Healer role design change?

[ty_taurus]

Soil's for mit, idk why they added the regen in SHB. I thought it was dumb at the time too. For Indom/Blessing, I've said ages ago that I'd probably remove Blessing, and rework Deploy so that the Fairy does a copy of the skill you use, from a list. Indom would make the fairy do Fey Indom (functionally equivalent to Blessing atm), Deploy Adlo would be a double ST shield on one target for super mit on a tankbuster, Deploy Succor would be current Adlo-Deploy, bigger partywide shielding, and Deploy Excog would be for 'I really don't want this tank to get instaslapped by an auto and die after this TB' I guess

As for a merged Illum/WDawn, I think you are describing Physis2, but jokes aside, yeh I'm not a massive fan of Fey Illumination's existence either, I'd rather have lost it in the prune than Rouse for example

I'd rather see Whispering Dawn upgrade into Fey Blessing, and/or have that replace Indomitability as your OGCD AoE heal. I also don't see the point in having both Physis II and Kerachole. I get that Physis II has the healing increased effect, but I'd rather rework how you access that rather than have two slightly different OGCD regens. And that's kinda my point with Soil/WD/Illumination... they all bleed together.

This system would actually be very interesting on SGE. Imagine if:
- Dosis is a straight heal on Kardia target
- Eukrasian Dosis is a regen on Kardia target
- Dyskrasia pulses an AoE heal out from Kardia target
- Phlegma places a shield on Kardia target
- Pneuma pulses an AoE shield out from Kardia target

I'd want more choice involved with Kardia. That kind of change just makes the regens and barriers consequences of doing your rotation. I've actually started thinking more along the lines of something like:

Dosis - Deals 330 Potency. No MP Cost. No Kardia Effect
New Spell - Deals 330 Potency. 800 MP Cost. Heals your Kardia target with a potency of 250.

In the past, my concepts of a Sage rework included other similar concepts. Namely Polydipsia which replaces Soteria: a DPS spell that applies 4 stacks of Soteria to your Kardia target, doubling the Kardia effects granted by other spells, or Eukrasian Polydipsia which instead grants 2 stacks of Therapeia to your Kardia target which blasts the Kardia effects of other spells to all allies nearby them.

Basically, your DPS rotation is about making choices with your Kardia healing, and using Dosis when you don't need to heal.

[Renathras]

In general, I've started to develop the preference of really cutting total actions down in favor of making the actions that stay more frequent. For example, I really like Haima and Panhaima. I think they're interesting, but I'd rather see them become 60 second cooldowns instead, and I'd be happy to remove tools like some or all of the -choles in order to justify that much accessibility.

Kind of agree with this (whole paragraph). I was thinking earlier this evening how much I like Emergency Tactics.

...no, wait, hear me out, please.

What I like about it is how FREQUENT it is. It's a modifier ability, which means it allows other abilities (Succor and Adlo) to pull double duty, like Eukrasia. Unlike Eukrasia, though, it's limited by a CD. But it's not a really heavily punishing one. I think it was 20 or 30 seconds originally, but it's 15 now. I was thinking how I like Plenary, but it's only once per minute, which tends to mean I think of other things to use first. The CD is in that weird place where it's JUST long enough to be out of mind, but not long enough to be a major or clutch ability.

Contrast, also, PvP abilities. Other than LBs themselves, abilities with CDs are usually either 15 sec or 20 sec CDs, meaning they're up all the time. Short CDs like that result in buttons that feel somewhat impactful, because they can't be spammed, but still accessible and go-to since they're still frequently available.

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As for the SGE discussion:

My ideal for SGE at this point - I'd never touch it, but I know some people really want this - would be to remove (almost) all of its healing. Give it a DPS rotation on par with SMN's/RDM's (without the melee bit) and boost its Kardia to be serious healing. Give it a few oGCDs for mitigation (Kerachole, for example), and some emergency heal for when Kardia isn't cutting it (Durochole, for example), and that's it. Its main use oGCDs would be things like boosting Kardia with Soteria, a Synastry/Beacon of Light second short duration Kardia, and an AOE Kardia. Performing its DPS rotation correctly combined with proper Kardia targeting/hot-swapping/use of the extra Kardia oGCDs would be what leads to proper healing performance.

