Paired Threads: What would it take to make Heaker kits "complex/interesting"?

[Aravell]

I'm genuinely curious what piece of content that a casual player would engage in also has a check so strict that the healers can barely drop GCDs on.

[Renathras]

1. Then give us buffs and debuffs to manage. That isn't a cop out of Feint and Addle. They don't add a single thing to healers other than shutting up other players who think they know our job, but can't even do theirs (actually use said abilities).
   
2. Man up and give actual MP management. All oGCDs should have a cost.
   
3. Screw off with this 60s, 120s BS. My strong oGCDs should not properly line up with tank busters or raid wides.

All of which they refused to do over the course of 2 expansions by the way. Now answer your question.

Honestly, we have 1, the problem is they keep making them oGCDs (because if you use a GCD for something that isn't damage, you're a bad player). Think about it, say they give you a 30 sec Addle oGCD. Has that fixed the problem? Probably not. What if they give you a 15 sec duration, 15 sec CD Addle oGCD that you're trying to keep 100% uptime on. Does that fix your boredom? Probably not. The only way to get that to work would be to do something like FF13's Sabateur where the debuff spells do a set amount of baseline damage. Then you could turn it into a GCD, which is what it needs to be to break up your boring 111 spam. But if it does less damage than Glare, it's again a DPS loss and we get the SB "How much can you avoid Tank stance" situation where optimal party play is for players to be good enough (and geared enough) that you don't need to upkeep it, and the Healer is good enough at using their oGCDs that they don't need to upkeep it, so it would be the thing you remove until you're just spamming Glare again, same as now.

Now, if it's something that isn't a mitigation debuff, say something like a boss takes additional damage debuff you upkeep, then it's still just one button every X seconds, which is pretty boring, would still probably need to be an oGCD or damage neutral (or nearly so) GCD like how Storm's Eye and Armor Crush aren't crippling damage losses vs their competitors, and it would probably need to be a role action so that it doesn't screw with Healer balance, which would again make all the Healers feel the same. And if they each had a distinct one, it would suffer from complaints of homogenization AND from "well, SCH has +1% damage, and that's better than WHM's +1% direct hit, SGE's +1% crit, or AST's +1% haste which just makes people angry". So they would need to be basically the same, and you still likely have the risk of "It's boring, it's just second-Dia. BORING!"

Would it really be engaging to you to have a second basically Dia GCD that you simply press every 15 or 30 seconds (it can't be TOO often otherwise it could get in the way of healing for casual Timmy, remember), and how to balance that to prevent it either being dropped from the rotation as your party gets better (mainly debuffs versions) or people get kicked from the party for not using it (damage buff versions)? It would likely HAVE to be a different duration than your DoT, but would just having one extra button you press at a similar cadence be "engaging"? Really?

This goes to having a second 15 sec DoT. Right now you might say "That would be worlds better!", but if you got it, how long would it be, really before it felt just like you view Dia refreshes now? I think this is the reason there are a high number of the Survey results saying they want SITUATIONAL DPS buttons, not part of a rotation but things you use occasionally.

2 is an interesting case and mainly a problem because of how oGCDs work. But if oGCDs have MP costs, you may as well just make them GCDs at that point. In fact, if we made all oGCDs into GCDs, that would already solve the problem of the 111 spam.

Not sure 3 even makes sense. You want your oGCDs to never be available when needed?

"All of which they refused to do over the course of 2 expansions by the way", so, in other words the devs themselves refuse it? So by your definition, that means none of those three are answers, right?

Not trying to be snarky, but if we're in a case of the devs themselves refuse it, at this point, they've refused every solution that either of us have proposed.

...

If you back off of the hyperbole and appeal to ridicule, we can have a decent conversation.

Medica 2 has a 15 sec duration. That doesn't mean you'd have to have it up all the time, hence you wouldn't always need 4 in a minute. And even if you DID, it's one button vs several (for different DoTs with different durations), missing a tick would no more lead to a wipe than missing a DoT tick, and you can easily tell if it's still up or not and it's easy to get a feel for, unlike multiple DoTs with multiple durations.

