Brainstorming DPS rotation changes for healers

[Hyperia]

In my opinion, I would rather that healing itself become more necessary and interesting and spend the resources making dps more interesting on the dps jobs.

[Jojoya]

How about no.

Seriously. The community needs to stop pushing for better DPS rotations on healers. I've been in a few too many dungeons so far this expansion where I wasn't healing and regretting it because the healer was way too focused on DPS to notice the tank was dead while I was trying to kite the mobs around to survive a couple of extra seconds to give the healer a chance to rez the tank just for all of us to end up dying because the healer was too busy playing DPS.

Healer then asks: what just happened?

Hello? You weren't healing. The tank died. I died. The other DPS died. You died. And you don't know what happened?

What's even worse is when it happens again 5 minutes later because they still can't be bothered to interrupt their DPS spam to toss the chain pulling tank a heal to keep them alive.

If this is how some healers are with a very limited DPS kit, there shouldn't be access to a more robust DPS kit. They need to focus on actual healing and not where they are in a DPS rotation.

This is the community's fault for pushing the "healers are required to DPS" mantra when they should be pushing "healers are required to heal, DPS should only be an afterthought" instead.

If a party is wiping, it's not because the healer isn't DPSing. It's because the healer isn't healing, or the DPS are bad at dealing damage, or anyone and everyone in the group is bad at doing the mechanics.

High-end raid healers may be able to pull off both healing and DPS in equal measure. The average healer usually can't.

If you're that obsessed with DPS rotations then please play DPS instead of healer.

[Supersnow845]

How about no.

Seriously. The community needs to stop pushing for better DPS rotations on healers. I've been in a few too many dungeons so far this expansion where I wasn't healing and regretting it because the healer was way too focused on DPS to notice the tank was dead while I was trying to kite the mobs around to survive a couple of extra seconds to give the healer a chance to rez the tank just for all of us to end up dying because the healer was too busy playing DPS.

Healer then asks: what just happened?

Hello? You weren't healing. The tank died. I died. The other DPS died. You died. And you don't know what happened?

What's even worse is when it happens again 5 minutes later because they still can't be bothered to interrupt their DPS spam to toss the chain pulling tank a heal to keep them alive.

If this is how some healers are with a very limited DPS kit, there shouldn't be access to a more robust DPS kit. They need to focus on actual healing and not where they are in a DPS rotation.

This is the community's fault for pushing the "healers are required to DPS" mantra when they should be pushing "healers are required to heal, DPS should only be an afterthought" instead. If a party is wiping, it's not because the healer isn't DPSing. High-end raid healers may be able to pull off both in equal measure. The average healer usually can't.

If you're that obsessed with DPS rotations then please play DPS instead of healer.

Then apply this equally

I had a tank who didn’t mitigate in strayborough last night- ergo tanks can’t actually handle their rotations and need 1111111111 spam and 30 extra ramparts in their kit to ensure they know what they were doing

I had a PCT in tower of paradigms breach that never painted a muse, they just pressed 1-2-3 and occasionally flipped to 4-5-6 at seemingly random intervals. Obviously DPS are too complex for the DPS and they need 1111111111 and 30 random 300 potency nukes they press whenever they want

Applying the “bad healers I have had on the roulette means the entire role has to be baby proofed” is incredibly flawed as it’s logical endpoint is the player barely even playing the game because the devs are too scared of anyone making a mistake

[mallleable]

A potential healer DPS rotation would have to be kept very simple as they would have to be able to stop it and be a healer at any time. For WHM it could be a simple as every 3 or so Glares cast you get access to an instant Banish or some other instant aero/stone/water spell. AST could have a GCD spell that has its cool down reduced every time you cast Malefic or Gravity, as well as be given Double Cast from PVP. SCH could get a DPS fairy to summon, and it works like Fray/Queen. SGE they just need to make some tweaks to the Toxikon system to allow it to be more aggressively used.

[TheDustyOne]

Then apply this equally

I had a tank who didn’t mitigate in strayborough last night- ergo tanks can’t actually handle their rotations and need 1111111111 spam and 30 extra ramparts in their kit to ensure they know what they were doing

I had a PCT in tower of paradigms breach that never painted a muse, they just pressed 1-2-3 and occasionally flipped to 4-5-6 at seemingly random intervals. Obviously DPS are too complex for the DPS and they need 1111111111 and 30 random 300 potency nukes they press whenever they want

Applying the “bad healers I have had on the roulette means the entire role has to be can’t proofed” is incredibly flawed as it’s logical endpoint is the player barely even playing the game because the devs are too scared of anyone making a mistake

Ultimately, you can't make something fool-proof; the universe makes an even bigger fool to test it. The healer who had no game sense to heal when the tank was about to die would be just as clueless if you took away the glare spam. The next excuse would then be "remove mechanics, bad healers can't focus on health bars when they're too busy moving to the right spot".

At some point you have to realise that a game has to have some kind of mechanical engagement, otherwise it's no different than a movie. Removing tools and abilities that people enjoyed in the past for the sake of bad players only alienates good players, it doesn't turn the bad players good.

