For those who main/semi-main a DPS (e.g. DNC, RDM) but like Healers...

[Shurrikhan]

RE Protect: Wasn't Pro-Shell something like 10% damage reduction? 10% > 4%. But I guess it also let people pretend it didn't matter...

It was +10% increase to one's Defense stat, not 10% bonus mitigation -- same as to base Foresight. Even on a tank, that was worth still worth less than 5% mitigation by i130. On anyone else or at lower ilvl, it was worth considerably less.

Which is why when 2.0 Warrior complained that they had no mitigation and people pointed at Foresight's Defense increase and said, "There! Your mitigation!" anyone who knew what it amounted to knew to point and laugh in turn.

Note that a majority of player buffs functioned in that way at that time. Fey Glow increased the Spell Speed stat, not spell recast time; Fey Light increased the Skill Speed stat, not weaponskill recast time. Only enemy-damage-suppressing effects not directly attached to players (Sacred Soil; RoH and DK, though even they weren't 1-to-1) and debuffs scaled (Foe Requiem initially reducing Elemental Resistances, and Slashing, Blunt, and Piercing Resistance Down, again not quite 1-to-1; Trick Attack) as we'd now assume.

RE DoT to 60 seconds: The current situation is you have several bad options. That's not choice. All the options are a DPS loss, and...the same DPS loss of one tick's worth of DoT damage. It doesn't matter if you refresh the DoT 3 seconds early or 3 seconds after it fell off.

Because the mistake wasn't JUST in that single GCD after it was too late to correct; the mistakes were in each time you made decisions that left you no time to refresh your DoT at the correct time.

Which is why your hyper-narrow definition of "mistake" makes no functional sense.

You aren't forced to make one of many bad choices. You're encouraged to not have made the successive mistakes that brought you there in the first place. You weren't forced into a position you'd have to salvage; knowing the fight, unless the tank gets extraordinarily unlucky against AA crits on an especially tank-pounding fight, you'd have had multiple chances not to put yourself into that bind in the first place.

The true "average" is the average of all of that together, which probably means NOT noticing when your DoTs fall off all the time, or even somewhat often.

Which is still a mistake. That you repeatedly neglected to check your footing and therefore fell off the bridge doesn't make it any less a mistake.

And that is not something to fool-proof jobs out of.

Near-proportionately higher ceilings for higher difficulty as perceived by the average player (or each job having similarly high ceilings) is a sign of good balance, since most players are not perfect and we want to widen the number of competitive choices available to players in practice, yes.

But, to ignore most all the decisions prior to the point at which their rewards/punishment become obvious would provide only a very narrow slice of what comprises difficulty for the average player. Your framework would quickly become incompatible with player findings.

[Supersnow845]

^just on this point here renrathras had a short argument with me on reddit that he didn’t like classifying consolation as an oGCD because you have to account for a delay in summoning seraph

Based on this argument about the DOT and that argument about consolation I really think that renrathras does not gameplay that rewards you for looking more than 1 GCD in advance

Current healer design if you ABC you can react to almost every healer mechanic inside the cast bar of that mechanic, there is no functional future analysis (I’m not counting things like holding cards/feathers for the burst window), hell skills like kerachole almost reward you for reacting oh the fly because you get more of the HOT after the raidwide

Besides the difference in rotation I’d say that’s probably the biggest difference between current and old healers, modern healers do not care about anything more than 1 GCD in the future while old healers rewarded you knowing your rough healing rotation all the way to the end of your next long DOT cast

[Shurrikhan]

Based on this argument about the DOT and that argument about consolation I really think that renrathras does not like gameplay that rewards you for looking more than 1 GCD in advance.

That was about the impression I was getting, too, sadly.

Current healer design if you ABC you can react to almost every healer mechanic inside the cast bar of that mechanic, there is no functional future analysis (I’m not counting things like holding cards/feathers for the burst window), hell skills like kerachole almost reward you for reacting oh the fly because you get more of the HOT after the raidwide

Tangential food for thought:

One of the worst things you can do in a dominantly CD-based healing model, especially for how much sense of progression one can have leading up to the fight being 'solved' (since we'd have removed any sort of randomization in damage intake's timing or severity)... is to have CDs be an early multiplier of each other, especially if you have a lot of them.

