A summary of healer issues

[Renathras]

On a small tangent, I've been working on a different Sage rework concept lately that I'm feeling really happy with if anyone wants to take a look at this document. I'm trying to add as much information as possible to what's different and what the logic is behind certain things with highlighting and footnotes, so I hope it's nice and readable. May turn sharing off in the future if I go back and play with things some more, but I think there's a lot of promise in something like this.

Hm, let's give it a read.

I like how you took my WHM Lily concept to use it with Addersgall (abilities can be used with or without it, but it generates something extra if they are used with it up, consuming it in the process)

Personally, I think Kardia should have no recast time. Let people hot-swap it to reward play. It works this way in PvP and I think it's an improvement since it reinforces (and actually FORCES) that SGE is meant to heal via Kardia primarily.

"Healing Actions GCD" = "Healing Spells GCD"?

Why does Diagnosis have no MP cost? I like it's effects otherwise, but it should have an MP cost, imo. Unless we're just going to make all the Healer basic heals work like the old PvP system where they can be cast infinitely with no resource issues? I do like that it increases when used on a shielded target. The Esuna effect seems meaningless, but also harmless, so...

Eukrasian Diagnosis looks good. Streamline Addersting generation.

Prognosis - Again, why 0MP? Also, why the faster cast time than the current one 2 sec?

I DON'T, on the other hand, like what you did with Durochole and Ixochole. The barrier interaction is fine, but making them medium-ish CD instead of resource based I do not approve of.

You didn't change the Hams, which kinda sucks. I like them, but I wish they were useable more often (even if in lesser form), but meh, as it's no change I can't really be upset about it vs the status quo.

Soma - Is that how Papa Lev's worked? I thought it reduced damage taken, not healed damage after taken. I do like the idea of his big barrier thing being a level 100 capstone, but not sure if this form of it or not. I do like the wall protecting people behind it, though, but I feel it should be a damage reduction. It can ALSO refund damage, though. Because why NOT have yet another oGCD that does that...?

Why remove the MP cost of Dosis and Eu Dosis? And why change the DoT name, since that's just slightly more confusing for no reason.

Dyskrasia was renamed (so the Eukrasia version doesn't make anti-sense in Greek), fair enough. It's now ranged because? I guess I don't mind, since I like the option to be at range anyway. Just seems to make it a better Gravity, but whatever. Why does it have an MP cost while Dosis does not? And why bother with the MP restoration then? Why not make it JUST not cost MP to begin with and restore MP? I get you want it to maybe not be used on single target as a go-to spell (but the lower damage should ensure that), so it seems to not make sense. Not to mention it can't be used as a general MP tool and in practice, all AOE pulls (dungeons) will have more than 4 targets anyway, so a flat MP increase with no costs would make more sense for basically all cases.

Eukrasian versoin - Ah, so that's why you changed the DoT name. Why not just give it its own name and say they can't stack? But meh, neutral towards that and I've felt they should have a Eukrasia Dyskrasia that is an AOE DoT anyway. Again, same thing with the MP cost/regen being a bad idea, imo, but the base concept of the spell as an AOE DoT I don't necessarily have an issue with.

Plegma - WHY ON EARTH did you keep the near melee range on this thing after changing Dyskrasia? And I'm against the increases target damage taken by 10%, because that runs us into the same "too many debuffs" thing. If it's going to be a debuff on a target/targets, it should affect all party member damage to them. If not, it should just be a self-upkeep buff like Storm's Eye.

Polydipsia - Selfish Pneuma? That is, only applying to the Kardia target? I don't have a problem with this (Soteria as its own button is silly anyway), though it seems......I dunno, can't put my finger on it, so I'll say I'm fine with it for the time being.

Eukrasia version - Makes an AOE instead for two casts. I'd rather THAT be a separate button not tied to an attack, but I also don't mind this too much since I think the kit should have more Kardia interaction including a way to AOE heal with it. I'm just not sure two 170 heals is sufficient for that, but...