A potential healer DPS rotation would have to be kept very simple as they would have to be able to stop it and be a healer at any time. For WHM it could be a simple as every 3 or so Glares cast you get access to an instant Banish or some other instant aero/stone/water spell. AST could have a GCD spell that has its cool down reduced every time you cast Malefic or Gravity, as well as be given Double Cast from PVP. SCH could get a DPS fairy to summon, and it works like Fray/Queen. SGE they just need to make some tweaks to the Toxikon system to allow it to be more aggressively used.

I'd argue that healer DPS should be malleable (heh) in that it doesn't matter how simple or complex, you can swap to healing on a dime and back based on the needs of the fight. Bonus points if the healing and DPS kits have some interactivity to it like WHM does with Misery or SGE with Toxikon, just don't make it as useless as Toxikon and that's also a step in the right direction. To add on to your suggestions, you could make it so Aspected Benefic/Helios affects that spells cooldown or Adlos shield being broken works toward that DPS fairy.

[Selvokaz]

You could check my brief view on the status on the healer role for starters

[NegativeS]

How about no.

Seriously. The community needs to stop pushing for better DPS rotations on healers. I've been in a few too many dungeons so far this expansion where I wasn't healing and regretting it because the healer was way too focused on DPS to notice the tank was dead while I was trying to kite the mobs around to survive a couple of extra seconds to give the healer a chance to rez the tank just for all of us to end up dying because the healer was too busy playing DPS.

Healer then asks: what just happened?

Hello? You weren't healing. The tank died. I died. The other DPS died. You died. And you don't know what happened?

What's even worse is when it happens again 5 minutes later because they still can't be bothered to interrupt their DPS spam to toss the chain pulling tank a heal to keep them alive.

If this is how some healers are with a very limited DPS kit, there shouldn't be access to a more robust DPS kit. They need to focus on actual healing and not where they are in a DPS rotation.

This is the community's fault for pushing the "healers are required to DPS" mantra when they should be pushing "healers are required to heal, DPS should only be an afterthought" instead.

If a party is wiping, it's not because the healer isn't DPSing. It's because the healer isn't healing, or the DPS are bad at dealing damage, or anyone and everyone in the group is bad at doing the mechanics.

High-end raid healers may be able to pull off both healing and DPS in equal measure. The average healer usually can't.

If you're that obsessed with DPS rotations then please play DPS instead of healer.

Well, let me say that the bad gameplay of one subset of people should not define how the class works. If games were designed always with the lowest common denominator of player skill in mind, there would be no interesting games.

When new players start the game, they are gently pushed in the direction of in-game training content, but aren't actually required to do it. And when they actually get into dungeon content, giving significant resistance to players who haven't bothered to learn their role is woefully against the ToS.

The game doesn't require learning of you. This doesn't mean everything needs to cater to people who don't want to improve.

(EDIT: I spent so long typing this reply that two people said the exact same thing before me)

[Aravell]

People keep bringing up the possibility that people will hyperfocus on their damage buttons and refuse to do their main role if more damage buttons are added. Well guess what? It's already happening as it is with 1 single filler button so the massively simplified damage kit isn't forcing people to be good at healing either, so why be so stuck on keeping it?

Also, I want to point out that in HW (you know, the height of complexity?), content was being cleared regularly in DF, the most you'd get is a healer apologising for double-tapping Cleric Stance, then everyone has a laugh and moves on. Where was all the SCHs that mass-wiped every dungeon they were in because they had more than 1 DoT and 1 filler? Where was all the WHMs that couldn't heal properly because they had 3 DoTs?

People need to stop pushing this boogeyman that adding a couple extra buttons will immediately wipe the brains of every healer and turn them into DPS monkey brain. The people who are DPS monkey brain will wipe you no matter what the damage kit looks like.

[Atmaweapon510]

Try to start with simpler concepts and don’t force a choice between damage and healing on resources. You would have to do that across every single healer or risk balance being thrown out of whack, and it’s bad enough when healers are playing chicken with each-other over gcds because mitigation and cooldowns weren’t spaced well. Also, unless it’s very tightly balanced, it will just mean all the the healing responsibilities will be funneled onto the regen healer throwing out one aoe regen to make up for all of the resources being dumped into damage. Like, with your WHM suggestion, you would never cast Assize instead of Worldswrath because you can just replace a Glare for Medica 3 1000+ healing potency and then you’re ahead on both healing and damage compared to Assize.

Ideally just have one theme for each healer and make it fluid enough like PCT where they have leeway rearrange their damage spells/abilities. This is off the top of my head:

WHM- The longcast healer. They get a 3 second cast spell with 3 charges and a 20 second cooldown. Using 3 charges unlocks an instant cast damage spell with a 30 second recast (prevents doubling up during buffs).
This makes WHM the “caster” of the healers where they just need to find openings to do a long cast, and getting an instant cast helps offsets the ogcd opportunity costs from the long casts. Simple, flexible, and gives a little extra optimization during raid buff windows.

[Lyndina]

Nahh, healer rotations are fine. Sure...could be more engaging...but healing is more then just spam your heals...watch the list if anyone gets damage, watch the boss mechanics, throw in some "easy" damage skills without to much thought behind. If we get rotation im 99 percent sure, healers would rather finish their combos like dps instead of healing the group up. Its designed so that you wont get to "stressed" out about thinking doing optimal rotations.