A summary of healer issues

[Shurrikhan]

Like Renathras is saying my problem isn't with wanting to see stonks go up on some outside site, it's how absolutely mundane the role feels during healing downtime right now. There probably isn't any simple fix for that either, but making lilies dps neutral or even a gain certainly felt like a step in the right direction so that seems like a good spot to start looking into it.

1. Renathras has probably about been the loudest voice (short of maybe... Gemina?) for limiting what additional healer gameplay may be made available during downtime.
   
   
2. Lilies are already dps neutral in principle and DPS-positive in practice, because they allow for greater exploitation of raid buffs by compressing 4 GCDs of set-up into 1 GCD of pay-off.
   
   
3. Just to be clear, in case these two things are being interlinked... Ren's suggestion that Amiable was replying to wasn't to make Lilies dps-neutral (they already are, after all), but simply to prevent Lilies from being banked for later mobility in more healing-intensive situations by instead having an oGCD that makes your next GCD consume a Lily for a free and instant cast. It's just a button-saving measure, with zero impact on downtime activity.

[Renathras]

(1) Renathras has probably about been the loudest voice (short of maybe... Gemina?) for limiting what additional healer gameplay may be made available during downtime.

/facepalm

I'll take "Things that never happened" for $5oo, Alex.

I've been opposed to just adding DPS buttons and a DPS rotation for downtime because I believe that, at best, is merely papering over the underlying problem (not enough to heal/healing kits too powerful for what there is to heal), and at worst, would completely destroy the healer role turning it into some "basic bitch dpsers' slave" where your job is to make the DPS players enjoy their content more while being the most pathetic "DPS at home" possible.

I've VERY CONSISTENTLY said that there should be additional healer gameplay by reducing "healing downtime" by making it where HEALING is needed during that downtime. This is the exact opposite of "limiting...healer gameplay...during downtime". It's a different approach. You want to be a DPSer during downtime, I want to be a healer and not have much of that downtime in the first place. Your solution is to paper over the problem, which is "we have too much downtime" by distracting people with shiny key DPS rotations. My solution is to address the problem itself, "we have too much downtime".

(3) /sigh

Ahem, okay. My suggestion was to make GCD heals damage neutral. That's it. The Lily suggestion there was SPECIFICALLY because we've had THIS VERY SAME conversation in the past, and the pushback is always "they should just combine Cure 2/Solace and Medica/Rapture by making it free and instant cast and consume a Lily whenever you have one", with the counter-counter always being "but sometimes you don't want to spend a Lily and want to reserve it for movement, so you might cast Cure 2 now knowing you're going to have movement soon and wanting to save the Lily for that. [EDIT: I will note, btw, that you did THIS VERY SAME THING in your last paragraph by saying it would take away control/agency; that's literally what the proposal was to PREEMPT. :ENDEDIT]

It's not "a button-saving measure at cost to agency". Indeed, as is common with your replies to me, it's LITERALLY THE EXACT OPPOSITE: Trying to increase agency. I'm not sure how, but you consistently somehow come away with takes that are exactly and entirely wrong when you argue against my points. It's almost like some kind of superpower.

The suggestion HAD LITERALLY NOTHING TO DO WITH DOWNTIME, so you framing it as "well, it doesn't solve the downtime problem!" is absurd. And it wouldn't "hurt WHMs...since they could no longer separately control..." since it would literally give them that same control that they have now. o.O

Again, how do you literally get your takes completely, 100%, and totally wrong/backwards so consistently? o.O

.

EDIT2:

Fair. My bad. I was thinking of / looking at the earlier version without the active modifier cast. This, for the single button gained, gives up a bit of responsiveness and weave space, but... that's nothing awful. Would probably keep the current version over that since we'd only be saving one button for that loss, but it's fine.

My apologies, Ren.

I...thank you. Accepted and no hard feelings.

I'm not sure it's an ideal solution, but by doing that we could pull more duty out of existing GCD actions, and if it frees up a button, we might add Aero 3/Banish or something...

