How MUCH healing can non-Healers do?

[Deceptus]

Was it an increase over Holy?

I have argued that we need "Water" at level 15 to be a low level spell that upgrades to Holy at 45, as that does seem to be a hole in our kit (not that Healers are the only ones with this issue of oddly late AOE buttons...), but Blizzard 2 was a damage loss over Holy once you got it, was it not?

It wasn't, but it was accessible at lvl 10 whereas Holy was accessed at lvl 45.

[Quintessa]

WAR basically has an 8 second Walking Dead on a shorter cooldown.

[fulminating]

WAR basically has an 8 second Walking Dead on a shorter cooldown.

Dark knight has a long cooldown bloodwhetting strapped onto its invuln.

[ForsakenRoe]

The 'Ring of Timely Strikes', then? Could be a solution of sorts, but I trust SE as far as I can throw them (and that's not very far I'm weak), so I'm confident that they'd draw the wrong conclusion about 'why' its a success (if it is one). Kinda like how they measure BLU's success by 'how many people levelled it', which, bearing in mind it takes a friend and less than 2 hours to get from 1 to max, is not exactly a challenge to accomplish. The fact that the vast majority of those players have not touched BLU in months, and only use it when it gets an update (for like 48h then shelve it for another 2 years), or only use it once a week for the carnivale weeklies, is not considered. Nope, just 'did they reach level cap'

[ty_taurus]

The 'Ring of Timely Strikes', then? Could be a solution of sorts, but I trust SE as far as I can throw them (and that's not very far I'm weak), so I'm confident that they'd draw the wrong conclusion about 'why' its a success (if it is one). Kinda like how they measure BLU's success by 'how many people levelled it', which, bearing in mind it takes a friend and less than 2 hours to get from 1 to max, is not exactly a challenge to accomplish. The fact that the vast majority of those players have not touched BLU in months, and only use it when it gets an update (for like 48h then shelve it for another 2 years), or only use it once a week for the carnivale weeklies, is not considered. Nope, just 'did they reach level cap'

I make a mission to collect all Triple Triad cards, so I'm forced to level BLU

[ForsakenRoe]

Is it really a hole in the kit that healers cannot AOE at low level? Every healer gets their AOE at 45-46, it seems to be 'by design'. Giving WHM 'a weaker version of Holy' would just make every other healer want to have the same.

If the potencies and durations were rebalanced as I want them to be (for WHM at least), AOE gameplay at low levels would be to multidot everything with super bursty, short duration DOT effects. None of this 'it's actually a DPS loss if the mob doesn't live for at least 15s' rubbish we have at level cap

[Silver-Strider]

Is it really a hole in the kit that healers cannot AOE at low level? Every healer gets their AOE at 45-46, it seems to be 'by design'. Giving WHM 'a weaker version of Holy' would just make every other healer want to have the same.

If the potencies and durations were rebalanced as I want them to be (for WHM at least), AOE gameplay at low levels would be to multidot everything with super bursty, short duration DOT effects. None of this 'it's actually a DPS loss if the mob doesn't live for at least 15s' rubbish we have at level cap

Sure, they can have it, as soon as WHM gets an answer for every low level oGCD that every other healer has.

[Conchoidal]

Is it really a hole in the kit that healers cannot AOE at low level? Every healer gets their AOE at 45-46, it seems to be 'by design'. Giving WHM 'a weaker version of Holy' would just make every other healer want to have the same.

It really is, especially considering that most legacy jobs have at least some form of AoE before the mid-point of the ARR MSQ (just before unlocking Hauke Manor), with the exception of Dragoon and Ninja, and especially in the case of SCH which loses access to an AoE spell (Outburst). I don't really think anyone really wants healers to have lesser forms of their default AoE (it's already lazy to have every healer unlock a new filler spell every expansion with +10 potency), instead it makes more sense for them to have a low-level AoE spell which can be used in single target scenarios (or enhanced with traits).

[Renathras]

The 'Ring of Timely Strikes', then?

I have no idea what this is, but that name sounds familiar.

