The Problem with Healer Feedback, and requested changes

[ty_taurus]

If we want to make the relationship between pure healer and barrier healer more distinct and meaningful, a hurdle you have to deal with is ensuring both feel good during 4-man content, especially if Criterion is going to be a thing.

The idea of having pure healers have the ability to burst heal while barrier healers can't, and barrier healers have the ability to mitigate but pure healers can't, and the two are meant to cover one another could work in theory. Having this relationship where pure healers are also meant to handle healing checks while barrier healers set up resources before damage could also work. But what you'd need to do for dungeons and easier content is create scenarios where both burst healing and mitigation purposes are needed, or at least make certain mechanics much smoother. Then, you'd need to give pure healers access to clutch mitigation tools that come at some type of opportunity cost, and vice versa for barrier healers and burst healing. This ensures both camps have the tools they need to cover those mechanics when healing solo, but are meant to avoid those clutch actions when together while the other healer covers that gap in their performance.

When I say opportunity cost, it should be a cost of DPS uptime. In other words, in order for SCH or SGE to burst heal, they have no choice but to stop attacking, and spend the next couple GCDs using their clutch burst button. The same is true inversely with pure healers and mitigation/barrier tools.

[Shurrikhan]

So, like Resto Druid or Disc Priest, the reason it'd be 'an advantage' is the gameplay feel. Setting up your HOTs on Resto for the big raidwide damage HPS check thing, then hitting that Flourish to double their output and watching the HPS bars just shoot up (especially with how HOTs tick way more often in WOW anyway) is satisfying to see.

Right, but again -- just very simply, unless playing with a static group of friends, parties don't take class/job/spec/profession X just because something about X especially appeals to its player, since each of the alternatives likewise comes with another player to whom the job is probably about equally attractive (assuming balance / no notoriously unfun-but-overpowered choice, etc.). Barriers and pure healers were never sold as a difference in gameplay (since a pure healer can feel as different from another pure healer as from a barrier healer) but rather in what they uniquely provide to the party.

As such, I feel like design has to accommodate both parts if we're looking for true job diversity, let alone in terms of alignments that would replace the Barrier/Pure dichotomy. I'd agree that the difference in means is ultimately more important, but if the means aren't allowed to differ enough to create unique features, too, that's a pretty tight constraint, which then holds back that mission; but if those features form and differentiate themselves only in unchecked/haphazard manner, we're very likely to simply end up with some being outright better than others, so we probably ought to in some cases jump ahead to a particular featural goal that the means seems to lend themselves towards and make sure that organic design still adds up to parity. That bridge between means and features shouldn't feel reductive, but the end result relevant to compositional choice (rather than just whom one most wants to main generally) needs attention, too.

I realize that may sound a little bit opposite to what I said to Renathras earlier, so let me point out the threshold I think is key. Organic design is good -- really good. Whatever the theme seems to want, it should expand into. But theme is also contextual, and composition is based out around features, not how it feels to arrive at them. That means we do need to make sure the end-results of those jobs will feel roughly balanced to those working alongside those jobs, as well, which may take some focusing a little bit more on certain branches of those themes and a little less on others with an aim at those end-goals. That does not mean we should template, or fixate on certain end-goals while still in the earlyish design process of maximizing the fun of a given theme gameplay-wise, but we do have to look at how these choices fit in among others.

If we want to make the relationship between pure healer and barrier healer more distinct and meaningful, a hurdle you have to deal with is ensuring both feel good during 4-man content, especially if Criterion is going to be a thing.

Are there really any novel challenges to pure/barrier balance likely to arise from 4-manning, though? I would think the only issue 4-manning has would be the undervaluing of AoE heals if AoEs were actually balanced for 8-mans (but, instead they're already balanced for 4-man and therefore just so overpowered in 8-mans as to essentially wipe out most spot-healing).

The idea of having pure healers have the ability to burst heal while barrier healers can't, and barrier healers have the ability to mitigate but pure healers can't, and the two are meant to cover one another could work in theory.

Which... sounds(?) fine, if only the situations actually allowed for it... and if it wouldn't have such an adverse effect on queues in the case that these things were actually needed (demanding sub-role matchmaking), rather than simply capable of smoothing things out. (Granted, come to think of it, multi-job queuing --or the ability to swap jobs out of combat even in instances if in certain conditions-- would fix that issue, among others, too.)