[Shurrikhan]

It's not "a button-saving measure at cost to agency".

Fair. My bad. I was thinking of / looking at the earlier version without the active modifier cast. This, for the single button gained, gives up a bit of responsiveness and weave space, but... that's nothing awful. Would probably keep the current version over that since we'd only be saving one button for that loss, but it's fine.

My apologies, Ren.

I've been opposed to just adding DPS buttons and a DPS rotation for downtime because I believe that, at best, is merely papering over the underlying problem (not enough to heal/healing kits too powerful for what there is to heal)

And has been explained time and time again, you are always going to have more downtime among better healers than what few tools we have now will feel appropriate for. So why would you not simply do both (increasing relative healing requirements AND dealing with the downtime for when better players inevitably have significant downtime even when better players are hitting 100% of time spent healing)?

[Azurarok]

Renathras has probably about been the loudest voice (short of maybe... Gemina?) for limiting what additional healer gameplay may be made available during downtime.

You can have beef with that but that wasn't what I was referring to.

Lilies are already dps neutral in principle and DPS-positive in practice, because they allow for greater exploitation of raid buffs by compressing 4 GCDs of set-up into 1 GCD of pay-off.

Right, they've been since like... patch 6.2? And I've been saying the job's felt much better since then.

Ren's suggestion that Amiable was replying to wasn't to make Lilies dps-neutral (they already are, after all), but simply to prevent Lilies from being banked for later mobility in more healing-intensive situations by instead having WHM's GCD heals themselves consume Lilies for free and instant casts. (If you have Lily and hit Cure II, you get instant-cast and MP-free Cure II. If you have a Lily and hit Medica II, you get an instant-cast and MP-free Medica II. Hope you don't need it for mobility later.)

I never said I think Ren's suggestion works, I actually agree with the issues you brought up. I really like how lilies work right now, so I was saying it's still a good example of the kinds of things they could do to make GCD healing feel rewarding.

[Shurrikhan]

I never said I think Ren's suggestion works, I actually agree with the issues you brought up. I really like how lilies work right now, so I was saying it's still a good example of the kinds of things they could do to make GCD healing feel rewarding.

Have to correct this now since I was the one who started that error. He actually already improved upon that model I was responding. The only cost now is weave-space (if an oGCD) and/or responsiveness (1s GCD), so it's a little less casual-friendly, but can now also be used on Cure III and Medica II and saves 1 button. My bad there.

Right, they've been since like... patch 6.2? And I've been saying the job's felt much better since then.

Gotcha. My apologies for the misunderstanding. I should sleep. v.v

[fulminating]

No one wants their favorite to be given the short straw of galaxy brain rotations and being a DPS Caster instead of a Healer. No one wants to go from having a straightforward and understandable Job they enjoy to tripping over convoluted mechanics while juggling a complex DPS

If the theoretical cap is 10 arbitrary units, you can always play it at 4, if the cap is 4 there is no one who can play it at 7 or 9 or 10. Let’s consider summoner, the medium difficulty caster which has leapfrogged red mage in the race to the bottom. Do you know anyone that used to enjoy casually playing it, even badly, that still gives it the time of day? I don’t.

The amount of free healing has drastically increased. Reverting sch and ast is not going to address this; the whole role is in a terrible spot and I don’t really believe there’s an easy or low effort way out. If it does address that, but leaves the greedy healers with modern healing output, people learning will have a harder time swapping between the two halves. If whm and sge also have their output adjusted then their damage kit is completely wrong for casting multiple gcd heals; the more damage the dot contributes the less punishing heal casts are. The combat design has also changed, incoming damage is more spiky with periods of waiting for anything to happen. The problems are only going to get more ingrained unless immediate and drastic action is taken. I’m not holding my breath. They must fully admit defeat on the shadowbringers model and understand why it’s unsuitable.

I understand that you are fond of your pet idea, nevertheless I remain unconvinced.

