The Problem with Healer Feedback, and requested changes

[Renathras]

Well, first, on a light note...

That's so weird. The only games I can think of (other than that one) where there was a Soul Drain type ability, it typically would either be Black Mage (Drain/Osmose) or some incarnations of Dark Knight, I think?

I respect the deep number crunching; however, one thing that I think is very important to keep in mind when we talk about theorycrafted ideas is that none of us have access to a prototyping build for the game.

This is true. But I guess my point here is that these changes would be identified and have to be changed. More saying I don't think it works out quite as you intend. Your intent seems to be to have an ability that normalize another to 3 uses per minute, but the problem is, this second ability is only used 2 times per minute. So there will naturally be some weird sync/desync/drifting.

One solution might to toss the Budding idea and just have Lilies naturally generate at a rate of 1/30 sec and have Banish exist to knock off 10 sec from that (like BRD/MCH can take off 15 sec from their oGCDs during that one BRD song/MCH's Hypercharge), but Banish would need a 20 sec CD for that to work. But this basically makes Budding a slightly more annoying GCD version of Presence of Mind - something you need to press like a metronome on CD.

...it is funny; it occurs to me that you guys hate a metronome 1 button spam (dipping bird with a 2.5 sec period could play the game for you outside of healing and Dia refreshing), but people like me hate a CD metronome (right now, I could set a dipping bird with a 60 sec period over my PoM button or 2 min over my Chain Strat button)

We both hate metronomes because we see them as annoying and uninteresting busywork where a dipping bird could play the game for us, but we hate different kinds of metronomic play.

...I feel like maybe there's a point of agreement/compromise there somewhere, but I'm not quite sure HOW since we each prefer the other form of metronome. XD

A handful of the issues...

Fair (for Second Concept). I assumed "after Tempest" meant "immediately following" rather than "sometime in the next 4 GCDs". That could work better (though I again think Budding does not). The First Concept still has the Banish/Budding/Dia/Misery problem due to CD drift, however. Like Dia isn't restricted by combo action, it's restricted by trying not to drift it.

Ultimately, what I care about most is the idea, because if the concept is sound...

100% understand. The first question to ask is "Is something like this feasible? If so, we can hammer out the details. If not...then there's no reason pushing the idea further."

From my take, your First Concept is not feasible without largely changing how the game, encounter design, and healing for WHM makes. Something like it would be feasible for SCH or particularly SGE, however, as I noted, because SCH can continue to heal even during those rigid points and SGE would be healing due to working through those rigid points via Kardia.

In other words, is the concept of building toward Tempest, Soul Drain, and Holy feel like a good idea...

I don't know how it would work with the option to engage with it or not (having Tempest be a separate button would create optimization where you would delay it for burst windows, so that would become "mandatory" and not optional). The more basic concept of several spells building to a bigger spell is fine. I think we've more or less seen this in different forms across Jobs. RDM uses it with Dualcast - Jolt/Stone/Fire into Thunder/Aero; AOE Aero/Thunder into Impact is basically this on a very small scale - and on a larger scale, with the Black/White Mana leading to the melee/finisher burst combo. PLD does this with its 1-2-3 leading to Atonement and now to Holy Spirit. WAR does this with Beast Gauge and Fell Cleave. MCH does this with Heat Gauge and Hypercharge.

...note the distinction between "builder/spender" and "cooldown". PLD 1-2-3 gives you a powerful attack (...sorta...) to use, which is distinct from FoF/Req/Conf, which is "use on CD/every 60/120 seconds. The latter is controlled by CDs, time gating, and the player having to remember to use a button around a certain time or set a stopwatch when they start the fight or have a raid leader in voice chat (who probably does that) tell everyone when the window is coming up. Conversely, the builder/spender gameplay is lower mental budget and part of actions the player is taking, thus making it more under the player control. Granted, this is much less than in the past when the player had options, such as PLD/WAR you really only have your 1-2-3 combo so it's just a "hidden CD" (were in the past you had several different combos and the Threat combo you could use, so there was more player choice in the rate these resources would be generated), but I think that's the distinction. Player agency/control vs the player being a slave to a CD clock.