Bia I have no issue with other than it seeming weird to me for some reason. I think Zoe as its own ability makes more sense, but my bigger issue with Zoe is that it only works on ONE ability (same issue I have with Thin Air). This doesn't fix that problem, it just makes it more clunky. Maybe have it be for the next 2-4 heals or a 10 sec duration instead, I dunno.

Eu Bia, on the other hand, I don't like at all. This is SB Lily (initial incarnation)/Aetherflow all over again, and I didn't like the mechanic then, either. Granted, in WHM's case it was just part of a host of other problems. This is especially bad if we have 2 min meta still, though less so if we don't. In general, I don't think that abilities like that should work this way. I think Rhizomata is a far better button for that as it works. If this just flat generated an Addersgall, that might be better, but it has no CD and you've removed most MP costs from everything else, making it spamable, so that could be bad.

Katarrh - Why? That said, I all the time say Plegma should be a 20 sec CD instead of 40 sec. BUT, it also needs to be GCD so it can break up the Dosis spam. Making this oGCD seems bad. I feel like it should be a GCD instead and just do Dosis + 140 potency instead. Better that way. Make it a shorter CD Plegma so players can break up the GCD chain more, and the charges prevent the issue of worrying about delaying it a second or two.

Aside: You have Anamnesis listed further below, had to scroll some to even find it. WHY are there two... ...I'll get back to that. But for this moment, Eu Anamnesis does a 15 yard circle AOE. That'll be important in a moment.

Dyskrasia - Ugh. Okay...hm. So I don't hate this idea - it's Continuation, and I don't hate that - but good god, I dislike the scattered pattern AOEs. I never hated Overpower being a cone on Warrior. I hated Mythril Tempest being a circle. It should have been made a cone instead. SGE isn't a Melee DPSer. So maneuvering around the enemy to swap between AOE pattern types doesn't have the gameplay advantage it would on, say, SMN (I honestly still hate they changed the two seal thing into a circle, the cone was way cooler). I think like with WAR, the 1-2 these generate should be unified in AOE type. So if Plegma is a cone, Edema should be a cone. If Plegma is a near-melee range circle, Edema should be a near-melee range circle. If Euskrasian Anamnesis has a 0 yard range and 15 yalm radius, so should Somnia, not the 25 y range and 5 y radius. Likewise Toxicon has a 25 y range and 5 y radius, so Anathema should as well.

Right now, you have Plegma's "combo" as a cone (which is CLOSE ENOUGH given what Plegma is), but you have Somnia and Anathema swapped from what they should be. Why would you use a 0 y range 15 y radius after a 25 y range 5 y radius ability? Why would you use a 25 y range 5 y radius ability after a 0 y range 15 y radius ability? Just unify those together to where like leads into like. That'd be like if GNB Hypervelocity (single target Continuation) was a continuation from Fated Circle (AOE gauge spender) and if Burst Strike (single target gauge spender) had a continuation that was an AOE. It just doesn't make sense and would probably not be fun for most players in general, as well as inject a lot of unnecessary anti-intuitive mechanic for no really good reason.

I kind of like where you're going with Proto-Pneuma and Pneuma, though all this really does is "how can we make Pneuma more clunky and unresponsive?" I'd put the heal on the first one instead and have the second one as just a fun "kaboom" damage ability.

Holos is now a worse Assize. Thanks I hate it. Kudos on giving it 1 charges, though; Assize could use that. And it's a GCD now. No no no. I like Holos' PRESENT form far better, thank you muchly. I honestly think I get what you're going for at this point - making MP the resource you manage for heals, and trying to have GCD heals be damage neutral while granting various effects. I just REALLY happen to like current Holos and would really dislike this being what it became. That said, doing this with Assize I'd probably not mind much at all provided WHM's MP economy was balanced around it.

