Oops sorry I quoted the wrong post :-(

 
			
			
				Oops sorry I quoted the wrong post :-(




 
			
			
				I think a better solution for Assize is removing the heal from the initial use. Assize is just damage at first, but they while it's on cooldown, you can reactivate it to perform the heal. This acknowledges how players use it on cooldown while the heal now has more room to be used as needed if needed without creating friction between the heal and the DPS.
I also agree. I think the relationship healers have between healing and damage is not a bad one, but just having a wealth of OGCD heals has not boded well for the experience of healing. While I do want wider DPS libraries, I like feeling like there's a decision I must make between my attacks and my heals. I liked playing as a SCH in ARR, HW, and SB, and feeling like Adlo and Succor were a regular part of my gameplay, not just a last ditch effort for survival. It's true, though, that there could've been a lot more interactivity between my actions that SCH could've received as time went on.
This is why I think making healer optimization about managing resources that allow your GCD heals to refund lost damage can be a part of the logic that goes into healer gameplay loops that can feel more rewarding. Your attacks aren't just about attacking--they're also about supplying yourself with the tools you need to keep your teammates alive without losing momentum.




 
			
			
				Seals System can stay only if the combination of seals actually mean something other than refresh, damage and damage (because that's what haste boils down to) on self. As I've said before.
Bring back Ewer and Bole as an AOE option under w/e button it becomes (currently Astrodyne) and make Spire give a different affect. Cards are still meaningless outside of damage, and we can choose when to use Astrodyne's affect as we please. Don't need Refresh on the party, change the seals before you use Astrodyne.
Otherwise, reinstate the cards.
I'm not in favor of keeping the seals system because SE had two tries to make it worth while. I don't want to give them a third chance they honestly don't deserve.
I'm tired of being told to wait for post-patches and expansions for fixes and increased healing requirements that are never coming. Healers are not fun in all forms of content like all jobs should be, they're replaced by tanks and dps due to low healing requirements and their dps kit is small for 0 reason, when in the past we had more options and handled things just fine. I refuse to play healer in roulette come DT. I refuse to heal EXs, I refuse to go into Savage, and I am boycotting Ultimate.
#FFXIVHEALERSTRIKE
Okay, but... Seals and the old Card system are synergetic, especially if you're going to leave some Cards with less direct rDPS influences, as it levels out their contribution so long as some of the Seals are provided only through otherwise those otherwise less often desirable (or, less easily leverageable) Cards.
They'll still be the worse Cards if spammed, but they're now still worth including at least once per Divination cycle, which then means ASTs have reason per cycle to find the best way they can to leverage those more effects of more situationally-varied value.
Yes, the reward still needs to be interesting and significant regardless, but the two systems do support each other by creating a second layer of Card value.
Last edited by Shurrikhan; 01-14-2023 at 08:16 AM.
Gonna clip this here and post these first and keep reading. Good discussion. (I still do think a healer should be left alone, but I like hammering out more specifically WHY some things are felt boring and, more specifically, what WOULD break that up vs what would NOT...and it's also interesting seeing that you guys are also not of the exact same mind on it, with some finding oGCDs interesting vs some not, and some noting it depends on the type and frequency and how they fit into the overall kit.)
So would it be fair to say it as...hm...god this is going to be a horrible comparison but...
Suppose you're walking at a slow pace in a straight line. Each footstep is Glare. Assize is like doing a studder step every 40 seconds. But if you're playing RDM, Jolt is taking a step, Fire is taking a step right, Stone is taking a step left, Aero is taking a jump left, Thunder is taking a jump right, and your melee combo is like breaking into a sprint.
In other words, Assize doesn't really break up what you're doing, since its CD is long enough you aren't using it super frequently, and so it doesn't really break up the monotony of taking one slow step after another slow step. Contrasted to RDM which is weaving and dodging and jumping and sprinting.
...maybe that's a bad way to explain it, but that kind of in the right ballpark?
[NOTE: In my reply to Askellington, I thought maybe of a metronome. Maybe that's the better way to explain it?]
They would still annoy me, but they would annoy me A LOT LESS. I still think DoTs without major interactions with the rest of one's kit are lazy and boring design. But I would be less antagonistic to them if that were so, I think. It would be less frustrating AND annoying and merely just annoying.Quick question:
If the icons for your DoTs/HoTs (without needing plugins) tracked the timer of their respective debuffs on your current target (last living target if none selected), would DoTs still annoy you, or would they just feel more like... soft-CDs?
