The Problem with Healer Feedback, and requested changes

[ASkellington]

Not reading anything else at the moment, just different thought:

If it was SGE instead of WHM, would that make people feel better?

I'mma be completely honest with you:

No. At least not now. If we were talking about on SGE's release, yeah. It could work, though... its play rate may be decreased.

The only way we'd see your idea of a DoT-Nuke healer possibly being accepted is if its a brand new one coming out.

Edit: The only healer that arguably should remain with 1 DoT-Nuke is AST simply because of the card system, something I said back in Shb. As a person who's main'd the job for as long as I have though? I want either another DoT on a shorter timer than Combust or a Nuke akin to Phlegma.

Doing solo content as AST is beyond unfun.

[Renathras]

No. At least not now. If we were talking about on SGE's release, yeah.
...
The only way we'd see your idea of a DoT-Nuke healer possibly being accepted is if its a brand new one coming out.

Okay, something to discuss.

Why...exactly do you think "not now" but that a NEW released healer could do it?

And I'm not trying to be smarmy and have no tone here, I'm genuinely curious. SGE was just released with this model, so if they just didn't release SGE until 7.0 but released it with this model as "the beginner healer" while upping the complexity of the other three, why would that be better?

SGE players right now are used to SGE as it is right now, so why would they be averse to it being as it is right now - something that doesn't seem to be bothering people that newly picked up the Job and have no historic attachment to keep them playing it if they don't like it?

SGE is brand new, it's just a year old.

And been doing PotD and HoH both on SGE and find it pretty fun. Plegma at a lower level (especially now with the shorter CD and 2 stacks) gets a lot of use when I want to burst or just have another button to push, and I pre-Eu Diagnosis shield myself, so lots of Addersting. If Toxicon was damage neutral, it would probably have the most active solo playstyle other than MAYBE SCH as it is right now.

I'm kind of curious why (a) you think it staying the same would not work and (b) why you think a brand new Job (presumably with some different aesthetic or something?) would work?

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EDIT: That is:

Why can no existing healer - all of which currently use a simple model - not maintain a simple model?

Even the ones (definitely SGE and arguably WHM) who have always had a model like this for their lifetime and have a precedent of having a model like the present one?

And why would a new Job be allowed to do this? What would be different about a new Job vs the already existing Jobs?

(And the answer shouldn't be "Well, then no one would have to change away from a Job they currently use", because the change would be forcing people who want simpler gameplay to change to the new Job - why should they be the ones forced to change when SGE, in particular, has always been this way its entire existence?)

[ASkellington]

I'm kind of curious why (a) you think it staying the same would not work and (b) why you think a brand new Job (presumably with some different aesthetic or something?) would work?

Because I don't exactly consider SGE to be a 1 nuke 1 DoT healer. You'd need to remove Phlegma and Toxicon for that, but, even if we just keep it as is, people still want it to be the more dps oriented healer.

That said, if SGE were to stay the same, and we still want it to be the DPS healer, 1 - fix Toxicon. Make it proc with more than just E. Diagnosis, perhaps Haima or some such. 2, give it an AOE Kardia so it can heal the party while it does damage.

[Renathras]

Because I don't exactly consider SGE to be a 1 nuke 1 DoT healer.

No healer is. Plegma is on the same CD as Assize (Assize is an oGCD, but it's a physical button you press*), and Misery exists as a resource spending attack (different then, but an extra button like, Toxicon).

even if we just keep it as is, people still want it to be the more dps oriented healer.

And WHM is the "simple healer with more of a focus on powerful direct healing" and people still want it to be that. So...this argument would imply we should change SGE but leave WHM alone, doesn't it?

That said, if SGE were to stay the same, and we still want it to be the DPS healer, 1 - fix Toxicon. Make it proc with more than just E. Diagnosis, perhaps Haima or some such. 2, give it an AOE Kardia so it can heal the party while it does damage.

I don't disagree with this. Toxicon being damage neutral would fix a lot of the issues anyway. It would lower the skill ceiling, but it would make the button more routinely useful. They also added in 6.3 that it procs off of Eu Prognosis (specifically, when the shield ON YOU from Eu Prognosis breaks). So if it was damage neutral, that would make the only cost of using both Eukrasia shields be the MP cost since the damage would be refunded. Though I suppose it would be more of a side grade in terms of optimization as there'd now be a reason to stock 2 Addersting stacks to blow during burst windows along with Phlegma, I guess?