As a "barrier" healer, if you see a mechanic coming up and you have a 20s, 30s, 60s, and 120s CD that you can burn on it, your only real question is "Does it look like it'd kill the party through my 20s? My 30s?"

Going in relatively blind or even up until you've finished the phase, you'll almost always default to using the lowest CD (seemingly) sufficient to meet the check --especially if it has at least as much ppm. After all, if you mess up and need another later, you can just use the 60s, and the 30s will be back in time to handle the next, because every other 30s is interchangeable; so on and so forth. (Heck, with the likes of Liturgy and Panhaima, the skill is practically reserved -- though luckily less so than was true of original Liturgy.)

But if they're not automatically synced anyways, now you have an actual threat of making the wrong decision, which --especially for barrier healers-- could push one towards more conservative play.

It's not a huge difference, but still a noticeable one, much like the difference between min-maxing DRG in Stormblood or Shadowbringers compared to now, though in a way that even better props up the feeling of being that Role.

Besides the difference in rotation I’d say that’s probably the biggest difference between current and old healers, modern healers do not care about anything more than 1 GCD in the future while old healers rewarded you knowing your rough healing rotation all the way to the end of your next long DOT cast

Yep, things are more isolated and discrete now, while healing, tanking, and damage-dealing --individually and together, within a particular kit and across party play-- all felt a fair bit more tightly woven and integral before.

[Renathras]

Because the mistake wasn't JUST in that single GCD after it was too late to correct; the mistakes were in each time you made decisions that left you no time to refresh your DoT at the correct time.

Though contrived, the example was for a situation where the damage occurred exactly at that time, so no other ability use would address it.

Which is why your hyper-narrow definition of "mistake" makes no functional sense.

Okay, I'm just going to stop here. I'm already fed up with Ty, not going to get into an argument with you of what the meaning of is, is.

^just on this point here renrathras had a short argument with me on reddit that he didn’t like classifying consolation as an oGCD because you have to account for a delay in summoning seraph

Someone else, who wasn't me, was saying that SCH had no oGCD heals. The context was about reactive healing to situations. Your position (didn't know that was you, but sure) was to insist that Consolation IS technically an oGCD, so ignoring the actual discussion, you could call someone wrong while ignoring the point they were actually getting at, and then insisting people just needed to precast to make up for it.

The discussion was about unexpected spike damage (e.g. some random person being clipped by a boss mechanic and needing healing to survive the next one coming right then). I can even give you an example. I was doing Ex6 and he did one of the two cleaves and then light party stacks. One of the party members was clipped by the point blank AOE he does after the cleaves. On WHM, I was able to VERY quickly slap them with any of a Benediction, Tetra, Benison, or Aquaveil. I think I went with Tetra and Aquaveil in that case. The player survived with like 3 digit health. Would not have otherwise. And I think that was right before meteor/flare/towers, meaning the party would have wiped had I not done that.

On SCH, Summon Seraph isn't an option there - my SCH partner saved that for the upcoming, as in RIGHT AFTER this, meteor/flare/towers mechanic itself; you know looking ahead and rewarding fight knowledge? - so Seraph wasn't up with the expectation of a random person being clipped by avoidable damage that would have died from the immediate follow-up attack. There's no way to PREDICT THAT.

You were being obtuse to the discussion, then called people out for being wrong, then disagreed with me trying to explain why something that has a 3 second lag time doesn't fit the bill, and then you went from Reddit to here to bring this conversation up to insult me as " really think that renrathras does not gameplay that rewards you for looking more than 1 GCD in advance". Hell, my above example IS about thinking GCDs in advance (for the upcoming meteor/flare/towers).

Does taking an unrelated discussion where you were trying to ignore what people were trying to address, taking it here to use it to insult me as myopic...does that sound fair or even nice of you at all?

EDIT:

That was about the impression I was getting, too, sadly.

So we're doing this now?

Now the conversation isn't about mechanics but about Ren being a bad player? Never mind the examples given don't prove that.

Do you guys not see why that contributes to a toxic environment here?

Person 1: "Were having a conversation about possible mechancis and stuff."
Ren: "Offers rebuttal, presenting his perspective."
Person 2: "I just think Ren is bad at the game and doesn't want a skill ceiling."
Person 1: "I agree."

Do you guys not see why that destroys conversations here?