I think it honestly does have a lot to do with the icon/visual of it. As I've said, I don't mind NIN's damage upkeep buff (shows up as the fanblade/kunai fan ticking down and is apparent at a quick glance roughly how much is left by how much is lit up, and exactly how much is left by the big timer number) while I dislike WAR's (and DRG's) because it's a little buff icon with an even littlier number (I like DRG's the least because, in gameplay terms, it's also very [i]rigid[/] - WAR and NIN can stack theirs twice, which is both more flexible and, if under 30 seconds you use it a second time/early, it's not actually a DPS loss outside of buff windows as you simply have longer before needing to refresh it). In terms of player feedback, the interface doesn't give me the information I need to maintain it in a really usable way given the way I process data.
So it's part the visual and part the inflexibility - Dia should be used once every 30 seconds, no more, no less, so it's not as flexible as Storm's Eye or Armor Crush, which are both more flexible AND more forgiving, somehow making a lower and higher skill ceiling at the same time.
So a much more usable/visually informative interface showing it would probably be a lot nicer, yes. Hell, I'd settle for my DoT icon being 2x sized under the boss bar where I MIGHT see when it falls off out of the corner of my eye (a big thing disappearing might stand out vs something the same size as everything else disappearing).
I still would prefer buttons that just do direct damage, though, but if my DoTs were better visually communicated to me as a player, I would probably dislike them less. I still think it'd be nice if at least one healer didn't have them. Pre-6.0, one reason I liked RDM of the casters was that it was the one that didn't have a DoT while the other two did. I thought ShB Casters had a nice diversity of playstyles and none of the three played the same, and I think that's something every role should shoot for.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but optimal WHM play is to use Assize on CD for damage, right? "If it lines up with healing, that's just a happy coincidence" or something like that. Right? That is, it's used in high end play as a damage spell, not for the heal. If you can get useful healing by delaying it slightly, that's a gain, but only if it doesn't cost you an Assize use at the end of the fight (e.g. you can't delay more than a cumulative 40 seconds across an entire fight or it's a DPS loss). Do I not understand that correctly?
You may be right about Macrocosmos and Earthly Star (and Pneuma), as those are used for the healing. At least Pneuma is (it's damage neutral to Dosis, so there's no reason to use it NOT for the healing other than just a different button/visual/boredom)
So, only things that interrupt GCD spam count as buttons? Basically, Glare is being used as a metronome, and Assize doesn't interrupt the metronome, it just slides in during the swing and doesn't change the period in any way? Something like that?
How is Continuation different? It doesn't interrupt Gnashing Fang. Or is it more because Gnashing Fang itself is a separate button from 1-2-3? That is, pressing Continuation isn't the fun part, pressing Gnashing Fang instead of Keen/Brutal/Solid is the fun part?
One thing I've wondered is if giving Assize a 2 charge system would help. Granted, some people would use that as an optimization excuse to put it into buff windows, but I'm more thinking it then gives you the flexibility to put off using it for 10-20 seconds (39, actually) so you could intelligently hold it short periods to maximize its use (not overhealing but getting useful healing) while still not losing a cast over a fight as long as you prevent overcapping. Similarly to gap closers being used for damage, but because of having 2/3 charges, one charge can always be held for disengage/reengage uptime, which feels good to players. Choice often feels like a good thing. If it's not optimal but is NEARLY optimal (that is, not a big loss), choice can still feel good. "use on CD" is often not really fun because it's not really a choice. You're either doing it right or you're doing it wrong.
Basically, breaking up the metronome? Yeah, makes sense.
Huh. That's so weird to me. This would mean, for example, say WHM had Continuation (of some kind) every 3 Glare GCDs as a weave as well as Bow Shock and Blasting Zone (basically just two more oGCDs, one on a 30 sec and one a 60 sec timer), such that game play was 245-1-1-13-1-1-135-1-1-13-1-1-13-25-1-1-13-1-1-135-1-1-13-1-1-13-245repeatShort answer would be: yes.
(Basically, like PLD's 1-2-3 generating a HS cast, just here as oGCDs)
...that that wouldn't be more fun than 2-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1.
I guess if it's not, it's not - I fully accept what people find fun is a lot like asking what someone's favorite ice cream flavor is, and there's not a "wrong" answer to what you find fun (as long as it's not illegal, I guess, lol), it just might be different than someone else's favorite flavor/fun - but I can't mentally see how those two would feel like identical gameplay to someone. I guess if they do to you, they do. I'm just confused as to the why.
Found this post pretty interesting all around.
So to you, oGCDs...can feel interesting (and even overwhelm people) if they have short-ish CDs, variable timers (the ones that can refresh faster; MCH also does this with Hypercharge/Heated Shot), and shifting around through its oGCD kit depending on what part of the rotation it's on?
