Should healers have DPS burst phases?

[Irenia]

I've been thinking to myself for awhile about the monotony of healer gameplay as you and your group outskill content and I'm actually thinking that this might be a good idea.

High tier fights are often described as a dance, which I find slightly lacking as a metaphor. More accurate would be to call the fights musical performances where you dance, yes, but also play music. And your job is your instrument.

Using this metaphor, we can view the rotation as a song, lining up buff windows as harmonizing, and boss damage as more improvisational sections. As long as you do some combination of healing and mitigation, the song goes on. But outside of those sections, what are healers doing? What 'song' are they playing?

There have been arguments whether or not 1,2,3 is actually better than 1,1,1... and I think it is - I've levelled low level LNC during a time where some level ranges only had you spam a single button. It definitely feels worse than having even a single combo. But that is just a baseline rhythm - it won't do much in the end. For DPS and tanks, they are building up to the crescendo that is the burst phase... and perhaps healers should join them.

The burst phase need not be complicated - we aren't DPS after all, it just needs to break up the pattern for a good 12 seconds or so. But healers have a special consideration - they still need to heal. Perhaps preshielding before burst becomes a thing. Perhaps healing skills unique to burst windows appear. Whatever the case, no matter how a burst phase is achieved, this break from the base rhythm would be useful.

Now this is just some thoughts, so feel free to critique if this is just a brain fart. I'm just one hoping that monotony isn't inevitable.

[Acece]

the way other games let healers have bursts phases is that they have a way to dps and heal during that burst phase. For disc priest they had to set up all their atonements before the mech happened. In FFXIV it probably would be something like pressing a cool down to heal through damage or the spells themselves would heal like assize, earthly star, or the big laser safe is getting.

[Pyitoechito]

I don't think healers need a "burst phase" per se. You can look at a job like Black Mage for an example of a job that just flows and their "burst" is just using one or two cooldowns to increase damage during raid alignment.

Have a healer with a burst phase would be neat, though (with Acete's suggestion of it being a heal and damage burst). Like, if Sage had a 2 min CD that augmented their kit for 15s, but also added AoE healing to every DPS skill for the duration of a raid burst window.

The main problem is there would still be the monotony during downtime between bursts.

[VictoriaLuv]

Hello! Sage ... if want to burst dps here your healer Cardia Phew phew

Lol play sage

[Roeshel]

Hello! Sage ... if want to burst dps here your healer Cardia Phew phew

Lol play sage

Cardia has nothing to do with burst DPS.

[Roeshel]

Yes, they should and they already have one burst window with WHM. I think Misery is actually a DPS increase if you use it when you have Mind pot active. It most definitely is a DPS increase if you land a direct crit hit. With BiS it is somewhere around 220k-250k, the numbers are good. White mage would benefit greatly from a buff that secures that the next attack will be a direct crit. I would trade it instantly for Presence of Mind.
For dungeons, you can use lilies instead of Holy to get a blood lily during the pull. However, most dungeons don't even require a lot of healing so you can use them before the pull. Misery + Assize = 1k AoE burst potency that other healers cannot match and most DPS will struggle to out dps you even if they are decent. Potency wise that combo equals slightly more than 7 normal Holy hits and whenever I play Scholar or AST I wish I had something similar.

I am pretty sure that SE has added additional burst phases to the other healers as well. For AST, the new Gravity looks like something that fits being used against ST. If it is a spell that's available only during the self-buff that consumes the aligned seals it would be great.

Sage already has something that should be working as a burst phase with their Adder's Sting resource, though I am not sure how exactly because the numbers don't add up.

Scholar most probably has Chain Strategem expanded on or at least I hope so. The job trailer didn't reveal much so there is that. I personally don't like the fact that we are getting a new oGCD that is not interacting with the gauge. It might do something different once broken but we will see. I am expecting the new AoE to hit hard if they are not going to give them a burst window.

[Laphicet]

Yes, they should and they already have one burst window with WHM. I think Misery is actually a DPS increase if you use it when you have Mind pot active. It most definitely is a DPS increase if you land a direct crit hit. With BiS it is somewhere around 220k-250k, the numbers are good. White mage would benefit greatly from a buff that secures that the next attack will be a direct crit. I would trade it instantly for Presence of Mind.
For dungeons, you can use lilies instead of Holy to get a blood lily during the pull. However, most dungeons don't even require a lot of healing so you can use them before the pull. Misery + Assize = 1k AoE burst potency that other healers cannot match and most DPS will struggle to out dps you even if they are decent. Potency wise that combo equals slightly more than 7 normal Holy hits and whenever I play Scholar or AST I wish I had something similar.

I am pretty sure that SE has added additional burst phases to the other healers as well. For AST, the new Gravity looks like something that fits being used against ST. If it is a spell that's available only during the self-buff that consumes the aligned seals it would be great.