Do you seriously thin using 3 abilities that have different 15, 18, and 21 sec durations is no harder than using a single ability with a consisting 15 sec duration would be?

These contrived points really aren't helping. You know as well as I do if you did that you'd get complaints. People notice, and people complain and harass because of it. That was my point, and why they won't do it. It's why I brought up Cleric. And no, Cleric didn't lead to wipes in dungeons unless people were incompetent. I even went part way through a dungeon in HW not realizing it was on (since I had been soloing stuff) and I got by (albeit sweating bullets) by using Divine Seal, Presence of Mind, Cure 2s, etc. And that was like a quarter of a dungeon, lol. Ah, the halcyon days...

I don't think I'm suggesting the level of healing you are, and that may be the sticking point.

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"There isn't one that's truly sensible" - agreed, and that's my point. There is no change that the devs have not said they will accept that does what you guys want. I disagree on the "how little damage actually matters below Savage". You know as well as I it doesn't matter, but PFs blacklist Jobs all the time because they aren't optimal in world first races. People are stupid about these things for some reason.

Well the devs are doing that already so...

Honestly I wasn't going to call out cleric stance but, wasn't the problem of cleric stance being the switching? If the stance was removed and the dps remained... wouldn't that have ALSO fixed the problem? Because if what I read about cleric stance was correct, when you switched it locked you out of switching back for a duration?

They... quite literally could have made it like current tank stance and still kept all the dps actions yeah?

5 seconds.

The lockout was 5 seconds, I believe. While that COULD be pivotal in Savage content, it generally wasn't elsewhere. Just if people were stupid about it or fat fingered it (when you hit it to cancel it, it didn't put the ability on CD, so you could accidentally double tap it which would drop the buff then instantly reapply it), it could cause problems. A bigger issue was Healers that thought they were better than they were playing too close to the line and getting people killed.

I feel like it is important to note that using or not using Cleric's stance could *easily* quadruple the amount of damage you were doing. It also came with the draw back of making inexperienced (be it in general, or just with any given encounter specifically) feel *very* unsafe because it also completely neutered your ability to fill up HP bars (which also used to drop faster more frequently!) while having a timer before you could turn it back off. And there is absolutely no way in hell any amount of added dps buttons are going to increase your maximum potential dps that much. So the toxicity potential is VASTLY lower than that memory/comparison would make it out to be.

One can hope. I'm just cautious about saying "It wouldn't happen now" when it happens literally all the time now. People will complain if Healers aren't casting their nuke consistently and people blacklist Jobs because of World First race issues. So I'm not really sure that it wouldn't happen again. FFXIV discussion forums are filled with people complaining about these things all the time, so it still happens even now when it should be completely irrelevant. People are just...well, it's the whole "this is why we can't have nice things" stuff.

[ASkellington]

snip

When have I ever ASKED for a ROTATION? Get that out your vocabulary. Extra dps buttons do not equal a rotation.

And yes, actually having another DoT up to manage more often would be more engaging to me than one every 30s.

I'm not worried about casual Timmy. The game already caters to him since they've made healers so fool proof with the BS amounts of healing we have you can pretty much clear the entire game using nothing but your GCD (which I have done in the previous expansion btw). What I'm trying to address are the problems at a higher skill level, things you get once you master a job.

The whole argument of "well people will start removing people from PF" they do that already. It is expected of you EX and above to play your job at a certain skill level. We aren't talking about MSQ content at that point, we're talking about optional hardcore content. People are ALWAYS going to chase what "the best class" is. The problem is again, on the devs for saying "well, people are complaining about a mere X% damage that doesn't matter, lets fix it".