Right now, SGE can debateably outheal a pure Healer depending on how you look at it and consider eHP, and that aside, given the lowish healing requirements in this game, SGE can do ample overhealing. Its oGCD heals are ridiculously powerful and accessible. It has better Regen healing than WHM (or even AST, I think), and can access them on the oGCD, unlike WHM's Regen and Medica 2, which are DPS losses to use. Asylum on a 90 sec CD is WHM's only oGCD regen, while SGE has two (four if you count Panhamia/Hamia, though those are more akin to Lilybell), Physis with a 60 sec CD and Kerochole with a 30 sec (which unlike SCH, doesn't compete with Energy Drain so can be used freely). And right now, it doesn't have the "heals by doing damage" feel. Kardia feels like (and functionally is) Eos' Embrace while SGE's bulk healing is done with its oGCDs.

[ty_taurus]

Kind of agree with this (whole paragraph). I was thinking earlier this evening how much I like Emergency Tactics.

...no, wait, hear me out, please.

I don't see anything wrong with liking Emergency Tactics. In concept, I think it's great also. It's just that, now more than ever, it's heavily power-crept. Ironically, it was already seeing power creep in HW when it was added because Indom was also added and is a considerably stronger healing tool that also has a short cooldown. ET would've really shined during ARR though. And that leads me to a different point... We keep getting new healing cooldowns each expansion, but healing requirements don't increase to compensate for this added healing, so what ends up happening is old healing actions start getting power-crept out, and you end up with "dead" buttons that aren't being used anymore.

Contrast, also, PvP abilities.

The think to keep in mind about PVP though is that PVP gameplay is a different experience. In PVP, combat is experienced in brief skirmishes that you constantly jump in and out of, with the fights themselves being unpredictable. Meanwhile, the standard PVE experience is about enduring long, drawn-out encounters with a learnable pattern. So it makes sense why PVP cooldowns are that much shorter. Now don't get me wrong, as I said above, I think we could trim a lot of fat by taking the most interesting healing cooldowns and making those more often accessible while cutting the less interesting ones, but I think it's an important distinction to acknowledge when talking about job design in this game.

As for the SGE discussion:

I have something similar on the suggestions megathread (page 14 if you're curious) Though I would still have at least your standard two direct heals just so that you can heal without a target. Diagnosis and Prognosis do have uses during phase changes or boss transitions. There's some elements from other sage concepts I've shared before, but it's a more streamlined. It was inspired from thoughts I'd had from the earlier conversation.

[Semirhage]

-snip-

WHM is a tricky creature. There's the "here's what they could do with it" angle, and the "here's what Square Enix has been really stubborn about" aspect too. WHM has several design....directions? "Identities"? Aspects which seem to be part of Square's design document on the job which they haven't outright stated but can be inferred from precedent? Whatever you want to call them, they s u c k. WHM is like a healer case study in how you design a job that hates FFXIV's combat system, much like BLM is for caster DPS. It's a job that you'd think maybe works if you squint at it, and then you introduce it to....*points at FFXIV*.

What's this, slightly more potent free heals on twice the cooldown (Tetra vs Essential Dignity)? How terrible! FFXIV's combat system rewards shorter cooldowns much more than it does long ones. Slow-cast spells that have slightly more potency? Hell with that, modern fight design wants you to zip around the arena every other GCD like an AST with Lightspeed can. Somewhat stronger GCD heals? FFXIV wants you dealing damage, and the other healers are set up much more comfortably to heal and deal damage simultaneously, while the lilies are a bandaid on top of stopping and swapping between them. Asylum's trait gives you Yet More Healing? Too bad for you; FFXIV MUCH more frequently likes it when you handle damage with a snappy cooldown while the boss sits around casting/not hitting anyone and don't spend precious time dumping a bunch of useless overhealing. WHM is designed to shine in a completely different game from this one. FFXIV's combat loves short cooldowns (the first thing any WHM cooldown sacrifices for something stupid that the game *doesn't* reward like slightly more potency), mobility (lol Expedient, Lightspeed, Icarus next to....overhealing lilies), buff-stacking (lol my only buff requires me to stand still).