But anyway, WHM even has a version of this with Misery, it's just not part of its standard rotation since Glare doesn't contribute.

Hence why I proposed myself every couple Glare/Dia casts (say 3 casts of either) leading to High Glare. It's basically the same concept, so I find that agreeable. (Dia included so you wouldn't have weird High Glare drifting and it's simply every X7.5 sec through the fight where you cast it, downtime aside). My issue is more the comboing and the drifting, and in the case of making the optional control scheme, optimizing distinction.

But the core concept of "every X casts, you get to cast something else that is bigger and feels a smidge more satisfying" I find agreeable in vacuum.

Now, to talk about Afflatus Budding for a moment...

Right, I understand. But I think the solution here is just to make Regen/Medica1/2/Cure1/2/3 generate a Blood Lily 1/3rd when used. The reason is because your proposal is trying to do this same thing, but on a CD, meaning they are only buttons you don't want to stay away from once every 20 seconds. So that doesn't really fix the problem, since you already can use Cure 2/Medica once every 20 seconds without a DPS loss anyway (Solace/Rapture). It's just the same rotation as today with extra steps and a SLIGHT change in that you'd use Medica 2 instead of Medica 1 (Rapture is Medica 1 but Medica 2 is better in every way at only a slight MP different) and could use Regen without a damage loss (but it's already an instant cast, so that doesn't change anyway)

And it's only once every 20 seconds, so it doesn't introduce any additional flexibility in that sense.

And as I said, it rings too close to me to SB WHM Lily interactions with oGCD CDs. And I've made no secret about how I feel that was the single worst iteration of WHM in the entire history of FFXIV. It was the one expansion I DID NOT main WHM, that's how bad it was.

I just feel like "reduce CD on..." abilities are not good design for heals. They only seem to work well, imo, to DPS oGCDs, and only when the rotation is really strongly tuned for that, like MCH is.

Another adjustment I mentioned in the past that I kind of just default to in my mind for WHM is that you should be able to generate 2 blood lilies,

See, this I disagree with for the argument Shurrikhan was making - it highly prioritizes unintuitive "heal when no healing is needed" gameplay to stock Miseries for burst windows. It actually is the opposite of what I'd do. Sure, you could have the CD on it for 20 sec, but (a) some buff windows are longer (Searing Light is 30 seconds) and (b) now there's no point in being able to stock them in the first place other than it gives a TINY bit more flexibility to Lily heal use, but that's already an 80 second window, so more flexibility (to prevent overcapping) there isn't really useful or needed.

...because you can now more comfortably hold onto your blood lily for an upcoming buff window and not feel like you can't heal until after.

Yes, but another solution is to just have Misery be DPS neutral and all heal GCDs generate 1/3rd a Misery charge. This way, you feel like you can heal whenever you want/need to, and you just cast a Misery after any 3 heals. The only niche optimization is if you have a multi-hit attack (SoSEx, ZodEx, etc) and you Medica 2 the first strike, Cure 3 the second strike, Medica the third strike, and Cure 3 the fourth strike, then let your HoT from Medica 2 heal up the party after the fifth strike, you'd overcap a Misery there. But this is a pretty edge case that I don't think is really a problem in the grand scheme because of (a) how unusual these mechanics are and (b) how the focus is more on just getting through them anyway, so sitting on a Misery wouldn't feel TOO terrible, not to mention if you were about to have a Misery when it started, you could just cast the Medica 2 early and then dump the Misery. Not to mention in the live game right now, when you do have to do that, it's an absolute DPS loss anyway. At least this way you'd get some refund of that.

I dunno, I just don't feel like it's a big enough problem overall to require a Misery change to stacks, and then we'd be having to do things like band-aid the 20 sec CD and stuff to prevent misuse. Just seems like a solution to a niche problem that generates more problems. Like giving someone a medicine for a minor issue they aren't even complaining about and that's not a threat to them that then requires another medicine to deal with the side effects.

If someone's not keeping up with their DPS, they're spending less MP.

