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

[ty_taurus]

In other words, it gives them nothing, because "thou-shall-not-DPS" healers hate DoTs/maintaining them? Though I do think buffing instead of DPS would be fun, good god, I hate DoTs. DoTs are the worst invention in any videogame ever. I don't mind DoTs if a Job is built entirely around their use (e.g. Warlock in WoW or something), but as just a tacked on "upkeep thing", they are the most obnoxious and uninspired mechanic ever, and I abjectly hate them. No, I don't want to have to squint at the boss health bar to see when that tiny little number is less than 3 and remember to press it again.

I'd rather have buffs with a single direct damage spell like Glare, Malific, or Ruin 2. No DoTs, please. Hell, one of my issues with healers right now is THEY ALL HAVE DOTS. It's THE EXACT SAME (in terms of DPS gain and duration) DoT, too!

I'd be perfectly happy if WHM got rid of Aero/Dia entirely and had a Ruin 2 movement/weave tool instead. That, a second party mitigation (I always feel like WHM needs a 60 sec or so partywide mitigation; make Asylum 60 sec and give it a damage reduction - blahblah stepping on Sacred Soil's toes, whatever, it would be true to the name Asylum and it needs SOMETHING for when Temperance is on CD), and I'd be happy with the Job. Maybe rework FreeCure into a 25% chance proc when you use Cure 1, Cure 2, or Glare to proc a free, boosted damage thing (like how old SMN had Ruin 2 proc Ruin 4 randomly, before they tied that to Egi Assaults) to kind of mix things up some so when you're casting Cure 1 or Cure 2 you have a chance to be refunded with a boosted instant cast damage spell, and every 3-6 Glare casts, the proc would give you a reason to hit that second dps button instead.

I'd MUCH rather have that than Dia as a DoT.

But yeah, a second party mitigation (either an existing spell or a new one), and removing the DoT but trading it in for an instant cast movement tool that can also be proc'd into a more powerful version for a dps gain over Glare/a partial damage refund for having to cast Cures would basically fix WHM entirely for me.

I mean you just won't be able to eliminate direct DPS entirely. The combat system just doesn't allow it. I've expressed my specific take on what I'd do with AST before. Basically you'd have two Draw actions, one for offensive buffs and the other for defensive. Both the Draw and the Play would be separate GCD actions with 30 second cooldowns and 2 charges.That's 4 GCDs per 30 seconds. Additionally, I'd make it so that the buff effects don't immediately occur, but rather, the card is sitting on your target until activated. You activate all offensive cards with one AoE heal GCD spell, and you have another that activates all defensive cards. All of these actions would yield the DPS refund that you can pass on to someone else to trigger for you with an OGCD action.

That said, I'd be fine exchanging the DoT with something like a delayed attack--a premonition of sorts where all the damage occurs as the effect expires, though that could get tricky since the spell gets entirely wasted if it expires while a target goes through a phase change which could be annoying, and overwriting the effect could completely invalidate a previous cast which seems punishing. It would be more thematic though.

Although AST needs some tweaks, this would be far more painful that the current state. AST is interesting since it can buff , heal, and DPS with some mobility. Not be a buff-bot that is there solely to support others, and maybe once or twice, throw out a DPS skill.

How I'd handle it is you'd still be doing DPS, it's just that the DPS would generate as you place buffs on allies and is a resource you'd need to manage. You could either pass off stacks of that damage for someone else to use, though that damage would still technically come from you and be treated as your own selfish DPS, or you could grant yourself the effect that detonates those stacks and manually trigger them with Malefic.

However you spin it, we have multiple different jobs under one role. Why aren't they taking different approaches to achieving the same thing? If someone wants to play a direct DPS healer, we can have a direct DPS healer, but not everyone wants that. So why don't we create an indirect DPS healer? We do ultimately need to have every healer contribute to DPS because if one just doesn't, then that healer's going to be thrown out of the meta entirely. But if you can generate DPS indirectly, you can have a healer who focuses on support while still having contribution.

One thing we have to accept is that things need to change if we want the healing role to not be the disaster it currently is. Jobs need to change. Excessive healing buttons should be cut even if they feel good to use and are great tools because we have way too much free healing and its sapping all the value out of our GCD heals. If we want the healing role to change and get fixed, but don't want anything to change or get removed, then it's no wonder healers are in the state they are.