Ah, Anamnesis...why? Why is there a base version? The Eukrasian version is literally better in every way, so you'd never use the base version. The only think I can think of is you want the base version to be a way to generate Addersting, I guess...but you could just do that with the AOE damage version and call it a day. This seems to be a bit more a case of clunk for the sake of clunk than meaningful decision. Your options are use base Anamnesis into Toxicon into Anathema or Eukrasian Anamnesis into Somnia. But they both do the same damage, so the only question there would be if you wanted an AOE sleep or wanted AOE magic reduction damage, I suppose. But you could just get there by using a Eukrasia heal then Toxicon then Anathema anyway. I just...I see this as more unnecessarily clunky than generating meaningful choice in most cases. Especially since you'll probably be using Eu Anamnesis every 15ish seconds (or whatever you feel you need) anyway to keep the refresh up. As Toxicon isn't a damage gain here, just a mitigation gain, you'd just sit on Addersting charges until you needed it and would rather generate them in general by using Eu Diagnosis/Prognosis anyway while refreshing Anamnesis via Eukrasian Anamnesis.

.

I dunno, some good ideas, some a bit convoluted ideas that are still okay, and some unnecessary clunk.

I'd combine Anamnesis and Eukrasian Anamnesis into a single ability, change Zoe to be a short duration effect, unify the AOE shape/profiles of the Continuation effects, give Plegma a 25y range, put the heal on the up-front Proto-Pneuma, remove Eukrasian Bia, give Soma a damage reduction, leave Holos as it is today, and remove the CD from Kardia.

.

While that DOES sound like a lot...honestly, the rest of your idea I somewhat like a lot of. So...

...consider this critical, but not antagonistic feedback. While I mentioned 9 things here (which seems like a lot), I like the core of what you've created and how it works for the most part. So kudos on that, not bad at all, my man.

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EDIT2:

Ugh, HOWEVER, so we can ruin this otherwise feel good moment...

Can you cite a job that did not receive any new actions of any kind at the release of one of the past expansions?

EDIT: Also, the reason why I wanted to require answers was specifically so that percentages took into consideration those who did not want xyz. If you could skip that question, then it would seem like the requests for more attack buttons would be even higher. I did it specifically for your benefit actually, so that the desire to see more attack options wasn't being exaggerated by a lack of votes. You voting "other" and not hitting "more attack options" reduces the total percentage of players choosing that option.

Past need not be prologue, especially since "add more attack" is already the opposite direction they've been taking Healers. ESPECIALLY since we agree Healer kits are already a little bloated (your SGE rework is partly addressing that) and that things like ability upgrades or charges, etc, could be an effective answer, and that the continued additions also sometimes lead to un-creative "checking a box" additions, such as Aquaveil/Exaltation/Protraction (at least one of these was probably a "Well, we're giving the OTHER Healers 2 actions...so how can we make this JUST different enough it doesn't seem lazy?")

And while I suspect you think you were doing it "for my benefit" (I'm not sure I believe that, but for the sake of argument I'll give you the benefit of the doubt), the problem is that you are ASSUMING everyone who doesn't want new actions will select Other instead of just the first option on the list. Secondarily, the question allows multiple answers, so for example, someone could click all of them at the same time. In neither case does that support the "leave things alone" side of the coin.

[ty_taurus]

Ugh, HOWEVER, so we can ruin this otherwise feel good moment...

Past need not be prologue, especially since "add more attack" is already the opposite direction they've been taking Healers. ESPECIALLY since we agree Healer kits are already a little bloated (your SGE rework is partly addressing that) and that things like ability upgrades or charges, etc, could be an effective answer, and that the continued additions also sometimes lead to un-creative "checking a box" additions, such as Aquaveil/Exaltation/Protraction (at least one of these was probably a "Well, we're giving the OTHER Healers 2 actions...so how can we make this JUST different enough it doesn't seem lazy?")

And while I suspect you think you were doing it "for my benefit" (I'm not sure I believe that, but for the sake of argument I'll give you the benefit of the doubt), the problem is that you are ASSUMING everyone who doesn't want new actions will select Other instead of just the first option on the list. Secondarily, the question allows multiple answers, so for example, someone could click all of them at the same time. In neither case does that support the "leave things alone" side of the coin.

I don't know why you chose to take this as an attack. It really wasn't. MMOs do not have the choice to leave things alone and not add or change things, because that is a massive source of interest you generate from the players. If they did not have a 7.0 job actions trailer and stated that jobs were not getting any changes or new actions, there would be hell to pay. Even if they one day release the perfect expansion where nothing can be improved on, they still need to change that the next time, or you risk major negative press for your game, which could potentially ruin it.