[Aravell]

Feel.

If you press Heavy Swing then Storm's Path on WAR - missing Maim and knowing you screwed up - it feels bad. The actual level of damage lost is pretty insignificant. The odds of that one mistake being the difference between a clear and enrage is so small as to be nonexistent. But it feels bad.

If you realize you have 2 AF left and AF is coming off CD, so you burn one on an ED but have to choose between using a second ED and pushing your AF CD to the right by one GCD or going ahead and refreshing AF, losing out on that one ED, it feels bad, regardless of the fact that it's a ridiculously small loss either way so that either "wrong" answer shouldn't, rationally, feel wrong at all because of how minute the difference is.

I don't think any game should be designed to help people not feel bad for making the wrong decisions. GCD healing is not always a wrong decision, the community just thinks it's always the wrong decision.

Also, if you start talking about GCD healing feeling bad because you lose damage, how am I supposed to interpret that other than you wanting the big numbers? If you don't care about chasing numbers, why should you feel bad for GCD healing? I genuinely do not understand.

[Mortex]

I don't think any game should be designed to help people not feel bad for making the wrong decisions. GCD healing is not always a wrong decision, the community just thinks it's always the wrong decision.

Also, if you start talking about GCD healing feeling bad because you lose damage, how am I supposed to interpret that other than you wanting the big numbers? If you don't care about chasing numbers, why should you feel bad for GCD healing? I genuinely do not understand.

I think the problem is that we are so overstuffed with ogcd heals that gcd healing almost feels like (even if needed) a bad decision. Plus healing needed is always so mega sporadic anyway in almost any fight. Like it tells you how little we have too heal if people do ultimates without healer.

[ForsakenRoe]

I don't think any game should be designed to help people not feel bad for making the wrong decisions. GCD healing is not always a wrong decision, the community just thinks it's always the wrong decision.

Also, if you start talking about GCD healing feeling bad because you lose damage, how am I supposed to interpret that other than you wanting the big numbers? If you don't care about chasing numbers, why should you feel bad for GCD healing? I genuinely do not understand.

This is the issue I think, I don't see how anyone can 'feel bad' about GCD healing when it is required to prevent a wipe, except for if they're already fully aware of the funny number site and are trying to get a big funny number there. I don't 'feel bad' when I have to put up Medica 2 in P12S for something because I'm out of Lilies, I do it because my job is to heal first and foremost

I think WHM's main issue is that it's stayed as an ARR-style design in an EW world. It just doesn't have the 'flow' to it in the way that the other healers do, and so it feels out of place in this EW fight design. The two don't mesh smoothly. I described it to a friend as being that the healers are cars, and WHM is the manual with the janky clutch. Sure, some people prefer to drive a manual gearbox, but sometimes the clutch is gonna stick and you get that horrible 'missed gear shift' screech and the whole car shudders in pain. That's the Medica 2 hardcast, causing the sudden slowdown in the 'flow' of the fight.

It also lacks the spread of tools, of 'decision-making' on how to heal each situation, instead having a 'doesn't matter what the shape is, it goes in the square hole' approach with Rapture just covering pretty much everything. For example, AST has to choose, since all are 1min CDs, 'do I use COpp for the extra range on the heal, or do I use CU for the 10% mit, do I need to put Horoscope with this heal to give it an extra 200p, will I have enough healing needed on everyone coming up to get full value from Star'. WHM's 'choice' is 'Do I press Plenary here'

It'd be fine if there was at least a bit of something going on on the damage side of things. But when there's very little thinking needed for the damage side, little thinking needed for healing, and almost zero needed for mit (lol Temperance), it's not hard to see why WHM is uniquely alone in this regard. The other healers have similar issues with their damage rotations, but at least they have something more going on healing-side or mitigation-wise. It gets bland when we know the fight timeline and have our mit planned out as a SGE/SCH yes, but at least that takes a bit of time to work out. WHM almost, by design, autosolves it's 'role in the fight' because whatever comes up, Rapture probably solves it.