The reason the caster DPS have so many instant casts is because they would be unplayable without them. I've poked around the subject in the DPS subforum a few times. FFXIV increasingly isn't designed for the RPG job fantasy of planting your butt in one spot, maybe scooting on occasion, and getting your fighters to handle wrestling in a web-grease-spike pit on fire. The whole game wants you to play like an action combat sword-swinger: dodge rolling and darting around and getting your whole arena length 100 meter dash cardio going. One of the reasons I'd be down for a full (GOOD, monkey's paw. GOOD rework) rework of WHM is because its whole design philosophy is just so anti-FFXIV. Playing WHM anywhere outside dungeon Holy spam feels like rolling an acrobatics character in a game that's set in a flat plain with no trees.

[Shurrikhan]

WHM is like a healer case study in how you design a job that hates FFXIV's combat system, much like BLM is for caster DPS.

I'm really hoping that analog isn't relevant to your wider point, since, if anything, the other casters would be more interesting if they didn't spend so much of their reiterations apologizing themselves right out of role identity.

And, if WHM were putting out a form of throughput that wasn't so quickly capped / made redundant... that'd honestly be fine. The core issue is literally just that (A) there's no non-burst and non-scripted healing to be done anyways and (B) despite its "big/pure heals" identity... it's typically had weaker or merely competitive heals in practice.

That said, on all other counts...

WHM has several design....directions? "Identities"? ... Whatever you want to call them, they s u c k.

...Agreed.

The reason the caster DPS have so many instant casts is because they would be unplayable without them.

And yet... BLM really does still do fine. Top rDPS for every fight. Top aDPS on many. Yes, modern fights are more demanding of mobility than before, but... cast times are no more a fundamental issue than positionals or any other form of contextual complexity.

Like... I agree with you that WHM deserves a rehaul, but... I don't think the 'issue' you're focused on is nearly as great as you make out here. It's instead a simple matter of parity, where other jobs simply have more.

And even if, say, the devs ended up fixed on the idea of WHM being a high cure-ppgcd healer... as long as they made up for that with offensive potency and compensatory features so that any healer pair with them had roughly the same offensive ppm in practice (WHM probably "chadding" over AST or SCH, but w/e)... that'd be fine.

For me, my main issue is that WHM's only identity is Generic Healer™ and that it so often just hasn't been balanced against the other jobs. But so long as fights are consistently demanding of mobility, that doesn't mean that you need to give every job the same amount of mobility, since you can just compensate for that lack of mobility in other ways. Similarly, even if more of a given healer's curative ppm would be GCD-based, as long as its total curative ppm and offensive ppm would be balanced in practice... it truly does not matter; you can quite simply raise potency in compensation, and the only "problem" would be that the "GCD healer" would be more rewarded than most for doing zero healing over raid buffs and for healing when there's nothing to attack.

[ForsakenRoe]

mobility (lol Expedient, Lightspeed, Icarus next to....overhealing lilies)

demanding of mobility,

Reading the word 'mobility' so many times has made me think that 'maybe I screwed up', check it:

Current WHM rotation, we have 18 GCDs per minute where we have 'little to no mobility' because 1.5s cast time/2.5s recast, only able to slidecast and use 1s of free space to move a little bit at a time.

Now look at this second graph, of what I pitched all that time ago (has it been a year yet)

Is this too much mobility? When I first made these graphs to compare '1min snapshot of rotation' I was mainly focused on 'try to lower number of boring Glare spam-casts, and replace with something more interesting'. I feel like, looking back at this graph again with a focus on 'how much mobility does this provide', I've gone and accidentally SMN'd the class out of most of it's cast times, as Glare (and it's upgrade Quake) are the only things on here with a cast time in my pitch, everything else is instantcasts. So 8 actual cast times per minute (SMN has 4 and people hate it for this reason). On the plus side, nobody gets to complain about 'oh no I can't do damage because the fight mechanics don't give me time to stand still', I guess

Maybe Banish needs a cast time too

[Semirhage]

I'm really hoping that analog isn't relevant to your wider point

Sort of? It's hard to have focused discussions on problems with class design because FFXIV has so many of them at the moment. That bit right there?

the other casters would be more interesting if they didn't spend so much of their reiterations apologizing themselves right out of role identity

Is what I mean about one of the major issues with casters in FFXIV. They're all apologizing for casting. FFXIV isn't a game designed for "casters" anymore. It's designed (well, not "for", since it lacks a lot of the features that action combat aficionados also enjoy, but moving in that direction nonetheless) like they want it to no longer be a traditional RPG, like they want it to be a dodge-rolly two-button action combat game, and what we're left with is this unholy abomination that's like the worst elements from both: Depthless kits designed as if you need to quickly react instead of using your abilities in a thoughtful order, but also bosses that don't force the kind of reaction time you need in an action game.

