Yoshi-P: "If you want more engaging content, go play Ultimate"

[linayar]

It arbitrarily forced GCD healing and overhealing, two aspects of healer gameplay you don't want to do.

As a non-healer, that seems to be the differentiating factor between healer and other roles.

Another poster said:

Tanks don't have it nearly as bad as healers. At least not right now. At least there's stuff to do on a tank and there's an actual rotation with a gauge that actually allows you to do more stuff whether you really *need* to or not. For healers especially as ilvl goes up and content gets older, healer gameplay suffers because most of our stuff heals... and no one really needs much healing as those factors kick in.

If that's the case, why not change it so that healer gameplay does make use of GCD heals as part of the core rotation?

One way for that to happen and still adhere to the devs' desire to not stress the healers might be the BLM approach.

OGCD healing spells - very few (one or two), single target and AoE, very powerful, but on long cooldowns (no interaction with MP), used mainly for emergency rather than core rotation
GCD healing spells - core rotation, very weak to avoid overhealing and forces the use of the full rotation, single target and AoE, no MP costs, replenish MP when done in proper rotation
Offensive spells - more than OGCD healing spells but fewer than GCD healing spells, massive MP costs so you still spend more time on healing to replenish MP

And then you can have other extra bits to differentiate between the healer jobs as well as the core rotation itself be very different from job to job.

[ASkellington]

snip

Meant to say Neutral sect over Horoscope but some of my points still stands.

Fae Gauge I feel at times is wasted. Either make it impactful or like Synastry remove it. Give me things to spend it on.

I don't know if lily skills replacing Cure/Medica would be a good idea, but we're supposed to build to a blood lily aren't we? There should be more to interact with it is my point.

And yeah, healing archetypes need to happen. We all shouldn't be doing the same thing.

We also should have strengths and weaknesses from one another so people can pick which one they want. AST being high apm vs WHM being broken isn't an archetype SE.

[Mimilu]

One way for that to happen and still adhere to the devs' desire to not stress the healers might be the BLM approach.

OGCD healing spells - very few (one or two), single target and AoE, very powerful, but on long cooldowns (no interaction with MP), used mainly for emergency rather than core rotation
GCD healing spells - core rotation, very weak to avoid overhealing and forces the use of the full rotation, single target and AoE, no MP costs, replenish MP when done in proper rotation
Offensive spells - more than OGCD healing spells but fewer than GCD healing spells, massive MP costs so you still spend more time on healing to replenish MP

And then you can have other extra bits to differentiate between the healer jobs as well as the core rotation itself be very different from job to job.

I'm a green DPS type of healer, so artificially gating DPS by hiding MP-restoration behind spam healing just doesn't really appeal to me.
I also don't think the dev team would be willing to weaken heals as it would stress newer and/or less skilled players. I think your design might even single them out even more, as more skilled players will always aim to DPS and groups will seek player who can push out more DPS.

[Shurrikhan]

Meant to say Neutral sect over Horoscope but some of my points still stands.

I'd make the same case in regard to Neutral Sect as I would for Synastry. I feel like it's preferable for such skills to exist only if/when their total added potency over a given period, even in optimized play, would be significant, but also for those scalars not to affect potency-based healing oGCDs, as not to constrain those potency oGCDs to the scalar's windows.

Fae Gauge I feel at times is wasted. Either make it impactful or like Synastry remove it. Give me things to spend it on.

I don't feel like Fae Gauge, even at its best, would do much. Personally, I'd rather turn Aetherpool into a real mechanic (e.g., able to exceed maximum MP and thereby over-power one's spells) and for our faeries to do similar with their (returned) own MP, with faerie actions being usable at their MP cost as to allow them to be burstier without being overpowered over time (i.e., to be a more active element of the kit, instead of a target-switching HoT).

That said, I wouldn't be opposed to Synastry becoming a greatly- or always-available mechanic -- e.g., "Mark the target with Synastry, causing your single-target healing spells cast on others to duplicate 30% of their effect onto your target and 30% of the healing done by your single-target spells on your target to emanate to the three most wounded allies within 12 yalms of the target. While Synastry is active, your single-target healing spells consume 50% more MP."

I don't know if lily skills replacing Cure/Medica would be a good idea, but we're supposed to build to a blood lily aren't we? There should be more to interact with it is my point.

I think it would be rather reductive to remove any control over what Lilies offer to mobility and weave-space under the frame that they're merely "supposed to build a blood lily". That said, there are other ways to save the buttons without the ability to bank Solace/Rapture/etc. for mobility/weaving.

[linayar]

I also don't think the dev team would be willing to weaken heals as it would stress newer and/or less skilled players. I think your design might even single them out even more, as more skilled players will always aim to DPS and groups will seek player who can push out more DPS.

I don't see how. If healing is your core rotation, it wouldn't matter if individual spells would be weaker.

In fact, it would lessen the stress as people would just do their rotation by default rather than trying to react to damage. And there is still the OGCD spells for panic moments.

[Irenia]

I don't think oGCDs will ever be emergency heals in the long term, as long as battles are scripted, and . As familiarity with the job or content, the hierarchy of heals will always be aligned with DPS loss.

