Rotations: Making them DIFFERENT

[Renathras]

As I said in another thread and have some before - replacing effectively identical Healer damage rotations with a different set of equally identical Healer damage rotations doesn't make sense and should be avoided. Copied here in brief is a comparison between the Melee Jobs:

DRG: 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-0-5-4 repeat (or something loosely akin to that)
MNK: 1-2-3-4-5-6-1-2-6-4-5-3-1-2-6-4-5-6 repeat (ignoring the Blitz mechanic)
NIN: 1-2-4-1-2-3-...-3-1-2-4 repeat (you can use two -4 combos together and then not have to do another for 60 sec, so there's flexibility, but it's that)
SAM: 1-2-3-1-4-1-5-6 repeat (the order can be changed depending on what you're doing, and Meikyo you use with just -2-4-6, the finishers of each of thethree)
RPR: 1-2-3, it kinda has a -4, but Shadow of Death isn't part of its combo (so is more like Huraijin, except you want to use it) with a bunch of spenders and stuff thrown in, then the burst combos.

Ignoring that one can argue nuance and other GCDs in the mix, the point here is clear: The core rotations themselves are distinct.

Tanks were made off of the Melee model (combos) while Healers are an extension of the Caster model (cast time spells, no specific order), but these rules have been hedged in some cases before - MCH is a Ranged that has a 1-2-3 combo, DNC has a weird hybrid system of combos and procs, RDM has an outright 1-2-3 melee combo for its burst, as well as a de-facto combo via both Dualcast mechanics and Holy/Flare - Scorch - Resolution.

And further note that changes to the game in EW have gotten rid of the old "breaks combos" nature of spellcasts. For example, on PLD, 1-2-Clemency/Holy Spirit-3 can be used and does not break the Royal Authority combo anymore, meaning that isn't a requirement and abilities can be flagged on the coding/developer end to not break combos, which could easily be done for any Healer abilities.

So I hope I've made my point clear: The Healers can and should have different modes of "rotations".

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This thread is an open invitation for people to propose different forms of rotations.

Note that there are more than just the two types - Melee and Caster - though those are probably the most prominent (proc based, variable sequence - which is arguably what RDM and MNK both are, mixes, etc)

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My own proposals:

WHM: 1-2-3 rotation somewhat mirroring PLD, Remove Glare and Dia. Add the following spell lines - Stone 1, 2, 3, 4, Quake; Aero 1, 2, 3, 4, Tornado; Water 1, 2, 3, 4, Flood. Using either a combo or "X Ready" system, establish a combo order between them. Each completed combo generates one "Amdapori Gemstone", enabling the use of Empowered Holy, a ranged AOE attack dealing large damage. Cast times and such may vary to give the spells a different feel to use as well as thematic, such as Stone being a 2 sec cast, Aero being instant, and Water being a 1.5 sec cast. Holy is still the fallback spell for general use AOE. (Presence of Mind and Assize remain as they are. Part of this rework would likely also change a few other things to adjust hotbars, but this is just about the core rotation. I'll consider the more complete kit (healing, Lilies, etc) rework. But the short version is I think I'd remove Lilies/Afflatus abilities AS THEY ARE and shift it to "using a GCD heal generates one Lily, 3 Lilies bloom into a Amdapori Gemstone", meaning every three GCD heals cast generates an Empowered Holy, which would take the place of Misery to make GCD healing damage neutral. But again, that's just prelim - I'll make a writeup on it once I've put it into more depth. I may also make the combo order entirely variable based on player choice, like SMN Primal order is entirely player choice, but...I'll think about it some more.)