Also interesting on AST. I didn't really mess with it much until ShB other than unlocking it and leveling it a bit in HW and SB (I think I had it to level 50 or whenever you get all the cards before ShB, anyway; definitely remember the old cards and having to rebuild my hotbars after 5.0). I guess I always thought it had a second DoT. Didn't realize it was only EVER Malific/Combust. o.O
Last edited by Renathras; 01-14-2023 at 09:52 AM. Reason: EDIT for space
Not that this is a good idea (it's literally a "just popped into my head" idea), but I'm curious what you'd think about either of these:
1) Making Cards (Draw and Play) GCDs. If you have a hostile target (not friendly), Draw deals damage equal to a Malific (more or less) to the targeted enemy. (If we want to make things wild, we could make it do a Benefic's healing to a friendly if targeting a friendly, but it could also just do nothing. Play grants the card buff to the targeted ally and grants the AST "High Malific Ready" where their next Malific is upgraded to High Malific, identical to Malific in cast time and MP cost (and takes up the Malific button on your hotbar), but does 2x damage (damage neutral for Play being a GCD) and has a more explody/grand/pretty visual effect.
This would break up Malific spam with two buttons every 20 seconds, Draw and Play, with Draw dealing damage and Play boosting the effect of your following Malific as well as making it have a different VFX to change up the monotony some. I'm not sure this would break things up a ton, but it would make juggling cards in buff windows slightly less insane, and since Draw does damage and Play grants High Malific, you could take some time to consider who you want to apply them to (that is, you wouldn't need to Draw and only have 2.5 sec to think of and target the party member you want to apply to, you could put a Combust or Malific or two in between if you really felt you needed to and still be damage neutral). Would that make solo things a smidge more interesting and/or group play a little more fun and less clunky in burst?
2) Introduce the ability "Offensive Play". The AST inverts their Arcana card, playing it as a curse rather than a blessing. This outright turns cards into damage spells. Could also make it where doing so doesn't generate a seal (like old Minor Arcana use in ShB if you were fishing for your 3rd seal or were sitting on 3 and didn't want to muck that up before the burst window) if that would be nice, but could still generate a seal. Not sure which ASTs would like more. Either way, This would let the AST break up their rotation a bit with Draw and Play/Offensive Play being GCDs, and in solo play, the AST has another DPS button to press. Once you've buffed yourself, you could burn the other cards for offense instead. They could be designed to do more damage than Malific (a DPS gain) without changing group play since buffing a DPS (even with 3%) would always be worth more than, say, 2x or 3x Malifics. But in solo play, Offensive Play being 2x Malific worth of damage (or even 3x) would help speed solo encounters, where AST suffers from low DPS while also breaking up their rotation and giving the Job a niche (solo play only) optimization of using Offensive Play intelligently in buff windows.
Might something like that be useful?
Again, these were literally "just popped into my head", so I fully anticipate they could be really horrible ideas. Just curious your takes on them. If we actually had cards with different effects, Offensive Play could work differently, but even just being an attack would help AST kill things faster in solo and break up the monotony of the rotation, and Draw/Play (with or without Offensive Play) being GCD would break up the Malificspam metronome. Even if oGCD, Offensive Play would reduce the time to kill in solo encounters.
I dunno, it was just a thought...
Oh, and on Gravity - with a 5% damage reduction, how would you prevent this from just being kept up entire fights? Is there falloff/immunity on damage downs on bosses like how Stun works? I was thinking there wasn't because of the way Feint/Addle/Reprisal/Dismantle work and can be stacked/chained. Which is why they all have lengthy CDs to prevent just keeping the boss damage down-ed doing 5% less damage for entire fights. Didn't think there was an immunity to that...is there?
Not to mention the one thing I like about AST (my least favorite healer by a mile) is that it's the only one that doesn't have to stand in the center of the enemy pack in order to AOE. I like that Gravity doesn't require that. I wish SCH or SGE had a ranged option just to make them not identical with a different visual being the only distinction...
.
The reason the cards were all changed to boring damage is because people only fished for Balance before ShB, with a few exceptions if Royal Road (I think the name was) was up.
One possible solution I've seen before is if all cards did the same damage buff (so no matter which is used, they all confer that "optimal" benefit), but they have some secondary effects (things like MP refresh) to make them distinct while not trading damage for those other effects. Granted, I'm not sure what the effects would be now that the 2 min window exists and so Spell Speed and Skill Speed buffs are bad, and TP no longer exists, etc.
Last edited by Renathras; 01-14-2023 at 10:21 AM. Reason: EDIT for space




