How to easily have healers dps engaged ( yet another thread)

[AmiableApkallu]

*snip*

My two cents: If you want healers to engage more meaningfully with the healing portion of their toolkits, the first thing that needs to change is encounter design, i.e., the reason healers have those buttons in the first place.

The best, most practical suggestions I've seen so far for increasing outgoing damage from mobs and bosses are:

• Let auto attacks crit again.
• Let auto attacks continue through casts.
• Randomize who gets hit by auto attacks.

I gather that some or all of these used to be aspects of game play before I started playing. Regardless, unpredictability would keep healers from falling asleep while waiting for the next scripted raid wide or tank buster.

[flowerfairy]

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I agree with this. Tetra is such a boring ability because lilies do the same exact thing and is a far more engaging system. It could be removed and WHM would fundamentally not change at all (it would actually be better since you'll have to deal with the consequences of improperly spending lilies). Same with Aquaveil, Exaltation, Krasis, etc. Buttons for the sake of being buttons.

The fact is, healers press far more than 1/2 buttons NOW. Just the community has decided if they aren't GCDs, they don't count. So if healing was shifted to GCDs and oGCD heals were emergency/panic buttons (as they arguably should be), that would already fix the complaints...

...or reveal them as (some people) complaining because they want to DPS instead of heal and don't REALLY want to have to press more buttons if it means more healing buttons...

People aren't complaining about wanting to do DPS instead of healing. The issue is that when there's nothing to heal, you have 1 button to spam and 1 button to press every 30s. It's boring.

The only thing you've said before that I disagree with is that you want 1 healer sacrificed to be that mind-numbing 1 nuke 1 DoT job. BLM's core rotation is not the difficult part of playing BLM. RDM's core rotation is not difficult at all. Old SMN/SCH's core rotation can be considered slightly more difficult than the others but it still gave a lot of leeway. These design philosophies of what a caster can do should be applied to all healers because they're casters too. All tanks have a unique damage rotation that makes you have to think a bit, even WAR, so I don't really know why a healer should be kept like this.

snip

Auto attacks becoming unpredictable would be a nice surprise, but the mechanics of every fight will still be following a strict schedule, so the abundance of oGCDS we have will still be overkill, at best slightly less overkill than what we have now.

My problem with unpredictable damage is that this design can only apply to future fights. If we adjust the next endgame fights to better fit healer kit design today, it'll still leave the entirety of ShB and half of EW to be snoozefests. I think it's more feasible that, instead of adjusting fight design to current healer design, we adjust healer design to current fight design. And even then, I think that a healer with a fleshed-out DPS rotation and less oGCDs will play far more engaging than current healers in an unpredictable boss fight.

[Renathras]

quoting

My thing is we shouldn't have a ton of buttons that do EXACTLY the same thing. WHM is the simplest example. SB Lilies were glorified Freecure, so we'll ignore them. ShB Lilies were originally a "when you need to cast Cure 2/Medica 1 but can't because you need to move" tool. That is, SEMI-emergency buttons that were up frequently, but not all the time. In a way, it was a kind of shared oGCD system. Like imagine if Whispering Dawn and Indominability shared a CD or something, so you have the option of using either but either you use locks out the other for their shared CD. (I'm not sure of a good EXAMPLE of this in healers; WAR has a single target and aoe attack that are oGCDs but share a CD). This way, they're limited resources AND a choice. I think that was the original design for Lilies, not the EW "damage neutral instant cast healing movement tool to get Misery into a burst window" that they've become today.

But regardless, the issue is, they do the exact same thing as a GCD heal, Medica 1 and Cure 2 respectively. To make matters worse, Tetra is yet another Cure 2. Assize WOULD be another Medica 1, but for the damage.

