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

[Semirhage]

I remember a while back one tank (not strictly a DPS thing, I was being hyperbolic for rhetorical emphasis) who went on about how “he did his time” as a healer after intentionally pulling too big of a pull and wiping the party to teach me a lesson because I dared to use Physik in a 30-40 Leveling dungeon. At the time I had a crossbar set up for lowbie stuff and one set up for 50+ stuff and Physik was good enough when people weren’t being jerks. I dropped the duty. Adlo isn’t that much better

The last one started in on a whole lecture of how I should tank differently in party chat after we had completed the duty and I just ignored them, left the duty, and the healer gave me a commendation.

And the bus driver was Albert Einstein, and the whole bus clapped.

[SargeTheSeagull]

And the bus driver was Albert Einstein, and the whole bus clapped.

And then he went home to his three weed smoking girlfriends.

[Shurrikhan]

Again, I happened to choose "truncate" (among plenty of other terms) because it conveys that the intent of that action is to limit what future growth or action is possible, which seems your very clear intent. Call it "limit" instead if you like, or "curtail", or "preclude", or "hamstring" healers' future improvements or if it makes you feel better. I do not give a damn.

"I didn't <insert verb here> this child. I merely starved it of <insert resource here> that it'll stay at roughly this size forever." If there's an expectation that something could and should otherwise grow, then going out of your way to preclude that is still limiting it.

At least, though, if you're going to nitpick terms based on chronology-regardless-of-point-in-discourse, then at least do so in both directions.

We are largely on this forum because we do not accept the mere fact that something happened as warrant that it should have happened. Given that, there is no reason to say that all changes up until now are somehow irrelevant just because the developers concluded that they were for the best; there is no authoritative weight there. Nor is there, therefore, any reason to treat the 'status quo' as if it were not, itself, a sum of prior changes, be they for the better or worse.

Just because you got what you want does not mean that others were not screwed over in those prior changes, nor would say, reverting those general simplifications to healer gameplay be any more a change than further simplifications (i.e., continuing along the trend of the last two expansions) would be.


The point of this thread, one would think from its opening post if we (perhaps naively) assumed it had a constructive (rather than merely rhetorical) purpose: To develop a set of very widely agreed upon, and pretty thoroughly reasoned out, criteria for what could make healer downtime and the broader healer experience more enjoyable.

Now, we start to actually do that, developing a set of unobtrusive and highly reasonable fundamentals to work from. These could and seemingly should be applied to every job as those improvements could come literally without cost (to anyone not simultaneously paranoid that their limited effort wouldn't necessarily both max out their job's potential and be able to fully compete with those putting in more effort, regardless of the havoc that'd place on broader balance). So if that discourse is proceeding as it seemingly should in that it is steadily generating understandings of what can make downtime more enjoyable and unobtrusive guidelines around that.

You then say "No, job A shouldn't benefit from this. Job A needs to remain in <the form being broadly critiqued, for widely held reasons>. This one should uniquely not have those opportunities for growth." And somehow not supposed to be seen as limiting or reductive?

[ForsakenRoe]

Again, making it so that doing just X performs as well as X and Y creates imbalances across all jobs; short of that, there is no difference in gameplay between having access to both X and Y and being able to clear off just X but able to further carry with Y vs. playing a job that can only do X and can clear with just X but lacks that excess margin for using Y as well.

I wonder, let's take my example (because I'm familiar with the numbers for it). WHM, Banish is 40p more than Glare, generates 5 gauge instead of Glare's 1, but has 15s CD. If the pitch were changed, such that the potencies were identical, and the only difference was that Banish generated 500% as much gauge as Glare, would that somehow be more acceptable to naysayers? You'd still have a difference in damage regardless, because faster gauge generation = more access to 'the funny damage neutral heal tool', but is it the direct 'not using the new damage skill = damage loss' that is the issue, or is it ANY perceived damage loss that's the problem

Put another way, the question, not just for my WHM Banish (not using it is 160p per min loss) or AST Minor Arcana (not using it is 200p per min loss), but for any pitch that hopes to add more variety to the damage rotation for healers, is this: if you can clear any content in the game, by playing the same way as now (that is, refresh DOT when it falls off, spam nuke, ignore the rest), what is the magic value of potency per minute at which the design becomes 'unacceptable'? Because there's clearly a line in the sand, but I don't understand where it is

Again, I happened to choose "truncate" (among plenty of other terms) because it conveys that the intent of that action is to limit what future growth or action is possible, which seems your very clear intent. Call it "limit" instead if you like, or "curtail", or "preclude", or "hamstring" healers' future improvements or if it makes you feel better. I do not give a damn.

I might start referring to it as 'Bonsai Job design'

[ASkellington]

Your "4 healer model" as I've said countless times means that people that want WHM to be more than what it is are told to go play another job. Meaning, you're also excluding however many % want more damaging options, while also saying you're trying to support the however many minority or not, want WHM to stay the same.

The way I see it 25% could want all healers to have more complexity/depth in dps and healing. 25% want healing, 25% don't care, and 25% want nothing done at all. Your argument is to say, for the 25% that want nothing done to any healer let's say screw the other 75% and leave just one healer when that wasn't what anyone wanted in the first place.

[Renathras]

What exactly is this "4 Healers Model"?

In super simple terms:

We have 4 Healer Jobs, so it makes sense to have each have a bit different rotation and focus, this way to appeal to the most people.

Look at Casters right now. SMN plays borderline like a phys Ranged, RDM has a cast-instant (dualcast) cadence with a melee+ranged instant cast burst phase that's easy to pick up but has a high skill ceiling to optimize, and BLM is...well, BLM. This means Caster players are spoiled for choice. They have three completely different options from easy to hard and from mobile to immobile and even from lots of party utility to totally selfish DPS.

Healers, though, do not.

We have one general playstyle which is DoT + spamnuke + 2-3 Job specific attack (Assize/Misery, Energy Drain/Ruin 2, Earthly Star/Macrocosmos, Pneuma/Plegma/Toxicon), with the AOE being a single one button spam. And our healing is very similar, too, with almost all healing being oGCDs with the exception of WHM. (Ironically, given Lilies are GCDs, WHM has the most diverse playstyle of the healers right now while SCH/SGE are almost right on top of each other as much stepping on each others' toes they do with their overlap.)

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So the idea of "4 Healers Model" is that we could change up this to where each plays distinctly from the others, meaning no matter what gameplay you like, you likely have a Healer Job that YOU personally would enjoy the mechanics of.

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There's no specifics to it other than that, but here would be one example:

WHM: No change from today.
SCH: Return it to its SB incarnation with several DoTs and where pet abilities can be macroed and aren't on the oGCD
AST: Return the SB era card effects or add new buffing mechanics
SGE: Give it a rotation akin to SMN or RDM level complexity and shunt its healing away from oGCDs and into Kardia

Another example would be:

WHM: Give it an elemental builder/spender rotation (probably something like RDM but without the melee part of its rotation); reduce its oGCD kit to where it does lots of GCD healing
SCH: Give it something like 7 DoTs and make them generate Faerie Gauge, make AF used for attacks of Fester, Bane, and Energy Drain, make Faerie Gauge where the AF healing abilities are
AST: Make it into an outright buffer, something like Cards are GCD but have no CD so you can just constantly throw them out on people
SGE: Leave IT like it is today.

The only constant is that at least one Job remain more or less like it is now (for people that enjoy current healer gameplay) and that at least one change to something to appeal to those that wish for a more complex design and rotation. Taken to the widest form to appeal to the most people, this would likely include one of the Jobs being a dedicated buffer class (probably AST since it's already borderline set up for it), and probably two of the others being different flavors of damage (e.g. one DoT focused and one with no DoTs that's rotation focused instead like RDM or SMN are).

That's it in a nutshell anyway.

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I'm sure Ren will clarify better in just a moment, but an outsider's summary
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Rather than letting each job develop...

This is what we call "bias". If you can only present an idea in a negative light instead of a neutral tone, perhaps you should leave it to someone who can. When someone asks what a thing is, you should leave out your bias in the initial description. You can offer your personal critiques after giving them a general view on it.

categorical niches meant to appeal to a portion of the overall healer playerbase to ensure that each "camp" has a job meant for them.

THIS is far more accurate and a better description, though doesn't word it very clearly.

Its likely problems are that it seems to assume that gameplay desires can and will be held separate from desires for particular themes, aesthetics, and so on, and that those gameplay desires must be clustered in mutually exclusive ways, so if you like both the gameplay elements that end up allotted to Job A and those that are allotted to Job B, you're screwed, and if you like the gameplay elements of Job A but the visuals of Job B,

No, it assumes that Healers shouldn't be different from other roles.

Say you love BLM's aesthetic right now but hate its gameplay. What do you do? Do you get on BLM and play exclusively as "an Ice Mage"? No. You don't get to play BLM.

For this critique to hold water, "Ice Mage" would need to be within 5% or so damage of optimally played, BLM, which it isn't and never will be, and that would be BAD for the game. We as players, no matter the game, have to choose between playstyle and aesthetic all the time. And besides, this critique leaves off the fact that if you change any but especially all healer Jobs to be more complex, you have the exact same problem of people liking an aesthetic but not being able to enjoy its playstyle. So your solution has the exact same problem, meaning you can't use this as an argument against the position you oppose since it's a weakness of both proposals, not just mine.

Your "4 healer model" as I've said countless times means that people that want WHM to be more than what it is are told to go play another job.

Two points:

1) How is this different than people that like WHM as it is being told, under your idea, they have to go play ANOTHER GAME since NO Job will be what they want?

2) Look at the above proposal. I've said before that SGE instead of WHM being the one left the same would also be acceptable - it's only ever been the way it is now and this is the way it was designed, so it remaining this way can't be alienating anyone since it's the only way it's ever been and what everyone from 6.1 on picking it up knew to expect from it - and have also said I don't care which one it is, as long as it is "at least one".

...meaning this "counter argument" is not valid.

The way I see it 25% could want all healers to have more complexity/depth in dps and healing. 25% want healing, 25% don't care, and 25% want nothing done at all. Your argument is to say, for the 25% that want nothing done to any healer let's say screw the other 75% and leave just one healer when that wasn't what anyone wanted in the first place.

Again, two points:

1) No, my way is saying "each of you 25% get 25% (1 in 4) of the Healers entirely to yourself that will play exactly as you want, so we all win".

2) Your argument is to say, for the 25% that want more complexity/depth in dps and healing, they get all four healer Jobs, and let's say screw the other 75% and leave just ZERO healers for them when that wasn't what anyone wanted in the first place. It's mind boggling to me how you people think "1 healer not appealing to (you) is unacceptable...but other people having ZERO healers that appeal to them is perfectly fine". You're literally telling people they have to play a different game and I'm telling people like you that you'd have 3 options where right now you have 0 that you like. There's no world in which my model is more restrictive or saying it doesn't are about people than yours. MINE is the one saying that there are different types of player and trying to ensure each has at least one option that they can enjoy. Hell, MY model is an improvement over what we have now, since as you guys say all the time, you don't like ANY of the healers right now so there are ZERO that you like. 3 > 0 and thus automatically better.

Yours is insisting that all four healers must be made to where people like you enjoy them and screw everyone else, even if everyone else was 75% and the vast majority.

[Shurrikhan]

<snip>

None among "healers should play differently from each other", "healers should play differently from other roles", or "healers should have distinct identities", etc. are unique to your "model".

The only ultimate difference is that one model restricts what each job is allowed, in order to guide it towards a specific camp, while the other simply says "Whatever seems to especially fit the job and build out its core mechanics/theme, go for it... and then tweak and polish thereafter for deeper and/or broader appeal to the playerbase as is possible, be that via a bit more contrast here, a bit more highlighting of unique aspects there, etc., etc."

Its effectively a negative (X should not have B, C, or D; Y should not have A, C, or D) pre-allocating top-down model vs. a recursive bottom-up model. That's it.

For this critique to hold water, "Ice Mage" would need to be within 5% or so damage of optimally played, BLM

You realize the difference between using literally just Broil/Malefic and using all your offensive spells is just ~10% of your DPS, which is <1% of the party's total DPS?

For your analogy to "hold water", this would have to concern the job's combined outputs and would actually have to have similar weight.

As is stands, your healer "Ice Mage" is putting out 80+% output, not some 30% output, even when using only some 30% of their kit, and is able to clear Savage just fine. So yes, you can easily say that a healer who only wants to use 80% of their kit is fully able to do so -- all the more when those differing/additional skills share resources, as is typically of the suggestions here, rather than simply adding flat ppm.

[ForsakenRoe]

Can't help but notice that this

what is the magic value of potency per minute at which the design becomes 'unacceptable'? Because there's clearly a line in the sand, but I don't understand where it is

didn't get answered by anyone who actually HAS a line in the sand, so I'm still clueless as to where the line is

As is stands, your healer "Ice Mage" is putting out 80+% output, not some 30% output, even when using only some 30% of their kit, and is able to clear Savage just fine. So yes, you can easily say that a healer who only wants to use 80% of their kit is fully able to do so -- all the more when those differing/additional skills share resources, as is typically of the suggestions here, rather than simply adding flat ppm.

tagged cos long

Once tome gear starts rolling in, you can literally ignore AST's entire gameplay mechanic, it's cards, just Div on CD/Maleficspam/refresh DOT, and you'd clear Savage. Even though the cards are like 15% of your total RDPS. The problem isn't 'you won't be able to clear if things get more complex', apparently it's that 'people's week 6 clear will now be a week 7 clear because they need extra gear to make up for their lack of damage' (from not pressing the new buttons). Might have a point for AST cards as they are, but if we took the previously mentioned '160p per minute' loss from what I've rallied for (for a year now, time flies), then a 10min fight sees that player losing 5 total Glares worth of damage. The argument ignores key rebuttals/fixes to 'problems', like how potencies can be balanced such that the potency difference between average player (enough to clear) and '100% parse god' is smaller. Energy Drain's potency shows that optimization-minded players do not need massive gaps of damage between themselves and 'the not-so-hardcore', they want 'a way to express their mastery of the job/game' even if it's by only 300p per minute (as is the case with ED)