Anyone remember Legend of Dragoon? I think it had some accessory that did something like this. It auto-completed the (proto-quicktime) combos you did. For those who don't know, Legend of Dragoon was a PS1 "J"RPG made by Sony (I put the J in quotes because I think it was made in the US) that I can best describe as "If you mixed Final Fantasy 8 with Power Rangers". But what's important here is that the character basic attacks (except the archer party member(s)) had multi-hits to them, which required the player to hit the X button in time with the swings to get the full combo (Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars also had something similar back on the SNES). You did this in normal form and you'd build up points making the combos stronger over time and unlocking new combos (Xenogears had a system similar to that last part, but it wasn't time based on the inputs). And even when transformed into armored Dragoon form, your regular attack had a combo system, though it was a bit different.

Anyway, there was an accessory you could equip which lowered the resources generated by the combos (they generated resources for you to activate your armor transformations into your characters' more powerful forms) but had the AI perform the complete combo automatically, which was useful for leveling or executing some of the harder combos if you couldn't quite get the timing down (Lantz/Albert's spinning spear attacks being a notoriously good example of this).

Are you guys suggesting something akin to that in the options? o.O

I'm not QUITE sure it makes sense in this kind of game, though. But, then again, people are pushing for 1 button combos for Melee/Tanks all the time (which ironically would make Tank gameplay more like current Healer gameplay...Misshapen Chair did make the point he'd hate that to be mandatory, and I can understand why, for someone who likes needless extra button presses to achieve the same result...), so hard to say.

It wasn't, but it was accessible at lvl 10 whereas Holy was accessed at lvl 45.

Right, but we're talking relevant actions at level cap in a given expansion.

I do agree it'd be nice if Healers got lower level AOE, but it wasn't a separately used ability in ARR for level cap content. Contrast with Aero 1, which SCH could Cross-Class from CNJ, which WAS used by them in level cap content.

Aside: I still propose "Water" as a spell gained by WHM at level 15 or so as an AOE centered on the caster (look at the FF8 Vivi Water spell animation - it's a big bubble that forms, rises into the air, and then bursts, just like Holy's cast today is...and I think it's an AOE spell in that game, too), and then have it upgrade to Holy at the level 45 Job Quest (where you get Holy today). Would take care of that problem and give us the third element spell CNJ lacks.

...

One thing I agree with Ty on is it would be nice to get the AOE spells use in single target boss fights. PART OF THE PROBLEM is that the AOE ones are (excepting AST) all centered on the caster melee range abilities. If they were ranged, that'd fix that problem, but APPARENTLY having a ranged AOE makes a Job braindead. Like how AST is the most braindead Healer since it has a ranged AOE. (/sarcasm) It's why I've supported Holy being made like Cure 3 (can be centered on the caster or a target) or Art of War ranged, make it like Ruin 2/4, like Nizzi suggested - I really liked Nizzi's suggestion, even if it was probably sarcasm.

If Holy worked like Cure 3, then having an empowered version usable as either a Dia proc or every X (probably 3) Glare casts would be feasible and allow a break in the otherwise GCD Glarespam. Give the button a reason to exist during boss fights that don't have adds (which is almost every boss fight these days - even when boss fights DO have adds, you often have to keep them apart anyway.)

[Conchoidal]

If Holy worked like Cure 3, then having an empowered version usable as either a Dia proc or every X (probably 3) Glare casts would be feasible and allow a break in the otherwise GCD Glarespam. Give the button a reason to exist during boss fights that don't have adds (which is almost every boss fight these days - even when boss fights DO have adds, you often have to keep them apart anyway.)

Not necessarily, we know that AoE spells centred around the self are still capable of fall-off damage (i.e. Stormblood's iteration of Holy which dealt decreasing amounts of damage to each additional enemy) so an "empowered" Holy which deals damage around the caster could still be used in single target scenarios without being overpowered with multiple targets, although ideally it would be preferred if there was a method for the game engine to increase the radius of spell effects (this might have happened with the Expanded Royal Road effect but we can't test this anymore).

Another idea for AoE/single target spells could be a trait which increases the spell's potency (e.g. for our hypothetical Water spell) when only a single enemy is attacked, which we know the game engine can support with SAM's PVP Ogi Namikiri (which deals 50% more damage when attacking only a single target).