As for the questions, noted. Next time when I do feedback surveys for 7.0, I'll just leave it optional and see what happens. Your vote won't be counted toward or against any of the categories.

EDIT: Also, isn't this sentence an oxymoron? "Past need not be prologue, especially since "add more attack" is already the opposite direction they've been taking Healers." If the past need not be prologue, then what makes the prospect of going back and adding more DPS options for healers somehow more unreasonable than choosing to leave any or every job in stasis and neither adding nor removing anything from them?

[Renathras]

EDIT: Also, isn't this sentence an oxymoron? "Past need not be prologue, especially since "add more attack" is already the opposite direction they've been taking Healers." If the past need not be prologue, then what makes the prospect of going back and adding more DPS options for healers somehow more unreasonable than choosing to leave any or every job in stasis and neither adding nor removing anything from them?

No, that was my point - you can't appeal to the standard in one case (always adding new abilities) while rejecting the standard in another (that they'll switch from NOT adding DPS abilities to Healers [and, in fact, pruning them] to adding DPS abilities to Healers).

In other words, you cannot appeal to the standard of always adding something at the same time as NOT appealing to the standard of not adding DPS abilities.

And while it's true MMOs pretty much always add abilities, they don't always add abilities, exactly. For example, is Holy Shelltron an added ability? TECHNICALLY yes...but in practice, no, it's an upgrade of an existing ability. Was adding a second charge to Divine Benison adding a new ability? TECHNICALLY it was adding a new Trait, so it DID add a change, so to speak, but it didn't add any new ability at all while still changing (slightly) the Job from what it was before.

For example, suppose in 7.0 for WHM, they had Afflatus Misery upgrade into Afflatus Purgation, Aquaveil get a reduced CD to 45 seconds, and Assize get a second charge. Those would absolutely be changes, and Purgation would technically be a new ability...but since it just outright replaces Misery, it would not generally be treated as a new thing, and Aquaveil and Assize would not even be seen as new. Heck, WHM could get that thing I suggested before where every 4th Glare cast gave you a double power Holy (or whatever made it a DPS gain over Glare) and people wouldn't see that as a new ability, even though it actually WOULD change WHM's rotation.

[Silver-Strider]

I don't know why you chose to take this as an attack.

That's just his go to form of deflection. He has no counter argument so he'll wave it away as an attack because he can't accept being wrong, even when he's very clearly in the wrong.
Even in the thread about how Tanks and 3 DPS, when pointed out he was completely off base, he still only claimed to be semi-wrong instead of completely wrong.

[Silver-Strider]

Only Question I added was the 4th one

Which is the bias question and even your responses to some people's opinion was leading them towards an answer that you agree with. It's a bias post.

you attack me

Here's an attack for you

THDD vs T3DPS

Here is your thread from reddit claiming that T3DPS wasn't all that better than THDD. Despite being called out on it both here and on Reddit, you STILL attempted to use the misinformation from it to argue against someone else on a separate thread that you also made

Which role isn't needed

You are a deceitful person that can't even accept when you are wrong so you just try to either make it as an attack against you or try and spin it like you weren't wrong.

"I sit corrected...ish...?

FFLogs seems to do something weird for some - but not ALL - 1T/3D runs where it will replace a doubled party member (e.g. 2x BLMs) with a random healer of its choosing. It's not even always the same healer Job.

Looking at Dead Ends, the first party with an ACTUAL healer appears to be #66, which is...okay, it's only 2 mins slower, but meh. So semi-correction."

THAT ISN"T A SEMI-CORRECTION!!! You were flat out wrong and still tried to spin it like you weren't. Why should anyone here believe any argument you make is not in poor faith? At this point, it's not even worth engaging you in an argument because anything and everything is an attack if it doesn't suit your argument.

You're a deceitful human being and that IS an attack on you.

[Sebazy]

I need to take notes on some of these smackdowns

[ty_taurus]

No, that was my point - you can't appeal to the standard in one case (always adding new abilities) while rejecting the standard in another (that they'll switch from NOT adding DPS abilities to Healers [and, in fact, pruning them] to adding DPS abilities to Healers).

