Do healers actually want a more complex damage rotation?

[Connor]

I mean, I think Flowerkatie has a point as well though.

Like, after all the time people have been requesting stuff like this and the devs have said ‘no’, how many times is that going to repeat until people say ‘well ok then’ (and probably unsubs lol)’.

Ofc I’m not saying we should be happy / accepting of how things are, but at the same time I feel like we also have to consider that maybe the devs just will not budge on this issue.

I mean, whether or not healers can or should have more DPS is it’s own debate, but the devs still refuse to even sit down and have that conversation. But devs are being (frankly) so immature around criticism that they simply keep doubling down; as if they really want to tell us ‘this is just how things are’.

Again not saying that ‘how things are’ is in any way acceptable, but at the same time it is worth considering the fact that the developers are listening to everything healers say, they just don’t want to accept that they may have made design errors

[Tunda]

I mean, I think Flowerkatie has a point as well, though.

Like, after all the time people have been requesting things like this and the devs have said ‘no’, how many times is that going to repeat until people say ‘well, okay then’ (and probably unsubscribe, lol)?

Of course, I’m not saying we should be happy or accepting of how things are, but at the same time, I feel like we also have to consider that maybe the devs just will not budge on this issue.

I mean, whether or not healers can or should have more DPS is its own debate, but the devs still refuse to even sit down and have that conversation. But the devs are being (frankly) so immature around criticism that they simply keep doubling down, as if they really want to tell us ‘this is just how things are’.

Again, I’m not saying that ‘how things are’ is in any way acceptable, but at the same time, it is worth considering that the developers are listening to everything healers say; they just don’t want to accept that they may have made design errors.

I think this is why many people are starting to strike.
If you think people who have a 600+ page thread are overreacting, that means someone is delusional.

Current state of healers have 1 room and that people who like this way of playing the job

But other rooms are locked
Now we have 2 type of players who refuse to change and who refuse to play the job

[Ramiee]

Dear Healers,
Welcome to what it's like to main bard. Get over it, move on.

bard is completely different from healer, bard may press 1 gcd more often then other dps but the amount of oGCDs you press is completely different. The most oGCD heavy healer job is Scholar which has 3 ogcd attacks (if your team isnt useless) every minute and 6 every 3 minutes. compared to bard where you are pressing around 15 per minute.

[Sylvain]

It depends who you ask, some will say yes, some will say no.

People on these forums tend to be more ingaged so there's a prevalence of "good players". Very casual players (like my bf who struggles to heal a basic dungeon with single pull) don't even know there's a forum.

In short, the issue isn't that much "dps vs heal" or "complexe rotation vs 111111 spam", it is just a simple matter of engagement.

In general, casual content allows for mistakes and the healing check is basically "being able to heal people who got hit by 1-2 things they weren't suppose before that unavoidable damage hits the group". Once your group knows how to dodge everything, all that is left are the unavoidable damage which occurs only once every 30s-1min which by themselves aren't really threatening as they're meant to only become threatening after being hit by the previous, dodgable, attacks.

This results in you throwing 1 heal every 30s, usually an ogcd. What else do you do during those 30-60s ? You obviously spam damage because there's litterally nothing else to do. Everyone is at 100% (but the tank slowly dropping by 5% every 3s). Over time, the engagement fades away, the reward for playing well is that your gameplay becomes boring. You spam the same 2-3 buttons out of your 24 skills kit 95% of the fight. Even a very casual healer who end up using Medica2 after *every single aoe* still ends up standing still at some point. I'm currently looking at my bf playing, regular donjon are a scarry thing and yet, during boss fight, even he finds time to dps between those 15 medica1-2 + cureIII simply because there isn't that much to heal even if people get hit by everything. (which they don't)

In harder content (savage/ultimate), being hit by something you're not suppose to usually results in death. The memes "you can't heal stupide" becomes all so true.
Healing is also tighter and does require some planning on the later floors. Since DPS check becomes a real thing, damage is expected. A big part of the fun as a healer comes from the progression, figuring out what heal to put where in order to maximise your dps. Once you've figured out how to heal the mechanics, (by that i mean, which set of cd do you need to avoid using gcd heals as much as possible), then you've reached the same point as a dungeon where everyone dodges everything.

Your first priority is to keep the group alive but it isn't that hard in ff41, and once that's done? then what? well damage obviously.

And this is basically where the argument starts. Some healer consider that this is it, they've done their job, the group is alive, and some would like that once "that" has been figured out, there'd be a bit more things to do to break the boredom of 11111 spam. So it's really not a matter of "wanting a more complex rotation", it's more a matter of "wanting to do something".

I strongly disagree with "healer should only heal" as I personally consider that my job isn't just healing. My job is to contribute to the group to the best of my ability. Because if my job was "only" healing" then imagine a group where healers only heal, tank only hold aggro and dps only dps. Well tank could just spam 1, they'd hold aggro, dps could also spam 1, they'd do dps and healer would just heal... picture a dunjon run like this, it would make for a miserable experience wouldn't it? if the best contribution would be 95% healing action, I'd be fine with it. So long as it is "the best contribution".