SCH: Explained in more depth here along with the more complete changes to the Job ( https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...e-Proposal-SCH ), the core rotation consists of maintaining two DoTs, Miasma and Bio/Biolysis spell lines, spending Energy Drains as Miasma ticks generate them, and employing Broil casts as filler, using Miasma as a movement tool. The rotation would be something of a 2-3-1-1-1-3-1-1-1-2-...with liberal sprinkling of -4 Energy Drains, especially if both Biolysis and Misama are generating Faerie Gauge (what fuels the high ED use in this model)

AST: I honestly have no idea. Maybe it stays as the "nukespam + DoT" thing and has buffs, possibly as GCDs, added to its rotation (since the big request from players in the survey seemed to be more buffing abilities for AST, not more damaging ones); GCD buffs would make the burst more manageable as well, depending on how they were implemented.

SGE: Probably something akin to either RDM or BLM. EuDosis remains as an upkeep DoT (BLM has one), and then using Plegma, Eukrasian Plegma, and (possibly a new ability and Eukrasian version), SGE builds resources like RDM does to then power up its main cannon Pneuma finisher. The rotation would probably be something like Eu Dosis (upkeep), Dosis-Plegma-Dosis-EuPlegma-Dosis-Plegma-Dosis-EuPlegma-Pneuma. If this, E1-1-2-1-E2-1-2-1-E2-3, is too simple an additional ability and Eukrasia version could be added where you alternate like RPR's Giblet/Gallows thing, so you end up with E1-1-2-E3-1-3-E2-1-2-E3-1-3-E2-4 with 3/E3 being the new ability. Finally, Eukrasia Dosis ticks have a chance to make the next Eukrasia Dosis cast cost no MP and do full damage upfront, like Thundercloud procs on BLM.

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With this system, WHM has a 1-2-3-4 sort of "combo" chain and damage neutral GCD healing, SCH has a 2 DoT upkeep and filler nuke system but heavily punctuated with weaving Energy Drains left and right since they will be generated at a far higher rate and one of the DoT abilities is designed to mostly have up-front damage making it a functional movement tool, AST will have a rotation based on a DoT upkeep + buffs upkeep + filler nuke when neither need refreshing, and SGE will have a hybrid RDM/BLM system of upkeeping a DoT and moving back and forth between two types of cast combo chains that alternate themselves like how RPR does along with a Thundercloud proc chance on EuDosis to prevent the rotation from being static.

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Floor's open, what say you?

[Renathras]

More in-depth on the WHM proposal above/

WHM Proposal 1: Elementalist

Lily System Revamp:

The Lily system has been changed. All WHM healing GCDs, as well as casting Holy, generate 1 Lily. Every complete Stone-Aero-Water combo also generates 1 Lily. Every third Lily causes the Heartflower to bloom, generating 1 Amdapori Heartstone. Up to two of these can be held at one time, allowing flexibility of use or burst optimization. Thus using the Cure, Cura, Regen, and Medica spell lines (as well as other healing/mitigation GCDs) will be damage neutral after the third use (note that they need not all be from the spell line since each generates 1 Lily. So casting Regen, Cure, Cure or Cura, Medica, Regen would both result in an Amdapori Heartstone.)

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Damage Spells

Stone 1, 2, 3, 4,… [Quake] (Spell Line)
Hard hitting, take up the majority of the GCD (2.0 or 2.5 sec?) to cast. Quake Potency: 400
When used without any <Element Ready>, grants Aero Ready
When used with Stone Ready, consumes Stone Ready to do 20% more damage and grants Aero Ready
Becomes Quake under the effect of Empowered Elements (granted by PoM)

Aero 1, 2, 3, 4,… [Tornado] (Spell Line)
Light hitting, Instant cast GCDs. Tornado Potency: 300
When used without any <Element Ready>, grants Stone Ready
When used with Aero Ready, consumes Aero Ready to do 20% more damage and grants Water Ready
Becomes Tornado under the effect of Empowered Elements (granted by PoM)

Water 1, 2, 3, 4,… [Flood] (Spell Line)
Fluid to use, moderate cast (1.5 sec) and damage. Flood Potency: 350
When used without any <Element Ready>, grants Stone Ready
When used with Water Ready, consumes Water Ready to do 20% more damage and grants Stone Ready, as well as generates 1 Lily
Becomes Flood under the effect of Empowered Elements (granted by PoM)