I've also been advocating to have an AOE Kardia since I first got my hands on SGE. I think honestly Krasis and possibly Pepsis should be removed and one turned into an AOE Kardia for 3-4 GCDs so the SGE could use it to proc party healing.

Though "and we still want it to be the DPS healer" - no, we'd be making WHM, SCH, and AST the DPS healers.

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EDIT: On the asterisk:

I am a bit curious why oGCDs don't count as buttons. And again, I'm being serious here, not antagonistic. Why is Phlegma an acknowledge "distinct" damage tool but Assize is not? Is it because no charges on Assize makes it something you burn on CD rather than use more deliberately? Or is it just "oGCDs don't count", despite of the things non-healers have is oGCDs used for damage. If we had a model where healers had 4-5 oGCD damage spells, would that not count as more DPS engaging? Would it only count if they were GCDs?

If so, why? Is there something more satisfying about pressing 1-2-3-4-5 with 2.5 sec gaps vs 1-2 1-3 1-4 1-5 as weaves?

[Renathras]

Interesting.

Honestly, I like GNB more now, but that's more a button bloat issue. Gnashing Fang's combo being multiple buttons was always weird to me playing it in ShB. If Assize had a 15 sec CD, would you be content with that?

I think with SGE people were expecting something like a RIFT Chloromancer or (to a lesser example) WoW Disc Priest. Chloros were basically mages where their damage spells were weaker and they did splash and party member heals and the like. Like if you took PvP SGE and made it into a full class. I think people were imagining something like that when Yoshi P's statement was correct. SGE is what it says on the tin "It heals by doing damage". It also heals by weaving oGCDs, but it does damage and this generates heals. People just thought "doing damage" meant "has a somewhat involved DPS rotation" instead of "presses one spam button, refreshes a nuke, and occasionally use a melee range damage button".

...completely understandable, but Yoshi P wasn't lying about it, and probably wasn't actively trying to mislead people. He seems genuinely confused why people would play a healer role when they want to deal damage, so maybe in his mind, he was thinking they want to attack enemies more than press healing buttons, and SGE rewards doing that with healing. (Pneuma you don't press for damage - it's damage neutral with Dosis - you press it for the AOE heal when you use Zoe. It's a MASSIVE AOE heal when Zoe empowered since it counts as a cast time heal instead of an oGCD. It feels like it should do big damage, what with being a massive laser and all...but it doesn't. XD)

However, the point here:

SGE was released as it is. People who jumped on it expecting an in depth damage rotation are no longer under that delusion. The ones who wanted something more involved seem to have moved back to SCH.

That is, SGE is already this. No one has any delusions of that. Why would that change? And why wouldn't that apply to a new healer?

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I do have to ask: Who do you think the "majority" are, in this scenario? Do you truly think, despite easy Jobs being the most played in the game, that the majority doesn't want easy Jobs despite gravitating to them?

Also: The identity of some existing Jobs is this, though. WHM, for example, as you note "simple healer, focus on powerful direct healing". How could they introduce a new healer with a stronger identity of that than even WHM? What would that Job even be? How could a new healer be described as "simple healer, focus on powerful direct healing" without that stepping on WHM's toes? ...not that that tends to matter when it comes to giving WHM abilities to other Jobs but not letting WHM have their toys, but the point still stands...

Say they introduced Chemist as an easy Job. Wouldn't that have you guys rushing to the cool new thing and saying it should be more complex because of lore or mechanics or precedent (the Mix command from FFX, having a magic gun weapon, etc) just the same?

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EDIT:

AOE Kardia is one of those augments because that fruit is so low hanging it's touching the floor

lol, I love this statement, and absolutely agree. You get a like for that alone.

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EDIT2:

Also aside: It occurs to me that I really hate DoTs - as I've mentioned before - but don't dislike non-DoT spells. For example, I like Plegma and Toxicon. Granted, neither are spamable. My only issue with Plegma is the range. It doesn't have to be 25y, but 10y would be nice, 6y just feels constraining like a pair of gloves a size too small.