Alas, the best I can contribute is made of 95% glare/broil/malefic/dosis spam.
Hence me bevelieving extra dps actions should be added to make that 95% more engaging

[Tunda]

This results in you throwing 1 heal every 30s, usually an ogcd. What else do you do during those 30-60s ? You obviously spam damage because there's litterally nothing else to do. Everyone is at 100% (but the tank slowly dropping by 5% every 3s). Over time, the engagement fades away, the reward for playing well is that your gameplay becomes boring. You spam the same 2-3 buttons out of your 24 skills kit 95% of the fight. Even a very casual healer who end up using Medica2 after *every single aoe* still ends up standing still at some point. I'm currently looking at my bf playing, regular donjon are a
Healing is also tighter and does require some planning on the later floors. Since DPS check becomes a real thing, damage is expected. A big part of the fun as a healer comes from the progression, figuring out what heal to put where in order to maximise your dps. Once you've figured out how to heal the mechanics, (by that i mean, which set of cd do you need to avoid using gcd heals as much as possible), then you've reached the same point as a dungeon where everyone dodges everything.

Your first priority is to keep the group alive but it isn't that hard in ff41, and once that's done? then what? well damage obviously.

And this is basically where the argument starts. Some healer consider that this is it, they've done their job, the group is alive, and some would like that once "that" has been figured out, there'd be a bit more things to do to break the boredom of 11111 spam. So it's really not a matter of "wanting a more complex rotation", it's more a matter of "wanting to do something".

I strongly disagree with "healer should only heal" as I personally consider that my job isn't just healing. My job is to contribute to the group to the best of my ability. Because if my job was "only" healing" then imagine a group where healers only heal, tank only hold aggro and dps only dps. Well tank could just spam 1, they'd hold aggro, dps could also spam 1, they'd do dps and healer would just heal... picture a dunjon run like this, it would make for a miserable experience wouldn't it? if the best contribution would be 95% healing action, I'd be fine with it. So long as it is "the best contribution".

Alas, the best I can contribute is made of 95% glare/broil/malefic/dosis spam.
Hence me bevelieving extra dps actions should be added.

As you mention we are already using the DPS kit 95% of the time

It is better if it was engaging that's all

[flowerkatie]

Your first priority is to keep the group alive but it isn't that hard in ff41, and once that's done? then what? well damage obviously.

Just to clarify, this is my entire argument. The whole issue is: Healing is too easy and/or not needed, therefor we spend most of our time pressing Glare. The only thing we disagree on is the solution.

You and others believe: The solution is to make the damage more engaging since we're doing that most of the time. Rather because you think thats the best solution or you've conceded to the fact SE is ignoring your ideal solution.

I and some believe: The solution should look into the cause of the issue, why do healers spend the majority of their time casting a single GCD for damage? Then fix that so that healers can spend less time doing "filler" and more time supporting. Make encounters require healing that isn't just oGCD, make the encounters demand GCD healing. Build a kit that promotes supporting, not filler.

Nobody is arguing: That we don't want more engaging healer abilities.
Neither am I arguing: That healers should only heal or that we should have no damage abilities

it's more a matter of "wanting to do something"

This is all of us.

[Ramiee]

Meh I still think having both is the best solution.
Having engaging DPS for when you master an encouter would be good make your downtime up along side engaging healing you have to balance at that level as well as heavily focus on during prog.
Honestly both healing and DPS are dogshit for the role theres not really any good system in healers right now.

[Sylvain]

You and others believe: The solution is to make the damage more engaging since we're doing that most of the time. Rather because you think thats the best solution or you've conceded to the fact SE is ignoring your ideal solution.

I and some believe: The solution should focus on fixing the cause of us having to do damage and press 1 button the majority of the time. Which is making healing itself more engaging, making content actually require more healing to force the use of GCDs or change the kit to require it.
.

I agree, I often complain there isn't just not enough damage. The funniest thing to heal is an expert roulette with the tank reaching 5+ vuln or a dps managing to get hit by litterally every possible thing.

One of the problem we got in regard with that is magic resistance on gear.
As we upgrade our gear, we get more hp and healing sure, but also more MR, which reduces damage taken.

So there's a double nerf on healing requirement with stuff. It's hard to balance content when being bis vs min ilv makes such a large difference in the healing requirement.

I've just finished the story so i'll see how EX are this week-end, I'm expecting the same usual amount of damage altough I hope there'll be more.

But since SE doesn't seem to want to increase the overall damage and stick to the "OMEGA BOOM" that you mitigate by 30% every 1min, then... Yes, I'll keep wishing for more dps button, because it seems to be the only thing that can easily be added without making "healing too hard" (because it is one of their concern).

But who knows, maybe there'll be a lack of healer because "healing is too easy" and they'll end up ramping up... or both!

[flowerkatie]

I agree, I often complain there isn't just not enough damage. The funniest thing to heal is an expert roulette with the tank reaching 5+ vuln or a dps managing to get hit by litterally every possible thing.

Unrelated but me being a bozo, on my first time on one of the level 100 dungeons I died and so did a DPS. We then watched as the tank and DPS got the boss from 90% HP to dead. It was depressing to realize that even if I was alive, my only utility to that fight would've been my Glare, DoT and Afflatus Misery because evidently, nobody needed healing.

[Azurarok]

Better than what we have now at least.

Scholar from my memory was pretty bad in dungeons damage wise (though mitigation was great.) Also due to old jank the dots could be a bit messy.
For the other two I didn't play them much but I think Astro hasn't changed that much, they just had a second dot.
White mage I think had a couple of strong attacks on CD you would use which may or may not of been oGCD. I'm not sure if this went away in stormblood but as a DPS you would keep your lower level DPS spells, you'd have stone 1 and stone 2 for example and the weaker dots. They had niche uses.

Really I think what most people feel mixed on is cleric stance. It's really the healers equivalent of Dark Arts, people either loved it or hated it.

Pretty sure cleric stance was turned into just a damage buff in SB, while the stance dancing was a thing up through HW. The spell upgrades being separate also was a pre-SB thing. I think the only thing WHM had outside its current kit in SB was AeroIII.