the game. Healers are harder than PLD/DNC/RDM/SMN. In the end, all DPS rotations are just understanding concepts, building muscle memory, and slight variations on a per fight basis. It's not as difficult as healing. If you perceive it as easier, it's due to an illogical belief that DPS is scary for some reason. Which I mean is your thing, but that doesn't mean healers shouldn't have more complex DPS rotations anyway. Your illogical trauma or whatever it is shouldn't define how everyone else is forced to play the game.

[Aravell]

Today? See those “Why do you cast Medica II???”-meme. See those 1 2 1 1 1 ‘rotation’. It’s so easy that we went toward “How do you even mess up a 1 button rotation???”. Unsurprisingly, we’re also seeing similar phenomenon on today: BLM & SMN. BLM messing up and making mistake? ”That’s fine, they will learn, they had it hard”, etc. SMN make mistake? “How do you mess up with 89% mobility per minute? How can you even miss casting Addle with that many weaving space/instants/not much to weave? Etc.”

It's always funny to me that people who dislike doing damage will always oppose more damage options even though having a more in-depth damage kit would make it so less people will expect you to be perfect at it. It's easy to be perfect at current healer damage kits, it was not at all easy to be perfect back in HW.