SCH/SGE have a similar issue with Lustrate/-cholethatIcan'tremember (Durochole?) that are just a quick heal roughly comparable to a Cure 2 with no CD. These two spells that exist, and in theory are useful, but are seldom used because of other tools that match or exceed them. Excog and Taurochole have CDs, but they're still up frequently, so many times you might use their "lesser" version, you use them instead. And in emergencies, Adlo/Eu Diagnosis are more powerful single target heals anyway. And Ixochole is basically a non-Eu Prognosis (SCH doesn't exactly have an equivalent, though)

The point I'm making is, these special abilities are cool when they aren't already covered by the GCD kit. If they are, they just replace the GCD tools. Aquaveil doesn't replace anything because WHM doesn't have a GCD that does the same thing. Tetra DOES replace something (Cure 2) because it does basically the exact same thing. Solace and Rapture replace Cure 2 and Medica 1 because, again, they do the exact same things. Imagine if Rapture was Medica 2 and Solace was Cure 2 + Regen. (and remove Tetra and make Medica 2 what Cure 3 is). Now you have Medica 2(Cure 3) for large stacked heals, Medica 1 for spread party heals, Rapture for spread heals with a Regen tick (so for big damage you use this into Medica 1/2[Cure 3] spam), and for single target, have Cure 1 and Cure 2 for spot healing while you have Solace for spot healing + extra (from the Regen tick) which also would go a long way to making WHM have a niche as a Regen healer.

EDIT (for space):

Now each button feels distinct, burning Lilies to generate Misery isn't so bad if people are overhealed because the HoT is at least useful on the Tank if nothing else, and each of those buttons has a place/use in the kit based on the situation at hand.

Another problem is when different healers have identical things. AST and WHM have an essentially identical GCD kit other than WHM having Cure 3 and Lilies TECHNICALLY being GCDs, just AST's cost less MP. Imagine if WHM's were stronger but more expensive OR faster casts. Just something to make them...not identical. Same with SCH and SGE who have a NEARLY 1-to-1 for their AF abilities.

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Summary is: I think it'd be nice of the oGCDs actually did more unique things and didn't step all over the toes of the GCD heals by being "the same, but better without a DPS loss", which makes them the go-to tools. Either oGCDs need to be distinct from GCD heals OR they need to have longer CDs so they aren't the go-to tools as much.

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Oh, and as for the "one healer sacrificed" - I guess my thinking is, I don't consider it a "sacrifice". Many people WANT that playstyle. We have 4 healers, so I feel they all SHOULD play differently. Like I tri-main WHM, SCH, and SGE, and their DPS kits are MORE OR LESS identical. I also dual secondary (since it's my secondary preferred role) WAR and GNB. I also HAVE PLD at 90 and did have it as my tank in SB. It's so refreshing that when I play WAR or GNB, they both feel distinct. WAR doesn't feel any more complex to my brain than the healer kits do (I'm not optimizing it nearly as much as I try on my healers just because I understand the healer kits better from more hours on them), but it's pretty straightforward and gets pretty good results from dumping all your CDs in burst and otherwise pooling stuff while occasionally hitting an upkeep buff. Honestly, I'd be happy if the upkeep buff were removed, but people already say it's "braindead" (no Job in this game is, no matter the hyperbole). GNB, on the other hand, is way more rigid, and painful on fights like Ex4 where she kind of likes to make you disengage/run away from her every 30 sec +/- a few, making keeping Goring Blade's CD rolling an absolute pain in the Chocobutt. But some people love THAT. PLD is also rigid, but also has a lot of weird nuance (where you leave an Atonement off to keep the rotation lined up, for example) and that weird cursed FoF -18 second opener business.

But the point is, they're all DIFFERENT. I've only dabbled in DRK ("leveling" it some as a side project but only at 35 at the moment), but apparently it plays vaguely like WAR with a lot more oGCDs (gated by MP, not CDs) during its burst phases, making it kind of straddle between WAR and GNB's playstyles.

Four Tanks. Four completely different rotations and playstyles. And there's still an "easy" one - again, I'd prefer it a SMIDGE easier (just because I hate "upkeep" things in general as a mechanic, be they self-buffs or DoTs) - but they still get to be different so players can pick a different one that appeals to them.

With healers, most of the "different that appeals to you" right now is just based on aesthetics and whether you like more mitigation in your toolkit or not, and for AST, if you like getting carpel tunnel syndrome. I don't think having one healer with the present damage kits (which by comparison are about even in structure to WoW's Holy Priest or Resto Shaman using Balance subspec instead of Feral) is a bad thing. I just think having all four have it is silly.