 
			
			
				I'd say Hypercharge/Heated Shot/Ricochet is very easy to perform because it's a specific structure that works exactly one way. It's fast-paced, and latency used to create some issues, but actually performing it is easy. I would say it's satisfying though. You have a rapid GCD timer and you're alternating between two OGCDs, and it's nice that Heated Shot and Ricochet are also maintained outside of Hypercharge and are not just buttons that exist for Hypercharge.
On BRD, it's the fact that the use of the OGCDs is not structured. There are procs for several things both on and off the GCD, and the cooldowns are short. I don't think BRD is that great at the moment, like I feel like having 2 selfish buffs and 2 party buffs all with the same 2 minute cooldown just feels kind of cluttered when it could be cleaned up, and Army's Paeon is kind of a dull phase where the job slows down considerably, but I'm also not a BRD main so I wouldn't take my opinions on it too seriously.
I'm not sure if this is necessarily the angle you were going for when you initially brought up the question, but I don't really think having a healer that has a 2-3 button GCD rotation with a small handful of OGCDs would feel great to the casual healer. Being able to keep the GCD rolling while weaving OGCDs is a skill that I don't think many newer, casual, or less experienced players are all that good at performing, at least not from let's play videos I've seen of players experiencing the story for the first time. It could also be in part the focus on being entertaining and engaging with their audience at the same time, though.
This is also why when I talk about wanting depth from WHM, I mention that it should stay low APM. A job can be fun without many OGCDs and can offer room for skill development, such as BLM, and it can also be simple while allowing for more actions to work with consistently throughout an encounter. And if this were accomplished, WHM could still feel easy to approach, just with more room for development from the more experience WHM players.
I'm all in favor of making the cards GCDs. Not everyone is on my side with that one, but besides the theorycrafting I've been posting today on here, my current iteration looks like this:
You have Solar Draw and Lunar Draw, two GCD actions with cooldowns. Solar is offensive cards, Lunar is defensive. They don't share a cooldown. Both drawing and playing cards are separate GCDs. The cards do not activate on your target immediately when you play them. Any party member can have a Solar card and a Lunar card, but not more than 1 of either. Celestial Opposition is another GCD that activates all Lunar cards on all nearby party members, activating their effects all at once, such as Bole's 10% mitigation. Celestial Fate is a GCD that activates all Solar cards. Celestial Intersection is a light GCD heal that activates both on a single target (good for tankbusters essentially). All of these GCD actions grant the AST a lodestar which orbits around them (both the drawing and playing of the cards). Stargazer is an OGCD action you weave that grants 2 stacks that allow your next spell or weapon skill to detonate one of the Lodestars, which deals malefic potency damage to the first target struck by the spell or weaponskill and 50% less for remaining enemies. Using Stargazer on another party member will cause them to detonate your stars for you, allowing you to spend considerably less time attacking enemies and having your party apply your DPS for you, though it can still be used on yourself for soloing.
There's more support for this system, such as Divination giving a solar card to the party as your buff window button, but that's the crux of the job concept. In addition, I also removed Combust in this concept for Asterism, a 2 charge GCD spell with a 30 second cooldown that generates 2 Lodestars on use. This means AST has no DoT, but has an equivalent that doesn't require a target and further supports their "attack through my allies" nature.
Currently, the limiting factor is the higher MP cost and the short 5 second duration. You wouldn't want to keep it up indefinitely because even in savage fights, you'll still have large breaks where no damage is being dealt, and trying to would just kill your MP. That said, it's entirely possible it needs more restriction than that and more structure. Perhaps that Premonition skill I mentioned, the 2 minute AoE burst attack could also apply 3 stacks of an effect that, when casting Gravity on that target, that's what gets you the 5% mitigation and consumes the stack, so you have 3 instances of light mitigation per 2 minutes. Or something like that could work.
Because Damage is king in this game, utility cards wouldn't be played on Tanks or Healers, so those effects would get ignored outside of the absolute most tragic scenarios. Because sure, Bole being a 6% DPS buff with an added 10% mitigation seems equal to every other effect, but putting that on the tank (unless it's DRK during their burst window) is just not nearly as valuable as ignoring the mitigation and putting it on the DPS anyway. You'd end up in almost the same predicament that the old cards were in.
Last edited by ty_taurus; 01-14-2023 at 11:00 AM.