If harassment is your major concern there is a report button. People can use it. Conversely, people can grow a spine and get sticks out their arses. Is a healer really stopping your progress by never pressing a dps button? No. Its just making the dungeon slower. Is a healer stopping your progress by not using their tool kit? Then I'm pretty sure it isn't just the healer that's a problem, they're just the more noticeable problem. If you're that worried about others "harassing you" for not being S+++ tier, then just open up at the start of the instance that you're new. Majority of the people are more willing to help you/give the benefit of the doubt and will even go out of their way to help you. It becomes a problem when you say nothing because they expect you to know what you're doing.

It shouldn't be a reason to halt adding in extra dps and it isn't even a good one.

[Sebazy]

Oh my god I've just looked at the length of this post and I'm becoming you =( Aaannnyway!

These contrived points really aren't helping.

You have absolutely no right to call any of my points contrived after trying to suggest that queuing to Savage and doing ZERO DPS has any relevance whatsoever to a casual player struggling to maintain multiple dots in relevant content.

You make some interesting points, and then you nuke them from orbit by wildly overreaching when people try to counter you. Stop it. It pisses people off and lo and behold, you get chewed out for it. By all means cite any comment in this discussion where I've tried to use hyperbole to make a point. I've either used my opinion which is clearly labeled as such (IMO = In my opinion if you're not aware). When I've actually called you out on something, I'm pretty sure I've consistently explained why I'm calling you out with reasoning to back it up (eg: The dot timeline example).

Now anyway, if you've not blocked me after that, as promised. Here's a POV of me running Althyk and Nymeia and I don't think you're going to like it....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6usab1LjtYE

My target bar is at the upper middle of the screen, I've got self debuffs toggled on. My focus bar with all debuffs/dots etc is to the right of that. No plugins or simple tweaks here. Now correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure it's rather easy to keep a track of my dot there. It's big enough despite my ultra wide and it's not buried under a mountain of other dots like the focus window is because I went into the settings and fixed that. For reference, I managed a 98% uptime and you can see a few occasions where I had to let my dots drop to cast a raise or top someone. It's no big deal.

If you don't want to click through to the video, here's a cropped snip from the upper middle leftish of my screen:



My guess is either your UI setup is perhaps more subpar than it needs to be (Not trying to suggest that mine is perfect, look to someone like Minori or Elia for that), or you're spending too much time with party members targeted unnecessarily? Do you use mouse over macros to DPS or something like that? Regardless, my hope at least is that you'll understand why I'm at a loss as to why you feel that rolling multiple dots is difficult. My dot icon is plenty big enough and central to keep a tabs on, if yours isn't, that's on you for not making more out of the admittedly limited tools SE give us. Could SE do better on this front? Absolutely! But it's not rocket science to work with what we have either.

I've included the Ice trash before Halone at 5:30 as well. Note that this alliance overall was perhaps the worst I've ever seen, Menphina actually did some mechanic combinations I've genuinely never seen before I guess due to taking 7:30ish to kill. As you said, the trash wasn't gathered in the slightest and I ended up with 2 vuln stacks. The first @5:55 was entirely my fault with inactivity rust and sloppy movement and should have been avoided. The second at 6:30 wasn't really worth avoiding so I just Benison'd myself to be safe and ate it rather than running to Narnia.

I did 9.8k DPS on that trash pack despite it being perhaps one of the messiest pulls I've ever seen. The best DPS was 11.3k. Make of that what you will.

Medica 2 has a 15 sec duration. That doesn't mean you'd have to have it up all the time, hence you wouldn't always need 4 in a minute.

<snip>

I don't think I'm suggesting the level of healing you are, and that may be the sticking point.

Ok so here's precisely what you said:

Or, maybe, they genuinely do believe that it would be easier for casuals to juggle 3 DoTs with different timers and keep near 100% upkeep on them than to have fights where they have to press Medica 2 four times a minute and a Cure 2 or Regen in there to taste. I can't imagine HOW anyone would believe that, but maybe some people do...

I'll focus specifically on: Fights where they *have* to press Medica 2 four times a minute and a Cure 2 or Regen in there to taste.