In other words, you cannot appeal to the standard of always adding something at the same time as NOT appealing to the standard of not adding DPS abilities.

Except the concept of adding new attack actions to a healer is a minor addition of gameplay that has been done before multiple times. Even in Shadowbringers, White Mage got Afflatus Misery which is an attack action. In Endwalker, Astrologian's Minor Arcana was reverted back to randomly granting an additional healing action or an additional attack action, and was made AoE. That is a normal expectation of gameplay to ask for. Meanwhile, asking for them to not do anything to a job and leave it alone is something that has never been done before and goes against the principles of a live service game.

And while it's true MMOs pretty much always add abilities, they don't always add abilities, exactly. For example, is Holy Shelltron an added ability? TECHNICALLY yes...but in practice, no, it's an upgrade of an existing ability. Was adding a second charge to Divine Benison adding a new ability? TECHNICALLY it was adding a new Trait, so it DID add a change, so to speak, but it didn't add any new ability at all while still changing (slightly) the Job from what it was before.

Yes, those are still new actions. New actions don't necessarily need to be massive sweeping changes to the gameplay or flow of the job. That is not 'no new changes.' If you wanted to emphasize on any job that you don't want whatever is added to make any significant changes to the gameplay feel of that job, then all you had to do was write that in at the bottom. All I was going for with that question was that every job gets a few new actions every expansion; some of those are just upgrades to old actions, and others are new tools entirely. What do you want those to be for the job you're submitting feedback for. I tried to keep my language simple and brief, because if the question is long-winded and wordy, some people won't read it. I'd like to think that players are intelligent enough to recognize these points based on how the question was presented, and it didn't seem to be an issue for anyone. That said, It was also a very new experience for me, and there are definitely ways I want to approach these questions when I do this again after 7.0 releases to do even better at collecting information.

For example, what I'll realistically do next time for that question is not include a write-in 'other' option and just have it as a stand-alone option and specify that players elaborate in the below section, because those write-ins are very poorly displayed in the results page of each survey and do a terrible job at communicating how many players agree with those sentiments because even if two people want the same thing, if it's worded differently, it appears as two separate options.

What I would probably do for the healers, and the other jobs would be adjusted accordingly, would be something like:
- Upgrades to existing actions
- Healing actions
- Attack actions
- Utility/mitigation actions
- Offensive support actions
- Other (specify below)

[ty_taurus]

I need to take notes on some of these smackdowns

No worries if you're not interested, but I'd love to get your thoughts on the Sage rework concept I posted on the previous page here.

[LuciaMirain]

EDIT:



The irony is that everyone says Healers are ONLY fun in high end content (like TOP) and when progging, yet people refusing to do the thing that is the one thing they say is fun to do.

Though, to be fair, it may be a DC thing and that a lot of people who wanted to rush and do TOP already have groups/already have done so.

Yeah , it just seems so strange that the content is already viewed as obsolete when it didnt come out THAT long ago. I see people looking for groups to do UCOB/TEA for instance quite often. But yeah Ive gotten my answer. Seems like alot of people just quit.

[GrimGale]

My experience in high end content as SCH, AST and SGE wasn't exactly interesting from a role gameplay point of view.

The fights themselves expect coordination, memorization and sometimes a bit of reflexes from each role, being DPS, Healer or Tank. There are intricacies to each role of course, like Tank carefully repositioning bosses and healers coordinating their oGCDs. And in general the 2min burst window gives every class (Or forces every class) into a coordinated rotation.

That being said, within the healer role, mechanics quickly get dull: As you progress in a fight and learn its damage spikes and movement, you'll naturally find more filler space.

That is true of all content, whether its Dungeons, Raids or High end encounters. (Although arguably the uncoordinated and randomized nature of raids with new players makes it so that you'll be changing some of those Damage GCDs for Raises.)

Ultimately, healers don't have much in terms of gameplay mechanics to their jobs and while in high end you're distracted out of that fact by the mechanics of the fights themselves, in the end you will go back to Glarebroiling over and over.