"I know THIS is going to go over well" question: What it a Healer had SMN's rotation?

[Renathras]

What it says on the tin.

SMN is considered "brain-dead" or "lobotomized", but is still a DPS Job with a DPS rotation. A rotation which largely consists of using 3 buttons, Ruin 3 (more that Ruin 3 turns into Bahamut/Phoenix attacks during DWT/FBT), Gemshine (which is spammed in various ways when Summons are out), and Astral Flow (which is more situationally used when Summons are out)

That's the rotation itself. (There's technically also Energy Drain, 2x Festers, and a Ruin 4 per minute, and Enkindle once per major Summon, but let's set those aside for now). If we took that base and gave it a bit more of a healing flair, it would still be largely approachable to people and give them a few more buttons to press.

Even treating the combined buttons as one (e.g. Ruin 3, Astral Impulse, and Fountain of Fire as one button), you have things like ~50 "Ruin 3" casts, ~70 Topaz/Ruby/Emerald Rites, and ~50 Crimson Strike/Crimson Cyclone/Slipstream/Mountain Buster casts. Or therabouts (using P5S data). Basically, "If Dia/Bio/Combust/EuDosis were a regular part of the rotation and we had a third button that also split the load."

As opposed to the "180 Glare cast" "rotations" people have linked before.

If something like SGE had a rotation like that, allowing Kardia healing with a bit of an interesting rotation and sprinking of oGCDs, would this be acceptable, or are people wanting a rotation more like NIN?

EDIT:

Note that this wouldn't actually require adding anything, it would just require changing up how the existing buttons are used. SGE already has roughly four attack buttons that get use in single target fights - Dosis, EuDosis, Plegma, and Toxicon. Having some kind of a system like SMN that had you rotate through using them in various ways wouldn't necessarily even require additional buttons be added to the Job, just repurposing the existing ones.

[Nizzi]

I'd need to play it myself, but I think for healers, they absolutely need to look at how we use our buttons and how they can make engagement from that, so I think it could be fun if they did it well?

They can and should do this with all of the healers, for example:

Imagine if Ruin II on SCH was a button you actually wanted to hit? You could give it a "Storm's Eye" like effect for SCH's personal DPS, say on a 20s timer, and now SCH has to hit that 3 times a minute to be doing optimal damage. Which is what SCH was doing back in Shadowbringers to have optimal DPS too, so now we have a 3 GCD a minute break from Broil spam without adding anymore buttons or debuffs on bosses, and it gives Ruin II a timer management aspect like SCH's old DoT suite used to have. The same could be done with Deployment Tactics to spread Biolysis and Chain Stratagem, now SCH has 2 AoE options for damage instead of being the only job in the game to have 1. This doesn't change much about raids but it does make SCH more fun in dungeons and closer to how it used to be up until Shadowbringers for casual content. Hell, I know they'd never do it, but you could even come up with a way to have Art of War be apart of SCH's single target rotation too; imagine if Chain Stratagem was like Brotherhood, and if your teammates got a crit during your Chain window, you'd get a stack of "Battle Tactics" that made AoW do 300 potency instead of 180, so you could have some unique optimization there. That would make SCH monstrous in dungeon packs but who cares about that if it's fun?

The 1-1-1 button spam healers are because of a lack of creativity from the developers, and all of the healers should be looked at to see how they can be made more engaging in regards to their DPS rotations with what they have right now if they are adamant that they won't return any previously lost DPS actions to healers. These kits aren't un-serviceable even with the 5-6 DPS actions total that they have, they're the way they are due to a lack of developer care and creativity.

[Teno]

There's no need for much. Two examples that regularly come back in my mind :

- Toxikon oGCD = you use your gcd heal to proc it and now have access to a somewhat dps neutral tool (probably a buff for burst windows). Admittedly, it would vastly improve our mobility and trivialize casual content even more but it's the gameplay idea that's been enticing me, basically a unique heal/dmg combo (!) with the drawback of costing some mana. Similar interaction as in PvP. And it actually makes use of sage's one gimmick instead of reducing it to a dot refresher.