Now by definition, *having* to press medica II four times a minute implies that you have to do exactly that or bad things will happen. Now there's only really one bad thing that happens when you don't heal enough, and that's people dieing. Fair so far? I'll be generous and ignore the Cure 2 or Regen since Yoshida seems to be allergic to tank damage now anyway

Now, to put this into perspective, lets use P5S as an example, specifically 2 minutes into the fight with the AoE sequence of Ruby Glow (~48k) > Double Rush (~50k) > Sonic Howl (26k) > Ruby Glow (~48k). Note all those damage amounts are after mitigation and are on me specifically as a healer with a little over 60k HP and comes to a total of just over 170k damage taken on myself only over roughly a 1 minute period. To give some context, BarbEX's knuckle drum phase is around 135k damage taken and RubiEX's fire explosion mechanic thing is in the region of 150k over similar time frames.

Why have I picked this as an example? Because I dealt with it via 2 Medica IIs, 2 Afflatus Raptures, Assize and an Asylum right at the end of the sequence to top us up. I think it's a fair opinion to say that that's somewhat comparable to 4 Medica IIs no? (And for transparency, Assize's CD landed at a good point and got full value, the second Rapture was 65% overheal).

And no I absolutely wasn't chadding, my co healer used 2 Soils, 1 Indom, 1 Whispering Dawn and a fey blessing. I did a total of just over 12k HPS in this window, my co healer did ~9.5k. Both of us were sitting at around 30% overheal.

So yeah, that's an example of a sequence where I *have* to cast 4 Medica IIs or some equivalent or bad things will happen and as such, that's what I'm working off. And yeah, it's pretty apparent that we are talking about different levels of content with this. Could you clarify what sort of level of content you feel requires a healer to cast 4 Medica IIs a minute? If you think this whole explanation is hyperbole, by all means please clarify that too.

Lastly:

Do you seriously thin using 3 abilities that have different 15, 18, and 21 sec durations is no harder than using a single ability with a consisting 15 sec duration would be?

That's not my point. Please read what I'm trying to say here.

If little Timmy fails to DPS well in content that is appropriate for little Timmy, nothing bad will happen and the overwhelming majority simply won't care.

If little Timmy fails to keep up with *Having* to use 4 significant AoE heals a minute (Which as I've demonstrated and backed up with math, is comparable to P5S and beyond what we see in Extremes), people will likely die and yes, then people will likely get salty over it and unlike the DPS example, they will actually have grounds to do as such.

I don't know how I can make it clearer. The only time healer DPS becomes so important that failing your DoT uptime is a genuine and real issue is early Savage/Ultimate prog. That's not content that little Timmy has any place doing if they can't handle something as simple as maintaining dots.

Regarding Cleric Stance, I've seen CS cause wipes on trash pulls in dungeons, but from memory it's generally been a leveling dungeon thing rather than Expert and yeah, it's usually been the healer double tapping Cleric Stance and reapplying it whilst trying to drop it.

[Rilifane]

Dot tracking is definitely an issue with your UI setup, Ren.

You can split the target frame into 3 seperate elements: HP bar, cast bar and debuffs. Each of these elements can be scaled and dragged to your liking.
Since you can also filter the debuff bar to only show your own debuffs, you can easily scale it to all the way up to 200% and put it wherever your eyes naturally go without it affecting the size/ placement of the HP bar/ cast bar. There you go, no plugins necessary (although I'd personaly like to see UI addons or at the very least way more customization options). I also highly recommend putting it not somewhere near the middle and instead more to the side or lower end of the screen (maybe near your party frames where you oftne look anyway?) because there tend to be less effects that could lead to visual clutter.

And if you want to track all debuff, set focus target to the boss, now you can also see TA, Chain etc. The only downside is that the focus target bar has a limit for debuffs so during burst and heavy incoming damage, a mitigation debuff could get pushed out of the frame if you have multiple debuffing classes.

I can't take a screenshot of my UI anymore since my sub already ran out but I'm sure you'll find the options, should be somewhere in the target tab iirc. But someone else could clarify on that.