Casters in FFXIV *all* apologize for being casters. Triplecast, swiftcast, 1.5 second nukes, instant free spells all over the place.

WHM is (maybe not so much anymore, with the caster apologies added to it) the most "oldschool immobile caster" of the healers, which was a segue into- WHM's design considerations are basically all a game of what 'features' would one give a class that the game consistently gives no shits about, while heaping things the game rewards on its competition.

Two different points, with a tenuous bridge between topics. BLM does great damage for sure! But the game still wants you moving all over the place like a fighter, so we all keep getting anti-caster changes to our kits to bend them to fit modern gym class fight design, which makes you feel like less of a...well, caster.

[Shurrikhan]

snip

Right, but the same applies to healers' MP management (modest though it was), melee's positional and uptime management, tank's risk-reward and positional management, etc. Is an actual prevalence of casting on... Casters... really yet another thing we want to axe from the game, in favor of making them increasingly into simply (fully mobile) Mana-shooting Rangers?

I ask because if we continually roll with the fight design only by trying to mitigate those designs' difficulty, rather than just fairly rewarding success within those designs... that's what we'll get: instant-casts-only Bards, instant-casts-only SMNs, instant-casts-only BLMs (alongside effectively infinite ranged melees, and tanks who have next to no rewards for positioning mobs/bosses correctly, etc., etc.).

Is this too much mobility? When I first made these graphs to compare '1min snapshot of rotation' I was mainly focused on 'try to lower number of boring Glare spam-casts, and replace with something more interesting'. I feel like, looking back at this graph again with a focus on 'how much mobility does this provide', I've gone and accidentally SMN'd the class out of most of its cast times, as Glare (and its upgrade Quake) are the only things on here with a cast time in my pitch, everything else is instantcasts.

Maybe Banish needs a cast time too

If anything, I'd probably put the cast times on the big-trucking-hits, minus Misery? So, to me, at the very least, Quake, Flood, Tornado absolutely should have cast times (possibly a full GCD's), though I'd then want to see some timing-flexibility on them (if that wasn't in the mockup; can't easily go and check right now from on my phone).

[Renathras]

I agree with Semi on this one.

Including BLM.

BLM works in FFXIV today because of shoehorning, not because its design is perfectly suited to this game. The "challenge" and "brilliant design" of BLM that is so praised by the hardcore community is... <checks notes> ...memorizing the safe spots in fights so you can sit still for precious seconds and memorizing when there aren't any for a bit so you have to save your big movement CDs for then. In other words, figuring out how to overcome BLM objectively NOT being suited to the game's current combat design that is so focused on motion and "the dance". And the last several expansions have all been focused on giving BLM more mobility. BLM is more mobile than RDM in current FFXIV entirely due to that. It's been given so much on-demand mobility because its basic kit and rotational design doesn't work with FFXIV encounter designs.

In a similar way, WHM now is almost entirely dependent on Lilies to be functional in current content.

Imagine, for a moment, current WHM design without Lilies. So no Solace, Rapture, nor Misery.

It wouldn't be functional. Your only instant cast heals would be Tetra (60 sec), Assize (45), Bene (3 min), Lilibell (if triggered; 3 min), with Regen (?) and Asylum (90 sec) for cases where healing wasn't needed right away, but even there, Asylum has that weird "increases healing" effect, which is in opposition to the concept of "healing isn't needed right away". PoM, Plenary, Temperance, Benison, and Aquaveil aren't heals per se, and only Benison is indirectly one via being a barrier.

Without Lilies, you'd actually NEED to cast Cure 2, Medica/Cure 3, and Medica 2s, none of which can be cast on the move, which would make encounters like BarbiEx extremely challenging for a WHM. Moreover, casing Dia or Regen would be the only GCD options for long movement requirements, like having to cross from one side of an arena to the other.

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The Job is designed just fine...it just doesn't fit FFXIV's current encounter design. It was designed for another game - ARR.