- The return of a scholar dot or two on different timers. Tack one on the fairy for aesthetics and so that we can actually command her (like SMN) and we're good. Also shadowflare. That little positional skill that doesn't add much but still contributes to optimization and feels nice/rewarding to use for adds phases. Plus it looks good. And finally bane, like we have in pvp with deployment tactics.

[Calysto]

I half-joked about it a while ago for SCH (because pet).
It is kinda braindead on SMN, but if you were to add that to complement a healing kit it may be interesting as it offers a bit of variety and decision making (do you need movement tools ? do you need your ogcd for heals ?).

That would also be against the "easy balance" that SE want with the copy/paste healers...

[Renathras]

My personal take:

I can play SMN just fine...when I'm completely ignoring party health bars. All I'm focusing on is my rotation and CDs. (Hence that other discussion about what the focus of a Role is). I like the variable rotation since that's the only thing I'm looking at other than a boss's mechanics and, rarely, my own personal health. I put the Healers on the top of my party list so I MIGHT see them drop to zero out of the corner of my eye...but also might not. (It's why as a Healer I always use <se.2> when requesting a raise, since I know SMN/RDM's aren't likely looking at health bars to see if both Healers are down or whatnot.)

But if we had a healer that kind of radiated healing based on doing damage, so your damage generation was more or less passive and all you had to focus on was your damage rotation, mitigation (like SMN with Addle), and RARELY Tank specific healing needs, then that could work as a Job and not be too insane.

For all the flack it gets, one thing SMN did very clever is create a high economy of Hotbar spaces while giving different rotations. There's probably a limit of how many two/three-button things you can do, but Titan, Garuda, and Ifrit (especially Ifrit) all feel different to use because of Ifrit's cast bars and gap closer 1-2 combo, and Garuda's 4 quick casts + one hardcast, vs Titan's 1-2 x4 GCD+oGCD combos. It's simple, but you can't Ifrit like you can Titan. I feel like something like that could work with _A_ Healer (not saying _ALL_ Healers, but at least one), especially one like SGE based on how it already works.

[RinaShinomiya]

We dont need SMN rotation, any kind of interactivity with our DPS kit would be enough
Give WHM Firestarter trait but for Glare III, upgrading Holy III to Afflatus Purgation
Give WHM Thundercloud trait but for Dia
There, you made WHM's kit more interactive without introducing a single new button.
A year ago I've been basically asking for more Bard DNA to seep into SCH so that it has a DoT themed playstyle again, with Tactic skills proccing off of Dots like on BRD
Same with AST but cards being more like Mudras or DNC's steps
Most of these are just diet coke versions of existing DPS jobs but it really shouldn't be that hard to design a okay DPS rotation using just 4 buttons with a handful of smartly designed traits. Instead we have Freecure.

[ty_taurus]

For all the flack it gets, one thing SMN did very clever is create a high economy of Hotbar spaces while giving different rotations. There's probably a limit of how many two/three-button things you can do, but Titan, Garuda, and Ifrit (especially Ifrit) all feel different to use because of Ifrit's cast bars and gap closer 1-2 combo, and Garuda's 4 quick casts + one hardcast, vs Titan's 1-2 x4 GCD+oGCD combos. It's simple, but you can't Ifrit like you can Titan. I feel like something like that could work with _A_ Healer (not saying _ALL_ Healers, but at least one), especially one like SGE based on how it already works.

I actually think SMN's new gameplay is nice in a certain light. From the positive side of things, it always frustrated me how FFXIV's SMN felt nothing like the Summoner from any other game in the series. Not everything needs to be a 1:1 rendition of old games (because then we get nonsense like BLU), but RDM is really able to capture the spirit of the Red Mage of other Final Fantasies while working within the structure of this game. SMN never did, and I think it really captures that much more effectively, and the concept of honing each primal's power briefly for yourself is a healthy twist on the concept of a SMN that helps it feel functional in this environment.