There also seems to be a difference between number of buttons (because most of you in pitching proposals tend to include adding 3-5 new abilities (sometimes with removing heals to "make some room")) and "pressing button more often". For example, I don't consider pressing Fell Cleave 50 times to be "more complexity" (the only thing making it mildly complex is the gauge management, but if that's removed and we're just talking the spam, I don't consider that "added complexity"). One thing I like about SGE is the hotbar economy is as good as WHM. If something was done like making the potency of Misery 620 (2x Glare) but making each Lily use generate a Misery (so you could hit it once every 20 seconds), I wouldn't mind that at all. If anything, it would give WHM more mobility and slightly better MP economy. I feel like you guys would dislike that because it would lower the skill ceiling - lower damage Misery means less penalty for not fitting it into buff windows, and it would be come a "use on CD" button, basically, since you would use it every 20 sec to not overcap lilies. It would be a bit like a pocket Ruin 4, basically, just used every 20+/-19 sec instead of once per 60.

I figure you guys wouldn't care for that, but I'd personally be fine with that change and not see it as adding complexity so much as being a side-grade - you'd hit the button 3x as often, with a lower skill ceiling, and it would make WHM more freely able to move about the cabin.

In other words, would that be "more complexity"? I wouldn't think so, but considering someone mentioned how many times buttons are pressed as an argument, and someone else sees Phlegma (a GCD) as distinct from Assize (an oGCD) despite them having the same CD and being used on average the same number of times in the fight, I'm curious if that would count.

(Note that this isn't a proposal, per se, just wondering how "complexity" vs "simplicity" are actually being defined by all of us. It's possibly the reason there's confusion among you vs my stance on Aero 3 when I don't mind Aero 3 as basically "a slightly more often pressed than Misery second button in AOE".)

[ty_taurus]

OGCD elements can supplement GCD rotations to some level. Look at BRD, a DPS with a GCD rotation that's really not much more deep than the healers even. You've got:

- Burst Shot / Ladonsbite
- Refulgent Arrow / Shadowbite every few GCDs generally
- Caustic Bite and Stormbite which you ideally use once at the start of battle and then replace with one use of Iron Jaws every 45 seconds
- Apex Arrow into Blast Arrow

And that's it. Despite this, BRD can feel very overwhelming for a lot of people because even though that's a very simple rotation to manage, its OGCD library is decently wide, but also consists of a lot of short cooldowns, charges, and procs.

- Bloodletter / Rain of Death every 15 seconds which you get free stacks of throughout Mage's Ballad
- Empyreal Arrow every 15 seconds
- Sidewinder every 60 seconds
- One of your three songs every 45 seconds
- Pitch Perfects during Wanderer's
- Four buffs to weave for you two minutes

It's really not a hard job per say, but it can feel very hectic because you're looking in a lot of different places depending on your song. And while Troubadour and Nature's Minne aren't a part of your rotation, they are two of the most prominent sources of utility that come from the DPS role (Nature's Minne as of the most recent patch), and thus managing them can play into your gameplay as well.

Moving to the topic of AST, I actually didn't find its 1 nuke/1 DoT rotation in SB to feel as stale as it does for the healers currently, because the burden of knowledge on the old cards was a lot more complex. You were actively paying attention a lot more to what cards you were getting, what you stored, what you burned, and the factors that your cards applied to. Like as a SB AST, I would actively be paying attention to MP values in case a Ewer could help my cohealer. Additionally, AST's only OGCD healing resources were Earthly Star and Essential Dignity at the time (Lady too technically, but you rarely wanted to sit on her because she ate into Minor Arcana's CD), so you had to resort to GCD healing for most raidwide damage. Even now, I actually don't think AST's lack of an offensive rotation is what's making it feel awful to play. It's the card system feeling unnecessarily complex for a very lackluster reward in Astrodyne.

[ASkellington]

Moving to the topic of AST, I actually didn't find its 1 nuke/1 DoT rotation in SB to feel as stale as it does for the healers currently, because the burden of knowledge on the old cards was a lot more complex. You were actively paying attention a lot more to what cards you were getting, what you stored, what you burned, and the factors that your cards applied to. Like as a SB AST, I would actively be paying attention to MP values in case a Ewer could help my cohealer. Additionally, AST's only OGCD healing resources were Earthly Star and Essential Dignity at the time (Lady too technically, but you rarely wanted to sit on her because she ate into Minor Arcana's CD), so you had to resort to GCD healing for most raidwide damage. Even now, I actually don't think AST's lack of an offensive rotation is what's making it feel awful to play. It's the card system feeling unnecessarily complex for a very lackluster reward in Astrodyne.