I've said before, any changes like this are not assailable with 'people will have to learn new rotation, it'll be stressful in battle, they might make mistakes and lose damage' because we already have to learn new rotations when we get expansions and new additional tools to put into our gameplay. I used to be 'not completely trash' at SAM back in SB. Now I'm terrible at it because Meikyo enforced the 'strict 60s loop' gameplay style and I don't vibe with it anymore. If I practiced, I'd probably get good at it. Which is the point I'm trying to get at with any suggested healer changes. Yes, it will take some time for people to get used to the new skills, and how to use them in the rotation. But I've tried to make my designs as quick and easy to pick up and learn as possible, I assume other idea-pitchers had the same thought. I don't think anyone's going to be going through a Rocky training montage, 8 hours a day at Stone Sky Sea, to work out how a new 15s CD damage skill fits into their rotation. It's literally 'press when it comes up, unless you want to save it for movement'.

Plus, if you have to heal because of week 1 damage/panic/whatever, then the thing you shift out of your damage rotation to make room for that GCD heal is... your lowest damage skill, Glare/Broil/etc. If you were meant to cast Banish at X:15 but had to heal instead on that GCD, you would still have Banish, it just shifts forward 1 GCD to X:17.5, and the Glare that was there is now removed. In this sense, having extra tools like this would not lose people damage, rather, it'd help them maintain their damage

[ASkellington]

1) No, my way is saying "each of you 25% get 25% (1 in 4) of the Healers entirely to yourself that will play exactly as you want, so we all win".

Full stop no. My argument has always been all healers. Not leave one behind. Therefore, your solution does not, cannot and WILL NEVER WORK. Just on that alone.

Also, people who would like "your" model have yet to say they also wouldn't like a WHM who has an extra few dps skills as long as it remains simple to use, which is what I would like to see for WHM. So, in the event that the second is true, your model also has no reason for existing.

Which is the compromise you keep saying doesn't exist by the way. I would much rather WHM rip SGE's idea of being a damage oriented healer back in Shb. But apparently it can't be so an extra 2 or three dps options (one likely being a DoT) that doesn't impact its healing output and aids in lily generation is all I'm likely to get if anything.

WHM if I had it my way would be more akin to BLM in terms of complexity. I like complex healers. I'm not asking for WHM to become BLM or SB SCH and AST as I've said repeatedly and you've consistently ignored because "you can't be wrong". I still want WHM to be approachable to newer healer players but that does not mean it HAS to stay as it is now and therefore, I'm not going to sit there and champion for it to stay that way.

I want WHM to have a few extra dps options to manage and also to make soloing as a healer (all four of them) to not be a boring PoS experience while still being an easy and approachable healer.

Your model is not an improvement. Its gatekeeping. Just not in the traditional sense. You're literally gatekeeping WHM's design to never get better, and you're gatekeeping healers who want something to aspire to on WHM. You are literally telling them "great, you've mastered WHM. You want something more, go play another healer because WHM can't get anything more to it." You just don't want to admit it or just can't see it that way.

Pick whichever is more accurate.

[kyyninen_kirahvi]

In super simple terms:

We have 4 Healer Jobs, so it makes sense to have each have a bit different rotation and focus, this way to appeal to the most people.

...

So the idea of "4 Healers Model" is that we could change up this to where each plays distinctly from the others, meaning no matter what gameplay you like, you likely have a Healer Job that YOU personally would enjoy the mechanics of.

...


The only constant is that at least one Job remain more or less like it is now (for people that enjoy current healer gameplay) and that at least one change to something to appeal to those that wish for a more complex design and rotation. Taken to the widest form to appeal to the most people, this would likely include one of the Jobs being a dedicated buffer class (probably AST since it's already borderline set up for it), and probably two of the others being different flavors of damage (e.g. one DoT focused and one with no DoTs that's rotation focused instead like RDM or SMN are).

1. Doesn't this already kind of exist already? I mean 3/4 are basically different enough. Sure, could have better rotations.

2. Wouldn't this just stunt the growth of the jobs? There comes a point where you'll unnecessarily restrict what you can do with the design. E.g. where to go with WHM if left as is? How much would you need to rework the other 3 healers so they are satisfying? What are the limits of the design?