That said, the biggest issue I have and that I think most people have is that the job feels incomplete. It plays like how the other DPS play at level 60 rather than 90. The level 86 actions are learned WAY too late, and the job almost as barebones as WHM is before that. You say "one thing SMN did very clever is create a high economy of Hotbar spaces while giving different rotations," which is true in one light, but also kind of untrue in another. So much of SMN is just AoE versions of stuff you already have, which doesn't actually add anything to gameplay. it just switches which button you press when you're on the way to your next dungeon boss. Physick still exists. I like the idea of Carbuncle being your caddie of sorts, giving you access to situational needs which reflects Carbuncle having been a supportive summon in the past games, but when the only tool in his toolbelt is Radiant Aegis, it makes Carbuncle feel incredibly hollow.

The Energy Drain/Syphon and Fester/Painflare buttons are not only another example of 4 buttons that could just be 2, but are completely disconnected from the rest of your kit. Not that we need to cut that because goodness knows SMN barely has any branches to prune as is.

All-in-all I think SMN is good fertile land for further development, but it wasn't right to hollow it out like that and just leave it like this for an entire expansion. It needs more, and I'm not without hope that it will get more next expansion, but only time will tell.

Also, I do sympathize with those that miss the old playstyle. It's not fun when a playstyle you enjoyed is excised without warning. I do think reworking SCH to have adopted SMN's lost playstyle in some capacity would've been a better route to go on between the two. Old SMN had too much going on while SCH had almost nothing going on.

But if we had a healer that kind of radiated healing based on doing damage, so your damage generation was more or less passive and all you had to focus on was your damage rotation, mitigation (like SMN with Addle), and RARELY Tank specific healing needs, then that could work as a Job and not be too insane.

What about something that was the opposite? If it's WHM we're talking about and Glare III is 310 potency... some type of cooldown that radiates a 310 potency DPS AoE when you cast healing spells for... 10 seconds or so? Or maybe your next 5 healing spells? Something that lets you focus completely on healing without losing a beat on your damage contributions? Not that you can't have a healer that radiates healing when attacking (as we see on some level with SGE) but the inverse feels like it would be a better forgiveness tool since it then applies to any of your heals rather than just the AoE potency of the heal generated through DPSing.

[NobleWinter]

I would be happy if one healer had the Summoner Rotation. At this point anything that gives me a reason to stay awake would get my vote. I literally fall asleep when I don't have a reason to heal for too long. I forget to reapply my dot cause the timer is so long and then people see me standing in aoes cause my brain has checked out. It's so embarrassing. I miss all the short Scholar Dots so much. Shadowbringers almost made me quit videogames altogether.

[Renathras]

I actually think SMN's new gameplay is nice in a certain light.

I actually like New SMN a lot. It took me a minute to read through all the tooltips when I hit 81 on SCH (the Job I leveled the MSQ with until I dinged 90 finishing up Eplis, then I swapped to my 89 GNB I'd been forcing myself to roulette for and got useful XP from the last zone quests to ding 90 before the final Dungeon/Trial there), mainly trying to work out how the lower level stuff evolved, but when I sat in front of the target dummies outside Yillhimad and walked myself through it, I was able to pick it up almost instantly. That's what I consider good Job design (not so great tooltip design, but good Job design) when a player can read through their tooltips, sit down with it, and figure out more or less how it should be played without having to dig through out-of-game esoteria to figure it out. There's a little nuance (that Titan is the Summon you want to lead with for highest DPS), but the general flow is apparent and the Job mechanics make sense; you have a 60 sec cycle that evolves into two 60 sec cycles that are only different in the Demi (both of which play the same), Energy Drain/Fester 2x is also on that cycle and can be weaved during the Demi phase, and you have Ruin 4 to use for movement and close out your 60 sec rotation (if you don't cast it, you'd filler with a Ruin 3). You have some more Ruin 3 filler until you get all your Summon abilities, but it's pretty easy to understand Ruin 3 is just for "filler" and gets scooted out as more important things replace it.