On a personal note,

I've been trying to play AST more for reclears recently. I still don't like it, because of how much weaving it has to do in the 2min window, and how much that makes my hands hurt, but I enjoy how I have things to think about compared to WHM. Even if it's just 'who do I put this card on' or 'would CO or CU be better here'. And related to above, I don't 'feel bad' when I use Neutral Sect for something. This week, in fact, my cohealer friend stood in the poison on P10S, and we managed to keep her alive through the full DOT, even during one of the Bonds sets going off, because Neutral Sect spamming shields on her. I guess in one regard, it was 'this feels bad because this is so much damage being wasted to fix a problem caused by another player', but the alternative is to let said player die, and in hindsight, that'd have wiped us because of Bonds being un-clearable (gotta love body checks). I'm pretty sure that the 'this feels bad cos no damage' feeling is entirely because I'm aware of the funny number site, and if I had no knowledge of it's existence, I'd be popping off much more that we salvaged a 'theoretically unsalvageable' situation.

I would also say that 'swap healers from spamming damage filler to spamming Aspected Benefic/Cure2/whatever' is not the solution some seem to believe that it is. It wasn't 'more interesting' to keep my friend alive per se. It was 'interesting' in the moment we had to react to her getting the poison DOT, and me thinking 'how can I solve this', but after Neutral Sect was activated, that 'interesting' is gone. From there on, it was a case of 'Press Ctrl-1 10 times, instead of Ctrl-2 (my Malefic key)', and I gotta say, it felt pretty similar in monotony after the first two casts. That's against a DOT that ticks for like 45k per tick. So I dunno how some expect that 'oh we can make healer more interesting by increasing how often we have to press GCD heals', I don't think doing that for a full fight would make for 'interesting gameplay'

I wait with bated breath to see how much of the bathroom SE throws out alongside the baby and bathwater with this 'rework' that is coming for AST. Because I want to see, do they remove the 'decision-making' from AST to lower it to WHM level? Do they actually 'fix' things with good intuitive design choices, or do they take the easy way out again and just go 'eh people think too much APM, so now card is GCD' and mangle the flow of that class too

[Aravell]

This is the issue I think, I don't see how anyone can 'feel bad' about GCD healing when it is required to prevent a wipe, except for if they're already fully aware of the funny number site and are trying to get a big funny number there. I don't 'feel bad' when I have to put up Medica 2 in P12S for something because I'm out of Lilies, I do it because my job is to heal first and foremost

That's what I really want to know, why does it feel bad to press your healing? It should only feel bad if you're aware of the funny numbers and you want one, if you don't care about said numbers, why would you feel bad about it? I liberally press Succor in reclears and I feel nothing, I press Indom and Soil a lot and never cringe over how much damage I'm losing. I genuinely do not understand why one would feel bad unless they were chasing numbers.

This week, in fact, my cohealer friend stood in the poison on P10S, and we managed to keep her alive through the full DOT, even during one of the Bonds sets going off, because Neutral Sect spamming shields on her. I guess in one regard, it was 'this feels bad because this is so much damage being wasted to fix a problem caused by another player', but the alternative is to let said player die, and in hindsight, that'd have wiped us because of Bonds being un-clearable (gotta love body checks). I'm pretty sure that the 'this feels bad cos no damage' feeling is entirely because I'm aware of the funny number site, and if I had no knowledge of it's existence, I'd be popping off much more that we salvaged a 'theoretically unsalvageable' situation.

It sounds much more boring on AST. I had the same situation happen in my reclears last week, the phys ranged stepped in the green and I had to use Adlo, Physick and Lustrate to fix it, it was more fun than just mindless Broil to be honest. But then again, I stopped caring about my placement on the funny number site since early ShB when all the nuance and optimisation of healers was ripped to shreds, so I do enjoy when things go wrong and I have to do quick thinking to salvage things.