When I say opportunity cost, it should be a cost of DPS uptime. In other words, in order for SCH or SGE to burst heal, they have no choice but to stop attacking, and spend the next couple GCDs using their clutch burst button. The same is true inversely with pure healers and mitigation/barrier tools.

Sounds fine, even if a bit... lackluster, I guess? Granted, any argument against that would depend on a context in which the game isn't 99.9% centered on just total damage doable over {fight length}.

[ForsakenRoe]

If I'm understanding right, your point is that (assuming we're on about PF randoms) 'people won't have a reason to take a Damage-to-heal healer like SGE over a more standard style healer like SCH, because there's someone who would prefer to play SCH in the queue'? But we don't take people in PF based on class outside of, as you say, terrible balance (cough MCH) or super-bull-unfun-but-necessary cheese choices (cough P3S AST), we just roll with whatever we get. Heck, even in week 1 prog groups I've been in often don't lock BLM out, they don't care enough about the additional Res. If you know your class, you get in, seems to be the way it goes. So, a more 'technical' healer like a SGE would not see trouble getting into parties.

As for statics, it depends on the level of skill of the static. You know the bell curve meme? I'd think the casual (left) side would say 'play what you want lmao', the middle 'think they're good but actually they're kinda not' Dunning-Kruger players would whine and complain to 'only play the meta' (as they do atm, so nothing is changing), and the super hardcore (right) would say 'play what you want lmao', cos they're skilled enough to make anything work. Heck, there was a week 1 clear of P8S with a MCH, despite both MCH being 'not great' at the time (it's had 3? rounds of buffs since then) AND Heph's HP was nerfed by like 2-3% since.

As for design, while 'organic design' (at least, what I think you're on about) is cool, you have to consider that certain things need to be set in stone designwise, else you end up with weird stuff like 'Fuma is better than Raiton' and 'Fuma-Katon-Doton TCJs are a DPS increase'. The 'features' of SGE, I'd argue, would be the lines on the slide at Fanfest, and Yoshi-P's description of it. Namely, 'Temporarily augments own skills' and 'can heal by dealing damage'. So that's what I used to make my list o' ideas. The 'how' of how it'd augment it's skills, or 'heal by doing damage' would be up to SE to create, but I think there's some versatility in how you'd choose to heal on it. Augments, Addersgall spenders, GCD healing if you're really on panic-mode.

And personally, I wish 'Pure vs Barrier' referred to what they provide, when I heard 'barrier' the first time I thought Virus, Disable, Eye4Eye, etc. But no, what we have is not a distinction in gameplay, nor in what they provide. Pures can provide mit and shields, Barriers can provide pure healing throughput. I guess what it refers to is 'what is available as a zero-CD GCD, shield or regen effect?' But even then, AST presses one button and can suddenly provide both, so who knows at this point? 's why I made that thread, to complain that the split doesn't work, and rather than spend MORE time trying to fix it, I'd rather they just throw it out as a failed experiment, as they did with MT/OT split. Give WHM Stoneskin/SS2, upgrade them to Afflatus Whatever, give AST Nocturnal Sect back, let them swap in combat

[Shurrikhan]

If I'm understanding right, your point is that (assuming we're on about PF randoms) 'people won't have a reason to take a Damage-to-heal healer like SGE over a more standard style healer like SCH, because there's someone who would prefer to play SCH in the queue'? But we don't take people in PF based on class outside of, as you say, terrible balance (cough MCH) or super-bull-unfun-but-necessary cheese choices (cough P3S AST), we just roll with whatever we get. Heck, even in week 1 prog groups I've been in often don't lock BLM out, they don't care enough about the additional Res. If you know your class, you get in, seems to be the way it goes. So, a more 'technical' healer like a SGE would not see trouble getting into parties.

We don't presently care which healers we typically get... because they're all the same.

If we stop making them all basically the same, though, then there's a decent chance they'd each be better at different things, so it then becomes important to be sure that one's advantage doesn't apply to 95% of situations while the others' apply to at most some 20%. (See Warrior in the HW hen house.)

You know the bell curve meme? I'd think the casual (left) side would say 'play what you want lmao', the middle 'think they're good but actually they're kinda not' Dunning-Kruger players would whine and complain to 'only play the meta' (as they do atm, so nothing is changing), and the super hardcore (right) would say 'play what you want lmao', cos they're skilled enough to make anything work.

That seems to completely align with what I've seen from WoW, GW2, BDO, etc., too. Yeah, sounds right to me.

features

Just to be clear, when I see features as relevant to a party to inform the decision of whom to take, I'm talking about what they offer the party, not what gameplay fixtures the user acts through in order to do what they do for that party. Those features, then, would be things like different particular cheese strats unlocked, being able to compensate for poorer party DPS through a short but demanding DPS check, the new opportunities they offer to/within a fight.

That's not to say jobs must have those distinct features, though I suspect truly distinct means would almost certainly end up at that extreme, but simply that it can't be that just one job uniquely has them or that just one job uniquely doesn't.

I guess what it refers to is 'what is available as a zero-CD GCD, shield or regen effect?

Exactly; it seems to be who can spam what, not who can do what.

[Renathras]

And personally, I wish 'Pure vs Barrier' referred to what they provide, when I heard 'barrier' the first time I thought Virus, Disable, Eye4Eye, etc. But no, what we have is not a distinction in gameplay, nor in what they provide. Pures can provide mit and shields, Barriers can provide pure healing throughput. I guess what it refers to is 'what is available as a zero-CD GCD, shield or regen effect?' But even then, AST presses one button and can suddenly provide both, so who knows at this point? 's why I made that thread, to complain that the split doesn't work, and rather than spend MORE time trying to fix it, I'd rather they just throw it out as a failed experiment, as they did with MT/OT split. Give WHM Stoneskin/SS2, upgrade them to Afflatus Whatever, give AST Nocturnal Sect back, let them swap in combat

The split is mostly which ones can cast and provide shields (Adlo, Succor, Seraph, Eukrasian Diagnosis, Eukrasian Prognosis, Haima, Panhaima, Holos now) and mitigation (...yeah, ALL those mitigation buttons) and who...can't. Pure healers each have one mitigation button (Temperance per 2 min and Collective Unconscious per 1 min) and have a 2 charge single target shield (Divine Benison / Celestial Intersection) and a single target mitigation effect (Aquaveil / Exaltation). They have no party shields and no high uptime mitigation potential, though AST's isn't terrible because it's up frequently (and it has buffs), which is why AST is still allowed to be in the meta.

The reason it doesn't work is because SCH and SGE's healing is on par with AST and WHM's. Not their spam GCD heals, but their oGCD heals are ridiculously powerful, and up very frequently. (Though their spam heals are not, when the shields are factored in, really weaker - e.g. Eukrasian Diagnosis' heal + shield is more potency than Cure 2's heal is.)

SGE and SCH have 4 oGCD heals that can be used frequently with AF/AG, including both single target and AOE that are about as powerful as Cure 2/Tetra/Solace and Medica/Assize, and the AOE one is only limited by a 30 sec CD. They also both have a mitigation on that same CD that also has a regen effect not too much weaker than Medica 2's. And this is all free for SCH and only costs SGE a 100 potency Energy Drain, as they're all oGCD. SGE is, in fact, encouraged to burn AG stacks to keep its MP pool up since each gives 7% MP on use. Meaning not only is there no loss, there's a gain.

SGE further has Physis, which is powerful. Holos is powerful. Haima and Panhaima are powerful. Pepsis can turn a meh GCD into a pretty nice heal. Zoe can turn a nice AOE heal from Pneuma into a damage neutral Cure 3 and some change or Eukrasian shields into something actually useful. Krasis (as I recently learned) can be super useful with Soteria but also for making big tank shields, and Eukrasia Dosis is not QUITE instant cast but responsive enough to whip out right before a tank buster, possibly using Pepsis on the back end to heal any damage with whatever's left of the shield. And SGE also heals its Kardia target for roughly 1/4th of a Cure 2/Tetra completely free in terms of GCD, damage lost, or MP cost of the heal.

