I'm bored when I heal because I need more complex DPS rotations

[Bsrking5]

maybe roll a DPS?

Isn't that why there's a shortage of savage healers? Maybe the solution isn't to accept bad designs.

[Zolvolt]

I just want Stormblood SCH back.

I want party balance design to be similar to what it was in stormblood.
Except for the damage type debuffs. I'm still glad those are gone.

[Nadda]

I think "complex DPS rotations" are often confused to mean good.
There are a few problems I could see. (keep in mind this is just from a White Mage main so I don't know what everyone else has to work with - yes Glare mage haha)

With cast times as they are even if we had 1-2-3 rotation with OGCDs spliced and a dot. There's a good chance we would drop our rotation completely to heal most the time and we'd never have a good enough tempo to make it feel satisfying it would just feel clunky. (1-2... Oh need to move (ogcd), 3, oh Jeffry stood in some bad again heal*, 1, need to move again (no ogcd this time), 2, Jeffry messed up again, and now there's a tank buster or a roomwide, 3.... )

Now assuming we pass that first hurdle we still have one other thing to consider just by the nature of the game we'd still do less DPS than our partners whose role it is to DPS (otherwise why would you want to play with DPS classes when you could have a Healing class that can do just as good damage and heal and res, lol we'd never lose)

So you'd be giving yourself all this extra work for little output. You broke glare into three buttons but it would still be glare.

That's why our DPS options are so limited. A couple more DPS buttons wouldn't hurt, however.

Like Aero 3...
NEVER FORGET!

[Desna]

I believe currently this is the most pressing issue in the entire game that needs to be addressed above everything else. That is my feedback.

If you want to DPS with a more complex DPS rotation....play a DPS. The issue isn't healer DPS rotations not being complex enough, the issue is too many other classes have too much mitigation and the devs have effectively neutered the healer role in the game. No party should be able to clear current content without a healer that is actively needing to rotate through their HEALING rotations. I see far far too many healers out there that can DPS in competition with pure DPS classes but if the party starts loosing health? They panic and can't muster the knowledge or skill or even raid awareness to actually pull the party through bad situations. I can, on any of my healers, have some big mistake happen where people have failed mechanics and have in mass died, and I can stay alive, manage my MP, rez on the run even with a boss chasing me and I can get tanks and other healers and rez capable dps up. I've done it time and time again in roulettes where the experience and skill of the players with me is not a guarantee. I can do it because I don't spend my time worrying about my DPS. as a healer I should NOT be able to compete with pure DPS classes, therefore, keeping my party alive and topped off should be where my skill is. All the bars are green and full? I may have time to make it through a simple short and sweet DPS rotation before I need to be healing, using asuna or shielding people again.

Complexity in rotation for a healing class should only be focused on the healing of that class, not a time filler between your primary purpose in the group. Don't waste MP on DPS when it can be used to keep actual DPS alive, their contribution in damage will always be better than a healers and that's how it should be, so...you contribute the most damage against the boss...by keeping your party alive, clear of debuffs you can dispell and then, keeping yourself alive and your MP healthy so you can clutch heal if there's a mech failure in the group and you have to save the group. Worrying about DPS on a healer is like worrying that elephants can't fly.

[Desna]

Isn't that why there's a shortage of savage healers? Maybe the solution isn't to accept bad designs.

I do agree, but for different reasons. The bad design is in Tanks that have too much mitigation so they don't stay aware of their healer. If I zone in and a warrior can say to me and mean it "Just DPS dude, I'm a WAR, I don't need heals." then yes...there is a serious design flaw in the game. A healer should have complexity in their healing rotations, a fight should require them because DPS and Tanks should NEED to be healed enough that a healer doesn't have time to worry about filling a role other than what they are qued in for. In open world play? MSQ? It's simple, just buff a healers DPS when they are not inside a roulette or qued for instance. The moment they're in a party? their stats return to normal. Make healers HEAL, make sure they have a reason to. That's good design.

[ForsakenRoe]

We've all been round in circles about 123 combos, and most people agree, we don't want them as a healer. It just doesn't fit the role for various reasons, but it's not the only way to add more interactivity to the DPS rotation we have as a healer. More DOTs, GCDs with seperate recasts (like Sonic Break on GNB is once per min), procs off of other stuff we already have, etc. And we can add things to the buttons to make them more interesting. What about if Broil gives 2 Fairy Gauge, and Fey Blessing scaled in potency with more gauge? What if Dia ticks made the Lily Gauge tick one second faster? We can't just say 'well we cant do it because 123 sucks' and use that to write off every alternative.

