A summary of healer issues

[ForsakenRoe]

SE’s perspective of healers being so cartoonishly delicate that the “healer who heals by attacking” couldn’t possibly manage more than 3 core attack buttons.

"My Medica! I can't heal without my Medica-like skill!"

[Shurrikhan]

I assume it'd be a flowchart of simple yes/no checks to decide what is the next step to take. For example, lets take HW SCH, with it's extra DOTs and casted Shadowflare and what have you.

The problem with a system like Ty suggests is that there are certain decisions that must be made by the player, and cannot be interpreted by the auto-battle system. For example, if you were to add Chain Strat as a node on this flowchart so it automatically pops it, you lose the ability to make the decision to hold it for a few seconds, eg Pinax or Manifold Flames. That means that the autobattle system can never be 100% of the efficiency of a real player using their brain, and that's where certain people stop supporting it. Because it can't perform at the same level as actual brains.

I think that's fine. If anything, it just means that many people would opt out of certain inclusions (Miasma, if you won't be able to finish the cast but Bio is available to be refreshed anyways; Bio, if you're free to cast Broil this GCD but will be limited to just Bio anyways next GCD due to forced movement; Shadowflare, especially if it's on a CD, since you might want to hold for adds; etc.), leaving control increasingly in their own hands outside of filler.

I guess my bigger points though are just that...

1. if we're putting that 'token' down, it probably shouldn't just be this weird one-off thing for healers, but instead a smoothly integrated gamewide feature, and
   
   
2. it should consider whatever other ways may exist of improving apparent access despite increased offensive kit depth (even if that's just something targeting perception, like "Glare spam isn't really that big a loss, anyways, actually...") and the actual percentage gaps between performance by other means, too (e.g., game-wide under-mechanics like partial DoT duration roll-over so that the occasional early or slightly late refresh isn't such a bad thing).

[ty_taurus]

I think that's fine. If anything, it just means that many people would opt out of certain inclusions (Miasma, if you won't be able to finish the cast but Bio is available to be refreshed anyways; Bio, if you're free to cast Broil this GCD but will be limited to just Bio anyways next GCD due to forced movement; Shadowflare, especially if it's on a CD, since you might want to hold for adds; etc.), leaving control increasingly in their own hands outside of filler.

I guess my bigger points though are just that...

1. if we're putting that 'token' down, it probably shouldn't just be this weird one-off thing for healers, but instead a smoothly integrated gamewide feature, and
   
   
2. it should consider whatever other ways may exist of improving apparent access despite increased offensive kit depth (even if that's just something targeting perception, like "Glare spam isn't really that big a loss, anyways, actually...") and the actual percentage gaps between performance by other means, too (e.g., game-wide under-mechanics like partial DoT duration roll-over so that the occasional early or slightly late refresh isn't such a bad thing).

Another huge positive that this system could have if implemented would be the ability to share your gambits publicly or with friends, perhaps uploading them to a new menu where you can "download" upvoted gambits. Skilled players could upload "perfect" rotations to use on Stone, Sky, Sea which could be used as a training device where someone can use it to practice performing that rotation manually. As we've said, nuance certainly makes manual play better suited to adjust to various situations in real combat, but sometimes the hardest part of picking up a new job is learning where to start and figuring out what value your different actions have for your rotation.

[Shurrikhan]

Another huge positive that this system could have if implemented would be the ability to share your gambits publicly or with friends, perhaps uploading them to a new menu where you can "download" upvoted gambits. Skilled players could upload "perfect" rotations to use on Stone, Sky, Sea which could be used as a training device where someone can use it to practice performing that rotation manually. As we've said, nuance certainly makes manual play better suited to adjust to various situations in real combat, but sometimes the hardest part of picking up a new job is learning where to start and figuring out what value your different actions have for your rotation.

Precisely. And just the fact that the emphasis is on the variations, more so than the ABC (fixed combos / always be casting), may tend to nudge/facilitate consideration more towards, oddly enough, higher level optimizations much earlier than would occur otherwise.