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EDIT: Post limit, of course, so sticking this here for now:

...[/LIST]

1) Not to be dismissive, but...okay, whatever? We aren't going to agree on this point, you've made that clear, so I don't understand how it's useful to keep banging our heads on it since neither of us is going to bend on it.

2) I'm sorry, but when someone explains their position to you several times and then says "agree to disagree", trying to keep pushing the point doesn't work well. (And for reference; I think they should be designed for everyone and balanced around the midcore, not the hardcore.) If you think we need an agreed upon definition to further discuss the topic, I've given you my definition so you are aware of it. I don't think we need that since we both understand what the other means, but if you think we have to mean the same thing to continue, feel free to use my definition for the remainder of the conversation. If, on the other hand, we don't need an agreed upon definition so long as we understand one another's use, then we should be fine. I do agree that it's useful to use the same definitions if possible, but if there's no agreement on the term, and the dictionary definition doesn't help (namely because it doesn't specify the specific knowledge with regards to game mechanics and information, nor is there any information in the definition of what is or is not reasonable to expect), then we're in an unfortunate impasse, but that we know what each other means is sufficient to understand one another.

3) What was the point in saying "That was the impression I was getting, too, sadly"? Particularly that "sadly" on the end heavily implies a judgment call, but that aside, why are you remarking on your "impression" of my desired gameplay rather than asking me "Ren, what do you desire out of gameplay"? It's kind of rude to psychoanalyze someone and talk about them in the third person when they're part of the conversation with you, you know.

And to answer:

I like gameplay that encourages looking ahead. You can see so from my example about the Ex6 fight. Or my view towards Recitation and Deployment Tactics, both of which are based around predicting future events in fights.

What I have I done in my last few posts (the ones with Ty set aside, since that's a derail anyway)?

1) Pointed out that allowing DoTs to stack to 60 encourages looking ahead and planning for future events.
NOTE: This DIRECTLY defeats your argument here, and should have shown both you and Snow, before even needing to ask me, much less psychoanalyze me, that I consider looking forward important. You may DISAGREE that it reward fight knowledge, but my support of the position was EXPLICITLY because I believe it does and I believe in that being a good thing.

2) Clarified a position on ARR combat.

3) Talked about preferring cast time spells to oGCDs.
NOTE: Cast time spells, by definition, require/reward fight knowledge because you they are less reactive than instant oGCDs, requiring the player to plan ahead based on if the encounter allows movement or not, or if they need to save tools for those situations, in the case of barriers (e.g. Stoneskin), precasting them before damage, and in the case of waves of damage, precasting initial heals, which also rewards timing, such as pre-casting a Cure 3 or Medica 2 to where the heal (initial heal of M2) lands after the damage not before it.

4) Talked about liking HoTs, including HoTs that stack or burst heal on expiration, which requires forethought and rewards fight knowledge.

5) Talked about the need for MP management.
NOTE: This also rewards fight knowledge and the player understanding when they need to use more expensive, MP intensive spells vs when they can use more efficient spells like Regen if they know the fight will give it time to be effective and not drop party members due to not enough up front healing.

.

I didn't "dismissed looking ahead as a very normal solution"; my argument was literally about looking ahead to see the damage coming and refreshing the DoT early, something that doing right now would be a DPS loss and sub-optimal.

We were talking about "making repeated mistakes" when talking about a specific situation in vacuum.

I didn't "change the definition", I provided the definition I'm using for the word.

This had nothing to do with "what you seem uncomfortable being expected to perform" - again, so you know, psychoanalyzing someone TO THEIR FACE is considered rude. Don't tell me what I seem to think. ASK me what I think and I can tell you. It's polite to ASK someone what they think instead of telling them what you've decided they think to their face when their own statements oppose it directly and they're telling you it's wrong, and when it's the more insulting of the available options. If I had said before "I'm uncomfortable being expected to perform", that'd be a thing. I haven't said that, so you had no reason to assume that.

And I gave you a specific situation to show you where a stacking DoT could be useful. That wasn't cherry-picking, it was presenting a case that happens from time to time and is applicable. It wasn't hypothetical scenarios since...well, for one thing, it was a single instance, not multiple, and second, that's happened before, so it's not hypothetical.