I...think it's the opposite. All heals cost as much MP (or more, as much as 3x more) than our DPS buttons. You go into a MP deficit when you cast heals. All the healers are designed right now, with nominal levels of Piety, to be approximately MP neutral for long periods if they're only casting their DPS spells while using Lucid and Assize/Aetherflow/Draw/Astrodyne/Addersgall abilities on or near CD.

Honestly, I hate Lucid (now that it's not useful for threat reduction like Shroud of Saints). My personal opinion is that it's yet another "dipping bird" ability. I'd rather Piety just be boosted so we have the same overall MP regen over a fight. It's only REALLY useful if you use it just after being Raised. But if you're using it somewhat on CD, it's likely to be on CD when you get Raised anyway, meaning it loses that supposed flexibility.

Super short, though:

I don't have any problem with a sort of 1-1-1-boosted setup. And I already made a suggestion for Water as a low level Assize. And I still think GCD heals generating 1/3rd Misery is a good idea. So within there we have agreement on...uh...Water being added as a low level oGCD that upgrades to Assize, which itself has a "release" secondary effect once used to better make use of the heal.

...hey, it's not EVERYTHING, but some agreement is still agreement. Progress! \o/

.

One more quick aside to the spell effects:

Honestly, call me easily amused, but I just love the casting animations in this game. The character model and visual effects. I have spent literal minutes just casting Holy before in my inn room just because I like the visual effect of it and the float cast animation. When I'm bored, I'll sometimes start/cancel cast that spell over and over just because I like the way my dude spins and hovers. I've said since ShB gave Glare the same animation I wish there was a HEALING SPELL that used the float cast, like Cure 3/4 would be a good candidate, if not Medica 2. All the WHM healing spells are much more grounded. I still love them, but I'd like to change it up a bit.

And from the moment I started the game as a CNJ 9 years ago, I fell in love with the little Cure 1 cast kind of gathering power in the staff before raising it to heal someone. I took part in the "Cure Initiative" back in the day. I also LOVE Physic's cast and am genuinely sad we don't get to see it more. One hand across the other arm as you charge power in your book. That's just so cool to me. Also Adlo/Succor's book slam. There's something of a "I SAID you aren't hurting my ally; last word!" finality of it. Like putting my foot down or something. Even the sound of the book slamming shut is well done. And I love Eu Diagnosis with the Nouliths spinning around to deploy the shield, but honestly, have you ever sat and just cast Prognisis? The non-Eukrasia one? Arms out to the side, gathering power in the Nouliths, then deploying it. Another cast I almost never get to see except when spamming it for Hunt trains so the boss doesn't die TOO quickly and my party still gets full credit (based on agro generated, so AOE overhealing works a treat)

So you talk about being bored with spell animations...I'm not sure that's even possible with me.

Just my $0.02:

Worthwhile points.

Tot he thematic kit argument, though - keep in mind this is always true. Priests in WoW can heal or DPS, but they can't tank. Maybe you love Priests, but if you want a Priest-tank, you have to play a Protection Paladin and just kind of headcanon it. Other than a TINY point in Cata/Mist/Warlords (I forget which, but that one Demonology Glyph), you can't tank (or heal) on a Warlock. There's a point where thematic kits are limited.

The issue here is more FFXIV's engine/battle system is...very rigid. You can't really lean into different directions. You're either playing right or you're playing wrong. RDM's can't play as pure casters, they HAVE to use their melee combo. They also can't play as pure melee just getting the Holy/Flare/Scorch/Resolution finisher periodically. I mean, in theory they could KIND of do that (using Manafication with their 1-2-3 and Fleche/Contre on CD as their filler), but it's clearly playing wrong and will tank their performance. The only real exception to this is BLU.

Would it be cool if RDM was tuned where you could EITHER use the Jolt/Stone/Fire/Aero/Thunder gameplay today to build into an Enchnated Melee combo OR you could somehow use 1-2-3 and play as a melee to do so (e.g. every time you complete the Combo, it reduces the CD of Manification, and the non-enchanted 1-2-3 is tuned to where both playstyles do the same DPS; and likewise have a CD you could use in place of Enchanted 1-2-3 that does roughly the same damage and grants access to Holy/Flare/Scorch/Resolution so if someone wanted to play RDM as a pure Caster with no melee they could)? Oh absolutely! I would love it if you could flex and do any of those three you wanted to.

