A summary of healer issues

[Azurarok]

taking a step back, why are we designing for people who are more worried about what some third-party website tells them than doing their actual job? Why not simply agree that the only healers that have a hang-up about using GCD heals to keep the party alive are just bad healers?

A healer having to fall back to GCD heals isn't necessarily a fault of the healer though?? Harder duties are designed with the intent of making us use them anyways.

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. I also do have a problem with early skills becoming less and less useful as you reach higher levels too.

YoshiP's response to this sort of criticism was "go play harder content", and even there we still have healing downtime that also becomes longer the better skilled and geared your party is. And I still want other content to be more engaging too, especially solo duties from MSQs or just running fates on the overworld.

[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...

[AmiableApkallu]

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".

So, how little downtime do you think healers can have while ensuring that content is clearable by its intended audience without frustration? Mind you, the comment I linked to asks only for where a healer's time should be allocated. It assumes that we can wave a magic stick to achieve that allocation.

Because, yes, there is certainly room for the game to require more healing, but I've yet to see an argument that healing requirements can be ramped up across the board in such a way as to make current healer DPS kits acceptable in what downtime remains.

[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

[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)?