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

[Renathras]

I like how someone says "Stop the walls of text", but then...

I also wouldn't have to post lengthy posts if there weren't like 5 people replying, so..

Did find the hb tag, so hope that helps a smidege.

Remember, as a White Mage, your soul stone derives from A-Towa-Cant;

While this IS true, it doesn't mean you ARE A-Towa-Cant, nor does it mean his purpose was going through the world and purging things everywhere. A-Towa-Cant's thing was somewhat more exploring the world and interacting with its people, spreading SUCCOR not DESTRUCTION far and wide.

As for Final Fantasy history - historically, WHM's get VERY few damage spells. In fact, the Water/Aero/Earth spells are a somewhat new to White Mage thing. Traditional FF games, WHM has the Holy spell, which is powerful but late-game, occasionally a light damage spell like Dia (which is generally a low-to-mid tier in damage amount), and that's it. The rest of their spells in most FF games are the Cure line, Raise line, Regen line, status effect cleansing line (from the specific statuses like Poisona to the mid-game cure-all of Esuna), defensive utility spells Protect and Shell(which we SHOULD HAVE imo, if nothing else they could be short term defensive tools like Temperance), often Haste and Reflect if Time Mage isn't in the game, more rarely offensive debuffs that aren't overly detrimental (Sleep) and general utility spells like Float, Teleport, or Warp.

White Mages have used hammers and bows, but I'd wager you aren't asking for FFXIV WHMs to be auto-attacking beasts? Though I wouldn't at all be opposed to cure spells working on undead to harm them! I'd love Cure 2 to be offensively useful in some fights, but FFXIV doesn't do stuff like that outside of BLU content and spells aren't coded to have offensive or defensive use like that (you have stuff like Assize which is offensive AND defensive, but it is against all creature types)

I do think your last question is instructive. I'd say we already have a good picture of that: Look at FFXI's versions of the Jobs that FFXIV has: https://finalfantasy.fandom.com/wiki...nal_Fantasy_XI)

Considering FFXI is an old school MMO and is menu based, WHM in an old school FF console game in MMO form would likely be basically what FFXI's WHM is, because...that's what FFXI is.

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

I have a general philosophy when replying to people: People are important. What they are saying is important. Therefore - I would so be an Ent if I lived in Middle-Earth - if it was worth the time for them to say it, it's worth taking time to respond to it, at least all the major points. You may think it funny, but it's how I show respect to people. I actually reply to all the points they make instead of trying to dumb it down, oversimplify, straw man, or hyperbole their arguments, which is what I consider to be insulting the person and disrespecting them. IF, however, that's what you WANT, I'll try doing that instead.

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.[/QUOTE]

The problem is when hyperbole falls into the slippery slope fallacy, as it no longer gets the point across. If WAR was made into a single button rotation that had Storm's Path and literally no other spell, that would be pretty bad. But I'm not arguing WHM have Glare AND ONLY GLARE, am I? So you're arguing against a strawman, which is a fallacy. It does not "get the point across", it vastly overstates your argument while not addressing what you're actually arguing against. That makes it a strawman fallacy.

IR = PoM makes more sense as crit weaponskills are automatic baked in and don't require an additional button press. Infuriate compares directly to Lucid Dreaming since both are generating a resource. It's not a perfect comparison (MP is more like TP, but TP no longer exists) and something like Rhizomata is a more exact comparison, but WHM doesn't have a Lily generating ability. Though if you want, we could pretend WHM had a Rhizomata/Aetherflow button and Infuriate was that? Either way, it shows your position is fault and a strawman fallacy, and that doesn't change, no matter what specifics we apply here.

Healer state:

Content: Extremes, Savages, Ultimates, yes, but ALSO some dungeons with enrages Gimlit that ends with the two sisters powering up their attack, the first boss in Troia, as well as a number of normal mode trials with add phases; I distinctly remember doing normal Titania when it was brand new first time in ShB and people were wiping to the add phase, and you get the unusual stuff like Baldession Arsenal and Delubrium but their damage rotations include some off the wall stuff.

I don’t want someone who doesn’t want to put in effort to clear hard content.

They're putting in effort, that's the problem. They're putting in effort to things other than DPS rotations. This is a consistent problem I have with your argument. It assumes that the only form of effort in this game is "herp derp I push button make boss go ouchie!" and literally nothing else is effort. Doing mechanics is not effort. Pressing healing buttons is not effort. What if we did this in reverse and pretended that pressing DPS buttons was not effort, only using tank mitigation was? Then we'd have to say all DPSers are not "putting in effort to clear hard content", wouldn't we?

“Just play ultimate.”

You put this in quotes, yet I didn't say it, did I?

Gear progression does not matter in this game at all for anything other than doing even harder content.