In group content no. Its 100% the cards being lack luster as you said.

As a person who actually went through Shb and EW as an AST though, I'll respectfully disagree. Its by far the worst of the three healers considering half your cards don't benefit you and you do the lowest damage because buffing healer. It can still use a Phlegma type ability.

Even with old cards back.

[ty_taurus]

In group content no. Its 100% the cards being lack luster as you said.

As a person who actually went through Shb and EW as an AST though, I'll respectfully disagree. Its by far the worst of the three healers considering half your cards don't benefit you and you do the lowest damage because buffing healer. It can still use a Phlegma type ability.

Even with old cards back.

That's fair, and moving forward, I wouldn't want to just return to that format either. I've spent a lot of time trying to crack the code to the perfect card system because it's just an almost impossible concept to do well in this game's format. Trying to create 6 cards that are both randomized, feature different effects that aren't a burden on the player to remember, and are also somehow perfectly balanced is just a nightmare. I have examples of concepts that I think do well enough, but each features its own flaws.

But one thing I try and think about in terms of ensuring its consistent loop is engaging at all levels is making it very set-up focused. I've brought it up before, but essentially, certain supportive GCD actions generate stars that orbit you that, when triggered, will detonate around the target of spells and weaponskills as additional, Malefic potency damage. You could apply an effect that allows you to trigger these for soloing, or pass them over to your teammates for them to detonate for you.

I've brought up before the idea of GCD cards where you still do a lot of weaving to pass these stars around, and I believe I recall you not liking cards on the GCD no matter what.

Lately, I've been wracking my brain around something a bit different, though it's a very nebulous concept at the moment. Basically, my head is circling around the idea that rather than drawing random cards, you have a "hand" like you would in a TCG of some sort, where each card is a one-use resource. You start with 3 random cards in your hand which would appear on your gauge, and those would enable specific actions. For example, maybe rather than playing the balance as its own effect, the balance is a token used to activate Divination, or something like that. You can draw back up to a max of 3 cards. Cards retain having a solar, lunar, or celestial affinity, and playing the new action "Reverse" swaps your current card with the other of the same affinity if it's still in your deck, and once one of your cards is used, that card is essentially in your discard pile. The idea here is you're meant to have 1 use of each card per "rotation" and the new action "Reshuffle" shuffles that back into your deck so you can use those resources again.

It sounds more complicated than it would be in practice I believe, but the actual specifics of how it mechanically works and what resources each card gives you isn't something I've been able to figure out yet. But conceptually, regardless of whether or not you had a party, these card actions would still be usable solo, even if granting you effects you don't necessarily need, and you can still earn these stars to detonate with your own Malefic casts.

Your direct offensive library would be very shallow, but because it's being supplemented with card playing and/or card-costing actions that generate stars, its a lot more varied. My headspace is in this general direction for your offensive library:
- Malefic stays as your filler
- Combust is replaced with an action that generates multiple stars on a GCD cooldown of 30 seconds with charges.
- Gravity's damage to your first target is the same as Malefic and is 50% less for remaining enemies, has a slightly higher MP cost, and also applies a 5% damage reduction debuff on your targets for 5 seconds, effectively merging it with the old Disable action and has you use Gravity in single target situations to respond to incoming attacks.
- Premonition is a new action that would have a lengthier cooldown, such as 2 minutes, and is a point-blank AoE spell that consumes all your current stars and puts a 3 second cooldown with a stack for each star consumed that works kind of like a reverse Haima, dealing damage and consuming the stack over and over until all stacks are consumed when its duration expires, and the next stack takes another 3 seconds.

[IDontPetLalas]

So, why would AST need to be in point-blank range for the new skill, when it currently doesn't need to be? That's one of the benefits of Gravity, especially for a pure healer.

[ty_taurus]

So, why would AST need to be in point-blank range for the new skill, when it currently doesn't need to be? That's one of the benefits of Gravity, especially for a pure healer.

Oh, I just meant that it's an AoE around you rather than something that needs to be targeted, but I imagine the range would be something like Standard/Technical Step where you don't need to actually be at close range to use it.

EDIT: So this is not really what the skill would end up looking like necessarily, but Lisa's elemental skill in Genshin was kinda what was playing in my mind as I was imagining it: