The Problem with Healer Feedback, and requested changes

[ty_taurus]

I guess that's my take on it, anyway.

If I may, let me expand on a few things that I think will help communicate my points a little clearer as I think I didn't communicate them that effectively.

On the topic of the Alphinaud trailer and Red Mage, I wasn't trying to compare the two, just using them both as an example of the kind of feeling I want to have when I look at the actual animations my character is performing. Yes, the gameplay is very different to a cinematic trailer, but the trailer gives of an impression--a feeling of what Sage looks like. Alisaie does this as well briefly for the RDM, and I think the actual gameplay of RDM does visually showcase the type of feeling she elicits in the trailer effectively. I also like SGE's animation, but I want my character to be fluidly fighting enemies , not just using the bug zapper over and over. Think of it this way... What looks cooler in a fighting game like Street Fighter or Tekken, a character spamming their jab, or a character pulling off one of their signature combos? That's not to say it should be a literal combo in the sense of a 1-2-3. You mentioned something like a RDM lite or a SMN lite would be perfectly fine, and I'll add BLM as well who does like to press their buttons in 3s. I just don't want to bust out the bug zapper for like 70% of a fight in most of this game's content. Day one alliance day is definitely a break from the norm, and I did heal that, but of course that's the exception, not the rule.

As for the example of "Would you prefer Quake/Tornado/Flood/Glare," it didn't have to be that specifically. I just meant, would you specifically not feel it would look better while you play if instead of twirling and glaring and twirling and glaring and twirling and glaring... that your character would cycle through a few different casting animations and spell effects of whatever visual style so long as that stayed on the same filler button?

As for the WHM concept, there were two propositions in that post. The first one was just focusing on the lily system suggestion...

- Budding Afflatus would be a GCD spell every 30 seconds with 2 charges that generates you a lily and nourishes the blood lily. This replaces the automatic generation of lilies and cuts into your offensive spell usage since it replaces an instance of Glare. All healing spells will consume lilies while you have them to nourish the blood lily when used, but can still be used without nourishing the blood lily when you have no lilies. This would have you generating lilies every 30 seconds manually. Solace and Rapture are just instant cast upgrades to Cure II and Medica whenever you have lilies, but they revert when you have no lilies (not necessary, but the animations are nicer).
- Water/Banish would be a GCD spell every 30 seconds with no charges that deals a little more damage than Glare and decreases the cooldown on Budding Afflatus by 10 seconds.

The question is, would you personally feel comfortable with a change like that, where your DPS does not earn you more healing, it just increases how often your healing will refund your DPS?

The second suggestion at the bottom of the other post was about taking this concept and building out WHM's DPS rotation more while giving the player the option to simplify.

- In this example, the idea of Budding Afflatus stays the same.
- Water instead becomes the precursor to Assize (with the suggestion that you do the damage first and then reactivate to heal)
- Dia becomes AoE with falloff.
- Afflatus Misery is still there.
- Tempest is added as a new stronger spell than Glare. Every 4 casts of any spell enables 1 use of Tempest.
- Soul Drain is a new spell that is half as strong as Glare, but restores MP and makes your next spell instant cast. If used after Tempest, the damage is increased to be the same as Glare's.
- When Holy is used after Tempest, it decreases the cooldown on Budding Afflatus by 5 seconds and is also DPS neutral.

Now, as the player, you can set these skills individually on your hotbar, and you also have the option to assign a PVP style auto combo to your hotbar if you prefer instead. This defaults to Glare, changes to Tempest when Tempest is available, and then goes to Soul Drain after Tempest before returning to Glare. So if you were to set the auto combo to your hotbar, pressing 1 1 1 1 1 1 would result in your character performing Glare > Glare > Glare > Glare > Tempest > Soul Drain. You would still need to use Dia, Assize, and Afflatus Misery independently, and if you want to combo into Holy, you have to do so manually, but the auto combo gets you very far if you choose to use that instead of setting each action separately.

I can't, of course, speak to how likely these concepts are or how the developers would view this in contrast to their goals with healing, but regardless, I'm more curious if you feel these options would be a compromise you could get behind.