...but the game's battle engine is way too rigid and doesn't allow that.

I would love it if FFXIV was more flexible, but it sadly isn't. There's one right and wrong way to play a given Job, and if you're not playing the "right" way, you're wrong. So there's not really a way to make flexible playstyles within a given Job. There IS a way to make different playstyles within a given Role, however.

.

Hm...just an aside:

Did you play SCH in ARR?

If so: Did you like it?

It is not possible to achieve this without going in the 2x support meta for single group content.

Why?

Otherwise, you either make one of those 2 healing group useless.

Howso?

If the support/heals can't main heal your group why would you pick them but if they can main heal why would you want a pure healer that would simplie makes your run slow and more prone to failing a group mechanic ?

Well, they'd do similar levels of damage, though the AST/SCH situation would still exist...but that exists today. So at worst, we'd be no worse than we are today.

As for the "Why would you pick them?", until you overgear the content, the Pure healer can't solo heal. But you don't need 2x Pure unless you want a big safety buffer, but you could use SOME suplemental healing. This is why you would bring the Support early in the tier. As the tier got longer on and people got more gear, your Support needs to do less and less damage until you get to the point your Pure can more or less solo heal it. At that point, you have two options, you can either swap out the Support and solo Pure heal it with an extra DPS Job (for faster clears) OR you can swap out the Pure for Support/Support for them to share the healing load while buffing the party's output enough to also speed up clears. OR you could just keep your same party you've been clearing all this time with no issues; your Pure healer is healing and your Support healer is doing damage and throwing buffs and is still there for spare healing if people make mistakes or your Pure healer dies/Pokeball DCs at a bad time.

Now, people could do Pure/Pure early in the tier if they wanted, just like people can do SMN/RDM double caster now if they want super wipe prevention. But in practice, few parties do this, and if that's an option for the extreme risk averse parties...why are options bad? Conversely, very high end players might push Support/Support early. But again, why would it be bad for a few people to do a thing they have a choice in the matter of? And how is this different than parties running AST/SCH today?

People still didn't generally SCH/SCH in ARR, or WHM/WHM in ARR, even though they could have, because they did have trouble with the healing requirements. In SB (and some later in ShB), one of the few bright spots for WHM was that it was useful in late-tier solo-healer runs. During the tier, the general flow was Pure/Barrier, then you could branch into either Support/Support or Pure solo for late tier (once content was overgeared) parties. So you'd start the tier with WHM or dAST + nAST/SCH, and later in the tier, you'd have dAST/SCH or WHM/extra_DPS_Job. But, both were functional, so if a friend group only had two WHMs or two SCHs, they could still clear content, they'd just have to have their party adjust.

This is, of course, a niche optimization thing - only very high end players would even be considering this, so it wouldn't affect 99% of the game. But your trade-off late tier or in Ultimates would be 2x Support OR solo Pure if you're pushing for speedruns. But for casual or midcore groups, or even some hardcore groups that are chill and not pushing speedruns, this wouldn't be an issue at all. So even in that situation, it wouldn't turn into a Support/Support meta OR a meta that excludes Support.

And if we were REALLY worried about Support/Support becoming meta, we could just make it where their buffs don't stack (Bloodlust/Heroism in WoW with the "Sated" debuff) to hard-code prevent that. But I don't think that would be necessary at all.

Finally, consider the proposed changes (making all healers play a Support Healer playstyle instead of a Pure/Dedicated Healer one) as the alternative simply REMOVE the Dedicated Healer playstyle entirely, meaning if we're worried about Pure Healers being out in the cold of the Support/Support meta, if ALL Healer Jobs are turned into Support, then the entire game would all be Support/Support anyway!

Again, it's important to note that this is no worse than the situation we already have today. So at its worst, this idea produces an end result no different than what we already have now. What this allows is more party/player choice and options, which is a good thing.