It also falls apart when you ask 'ok so why do tanks have 123 combos', I'm not advocating for the tanks to get dragged down to where us healers are, but surely they don't actually 'need' a 123, it's just 'extra work for little output' right? Well, no, because there's more reason to have a 123 as tank. PLD and WAR have a branching choice of 'which 3' to use. DRK has it's lifesteal and gauge build attached to the 3rd hit, having it replaced by 111 would flood it in resources (or be retuned to feel really bad with how little each hit grants), and GNB gains a cartridge from it's 3rd hit. How would we make GNB get 'one third' of a cartridge to keep it's gain the same, 33% chance? That would feel terrible, not being able to guarantee having the cartridge to start the Gnashing combo because RNG didn't like you.

'Complex DPS rotation' does not mean 'good', but I'm not asking for 'complex', I'm asking for 'cohesive, fun, interactive'. One DOT that lasts 30s and a second button to spam until that DOT falls off does not a rotation make. As an aside, I'm playing 'the other game' and monks there do have a 123 of sorts. Difference is, there's all these different nuances to it that make that 123 play really well. 1 makes 2 strike multiple times. 2 has a chance per strike to reset 3's 10sec CD instantly. 3 applies one of their HOTs for 6sec instead of its usual 20s, but this HOT always jumps to someone who needs it, so its super unlikely to overheal. A CD that summons a bird friend, who will heal someone nearby whenever you press 2, 3 or 'Holy equivalent AOE spell'. When bird-friend does a heal, he gives a stack, and at 3 tacks, you can instantcast a second, 'usually 2sec casttime', HOT that also increases healing received by that target by 30%. An optional talent that makes 3 also extend your HOTs by 4sec duration, an effect so strong that it had to be capped to 'you can only get to double the HOT's original duration' because people got so fast at one point, they could keep the HOT up 100% of the time and just coat the whole raid in HOTs that never fell off. Should I go on, with examples of this 'actually an interesting 123 combo as a healer'?

[WaxSw]

If you want to DPS with a more complex DPS rotation....play a DPS. The issue isn't healer DPS rotations not being complex enough, the issue is too many other classes have too much mitigation and the devs have effectively neutered the healer role in the game. No party should be able to clear current content without a healer that is actively needing to rotate through their HEALING rotations. I see far far too many healers out there that can DPS in competition with pure DPS classes but if the party starts loosing health? They panic and can't muster the knowledge or skill or even raid awareness to actually pull the party through bad situations.

There is so much wrong in here that I don't even know where to begin...

The issue of healers IS their DPS rotations not mitigations because even in parties that do not mitigate outside of high-end (where it simply one shots and you can't heal that) the majority of actions healer do are dps actions and those dps actions are bland, boring and lack any depth. Players not knowing how to heal is a content issue as nothing really hurts and tutorials are crap and not because the DPS actions

I can, on any of my healers, have some big mistake happen where people have failed mechanics and have in mass died, and I can stay alive, manage my MP, rez on the run even with a boss chasing me and I can get tanks and other healers and rez capable dps up. I've done it time and time again in roulettes where the experience and skill of the players with me is not a guarantee.

Roulettes are not hard content and sorry to pop your bubble but when the content there can be healed by tanks, keeping the party alive and being able to rez is what I'd call the bare minimun, I put emphasis on this because...

I can do it because I don't spend my time worrying about my DPS. as a healer I should NOT be able to compete with pure DPS classes, therefore, keeping my party alive and topped off should be where my skill is. All the bars are green and full? I may have time to make it through a simple short and sweet DPS rotation before I need to be healing, using asuna or shielding people again.

Doing all that WHILE minimizing the dps loss is the true show of skill, healers are not bots designed to fill the hp bars of their teammates and just clean their mistakes, healers are a role that is designed to be efficient, minimize losses and provide the most you can to the party and that is healing AND dps, in fact dps is the king metric if anything. You heal because people dying is a dps loss, you rez because corpses do not dps and you dps because healing do not finish the fight, everything is about eliminating the threat as soon as posible and to do that a healer has to care about both their healing efficiency and their dps not matter how big it is (which in this game is quite big, 2 good healers combined can do more dps than dps classes and in aoe they are even closer) because anything is better than 0 and healing has a usefulness cap.

Complexity in rotation for a healing class should only be focused on the healing of that class, not a time filler between your primary purpose in the group.

Complexity and depth should be in what we do the most and that is dpsing, simple as that, besides increasing complexity in the healing actions would raise the skill floor without impacting much the ceiling since as gear gets better the healing needs become lesser and lesser but newbies would have a harder time doing the basics while increasing the complexity of the dps would affect much more the skill ceiling as good healers can optimize it and it would become more and more prevalent the better geared the party is while the newbies would still have an easy time doing the basics.

Worrying about DPS on a healer is like worrying that elephants can't fly.