Sage already has something that should be working as a burst phase with their Adder's Sting resource, though I am not sure how exactly because the numbers don't add up.

Scholar most probably has Chain Strategem expanded on or at least I hope so. The job trailer didn't reveal much so there is that. I personally don't like the fact that we are getting a new oGCD that is not interacting with the gauge. It might do something different once broken but we will see. I am expecting the new AoE to hit hard if they are not going to give them a burst window.

Few corrections, in order.

It is never a gain to use misery over glare*4, because the amount of damage buff you need would have to be equal to 300 potency worth of damage, as Afflatus Misery is 900p while glare*4 is 1200p. Afflatus, however, is a gain over holy*4 at 3 or more targets, you are right on that. Against single target, misery is a refund skill that AT BEST you save for a reopener, burn lilies between pulls to get it at the start of a dungeon boss, or other burst window... nothing more. A MND pot is not enough to make up the diffrence, and due to their duration you should just be using it for Glarex4 anyway. The ONLY place where burning lilies for misery is a gain is in Bozja due to the absurd buffs you can get in there, sometimes over 2x damage.
In EW, WHM still keeps its same old burst as before, with glarespam with a crammed-in assize during speed buff window. Nothing has changed.

For AST, new gravity is just an upgrade, you were dead wrong there. AST does get a similar burst to WHM tho, speed buff they have to work for. However, it's still filled with Malefic spam and at best you fit an earthly star in there. It's big ultimate move is equal in potency to malefic so there's no need to use it for burst unless heals are needed.

SGE is the only one with what could be called a "burst", the issue is that it has no self buffs in spite of what was said in past LLs. So its "burst" is just dumping all your powerful long-CD-GCDs and one offensive OGCD right at the start and then just using them on CD until they line up again... it's only really a burst when other people are using their raid buffs.

SCH... lol... just lol... it's the exact same. You get nothing! Just go play SGE and drop this class like the piece of hot garbage it is.

[Cherub]

SGE is the only one with what could be called a "burst", the issue is that it has no self buffs in spite of what was said in past LLs. So its "burst" is just dumping all your powerful long-CD-GCDs and one offensive OGCD right at the start and then just using them on CD until they line up again... it's only really a burst when other people are using their raid buffs.

You don't have any oGCD DPS tools for Sage. Phlegma is on the GCD. Toxicon too. Pneuma too. What else is there that does damage? I dont think anything else that would make people think oGCD. Other than that you got your Dosis and the AoE. Both obviously GCD.
This is what worries me the most, no oGCDs like Assize, no raid DPS utility like Chain, no self buff like PoM... The potencies are higher, sure, but is it gonna be enough? I do have my doubts tbh. If tooltips are to be trusted, the only other thing SGE got going is a recast GCD of 1.5 seconds on the dot only. Which isn't much but something. Over a 10 minute fight that would be I think 8 extra Dosis GCD's lol.
Alongside Taurochole having a direct heal instead of a shield or regen effect (potentially leading to overheal when you just want the mitigation) and how addersting works and what it rewards, this is my main worry/issue with SGE.
But who knows, maybe Phlegma releases as an oGCD on release. Hopefully. maybe.

[AnotherPerson]

But who knows, maybe Phlegma releases as an oGCD on release. Hopefully. maybe.

Phlegma being released as an oGCD only convinces its use to be spent rather than using it as a DPS tool because it's free DPS like assize. Having Phlegma be a GCD action encourages its use to be a movement & weaving tool as well since it's an instant cast tool only under close range. It puts more emphasis on positioning and using it as a heavy weave tool, but also gives it flexibility to be used in other ways thanks to having a 2-charge system.

This enables Phlegma to be used use it under raid buffs if you think you don't need the extra weave slots. Additionally, it breaks up the medicorum of spamming Dosis III over and over.

Sure, you can just dump your Phlegma charges all on raid buffs since you can have a 1.5 sec cast time on Dosis III, but if you end up needing to double weave, you've essentially screwed your Dosis III damage by clipping your extra oGCDs unless you have some adder's sting charges for instant cast weaves. Even if you want to refresh your DoT early to get instant cast weaves, Sage's DoT isn't a skill with 2 weave slots. Eukrasia takes 1 second recast on the GCD before enabling Eukrasia Dosis, so you still only have 1 weave slot every GCD in your toolkit unless you spent one to GCD shield for adder's sting.

That means not losing a single Dosis III usage is going to be more important compared to other healers.

[Acece]

Sadly cardia is actually really, really boring. It's not converting damage into healing it's just a flat pot every gcd which makes it way less interesting.
A really simple way of doing it to whm would have a 60 sec CD that makes your next 3-4 spells instant cast at the end it would buff holy by a certain amount of pot and add a heal component to it.