In addition to the above on AF, SCH also has free healing with Eos, a powerful party HoT with Whispering Dawn, a meh but useful supplemental party heal with Fey Blessing, a healing power boost (and magic damage resist, which is what most raidwides are) in Fey Illumination, damage mitigation (and speed boost) in Expedience, further shields (that stack) with Serap and Consolation, boosted single target healing with Protraction, frankly ridiculous shielding with Protraction + Recitation + Adlo + Deployment Tactics (Recitation can also be used on Indom and Excogitation and does not compete with Energy Drain potency loss because it can't be used for that so there's no contest), directed nearly free (since you're spending AF and not overcapping it, nor are you using Faerie Gauge for anything else anyway) healing with Aetherpact, the ability to turn Adlo into a stronger Cure 2 or Succor into a stronger Medica once per 15 seconds (FIFTEEN! This ability is practically up again just after you use it!) with Emergency Tactics, the ability to boost healing even further (for the Adlo spread or for the Emergency Tactics) with Dissipation (which also grants yet more AF stacks), and on top of all that, brings Chain Strategem.

The Barrier healers can provide nearly the same raw healing as the Pure healers can. So it's not even a Pure / Barrier split. It's a Pure / Barrier + Pure split, as the Barrier side can provide the same healing as a Pure healer anyway for all practical intents and purposes.

Sure, WHM can spam Cure 3 (briefly), but outside of JUST that, every other healing tool WHM has, SCH and SGE can match, and with either short enough CDs they can use them frequently, longer CDs but enough abilities they can cycle through them and still have plenty to spare, or outright with their GCD heals being as strong as Medica and Cure 2 once we include the shield components (or outright stronger when we consider Emergency Tactics / Pepsis as short CDs that can be used to boost those shields into raw healing and will be up almost every time you need them anyway.)

.

Either the Barrier Healers' heals are too strong, or the Pure Healers' heals are too weak (and as I said before, WHM's are too MP inefficient for protracted spamming anyway, somewhat negating their power). It's one thing to be able to heal 4 man content, but point for point, Barrier healers can output as much raw healing in many cases as Pure Healers (in short bursts - which is what encounter design demands) and then all those CDs are up again by the next time healing is needed.

[IDontPetLalas]

Incidentally, you missed neutral sect, so this part "They have no party shields and no high uptime mitigation potential, though AST's isn't terrible because it's up frequently " , so I would say that "isn't terrible" doesn't apply in many cases.

[Rilifane]

Besides, nobody takes AST over WHM for mitigation of all things.
AST is meta if people go for strong comps because it has higher rDPS and synergizes better with the even heavier focus on 2min burst since EW. If you want more mitigation than SCH or SGE alone can bring, you have your 4 dps and 2 tanks for it.

Barrier healers provide the same and occasionally even more raw healing via oGCDs than pure healers while also having mitigation. Which is why SGE/ SCH was so busted right from the start and still is while WHM/ AST struggled until late into the tier when everyone was overgeared and tank/ dps mitigation was enough to survive reliably.
The only reason SGE/ SCH isn't more common is because papa Yoshi said that 2 shield healers bad.
It's surprisingly easy to coordinate since only GCD shields conflict and SGE has Prognosis for this if GCD heal spam is really necessary and ET Succor alone doesn't cover it and their combined healer dps is sometimes even ahead of AST/ SCH.

[ForsakenRoe]

Consider, Medica 2 ticks are 150 now (god i remember when they were 50, and it lasted 30s...), Soil and Kerachole both tick for 100 per tick. 15s duration, 30s CD. For the (arguably) low cost of just two lost Energy Drains per minute, a SCH/SGE comp can have 100% uptime on '66% of the potency of Medica 2', but without having to spend 4 Glares worth of potency (or MP) on maintaining it. It's ridiculous how much HPS the 'barrier healers' have, and with the change that happened a while back on the naughty website, where Mit now counts as HPS, often I see logs where I (the WHM) am doing 2/3 or even HALF of the 'effective HPS' of the Barrier healer. Maybe that's me being trash and a bad cohealer, but I also have the same happen in reverse when I'm on SGE, they have 66%ish of the healing of me

And I think the issue is simple: Healing throughput only helps if there's healing to do, but Mit ALWAYS has some effect. And if the Mit is strong, the Healing required is lessened. Weird isnt it

[Shurrikhan]

...

99% agreed, but...

Healing throughput only helps if there's healing to do, but Mit ALWAYS has some effect. And if the Mit is strong, the Healing required is lessened.

Ehh, if mitigation doesn't prevent a death or debuff, it does no more than healing. And if it's simply preventing damage that natural healing per 3 seconds would take of anyways, let alone doesn't get consumed over its duration [more a TBN-esque problem than one with these 30s healer barrier durations], that excess is likewise a waste.

The cap, really, is shared between both and probably therefore should be thought of per a shared term --say, sustain (how much HP restoration or preservation can be thrown at something in a given moment to actually extend their life), which wouldn't care of whether that includes a increase to maximum eHP unless the latter actually does something extra.

In either case, I think it comes down to what we've all said earlier: barrier healers just heal too much, to the point that there is no real/additional cost in throwing up GCD mitigation (be it percentile or flat) for things that don't need their max eHP increase.

And if we want more room to diversify forms of sustain, well... we probably need more damage intake (especially, in excess of our oGCD means of dealing with it), sadly.

[ForsakenRoe]

99% agreed, but...


Ehh, if mitigation doesn't prevent a death or debuff, it does no more than healing. And if it's simply preventing damage that natural healing per 3 seconds would take of anyways, let alone doesn't get consumed over its duration [more a TBN-esque problem than one with these 30s healer barrier durations], that excess is likewise a waste.

The cap, really, is shared between both and probably therefore should be thought of per a shared term --say, sustain (how much HP restoration or preservation can be thrown at something in a given moment to actually extend their life), which wouldn't care of whether that includes a increase to maximum eHP unless the latter actually does something extra.

In either case, I think it comes down to what we've all said earlier: barrier healers just heal too much, to the point that there is no real/additional cost in throwing up GCD mitigation (be it percentile or flat) for things that don't need their max eHP increase.

And if we want more room to diversify forms of sustain, well... we probably need more damage intake (especially, in excess of our oGCD means of dealing with it), sadly.

What I mean is, lets say a raidwide hits for 50k, we have 60k max hp so we're not going to die to it. It doesn't matter if WHM can heal for 20k or 30k for example, as it's gonna take 2 GCDs either way. the extra 10k would not be useful. However, being able to reduce that 50k to 45k is, while 'surplus to requirements' (as it wont kill even if not mitigated), the point is that you CAN mitigate it. At no point is there a 'well your mit had literally zero effect' in the same way overhealing can have. As you say, it might be possible for natural regen to handle some things. But Mit can make things that 'cant' be handled by that natural regen, into 'can' situations. Doubly so when the Mit applies a regen effect of it's own.

Rather than having 'more burst healing tool' added each expansion for the Pure healers, more ways to restore smaller amounts, but more often, would probably work better. There's a reason I found Curtain Call so much easier on AST than WHM, and it wasn't just 'well they have like 4 regens'. It was that their healing tools (Star, CO, CU, Horoscope) are all 60s CDs. WHM just doesn't have any good 'short CD tools', cos it relies on the lilies for its design. Which is fine, but damn when you're out of lilies in highend content you're back to playing ARR.

Maybe a solution is to remove one half of what Barrier healers do, and make it Healer wide, either the shields or the Mit. Personally, I'd vote for Shields. This way, we could have eg WHM Temperance no longer applies 10% mit, but a fat regen like PVP. CU on AST no longer applies 10% mit, instead the regen is stronger while the barrier is channeled. For shielding, WHM can have Stoneskin as a Lily spender, and AST can have Noct/Diurnal midcombat swapping as part of it's gameplay. The Barrier healers will instead have ALL of the Mit, and also additionally room for 'mitigation via debuffing' such as Virus and Disable type skills. Some might say 'oh then the WHM will be bullied into using the shields, because it's damage neutral for them' and to that I say 'yeh, and its fine because it's damage neutral for them.' The WHM provides the shield and the fat HPS after the hit, the SCH provides the Soil to mitigate and Virus to debilitate.

Maybe not the perfect solution, but we seem to agree: Pures don't have enough 'stuff', Barriers have too much 'stuff', redistribution makes some sense