It's what I like in a Job - direct, functional, does the Job, no/few unnecessary frills or busywork for the sake of busywork.

...but, I'm really big about not taking things from people who enjoy it - as you've seen in our discussions over "change some of the healers but leave at least one alone", and I'm consistent with this across all aspects of the game (DPS Jobs, side content, etc). I felt if they had to remove the Job to free up the SMN identity, they could/should have introduced something to fill that void. I still feel they should add Green Mage to the game where GRM encapsulated that DoT gameplay and interactions, stacking DoTs, consumed to do burst damage DoTs, different duration DoTs, DoTs on CD (like GNB's), DoT interactions (like Fester/Bane), DoT procs (like old BRD), the whole nine yards to give fans of Old SMN something that's more or less Old SMN without the Egis.

I still feel this way. I know the Devs clearly don't want a DoT Job, but I still feel they shouldn't have taken that existing thing away from players that liked it.

I honestly like it like it is. I hope they evolve on it, but not every Job needs to be like playing a piano symphony on your Keyboard while also dancing around on a Dance-Dance-Revolution playfield.

I also absolute disagree that SCHOLAR should have adopted old SMN's playstyle. That would just have pissed off SCH players (my main in SB and ShB and dual-main with WHM since...uh...late ARR, though I do tend to fluidly move between them based on mood or party needs). Old SMN's rotation was...an acquired taste, lol Definitely not one to shove on an unsuspecting audience out of the blue.

What about something that was the opposite? If it's WHM we're talking about and Glare III is 310 potency... some type of cooldown that radiates a 310 potency DPS AoE when you cast healing spells for... 10 seconds or so? Or maybe your next 5 healing spells? Something that lets you focus completely on healing without losing a beat on your damage contributions? Not that you can't have a healer that radiates healing when attacking (as we see on some level with SGE) but the inverse feels like it would be a better forgiveness tool since it then applies to any of your heals rather than just the AoE potency of the heal generated through DPSing.

I dunno, a part of me would go the other way with it like WoW Disc priests (with their shield thing and that one aoe) but basically where you put a HoT on people and then your damage spells heal anyone your HoTs are ticking on. I think that would be interesting gameplay. "Kardia with extra steps", but where the "extra steps" are healing people and breaking up your GCD damage spam and where you can have it on more than one person at a time. Alternatively, having Thundercloud-Dia procs would be simple but something to spice things up without really changing much, though I'm not sure adding more RNG to the game is really a good thing, considering how bad the 2 min meta Crit Direct Hit stuff is already. Imagine the WHM who doesn't get any procs during burst windows vs the one that gets 2-3. I think making GCD heals nourish the Blood Lily is also a good idea, as it means healing leads to pressing DPS buttons that aren't Glare more often. Though this is only really useful during prog and doesn't help with the "once your party isn't taking unavoidable damage all the time and you're bored now..." situations.

But this thread honestly was more about SGE than anything. It's more in a vacuum, but I would think SGE could work this way with a SMN (or RDM) like rotation because Kardia and their oGCDs basically work for that. Taurchole, Durochole, Krasis, and Haima are their only single target oGCDs. The rest don't need targeting and could be weaved within your DPS rotation without issue, while your DPS issue is also healing your Kardia target/Tank.

It's like they made SGE where it COULD do that, but then decided late in development "Oh, wait, no; change of plans..."

[Ggwppino]

yes. On a supporter the smn dps rotation alongside a support kit becomes an absurdly well done job. With a complete healer support kit, but avoiding spamming a single button when doing dps. A rotation that doesn't keep you busy doing just that, but that you do that too.