Did you not see where I preemptively answered this question already? You can't just ignore that I already "pre-rebutted" it. You can clear P8S in tome gear. You don't need Savage gear for it, either. You lose this one.

We’re not Padjali though,

We aren't. But you didn't ask that. You said WHM lore, and I'm pointing out that you're wrong on WHM lore, which is much more to the healers and much less to the damagers.

Also, what happens to Sylphie when she only uses healing spells?

Do the quest again. You don't remember it. Let me quote from the Journal for you:

"Brother E-Sumi explains that Sylphie's powers of healing draw not upon the boundless energies of nature, but upon her own limited life force. Should she continue to practice her magic, the young conjurer is in danger of sharing her mother's tragic fate. Deeply concerned, the Padjal pledges for a way to save the girl, and hopes you will aid him should a solution be found. Returning to the subject of your education, the guildmaster expresses his satisfaction with your mastery of conjury's fundamental principles, and bids you strive to attune yourself ever more closely to the elements."

You anti-Sylphie's have used her as a punching bag so long, you don't remember what her "crime" was. She was trying to be a Red Mage. This goes a bit into the weeds, but if you do all the THM/BLM, CNJ, and RDM quests and know their lore, you know that the difference between THM and BLM is that THM's rely on their own internal stores of Aether to cast spells, which is why their magics are ultimately limited. Shantotto discovered one could channel the ambient Aether AROUND them to cast spells, making them far more powerful and unlimited. The White Mages of Amdapor discovered a similar method of using magic (interestingly, it's not stated, but the SCH's of Nym likely did NOT do that, and so didn't contribute to the 5th Calamity). The 5th Calamity was the result of their war and depleting and destabilizing the land's Aether as a whole. After it, it was why Black Magic and White Magic were banned and persecuted. RDMs specifically use their PERSONAL Aether, with techniques that amplify and efficiently reclaim it so the practitioner doesn't drain themselves dry and kill themselves in the process, which requires a great deal of physical conditioning, precise motions in casting, and is both mentally and physically taxing, so RDM's in lore have to be in fantastic physical and mental shape.

Conjurers, though, had a different path. The Elementals decided TO let them channel ambient Aether, but only a trickle, so they would not repeat Amdapor's mistake. Curative magics are more taxing, apparently, and will kill the user trying them at high levels with their personal Aether, as a THM does to cast their basic Fire and Ice spells. Sylphie's mother was a healer that did so, and died. Sylphie was following her mother's path, which would have killed her had she expended too much of her own personal Aether/life force.

Sylphie's crime was never "she cast only healing spells and no attack magic". It was she was drawing on her own life force to cast spells (in general) rather than on the Elemntals.

WHMs follow after the CNJ example, but, because they are entrusted by the Elementals to do so and are relatively few in number, do not have the cap/limit on how much they can channel, and so are capable of using far more powerful spells without, in theory, destabilizing the balance of the natural world.

THAT is WHM's lore and mechanics in FFXIV.

You’re using hyperbole here

Fair enough. My point was, it doesn't mention attack spells or offensive magics AT ALL. Going just by the lore blurb on the class, one would be forgiven for thinking WHM's WERE pure healers. My overall point that you aren't correctly representing WHM lore stands.

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?

The point is you're citing an appeal to authority that does not exist. You're saying "Casters are X, Y, and Z" when they clearly are not, and you're ignoring the one outright example that proves you're wrong. Casters, in FFXIV, are clearly not limited to needing to stand still and turret. And, my point still stands: Healers are not Casters. They are classified distinctly, just as Tanks (and MCH) are not Melee.

No. I’m attacking flawed game design.

I didn't say you weren't?

I commented on who the arguments were coming from.

Moreover, Glarespam clearly DOES fit the game design. You can argue it makes for a BORING game design, but it was designed by the Devs to fit it. You may not like the fit, but it fits just fine. Glarespam very clearly allows WHM's to participate in and clear content, thus it's more than adequate at it.

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?

Now who's imagining being attacked? I didn't say you couldn't be interested in other Jobs - I play SCH about as much as I play WHM. But I'm willing to give one up to make other people happy as long as one remains in a state I enjoy it. It's selfish of you to not be willing to do the same, especially since you're the one benefiting from the change.

You also don't understand the options you have here. The option is NOT "you get all 4 healers to your liking OR you get 3 healers to your liking". The option IS "you get 3 healers to your liking OR you get NO healers to your liking and everything stays the same as ShB/EW". You're arguing as if from a point of already having everything you want and being asked to give something up, when the actual situation is you have nothing that you want and are wanting to get everything that you want. You're arguing from a position of weakness but acting like you're arguing from a position of strength.

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The issue is that without the current ogcd healing kit and being more reliant on gcd heals, a majority of in effect halfway interesting healing abilities would be lost and the role itself would become extremely slow to play.