[NOTE: The full combo does a total of 1,050 potency if none are used with their Ready boosted power. The exact values aren’t particularly important other than it has ratio and that Empowered Holy does more damage than this. The total using the Ready buffs is 1,260, which is equal to an Empowered Holy. Note also that every completed combo will contribute to an Empowered Holy cast, and even if no healing is needed, every third completed combo would result in an Empowered Holy. Note also that the combo has a “correct” order of Stone, Aero, Water, and using Water or Aero out of order will shepherd the player to Stone and the correct order. The rotation in a vacuum when no healing is needed will be 1-2-3-1-2-3-1-2-3-4. Note also that Presence of Mind maintains the same order, it just boosts the effects, VFX, and makes them AOE allowing use in multi-target/add/AOE situations.]

Holy 1, 2, 3… (Spell Line)
As now, 2.5 sec cast AOE damage. Spell effect changed to be 25y range and centered on the target, like Cure 3. If no target or a friendly target, the spell is instead centered on the WHM, like how Cure 3 will center on the WHM if the player has no target or has an enemy targeted. Level 100/7.0 level cap. This is the AOE filler
Potency: 175 per target (AOE); DPS neutral gain over the 1-2-3 on 2 targets, but a gain due to the higher Lily generation rate (could make it 3 by using something like 125 or 150, but…either’s fine)
Additional Effect: Stun 4 sec
Generates 1 Lily
When under the effect of Amdapori Heartstone, becomes Empowered Holy.

Empowered Holy
Instant Cast
AOE Potency 1,260
Consumes 1 Amdapori Heartstone
Cannot be placed on the Hotbar, replaces Holy when the player has either 1 or 2 Amdapori Heartstones.

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Healing Spells:

Cure 1, 2, 3… (Spell Line)
Quick casting and efficient single-target healing. Trait upgrades through the levels.
1.0 sec cast time
Generates 1 Lily

Cura 1, 2… (Spell Line)
Takes the place of Cure 3 now. Sure radius powerful heal that consumes a large amount of MP and can be centered on either the caster or a given target.
2.0 sec cast time
Generates 1 Lily

Medica 1, 2… (Spell Line)
Small AOE heal but with a large radius and granting a HoT (even Medica 1 level) to the party, consumes a moderate amount of MP.
2.5 sec cast time
Generates 1 Lily

Regen 1, 2… (Spell Line)
Instant cast moderate HoT, very MP efficient.
Instant cast time
Generates 1 Lily
Barkskin/Stoneskin/Steelskin/Divine Benison (Spell Line)
Creates a barrier around the target for either X% of their HP or for a given potency.
2 sec cast time
Generates 1 Lily

Divine Seal/Temperance/… (now GCDs)
Radiates a second Medica-level AOE HoT from the WHM to party members within range while increasing healing potency of the WHM. Temperance has an additional benefit of reducing all incoming damage by 10/20% for 20 seconds. (WHM take on Holos, geared to WHM being a GCD focused healer; the additional healing is to make up for the fact that it consumes a GCD)
Instant Cast
90 or 120 second CD
Generates 1 Lily

Protect/Shell/Wall
Partywide, reduces all damage taken by 5/10/15% for 10 seconds
1 sec cast time
30 sec CD
Generates 1 Lily

Raise
Works exactly as it does now.
Generates 1 Lily if used with Swiftcast.
Generates 3 Lilies if used without Swiftcast.

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oGCDs:

Benediction - still niche, is what it is now and has always been in the game.

Regeneration - consumes Regen HoT on the target to fully heal for that total amount all at once. 30 sec CD.

Armor Wall - Causes the next Barkskin spell line cast to be AOE on all party members. 60 (or 120?) sec CD.

Quickened Healing - the next healing spell with a cast time is now instant cast. 60 sec CD, stacks up to 2 charges.

Tetragrammaton - emergency spot heal, upgrades to always be 75% of the potency of the current Cure spell.