And I've not pretended that foresight would be worthless or unfeasible. I was LITERALLY using it as an example of how a stacking DoT ALLOWS FORESIGHT.

[Shurrikhan]

Though contrived, the example was for a situation where the damage occurred exactly at that time, so no other ability use would address it.

I see. Sorry for assuming you weren't cherry-picking a bizarrely rare hypothetical situation (high AND wholly unpredictable damage striking precisely as your DoT fades AND you have zero oGCD healing left AND that wasn't at all because you overspent earlier despite knowing that the given fight -uniquely- has high unpredictable damage).

not going to get into an argument with you of what the meaning of

You're treating what constitutes "mistakes" --and by consequence "difficulty"-- as mere semantics when it is clearly changing how you think jobs should be designed and balanced. They're very much relevant, especially if you want anyone to see eye to eye with you, or you to them. Warrants and frameworks matter.

Now the conversation isn't about mechanics but about Ren being a bad player?

Never said that. Your words; not mine.

What was "the impression" I was beginning to share?

• That you don't like gameplay that encourages looking ahead (especially as useful to making space for other pace-setting interactions).

What have you done over the last few posts?

• Dismissed looking ahead as a very normal solution for not making repeated mistakes that land you in a hole, by changing the definitions of mistakes to ignore what you seem uncomfortable being expected to perform (treating it as unavoidable and a loss to be compensated for) and cherry-picking near-impossible hypothetical scenarios to pretend that foresight would be worthless/unfeasible.

[Renathras]

Surely you can see the source of the confusion here? It is a bit of an annoyance that SCH has only one source of OGCD barrier, but you said 'no OGCD heals' and that's what I assumed the topic to be about. If you'd said OGCD barriers I'd be like 'yeh it'd be good if they did something about that'

Sorry for the confusion, then. Note I was replying to the following:

^just on this point here renrathras had a short argument with me on reddit that he didn’t like classifying consolation as an oGCD because you have to account for a delay in summoning seraph

Consolation does do healing, but being mentioned in specific (and not Lustrate or Indom, etc) was the clue. But I can see your misunderstanding.

I think the point does stand, though, that we often get these weird conversations where people are brought into them in the middle and make a judgement based on incomplete information. But let's table that for the time being anyway:

Yes, I agree with you it'd be nice if SCH had an oGCD heal that didn't require a "combo" effect to get there...like literally every other Healer. Note this isn't an argument for homogenization, this is an aesthetic/identity argument - SCH is the barrier Healer, the archetype for which the concept was pioneered and developed in FFXIV, and which nAST and SGE both drew (and AST's Neutral Sect still does). Yet, it doesn't have a direct oGCD barrier heal, and is alone among the Healers in not having one. Just seems...odd. Like thematically and mechanically odd.

[ForsakenRoe]

Yes, I agree with you it'd be nice if SCH had an oGCD heal that didn't require a "combo" effect to get there...like literally every other Healer. Note this isn't an argument for homogenization, this is an aesthetic/identity argument

If anything, I think it'd have been better to just give SCH more and more Mitigative effects (% based things), and have SGE have way more of a focus on actual 'barriers', as with Holos and Panhaima, so that the two feel very distinct from one another. Of course, this runs into the issue where after a certain threshold of damage dealt, it's more EHP to have a % mit than a barrier (see comparison charts between TBN and 'any other tank 25s'), and the over-reliance by SE recently on 'lets add a bleed to this raidwide to 'pressure the healers' (translators note: actually means 'get them to use Lilybell for something')' means that SGE would likely struggle more vs certain damage profiles. Or maybe not, cos of Panhaima, idk. Plus, barriers directly counteract the 'job' of the cohealer. if you put up enough % mits, you still have 'some damage' that gets through. Put up enough different stacking barriers and you cause the damage to be 0'd out, and then the WHM/AST is sat there like 'oh guess I don't need to heal this one either, Glare time still'

Change Fey Blessing to be a OGCD barrier, job done. It's already learned at 76, the level SGE gets Holos, so screw it, they've already homogenized the two 96% of the way, might as well just go all in at this point. It'd at least make Blessing a bit more interesting than 'remote detonated Indom'

[Shurrikhan]

And I've not pretended that foresight would be worthless or unfeasible. I was LITERALLY using it as an example of how a stacking DoT ALLOWS FORESIGHT.