 
			
			
				Some people like the business of AST weaving, some people think it's gone too far. I don't know if GCD cards is the solution, but maybe half-GCD like DNC steps or NIN mudras would retain some of the business, while still being a bit more lenient (you don't have to doubleweave like a madman, and can just go like, card, malefic, card, malefic, card, to give breathing room to see who to throw the card on)
I've said in the past that we can have thematic unique buffs, they just have to be balanced correctly. That relies on SE actually being competent enough to do so. I said Balance as flat damage, Spire as Physical damage, Ewer as Magic damage, Spear as Crit bonus, Arrow as 'autoattack speed' (so it doesn't throw off people's GCD/2min alignment), and Bole as Damage Mit, plus a reflect effect that counters for X potency when the Bole'd target is hit. If this were a game where people weren't so... obsessed? with 'perfect balance' in the card effects, one idea I had was to have a way, probably by moving Phys damage to Spear and putting this on Spire, to give a job a way to use a skill when they normally couldn't. For example, throwing it on a DRG so they can get a Stardiver, even outside of Life. Or a RPR getting a free Gluttony (without the soul reaver stacks, so it doesnt change the rotation, just extra OGCD damage). That definitely couldnt be balanced though, so it's staying on the cutting room floor. Don't see why the other stuff couldn't be in though.



