Fixing Every Healer Job

[Shurrikhan]

Not to be /that/ person who nitpicks something minor but back in ShB Broil III was at 290 potency and Biolysis was at 70 potency. Broil III being at 255 only became a thing with the stat squish and Biolysis' potency didn't change.

Sorry, perhaps I should have said "until EW levels" or "until level 82", but the point still remains:

From levels 72 to 81, your DoT does 275% of your filler damage, offering 3.5 extra filler cast's worth of damage per minute for perfect uptime. That's relatively significant for a DoT, making it much more important than, say, Dia's 227% of Glare and extra 2.55 filler casts per minute for perfect uptime.

After level 82, SCH's DoT's relative importance decreases to 237% of filler damage and an extra 2.75 filler casts worth of damage per minute, under 80% of its former significance.

Before potency was shuffled from Broil III to Biolysis with EW release, this would have been 241%, and an extra 2.83 filler casts per minute for perfect uptime, nearer to what we see later. But whether that's for the better or not is arguable.


At any rate, it's just a matter of how significant one wants their DoTs to be, which is most easily viewed by the number of bonus filler casts' value they give per minute, given perfect uptime. For that reason, any decrease in duration will necessitate an increase in DoT potency if the affected DoT's relative value is to be retained.

[Rein_eon_Osborne]

Agreed, SCH not needing a target is its thing, I think if anything needs an instant targeted spell it should be SGE to differentiate between the two so Dyskrasia isn't just a straight AoW clone. AoW is the same functionality as Miasma II was except without the DoT as well, so it would be weird to change something that SCH has *effectively* had AoE-wise for a long time now.

At first I’d think SGE would get line or conal spammable AoE (because why not!? Lazor pew pew!) to complete the family. Slow 8y circle centered on player, fast 5y circle centered on target, instant 5y circle centered on player, and 10y line/8y conal!

[Katoar]

Bro, this entire thread is about adding complexity to healers. Go read it. There's a difference between wanting a higher skillcap for healers and having them actively kill themselves to deal damage. As I already said, losing % max HP would completely screw you over in certain content, and it has NOTHING to do with White Mage's identity. Drop it. It's a bad idea.

Find another way to add skill expression besides a clunky self-damage system. Just because I think your current idea is bad, doesn't mean I don't want changes. Obviously.

I don't see a problem with losing max HP and self-damage as the kit already provides a way to fully mitigate those detrimental effects if one is playing it properly. I really doubt you have understood what was written in that thread beyond "deals damage to self for 20% and reduces max HP by 10%".

[Shurrikhan]

I don't see a problem with losing max HP and self-damage as the kit already provides a way to fully mitigate those detrimental effects if one is playing it properly. I really doubt you have understood what was written in that thread beyond "deals damage to self for 20% and reduces max HP by 10%".

There not necessarily being a problem with it doesn't make it necessarily a good mechanic. (Though, to be clear, there are problems.)

A good mechanic is enjoyable to play with and around. Losing max HP just means that your nukes timings are contextually restrained and draw resources from your ability pool and from your cohealer's (along with possibly their uptime).

More importantly, your Sacrifice mechanic creates a balancing nightmare, as you cannot both tune the kit for high-damage-intake environments like Savage and those in which both the loss to max HP is nonthreatening and the loss to HP made up for off your oGCDs alone.

You'll thereby have introduced a mechanic that will more likely annoy WHMs than be enjoyed by them, will definitely annoy your cohealer, and has virtually no payoff or affordances.

[Katoar]

Ahh, yes, anyone noting problems with an auxiliary and ill-fit mechanic's involvement in/with a given kit = They must just not want skill ceiling!

I don't mind not having Sacrifice dealing dmg. However, it should be replaced by something else because once the detrimental effect is lost everything will become an ordinary "press button on cd" with a minimum amount of thought required. That guy doesn't even like having to risk his MP so what are we left with? Press shiny buttons? Sacrifice's purpose is meant to be a skill ceiling.

[Katoar]

There not necessarily being a problem with it doesn't make it necessarily a good mechanic. (Though, to be clear, there are problems.)

A good mechanic is enjoyable to play with and around. Losing max HP just means that your nukes timings are contextually restrained and draw resources from your ability pool and from your cohealer's (along with possibly their uptime).

More importantly, your Sacrifice mechanic creates a balancing nightmare, as you cannot both tune the kit for high-damage-intake environments like Savage and those in which both the loss to max HP is nonthreatening and the loss to HP made up for off your oGCDs alone.

You'll thereby have introduced a mechanic that will more likely annoy WHMs than be enjoyed by them, will definitely annoy your cohealer, and has virtually no payoff or affordances.

I have already explained and it is also written in the thread itself that The Tree of Life's Aura negates the max HP cost and reduces dmg dealt by Blissful Sacrifice to 10%. Blood Spilled Stacks heal you and nearby party members for 10% of your max HP. Exaltation gives you 2% of max HP shield for every stack of Blissful Sacrifice used and 5% of max HP heal for every stack of Blissful Sacrifice not used.

What is so difficult about maintaining one supportive healing buff and possibly waiting for procs if you don't want to lose 10% HP which is really nothing? One can apply Regen and it will cover the damage dealt.

[Shurrikhan]

What is so difficult about

The point isn't difficulty. It's a matter of whether it is fun. I.e., the difference between complexity and convolution.

[Conchoidal]

Thanks for going over my post, these ideas were mostly just things which would spice up healer gameplay and not be too difficult to implement (creating new visual assets/animations/etc).

How could we, when limited to low healing requirements relative to our kits, better feel as if healing is decently urgent and that our heals are worth doing?

In regards to healing urgency, in AOE situations this could be solved by either simply nerfing all relevant DPS heals (e.g. Everlasting Flight, Curing Waltz/Improvisation, Arcane Crest), changing them to be single target heals only, or changing them to operate like Mantra in that they only provide a boost to healing.

For tanks there's a few other things they could do, like having more bleeding tank busters which require healers to be aware of both the main and off-tank's health for a time, or have some boss auto-attacks do damage to both tanks simultaneously, or bring back the ability for bosses to crit their auto-attacks. I'd personally think it might be more engaging for tanks if had to swap more often rather than simply using Shirk/Provoke during or after a tank buster.

[Katoar]

White Mage Changes

Can you give an illustrated rotation incorporating the changes implemented? I wrote an example of a rotation but after the 60s I am still not reaching a loop in any particular part of the rotation except Glare-Smite and DoT refresh.

Glare (2,5s) - Smite(5s) - Dia(7,5s) - Refulgence/Aero3(10s) - Glare(12,5s) - Shine(15s) - Glare(17,5s) - Smite(20s) - Glare(22,5s) - Shine(25s) - Bloom(27,5s) - Afflatus Lily(30s) - Glare(32,5s) - Smite(35s) - Dia(37,5s) - Refulgence(40s) - Glare(42,5s) - Shine(45s) - Glare(47,5s) - Smite(50s) - Glare(52,5s) - Shine(55s) - Afflatus Lily(57,5s) - Afflatus Lily(60s) - Misery(62,5) - and still not looping

Also, Bloom can be cast twice per minute, are we supposed to use it despite not having misery ready? What's the intended optimal playstyle?

[AnotherPerson]

In regards to healing urgency, in AOE situations this could be solved by either simply nerfing all relevant DPS heals (e.g. Everlasting Flight, Curing Waltz/Improvisation, Arcane Crest), changing them to be single target heals only, or changing them to operate like Mantra in that they only provide a boost to healing.

But at that point, what's the point of even having relevant DPS heals when they become so weak that they serve literally 0 purpose? It's not going to save you in a pinch in solo fights, nor will they be any more useful if they're nerfed outside of high-end party coordination. At that point, the skills are just there to take up hotbar space. Individual DPS jobs would just lose their own identities and self-survivability in the process, benefitting no one.

The problem isn't the healing from other jobs. Their healing is already weak enough and spaced apart as is, but jobs have been able to do content without healers. That implies it's a problem with how much total unavoidable damage there is. What needs to change is either raising the unavoidable damage players take more frequently or making the healer GCD more interesting instead of the same button over and over again.

If they won't raise damage requirements (as they said they won't do), then all that can really change is giving healers a decent GCD rotation.

That means both reducing the number of healing abilities to encourage more GCD healing and increasing the number of GCD DPS spells to change up the GCD playstyle. That way, healers aren't forced to spam only Glare or Cure II.