And I think it would go over better with the community and Dev team if one (probably WHM) was left with the damage kit of today. UNLESS we just dump the heck out of oGCDs and make all healing GCD again like HW/ARR with relatively low damage. If that was the case, a second DoT like back then wouldn't be horrible, I guess? But I think if one was left as it is today in terms of simple damage kit, it would be way more palatable for the community as a whole who DON'T come to the forums and actually like healers today.

[T-Owl]

I'll gladly sacrifice those oGCD heals for a better dps toolkit. Healing requirements will never be demanding so long as every instance of damage is predictable.

The issue is that even with better dps toolkits, removing healing ogcds, without replacing them with offensive ones, would just end up slowing the role further down.

Yeah, but isn't that ALREADY an improvement?

Healing would be more engaging if you were actually pressing more buttons, and that would be pressing more buttons.

Further, it would make things like efficiency and MP management actually important concepts. As it is, you blow oGCDs, everything is healed, you then spam Glare and keep Lucid on CD. There's no thought or nuance there.

Actively choosing between Medica or Cure 3, Cure 1 or Cure 2, Regen, or Cure 1/2, and when a situation DOES warrant using one of your more limited oGCD emergency tools already sounds more engaging. And it's not like things would necessarily be massively HARDER, per se (if that's a concern). Anything you heal with Afflatus Solace/Tetragrammaton or Afflatus Rapture can be directly substituted for Cure 2 and Medica 1, respectively, as they have the same potencies. It's not as direct, but a lot of the other healers have similar tool comparisons, like Lustrate/Excog to Physic/Adlo (ish) and so on. If the MP costs are somewhat reduced and healers actually have MP regen tools that are used for when MP is low and not on CD (imagine if Lucid had a weaker base potency but scaled higher the lower your MP was when you used it, rewarding waiting to use it until lower MP values instead of just keeping it rolling), then there'd still be no problems.

The fact is, healers press far more than 1/2 buttons NOW. Just the community has decided if they aren't GCDs, they don't count. So if healing was shifted to GCDs and oGCD heals were emergency/panic buttons (as they arguably should be), that would already fix the complaints...

...or reveal them as (some people) complaining because they want to DPS instead of heal and don't REALLY want to have to press more buttons if it means more healing buttons...

No. Every healer who even touches cure 1 would even under this system be subpar and it would basically only remove the single remaining challenge of healers, to map their ogcds correctly to keep their dps rolling, without adding anything else as long as it doesn't come with proper dps rotations. Not to forget that gcd heals in this game are even more boring than the single glare spam. That one at least looks pretty.

And to be hoenst, this hatred towards optimization focussed healers who want to contribute as much as possible to the party sounds like envy towards people who are just better at playing this game and who you know are contributing more towards the party and are more popular with randoms and statics alike than "I just want to heal and spread love and peace uWu" healers.

[Mortex]

I'll gladly sacrifice those oGCD heals for a better dps toolkit. Healing requirements will never be demanding so long as every instance of damage is predictable.

I can agree with that. I rather have fun healer dps toolkits and less ogcd heals. Even in a world with almost no decent ogcds the situation would be the same you just swap glare for medica or cure 3. That’s interesting until you know when what comes in the fight and then again it becomes boring 1 button gameplay

[ty_taurus]

On the topic of relaxing gameplay vs stressed gameplay...

Not all games are designed to stress and challenge a player. There is an entire genre of games designed specifically for calm, relaxing gameplay such as Abzu, Stardew Valley, The Sims, etc. Tetris Effect is a version of Tetris that offers "chill mode" where speed never increases and it clears the board for you if do fill it up and can't place another piece. That said that is not the genre of FFXIV or any RPGs with combat-oriented gameplay. Combat in games like FFXIV is designed to create engagement by threatening the player with a failure state and is meant to challenge you. It doesn't have to challenge you with savage level content. The challenge can be tame and easy to surmount, like in a dungeon, but that challenge should be there, and a big way this game is able to support both a low skill and high skill playerbase is because of job complexity. Casual content barely demands a breathing party of participants, let alone job optimization, so if it's the content that challenges you at your skill level, you can relax knowing any mistakes you make are not important. Survive, do the mechanics, and you're good to go. Try your best of course, but doing your perfect Ninja openner is entirely unnecessary. Meanwhile if the level of content does not challenge you, engaging with your job's rotation and mechanics as well as practicing them provides engagement as well, even when unnecessary. Healers do not provide that.

No combat job in the game should be braindead the way healers are. That's not an opinion; it's a statement on game design. If you want to play an easy and relaxing job, though, you have options. Botanist, Miner, and especially Fisher are designed to be relaxing. In the past Yoshida quite literally stated that the point of Fisher wasn't to gather useful materials as much as it was there just to be relaxing. If you don't want to stress on challenging content, the healer role nor any one individual healing job should have to suffer shitty game design to appease you. Just go play Fisher.

[Supersnow845]

I’m usually a massive fan of discussing healers on the forums but I can’t even follow this thread anymore because there is so many walls of text, can we maybe keep this to like the post limit I’d like to actually be able to follow this thread without doing a third re-read of the simarillion

[Renathras]

I’m usually a massive fan of discussing healers on the forums but I can’t even follow this thread anymore because there is so many walls of text, can we maybe keep this to like the post limit I’d like to actually be able to follow this form without doing a third re-read of the simarillion

Fair enough.

I dunno, from my perspective, I find healing fun and engaging. It's interesting, the fights keep things spicy, I correct for all the crazy PF mistakes, etc etc and find it pretty enjoyable. As a person that also played WHM from 2.3 or so to present and SCH from 2.5 to present (and SGE from 6.0 to present), I find them all unique and fun in their own ways.

I feel WHM today is in the best place it's ever been (at least since ARR), especially contrasted to SB WHM. We traded Aero 2 and Aero 3 for Afflatus Solace, Rapture, and Misery, and the limp noodle glorified Freecure system that the Lilies at the time were (I don't remember, but I THINK it was casting Cure 1 and Cure 2 had a CHANCE at reducing the CD on Assize and Tetra or something like that by 5 seconds? That was just laughably bad), giving WHM a far greater amount of flexibility and interesting gameplay vs SB. SB WHMs were asking for changes like that, and for good reason, since SB WHM kind of sucked as the game shifted from the HW era encounter design towards the ShB to present era ones, which SCH and AST were decently suited for, but WHM was woefully ill suited for. Indeed, the changes were so successful, playing around Lilies and "More blood for the Blood Lily" have become unironically central to WHM's current identity and people love that about it.

SCH, on the other hand, I'm more mixed on. True, I didn't care much for the DoTs, but I didn't HATE SB SCH, and felt it was honestly in a good place, and no one asked for those changes. Sure, we EVENTUALLY (in EW) got the Eos responsiveness addressed, but ghosting still exists. Those were the only things SB SCHs really complained about, and they didn't require a complete rework of their other gameplay systems to get there. It's why I keep saying I would love to see SCH reverted to the SB era overall + Eos responsiveness + Expedience as I think that would be a good Job and please a lot of people, even if I personally wouldn't be one of them.

And I feel SGE is completely poorly implemented. Billed as a Disc Priest that deals damage to heal, it...DOES that, but BARELY. Hence why I've argued for it to have something more akin to RDM's caster rotation. Something more engaging and rewarding and really leverage Kardia healing, have short duration second Kardia and party Kardia to make it where you can try to heal the party through Kardia alone (with some oGCDs for mitigation to make that doable), etc. Really play into THAT instead of the AF/AG system that makes it a SCH clone instead.

EDIT:

I dunno, I think my position is a moderate, compromise one, rooted in reason and a knowledge and understanding of the game's mechanics and history. I feel like the above shouldn't be TOO controversial. Even people that want "moar dots...okay, STOP dots! 50 DKP minus!" on WHM should be able to objectively contrast SB to EW WHM and see that EW WHM is arguably in a better place in terms of its overall kit and mechanics, even if they'd like to add a DoT.

And I can't imagine many people here arguing against me that SB SCH was best SCH, and SB SCH + Expedience and responsive Eos would be amazing to them right about now. Nor can I see many of you arguing AGAINST SGE having a more involved DPS kit and having something that makes it more distinct from SCH and less a SCH clone.

So I at least feel like my position as stated above shouldn't be TOO controversial...

[Rilifane]

I’m usually a massive fan of discussing healers on the forums but I can’t even follow this thread anymore because there is so many walls of text, can we maybe keep this to like the post limit I’d like to actually be able to follow this form without doing a third re-read of the simarillion

I've zoned out of most discussions here for the same reason.
I like discussions, I even enjoy walls of text if they are not filled with fluff that comes across as trying to explain something to a 8yo or simply repeating points.
Qualitity over quantity, more words don't always get the point across better, they often have the opposite effect, people skim over something and miss good points.

And on the topic of stressful gameplay:
Stress itself isn't automatically a bad thing.
Everything that challenges a person in any way is a form of stress because it forces the brain and body to work at a higher level than it would usually do in your day to day life. Sport is pure stress for the body to the point of making you more vulnearable to sicknesses shortly after. It is still highly enjoyable for many people.
Relaxation comes mainly through doing something you enjoy, not necessarily through something slow-paced and so it can even include something that could be considered stressful, like raiding or aiming for good performance. So yes, something being stressful can absolutely be good. Not for everyone, no, but writing it off as something that's always bad isn't true either.

[flowerfairy]

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You don't have to nitpick every other sentence, just summarize it all up in a paragraph.

I’ll be putting together quotes that I think generalize a section. I'll try to not talk about stuff other people covered

WAR/WHM comparison:
Yes, I did use hyperbole. It gets the point across. No one is complaining when you use pickle anagrams or whatever to simplify the argument.

Yes, Storm's Eye would exist. But IR = PoM would be more like crit weaponskills without unlocked Fell Cleave. Infuriate does not compare to Lucid Dreaming at all. Again, will people really like this?

Healer state:

... Right now, they're able to clear content - content you likely don't WANT them to be able to clear. ...

What content requires ANYONE to be good at pressing damage buttons? Certainly not dungeons and normal trials/raids. That leaves Extreme, Savage, and Ultimate. The stuff that has hard enrages. I guess you’re right - I don’t want someone who doesn’t want to put in effort to clear hard content.

... because gear is gated behind them ...

Also: Ultimates exist. That's the "hard" content in FFXIV. Or supposed to be, anyway.

“Just play ultimate.”
Legend titles and weapons are locked behind the hard content, should that be made easier?
Gear progression does not matter in this game at all for anything other than doing even harder content.

WHM lore:

... Current day WHM's are almost exclusive Padjali ...

We’re not Padjali though, we’re adventurers who get sent to kill monsters and sometimes people. This stuff isn’t for the faint of heart. You have to solo kill stuff anyways for the MSQ, so the whole doctor thing doesn’t work. Also, what happens to Sylphie when she only uses healing spells?

Show me where it says "...and are gods of destruction, rending foes with powerful attack magicks"?

You’re using hyperbole here

I don’t want “power attack magicks”, I want spells that actually feel like I’m combining the usage of stone, wind and water. The kit I described had 5 buttons. If we add Aero, Holy, and Misery, it’s 8. Compared to any other DPS, it’s not destructive.

Caster design:
Honestly I don’t understand your point here. Do you also admit that SMN does not do casting well either? What does that have to do with Glarespam?

... Most of the arguments are from people who optimize ...

No. I’m attacking flawed game design. I’m saying Glarespam doesn’t fit ShB and EW’s endgame fight design, and you feel attacked because you enjoy that gameplay for whatever reason. You yourself admitted that this gameplay fits ARR fights better, so I don't understand.

Your picture says your Main Class is Scholar Lv 90, so what's the problem?

Seriously? Since my forum profile says Scholar, that means I don’t have WHM at level 90 and I’m never interested in its aesthetic?