 
			
			
				Still looks like healers are boring as hell and now with my friend is a Paladin main, he's already opting to now play less as his job got killed.
Just going to wonder how many more jobs are gonna be turned into water before SE realizes these aren't fun and people will just quit.
Still very frustrated after all these years that AST is complete boring garbage. I didn't fish for Balance, I used every card and made due with what I had.
HW AST was hard, but it was the best iteration imho. I thought I read AST was getting a rework but I don't see anything new. The only thing I can
take with solace now is that AST feels closer to what I miss in PvP more than anything else and I can only enjoy it in just really CC where I can
prove my skill in AST again like I did in 3.0. Just so damn tired of SE making baby mode jobs.
Stop insulting your playerbase's intelligence please with making jobs so easy that you legit can play while in veg mode lmfao.
Also, LOL the WAR heal buff is hilarious. The same very job that tell me to "not heal just dps"
Just make us DPS supports if you don't want us to heal anymore my guys.
Not gonna be pressing 111111111111111-2-111111111111 though so figure that out.
Last edited by Jybril; 01-14-2023 at 02:40 PM. Reason: Missing word.
A lot of people didn't (fish, just made due). The issue was that the "serious" people did, and made a big deal about it. I've heard it said that all the homoogenization and all the simplification in FFXIV (or almost all of it) is because the playerbase asks for it. Not the whole or a majority, but some very vocal people. In the case of AST, I think the argument was that cards other than Balance sucked (I think there were two that were useful if you could do the AOE or whatever of them, but the standard version people also avoided) and "Devs, make these other cards more useful!" type stuff was said. So the Devs went path of least resistance and just made all cards Balance.
I think this is slated for 7.0/the next expansion. They consider it an expansion-level rework. Which could be good or terrifying, we'll have to see in a year or so when they preview stuff in the media tour which...I guess happens with the Japan Fanfest or round-abouts?I thought I read AST was getting a rework but I don't see anything new.
So sorta like Lilybells/Star having a release button for the heal but the GCD starts ticking on initial use? I kind of like this idea.
Didn't they remove Energy Drain in ShB initially because they thought having heals and damage fight over the same resource was bad because (in optimization) damage always wins?I think the relationship healers have between healing and damage is not a bad one, but just having a wealth of OGCD heals has not boded well for the experience of healing. While I do want wider DPS libraries, I like feeling like there's a decision I must make between my attacks and my heals. I liked playing as a SCH in ARR, HW, and SB, and feeling like Adlo and Succor were a regular part of my gameplay, not just a last ditch effort for survival.
The odd thing to me about that, though, is I feel if they were really worried about that, they'd make all GCD heals generate a damage neutral resource. GCDs are effectively a "resource" that we trade between healing and damage, too, but I guess the Devs don't see it that way. One could argue it's to make a higher skill ceiling, but the Devs have thus far shown they want the skill ceiling on healers to be lower, so it just seems odd they are unwilling or unable to grasp that GCDs and damage are part of that calculation with at least a good chunk of the most vocal components of the playerbase, and it's one change that wouldn't hurt the 70+% or so that are casual and never run high end content. If Jonny Casual generated more Misery stacks by casting Cure 1, it's not like that would hurt the game or his play experience.
I don't think "dealing damage" should be tied to healing generated (except maybe on SGE, though this would also require a more extensive rework of the Job). I hate that in PvP. It's okay as a playstyle for a healer, but I don't think it would work well with the general community. But having standard healing tools generate resources to normalize damage shouldn't honestly be a problem other than it would lower the skill ceiling, I suppose. But that's technically the Dev's intention anyway. And the thing is, at least two (WHM and SGE) healers already have the basis for such a mechanic. Having any non-damage GCD generate a Blood Lily 1/3rd or making SGE GCD heals generate an Addersting when cast (not when the shield is consumed) and making Toxicon damage neutral (2x a Dosis cast) would outright solve that for both of those healers. Granted, there's be some weird optimization in burst windows, but that shouldn't substantially change the skill ceiling, I wouldn't think. And the rotations wouldn't really increase in complexity or number of abilities, either.
Honestly, Kardia is a good system imo, they just need to flex it more.
Last edited by Renathras; 01-14-2023 at 03:15 PM. Reason: EDIT for space
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