Tell me you haven't done content with enrage without telling me you haven't done content with enrage, worrying about DPS on a healer is important because is what we do the most and without it a party can't beat the enrage on high end content

[Nadda]

Should I go on, with examples of this 'actually an interesting 123 combo as a healer'?

Those are very interesting but in a way what would be the point? We already have hots or help to pick up the slack with healing so we can dps more. I mean heck one of those sounds like my Lilybell or Asylum. I know my Scholar friends have a little heal fairy that helps with healing.

If our DPS output remains the same level or rate (which it would most likely) You're breaking the buttons up to have all these extremely useful tertiary functions that we already have buttons for but our DPS would ultimately be the same.

I see your point that would be interesting but it almost is an artificial satisfaction. I mean for example if every button I had was like assize that be satisfying to press but would sort of dumb down healing making every button the correct button. Part of being a Healer is making the decisions with the full kit at your disposal unlike how other jobs function where rotations give you an optional benefit from using them... Speaking as a Whitemage - I have full access to all my buttons and I dictate how they are used the most effectively.

One of your options here and I hope you don't mind a bit of critique (I do think these are interesting) but one of them you have.

" but this HOT always jumps to someone who needs it"

That takes a lot of agency away from what makes a good healer a good healer. I know when it's best to give a dps who dropped below half a regen instead of a heal because it's a quick instant action and I can then go back to dpsing the boss. I know when to spread heals out best for my team and maximize their use because that is the freedom Healing allows me.

There is an interesting way to play healer but it actually comes from the decisions we make by playing our role. It has nothing to do with our DPS. As much as dps buttons would be appreciated and maybe if they did have rotational benefits like you suggested they would be cool but ultimately no I just think the design of healers is the way it is for a reason.

[Mithron]

If you want to DPS with a more complex DPS rotation....play a DPS. The issue isn't healer DPS rotations not being complex enough, the issue is too many other classes have too much mitigation and the devs have effectively neutered the healer role in the game.

As a tank main, I love having mitigation and healing tools available to supplement my DPS rotation and healers. It's fun, interesting, engaging and separates my role from DPS in good ways. As a healer player, I enjoy working together with tanks on healing and mitigation to help survive mechanics, because it's fun, interesting, engaging and separates my role from DPS in good ways. The problem isn't needing to become a heal slave, no one with a valid opinion wants that. The problem is that I want to do DPS in more interesting and fun ways as a healer in addition to my duties as a healer. The vast majority of this game isn't current relevant Savage/Ultimate difficulty, which is the only place you would spend more GCDs on healing than DPSing if even then, and I'm glad for that. I want the core game design concept of healing in FF14 to be contributing to DPS in significant and interesting ways on top of my healing duties.

[Rein_eon_Osborne]

The issue isn't healer DPS rotations not being complex enough, the issue is too many other classes have too much mitigation and the devs have effectively neutered the healer role in the game.

Both are definitely part of the reasons why the role is boring. Let's say they do give all form of mitigations and healing to healers while stripping them bare from other role & leaving our DPS options as it is, what do you think we will do?

Double weaving our tools more intensively 5% - 15% of time then go back to 1 2 1 1 1 1 1.. 70%+ of time? Wow.

[...]I see far far too many healers out there that can DPS in competition with pure DPS classes but if the party starts loosing health? They panic and can't muster the knowledge or skill or even raid awareness to actually pull the party through bad situations. I can, on any of my healers, have some big mistake happen where people have failed mechanics and have in mass died, and I can stay alive, manage my MP, rez on the run even with a boss chasing me and I can get tanks and other healers and rez capable dps up[...]

Since you're bringing your own anecdote, it's only fair to compare mine with yours. Whenever I am not queueing as a healer (or cohealing) & $h!t hits the fan, it is almost always the healer who focuses on healing that actually panic heals & not knowing what to press to prevent a wipe. Roulette, high end, all the same. They always fall first before the "Green DPSes". Are there any bad green dpses? Why, of course. But the numbers I've encountered aren't as prominent as the former.

[...]Worrying about DPS on a healer is like worrying that elephants can't fly.

Worrying the party will drop dead all suddenly surely counts as one, too. For the most part of a healer's learning curve, such cautionary behavior just prove to be unnecessary most of the time. Damages are heavily scripted, to the point with enough experience one can easily predict when exactly players will make their 'random' mistake to counter that while keeping DPS uptime.

But sure. Let's make healing 'more complex'. Veteran healers would likely welcome the heightened skill floor but know that this will only hurt less experienced healers more. Raising the filler complexities aka DPSing (or buffing if they ever dive into that again) on the other hand will not hurt them because less experienced healers cares less about doing damage & will less likely to press damage buttons actively, which is fine. There are already healers who do not bother to press Assize because it does damage. Adding more damage options will not make it suddenly interesting to their eyes.