Asylum - works as it does now.

Presence of Mind - works as it does now for the most part. Additional Effect grants “Empowered Elements”, upgrading Stone/Aero/Water spells into Quake/Tornado/Flood, where they are AOE effects that do 50% more damage. Empowered Elements has 3 stacks, so the point is to burn through all three. It also means the AOE rotation, if PoM is up, would include using each.

Lilibell/Liturgy of the Bell - works as it does now.

Assize - works as it does now.

Thin Air - works as it does now, though maybe revert to the ShB version which had a 15 sec duration.



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Role Actions:

Identical to how they are now.

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Total actions: 27 (21 before Role actions)

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WHM Proposal 2: Amdapori Battlemage

This proposal mirrors using healing spells as attack spells, as some Final Fantasy games allow against Undead and as the Amdapori Kuribo does in-game. Under this version, the main difference is that WHM has a “Cleric Stance” type of Eukrasia toggle to make the next spell an attack spell instead of a healing spell (or a full on stance). This would make Medica 1 an AOE damage spell, Medica 2 a weaker AOE damage spell with a DoT to maintain (so the AOE rotation would be M1 filler in between M2 refreshes), Cure 3 is a high damage spell that consumes large amounts of MP, useful in AOE burst. Regen would be a DoT to maintain on the target, with Cure 2 being a hard hitting spell to use in Burst or after Freecure procs, with Cure 1 being the filler damage spell.

Obviously, this proposal would need a lot of refining, since MP management would become a key factor, possibly something like the old WoW Arcane Mage of Cata/Mists era using their Evocation CD as the signifier of their burst phase and swap back to maintenance phase. Possibly with something akin to a stack system for damage like Arcane used with Medica 1/Cure 1 or Holy being used to consume the stacks during the maintenance phase

It would also need to have some place made in its rotation for Holy, so maybe that could be it.

It would also have FAR fewer buttons than…probably any Job in the game right now, since its current damage kit would be entirely removed (other than Holy) and its healing kit would pull double duty as damage buttons when under Cleric.

Under this model, the Stone/Glare, Aero/Dia, and Afflatus spells, would all likely be removed, Cleric Stance would be added, and maybe something to do with MP recovery as stated above. Would also need something to make for damage neutral heals in the mix, possibly something like the Empowered Holy in proposal 1...

[Icecylee]

Honestly this is probably a fair question to ask, provided we're not trying to get too into the nitty-gritty details numbers-wise.

I don't think it'd be too hard to make different feeling rotations that engage people in different ways, and even even have different button counts so some immediately appear more or less easy than others. Personally, I think the most obvious way to do this is would be to make them loosely analogous to the available casters, and would probably go a long ways towards easing non-healer mains into the role as well!

So what does that look like?

For starters, WHM is probably going to be taking on our pseudo BLM rotation. Given that we can't use MP as a sliding scale and need to leave room for potential GCD heals, however, I'd approach it from a different direction than the stances. At it's core, we'd mostly be working with 3 DPS buttons: Stone, Aero, and Water. Stone is our filler spelll, and it has very, very low damage and a full 2.5 cast time, making it turret-y. Aero would be a GCD Cooldown ability, probably on a 30/40s recast, and instant cast. It'd be a dot analogue, but without the need to track the dot. To make it a little more interesting and give it some kit cohesion, it'd also decrease your GCD by 20% or so. Water, then, would be the Big Damage, Feels Good To Press button. This would also be a GCD cooldown spell, probably also 30s, but with 2 stacks. Which isn't terribly exciting on it's own So how do we make this more interesting? Add an effect to your filler spells: every time you cast stone, reduce the cooldown of Water by 5s. Anytime you cast a normal GCD heal, reduce the cooldown of Water by 15 or so seconds. Bake in a soft dps refund, and make it so that you're still constantly building up to that one button you want to hit the most. (I've honestly been thinking about how I'd rework WHM a lot the last couple of days and might most a full rework if I get bored at some point...)