I'm going to try to read this carefully, because there's some good density to this. Have you looked at the APM across Jobs, by chance?

It's oddly not a super accessible number (as far as I can tell on the abacus, you have to look at individuals the Casts and you can't do it by an aggregate across all records of a given Job), but a quick look at the current top of the pile has AST around 42.4 (this doesn't include targeting, btw), which is comparable with MNK (also about 42.7 with a bit higher of a decimal). The SCH on their team was 35.6. The first team down that list with a WHM has 33.7, their SCH co-healer 35.7, and for some more reference points, the first NIN on the list is 47.7 vs first BLM with 33.4 and the first MCH is 46.4. For Tanks, the top team (double DRK) each were 41.5, first GNB is 44.8, first WAR is 34.6, and first PLD is 36.6. Oh, and the first SGE is 35.0.

These are all 99 players except the AST, who is 100, and this is Proto-Carbie, as I figured it'd have the most smoothed numbers (higher fights having more forced movement and downtime and such). We can examine some other fight, but I wager the general story will be similar.

What do we see here?

Overall, we see that healers have a similar APM profile to Tanks, and though I didn't break down all DPS Jobs, the ceiling is likely NIN or MCH around 48 and the floor BLM around 33. And again, note that these are all 99s with a 100 thrown in there, so this represents high end players and optimization and all that.

Is this "extremely slow" to play?

Well, if it is, so are BLM and WAR, and no one is demanding they be loaded with more abilities. And I agree, it's okay for one healer. Which is literally all that I'm asking for/stating as necessary.

No, WHM doesn't need an "elemental rotation". Especially if they actually bite the bullet and add GEO to the game already. Krile needs a new Job for 7.0.

I do agree, though, that I'd like to see more GCD variation. I believe I stated that, too.

You express constant smugness over healers who care about their dps,

No I absolutely do not. You, on the other hand, are constantly talking down your nose to me.

I do agree that I'd like to see healer skill expression - IN HEALING - as more prevalent in the game.

And to be honest, I think your talking about elitism and WoWs supposed toxicity all the time, it kinda feels like you can't get over the trauma of being called out once in your time there.

To be honest, I was never "called out" in WoW. I defended other people who were attacked by meter worshiping crapbaskets, though.

My position is not one of elitism but of basic competency.

I don't think it is. If that was all it was, we wouldn't be having this discussion. You note yourself that basic competency is merely being able to heal the content (your "floor" doesn't include any damage at all, I'll note). Yet you're not talking about/asking after that. You're talking about adding DPS rotations to exclude people from various forms of content. "basic competency" that is not.

I literally picked up healer during Endwalker fresh after not playing it for years and was immediately capable of playing with pretty high dps uptime and barely having to cast heals,

Yes? This is because of how powerful and frequently available oGCDs are. Have I not said over and over that's a problem? And have you not over and over defended those systems and demanded they remain in place, even in this very post, insisting that healers would be "extremely slow to play" without them?

You can't argue for something and then complain about the result of that thing existing at the same time.

If oGCD heals were less prevalent, it would require more GCD heals. But my contention - correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems this way to me reading your posts - is that you don't want to have to press healing GCDs. You want healing to be exclusive oGCD so you can use all your GCDs on damage spells. Is this not so?

With which you then get bored, because there aren't very many of them to press. In effect, your philosophy of healer design creates a problem, then you complain about the problem to achieve an objective of shifting healers ever closer to dpsers.

Healer DPSing being a thing is pretty much the most unique and stand out thing in this game,

To you, perhaps. Many people would say it's the story and characters.

because it was already an established norm and common courtesy when I started the game, arround the end of heavensward.

It really wasn't. There was, in fact, a big fight/discussion over it at the time within the community. So much so the Devs removed Cleric Stance because of the toxicity it fostered.

And to be honest, I feel like story content being so easy that it is impossible to fail is kind of immersion breaking. It would be okay if the WoL would be defined by being just there and special, but they are supposed to be a legendary combatant but the story itself has no casual skill checks for the player to test and proof that.

I feel like this is one of those "depends on your point of view" things. To me, the WoL being able to do all of this without me MECHANICALLY AS A PLAYER having to do crazy stuff is the proof of their legendary prowess. Among the most hated (by many players) parts of EW was the segment where you control the Garlean (basically Gladiator skillset) who is super weak. While we can destroy magitek armor with ease, it's a certain death if you do so during that segment. You have to be extremely careful and cautious as you work your way through the city and use limited resources to struggle to make it.

And most players seemed to HATE it.

I thought it was fantastic because it showed how powerful the WoL IS and why the rank and file Garleans look at you the way they do. It was using game mechanics to explain a point, but was a one-time thing.

If that was happening all the time, if every fight was a struggle at that level, THAT would be immersion breaking.