It doesn't. Foresight was already fully "allowed" and rewarded from the start. All your change does is allow for a lack of foresight to not to go punished -- which is effectively the same thing, given balance, as foresight not being rewarded.

That a means of optimization is not sufficiently easy for you, in particular, to consistently see those rewards... does not mean they aren't there nor that they aren't applicable to an average player, let alone those more engaged with and invested in the game's combat.

A stacking DoT, on the other hand, carries even less risk-reward than a 60s DoT like Higanbana. It just replaces the filler attack with the DoT up until the point you'd overcap. Rather than making space for a given GCD at that particular point in time, your only question is whether you have less than 60-duration time left on your stackable DoT, which isn't even a novel complicator; it's the literal base of "Is my DoT already up?" if not stackable. You've removed the actual pressure point entirely, while offering nothing in return that even the most basic DoT management didn't already have.

Of the components of difficulty a basic DoT would normally house, you've watered one down (don't overcap) to as little as a fifth its former frequency, and entirely removed the other (make room to be able to reapply it at this exact moment).

You've added no complexity to the mechanic's consequent gameplay, and you've removed almost all of the consequent gameplay complexity and room for optimization from the actions surrounding it.

If anything, I think it'd have been better to just give SCH more and more Mitigative effects (% based things), and have SGE have way more of a focus on actual 'barriers', as with Holos and Panhaima, so that the two feel very distinct from one another.

I could go for that. If we just go off the namesake of Galvanize, it sounds more like a (Magic) Defense buff --perhaps diminished by its consequent damage nullification (like a protective coating being shed as it binds with the air to prevent the core material from rusting, etc.) so that it can have higher highs without being OP-- than a flat barrier effect.

As you said, though, it does cause some scaling issues, much like 2.0 PLD vs. WAR. Flat potency scales only with gear, while direct % mitigation scales only with content. In balance, this would give SCH a leg up early on and SGE a leg up by BiS.

Of course, there is a middle ground: variable defensive stat augmentations (+ <Healing Magic Power x %Determination> Defense & Magic Defense, with a chance to Crit for X% more stat added) scale with both content (because it gives % mitigation) and gear (because gear increases that %).

That was, btw, one of the suggestions to aid PLD/WAR parity before 2.1 (so long as it wasn't such a pathetic increase as that of Foresight, etc.)... before they decided to largely just homogenize towards PLD's design, reducing the value of tank gear for both, instead.

[Renathras]

It doesn't. Foresight was already fully "allowed" and rewarded from the start. All your change does is allow for a lack of foresight to not to go punished -- which is effectively the same thing, given balance, as foresight not being rewarded.

Again: ...no.

That's...not correct at all.

One case requires you to think ahead and adjust your action. The other just screws you. AT BEST, you use an oGCD and refresh Dia on time, but WE HAVE SO MANY of those, you always have one. There's no case you can use all your oGCDs unless you just decided to overheal literally everything prior to this point in the fight AND within the last 30 seconds since short GCDs are already up again by then even if you mucked them up.

Your argument is that the foresight is "knowing not to have used an oGCD so you have one available", but that's nonsense because we have so many oGCDs, it's like the argument Bill Gates cannot spend money faster than his interest accrues more. Unless you are rolling your face across your keyboard, you cannot consume all your oGCDs faster than you have more available. Meaning you always have some available. Meaning you don't need foresight of "looking ahead and saving one" for these situations because you're guaranteed to have one up anyway.

On the other hand, stacking Dia allows foresight, since it allows you to adjust when you refresh Dia based on your FORESIGHT of the fight ahead.

It rewards people that know how the fight will go and move around their Dia refresh to times when they will need movement vs not to further optimize Glare casting. It's not MUCH, but it's a higher level of complexity and foresight than we have now, not less.

[Rein_eon_Osborne]

An extendable DoT? You might as well turn them into Variant Spirit Dart for even less complexity lmao. That $h!t can literally be weaved anytime, refreshing it at no cost and drawbacks aside from eating one from your many weaving slots across 30s duration.

Just what we needed…

/facepalm

EDIT: Oh yeah, I forgot to add, its potency is also fixed, in a way we cannot snapshot it with any (de)buff multipliers Yippee, there will be no more 'optimal timing' to refresh.