SCH would probably be less popular with older healers, but if I was rebuilding it today I'd probably make it look a little more like SMN and make the disconnect between the two less strange. So rather than DoTs, I'd lean into the ability charges you look for opportunities to use sort of thing SMN is attempting to do. You keep aethercharge as a damage GCD ability, but rather than the primal gems that unlock extra attacks, SCH would just directly get a use or two of a couple different spells that they'd be looking to places to use over the next minute before the next aethercharge happens. You could put your mobility ruin 2 type of thing here, maybe a long cast high damage spell, one spell with a very short duration damage down effect, another with a vuln debuff, and then a damage+heal effect, a bigger damage melee spell, a spell that boost a handful of your next filler spells, medium length dot you need to be aware of potential target jumps for, etc. Or whatever else winds up making sense and would make the timing flexibility useful.

SGE is probably were I'd do the RDM style rotation. It probably doesn't something similar to the melee combo, but like, RDM/DNC style procs to build up to a big laser seems like it'd be a great fit for the class. Bonus points if the procs all have different kardia effects, so there might be times you want to hold them a little bit to make better use of their defensive properties rather than just immediately dumping for damage.

That leaves us with AST not having a direct comparison, and coincidentally it's also the one that's thematically the most different lorewise. I'd personally lean into cards being a bigger part of the base rotation and make them happen more frequently, but also on the GCD. And then to augment it, I'd let it have two dots with different durations, to build off the time mage / manipulation themes we've lost over the years, would would also make it feel different from the other three which wouldn't use many if any dots and would wind up using their damage filler spell much less often.

There's probably a ton of other ways you could do it, but IMO that's how I'm feeling at the moment. I'd definitely like to stay away from anything that looks too much like a melee 1-2-3, as well for what it's worth.

[Niroken]

You could probably remove Cure II and replace with Plenary Indulgence. Also remove Thin Air and Freecure and replace it with a trait that using any Cure spell will reduce the next MP draining spell to 0.

Add a second branch on the Lily gauge. The "maiming" gauge increases when dealing damage adding Thorns which you spend for various additional damage spells, after three uses you can use the blood lily. The original Lily gauge can be used just as is and have an three stack skill as the level 99/100 skill. Just like the lily gauge you gain thorns every 30 seconds in combat to a maximum of three.

Triat - Enhanced Raise: Grants 1 stack of Quicken to Raise which removes the cast time for Raise. The stack has a cooldown of 60 seconds, during cooldown Raise may be cast at the normal cast time. Raise will not cast on a character that has already has the Raise countdown buff.

Trait - Maim and Mend: Increases base action damage and HP restoration by x%. Base action damage increase is doubled when outside of a party.

This is pretty much the lazy way to go about it since SE doesn't seem to want to put much effort into healers.

Hot Take: I think barriers are stupid as a spammable ability, they are either too powerful or have to have some kind of lame restriction when pairing with other barrier healers. They should be restricted to high CD abilities. That's just my opinion though.

[Renathras]

It also kinda depends on what people do and don't find engaging.

For example, EW WHM casts (slightly) more non-Glare GCDs in a target dummy rotation (no healing required) than SB WHM did, but people found SB WHM more engaging because of "DoTs to track/manage", as it were.

But, suppose we went back to that, having two DoTs on WHM, one single target and one AOE, but instead of simple DoTs, we treated them like Circle of Scorn/Sonic Break where they have a CD (in this case, a CD equal to their duration, 18 sec for the single target and 24 sec for the AOE). Would that still be "engaging"? Some might say not, despite it being an identical playstyle.

So there are intangibles which also come into play.

[Irenia]

So... Vibes. Okay. I will be coming at this to how the healing kit ties into the rest of the kit.

I will second WHM being the stance swapper. I'd tie it tightly to their healing resources; you could swap quickly for more resources at a DPS loss if need be, but basic filler GCD heals and lower power off globals are still there if you just need to fix a mistake or two.