Primary heals: no loss (most oGCDs, pneuma/Macrocosmos)
Secondary heals: some loss (lilies, Aetherflow, off global GCD buffers)
Emergency heals: most loss (most GCDs)

Basically, you have to account for good players using their tools proactively. Shifting the paradigm from oGCDs - lilyflow - GCDs to one that kneecaps both primary and emergency heals is bad. Either your primary skills are ineffective and your emergency skills are unspammable and this worthless in an actual emergency, or your primary skills are free and far between and your emergency skills can't keep up in an actual emergency.

(Emergency: bad play that makes you deviate from your primary healing plan for more than a few globals. This can be any plan, not just a savage spreadsheet. I have a healing plan for even day 1 24 man content, but emergencies happen all the time there because we are unfamiliar with the content.)

[HyoMinPark]

I don't see how. If healing is your core rotation, it wouldn't matter if individual spells would be weaker.

In fact, it would lessen the stress as people would just do their rotation by default rather than trying to react to damage. And there is still the OGCD spells for panic moments.

Except oGCDs are not used for panic moments and haven’t been for several years. Healer gameplay prioritizes their oGCD abilities before using any GCD ability.

[WaxSw]

As a non-healer, that seems to be the differentiating factor between healer and other roles.

Another poster said:

If that's the case, why not change it so that healer gameplay does make use of GCD heals as part of the core rotation?

One way for that to happen and still adhere to the devs' desire to not stress the healers might be the BLM approach.

OGCD healing spells - very few (one or two), single target and AoE, very powerful, but on long cooldowns (no interaction with MP), used mainly for emergency rather than core rotation
GCD healing spells - core rotation, very weak to avoid overhealing and forces the use of the full rotation, single target and AoE, no MP costs, replenish MP when done in proper rotation
Offensive spells - more than OGCD healing spells but fewer than GCD healing spells, massive MP costs so you still spend more time on healing to replenish MP

And then you can have other extra bits to differentiate between the healer jobs as well as the core rotation itself be very different from job to job.

The problem with the Blm approach is that damage is always needed while healing is not (hence why oGCD healing is the baseline of the healing rotation, it allows for more damage), you have to understand that healing is not an excercise of quantity but efficiency due its binary nature, you either live or die and there is no inbetween and more healing than just the needed to "live" is just wasted resources and healing , contrary to damage, rely solely on the encounter design while damage dealt is in the control of the players. Blm kind of gameplay works because you have 2 states (high damage, high resource consumption and low damage and resource generation) that both work towards the same goal, actively do something that is needed, damage, and are in control of the player.

Healers on the other hand would have the always useful GCD damage phase and then its GCD healing, the problem comes when the GCD healing due to how low the damage can be is not necessary (Efficiency once again, no matter how weak a heal is, if the damage isnt enough to make the "live" state go "die" then the healing are wasted resources) meaning a player would have to go through a phase that is effectively doing nothing just to replenish mp (not that different from waiting for the mp to regenerate in the end) and the better the player becomes (as they are more efficient and heal less) the more punished it is by this design, thats without mentioning how contrary to blm that can chose when to go into ice phase, that choice is not present for healers as they have to heal when the encounter demands it, a demand that its rarely present but when it is, is basically an imposition as the damage in the game is very bursty with long periods of downtime

That design may work in a game when healing needs are constant and consistent as you could always do something useful in both phases similar to how blm always does damage even when its in ice phase but the game is not like that and in order to make it that way the entirety of the bosses of the game would have to be redesigned, let alone how that design if left in the current game would create slower gameplay (less weaving), would discourage a lot of players to attempt dpsing and would highlight the differences in GCD oportunity cost even further

[IDontPetLalas]

As a non-healer, that seems to be the differentiating factor between healer and other roles.

Another poster said:

If that's the case, why not change it so that healer gameplay does make use of GCD heals as part of the core rotation?

One way for that to happen and still adhere to the devs' desire to not stress the healers might be the BLM approach.

OGCD healing spells - very few (one or two), single target and AoE, very powerful, but on long cooldowns (no interaction with MP), used mainly for emergency rather than core rotation
GCD healing spells - core rotation, very weak to avoid overhealing and forces the use of the full rotation, single target and AoE, no MP costs, replenish MP when done in proper rotation
Offensive spells - more than OGCD healing spells but fewer than GCD healing spells, massive MP costs so you still spend more time on healing to replenish MP

And then you can have other extra bits to differentiate between the healer jobs as well as the core rotation itself be very different from job to job.

It''s good to hear new ideas being proposed, however I really think this one sounds horrible, the combination of very few OGCD heals, weak GCDs that are "core' single traget AND AOE? weak but also replenishes MP?

Then massive MP costs to the very few offensive skills to force us to heal? No thank you.

[IDontPetLalas]

I don't see how. If healing is your core rotation, it wouldn't matter if individual spells would be weaker.

In fact, it would lessen the stress as people would just do their rotation by default rather than trying to react to damage. And there is still the OGCD spells for panic moments.

Healers don't have a rotation like tanks. That would be an immense QOL improvement however SE considers that having healers hit 123 is stressing us too much and could possibly cause the end of civilization as we know it. Well maybe not the second part, however they have bent way over backwards in terms of 'accommodation".

also, new healers tend to react to damage, and new healers may tend to panic. That's not to say that veteran healers do not need emergency heals or ever experience wipes- but they don't heal the same way as those sprout healers or people who just pick up the job once in a while, and they tend not to have anywhere near the same level of stress healing - just as veteran tanks don't have the same as new tanks.