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EDIT:

I have something similar on the suggestions megathread (page 14 if you're curious) Though I would still have at least your standard two direct heals just so that you can heal without a target. Diagnosis and Prognosis do have uses during phase changes or boss transitions. There's some elements from other sage concepts I've shared before, but it's a more streamlined. It was inspired from thoughts I'd had from the earlier conversation.

Valid. This was the thing that annoyed me about SGE in PvP and when I first tried it (first Healer after the rework), I was legitimately pissed off because I thought ALL Healers in PvP were going to play like that. Thank god that wasn't the case. But the thing is, I recognize some people...like...that. Hence my saying they'd need to keep something like Durochole/Ixochole specifically for those cases. Though I suppose Prognosis/Diagnosis are fine in that sense. "Cure 1 and Raise" are apparently standards across FFXIV Healer design.

Right, but the same applies to healers' MP management (modest though it was), melee's positional and uptime management, tank's risk-reward and positional management, etc. Is an actual prevalence of casting on... Casters... really yet another thing we want to axe from the game, in favor of making them increasingly into simply (fully mobile) Mana-shooting Rangers?

I think the argument here is more "encounter design is a problem". At least, that's my argument. Semi may be going for the "Jobs need redesign" angle instead. But I think it's valid to point out, at the least, there's a disconnect between Healer Job design and FFXIV combat encounter design. I think we can all agree on that, too.

Whether one thinks the solution is to change the encounter design combat model, the Job designs/kits, or both, is where we may diverge, but I feel we can all agree that the two are not on the same page.

(Also, I know I'm relatively alone in this - on these forums, not as much in the game - but I happen to like SMN; because it's actually designed to work with the current encounter designs, it's actually enjoyable to play in them and doesn't feel clunky and disjointed and like it was designed for a different game. I'm not saying this to say all Jobs should be like SMN. I'm saying this to say that I do enjoy it and that maybe encounter design really really really does need to be changed before every Job becomes like it...)

[Shurrikhan]

BLM works in FFXIV today because of shoehorning, not because its design is perfectly suited to this game. The "challenge" and "brilliant design" of BLM that is so praised by the hardcore community is... <checks notes> ...memorizing the safe spots in fights so you can sit still for precious seconds and memorizing when there aren't any for a bit so you have to save your big movement CDs for then. In other words, figuring out how to overcome BLM objectively NOT being suited to the game's current combat design that is so focused on motion and "the dance". And the last several expansions have all been focused on giving BLM more mobility. BLM is more mobile than RDM in current FFXIV entirely due to that. It's been given so much on-demand mobility because its basic kit and rotational design doesn't work with FFXIV encounter designs.

And previously melee would have to figure out how to slightly alter their rotation or pick GCD tiers so that they could complete a combo just before downtime so they could use their ranged skills without breaking combo, would need to know the exact timing of AoEs (which don't always go off at the end of casts, nor a consistent amount of time prior, etc.) so they can better greed, etc., etc. And if one didn't want to learn a fight positionally as DPS... Rangers were right there.

Again... do we really need to strip the melee-ranged-based complexities from Melee, the casting-based complexities from Casters, etc.?

Is it actually better to just roll over and strip it all away... rather than simply to reward it commensurately (as, yes, BLM does with its highest rDPS in the game)?

Imagine, for a moment, current WHM design without Lilies. So no Solace, Rapture, nor Misery.

It wouldn't be functional.

Imagine, for a moment, SCH without Aetherflow. It wouldn't make the cut, either. And why would it?

Imagine, for a moment, any other healer with 2400 (or 1200n) less mobile curative ppm and 930 less offensive ppm.

None of them would survive that. I'm not sure why we're treating this as something WHM-specific.

Hell, the Lily system provides more mobility than its analogs on other healers.* It doesn't need an outright Lightspeed or the like. Yes, that makes Lilies a bit more important to WHM than AF or AG to SCH and SGE, respectively, but... how is that a problem? We wouldn't pretend either of those jobs would be complete without their core systems, so why pretend WHM is uniquely a core system away from failure.

*That's probably why attaching, say, a 50% cast time reduction to PoM would actually be excessive (even if attaching a 2.5s cast time reduction to Thin Air would probably be fine and arguably deserved).