SCH, given the themes of fairy partner and battle tactician, I would have their DPS and Healing systems mostly separate, much like we have now. If we can have poisons back that would be SCH's theme for damage, while their big heals would benefit from "preloading" them in some way in order to put the "planner" archetype front and center. Fairy would handle buffing and routine healing.

AST would focus on their cards, which would both have buffs and grant them access to their bigger heals. The cards would be in "decks" with each of the six cards, and the healing challenge is making sure you have access to the healing cards when you need them and the buffing cards when you want them. DPS would be proc based, with cards giving them guaranteed procs.

SGE will be closest to what we have now, except with more of a focus on Kardia. There would be many combos with equal average damage values, but different Kardia effects. Since it takes time to go down combo lines, Addersgall can still provide spot coverage, but Kardia Combos becomes the main healing tool.

So rotationally the healers would have different variations on how much healing is coupled with the rest of the kit.

[IDontPetLalas]

So... Vibes. Okay. I will be coming at this to how the healing kit ties into the rest of the kit.

I will second WHM being the stance swapper. I'd tie it tightly to their healing resources; you could swap quickly for more resources at a DPS loss if need be, but basic filler GCD heals and lower power off globals are still there if you just need to fix a mistake or two.

SCH, given the themes of fairy partner and battle tactician, I would have their DPS and Healing systems mostly separate, much like we have now. If we can have poisons back that would be SCH's theme for damage, while their big heals would benefit from "preloading" them in some way in order to put the "planner" archetype front and center. Fairy would handle buffing and routine healing.

AST would focus on their cards, which would both have buffs and grant them access to their bigger heals. The cards would be in "decks" with each of the six cards, and the healing challenge is making sure you have access to the healing cards when you need them and the buffing cards when you want them. DPS would be proc based, with cards giving them guaranteed procs.

SGE will be closest to what we have now, except with more of a focus on Kardia. There would be many combos with equal average damage values, but different Kardia effects. Since it takes time to go down combo lines, Addersgall can still provide spot coverage, but Kardia Combos becomes the main healing tool.

So rotationally the healers would have different variations on how much healing is coupled with the rest of the kit.

So you'd have AST larger heals, based upon any one of 6 cards, (with possibly additional decks) be based upon RNG? If I'm correct that's would be a "no" from me. I don't see the "challenge" in not having that available when I need it due to poor RNG.

[ASkellington]

AST would focus on their cards, which would both have buffs and grant them access to their bigger heals. The cards would be in "decks" with each of the six cards, and the healing challenge is making sure you have access to the healing cards when you need them and the buffing cards when you want them. DPS would be proc based, with cards giving them guaranteed procs.

Flat out no.

Cards should be a buffing mechanic and nothing else. Lord/Lady of Crowns are already a good indication on why healing shouldn't be a random proc. Its unreliable meaning there's not purpose to it. You either randomly get it when you need it or it remains a dead weight the entire fight because you have other tools already used when it crops up.

I also disagree on a proc based system for dps. Maybe you can make it a passive for a mana free or CD free attack (Double Cast from PvP I guess?) but as much as I'd love DNC I don't want a similar system on AST.

I've already waxed on about what I want to see from the card system. But for extra dps? Just take our heals and give a dps equivilant:

Exaltation is a buff you place on an ally that heals a portion of HP up to a % maximum depending on how much damage happens - make a debuff placed on an enemy do the same: for X seconds every damage inflicted up to say 700 potency on a 40-60s cool down is applied to the enemy.

We have ES already so skip.

Bring back Time Dilation to extend Combust and/or introduce a new ability to speed up/detonate Combust early.

[IDontPetLalas]

I'd agree with ASkellington on this.

[TabrisOmbrelame]

I'd like to see what a rotation on a healer could truly look like. Every healer is basically spamming the same damaging spell + Dot Refresh, which is... meh....

I love your WHM Idea, it sounds à lot funnier and difficult to play if it was like that.