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

[Rein_eon_Osborne]

And I wish that SE would realize that what makes WHM friendly to "casuals" is it's Lv.50 kit and how MSQ encounters are currently designed.

Unless the tank(s) have never heard of stance or mitigations, and unless the rest of the party thinks the goal is to stand in the orange 100% of the time, Lv.50 WHM has what it takes: Readily available HP restoration. And if you find yourself running low on MP, just don't do anything for a few moments. There's no meaningful enrage to contend with.

That leaves multiple expacs worth of levels to do something interesting and exciting with WHM.

I would go further & say "If you want beginner/casual friendly healer go play CNJ" lol, because they do have what it takes for those MSQ encounters, dungeons, and trials! (obviously random DF groups wouldn't take that kindly, but you get the idea)

[Shurrikhan]

I'm not gonna lie, I don't have much of an idea what's the general consensus on healers here, other than that people are bored from spamming same button. Even though I barely play healers nowadays, I used to love healing in every game, but well, FFXIV's healers don't meet my expectations when it comes to healing so I play mostly SAM/PLD, which is why I don't come in this part of forums very often.

I thought that idea to keep WHM same and make others interesting is somewhat popular, but that might be general consensus from somewhere else. I guess it makes sense in light of current SMN and RDM situation. People are probably worried that making WHM too easy relatively to other healers will make people choose WHM for the sake of accessibility, and that people playing harder jobs will not be rewarded accordingly for their higher efforts, which is completely fair, because that is happening right now with SMN and RDM.

But well, I don't really want to read 10s of pages of posts to find out whether mine and yours idea is popular or not. But I'll stand by it (unless someone gives me some insight why it's bad idea, of course), even though I understand the risk of it being implemented the same way SMN was. My reasoning is that WHM is simply most favorite job for casuals, so I think that if SE actually did some drastic changes to healers, WHM is last job they would drastically change, especially if it meant making it more difficult. I myself would love if all 4 healers were very distinct, had a lot of space for skill expressions, and had better gameplay than 12111111, but I really think that keeping one simple job for casuals is much more realistic scenario that SE might consider and even implement. They do not want to alienate casuals which are playing WHM because of it's simplicity, it's simple as that.

I guess my main issue with that approach is that it treats 'casual-friendliness' as this sort of wholesale, sacred, and impermeable thing that's impossible (or taboo) to analyze and reach a better equilibrium from, when the reality is more likely that you could simultaneously have a WHM that is more engaging to most of your common camps of healers AND actually improve upon most aspects contributing to 'casual-friendliness', to a greater net accessibility/responsiveness/enjoyability even to your most casual players, because that matter does break down into many finer aspects.

Would that take more work than just giving up on that job preemptively for some sort of misguided political bargaining chip for a nebulously defined group that can't or won't speak for itself? Of course. But that work is worthwhile and deserved.

Reserving a job's entire current state regardless of what its parts contribute to or how much is essentially to bar analysis of that kit and thereby bar even the prospect of improvement. Being cautious is good, but preemptively denying a job any changes whatsoever, no matter how vetted, is just wasteful and pointless.

No job should be stuck with that kind of treatment.

Examples of 'Casual-friendliness' being rather more complicated and piecemeal than most "Keep WHM the same" arguments would imply:

While difficulty isn't mutually exclusive on the whole, individual challenges' contribution to that 'difficulty' is largely zero-sum.

The more of your throughput is locked into CDs or HoTs/DoTs, for instance, the more those particular moments disproportionately matter, but the less each other moment of uptime does. A healer struggling with GCD-healing-minimization in itself, for instance, will actually be less skill-gapped in their rDPS when carrying a higher portion of DoT/CD-based damage (as opposed to having only or almost only their filler attack).

The more of your healing potential comes from "free" CD-based healing, not only the less potency-per-GCD can you put out in balance (since you're now assumed to have near to 100% damage-contributing uptime instead of the <75% of yesteryear), but also the more punished you are for tapping into less finite/discrete resources. Or, more simply put, leaving relative healing requirements at or below the level that can be covered wholly through "free" resources gaps further gaps casual play, since it increases the relative punishment of any conservative or less informed play (I don't know when next we'll get burst, so I'll hold onto some of this).

Now, that knowledge gap being widened by being tuned around healing only with oGCDs would be a 'good thing' to players who want more of their performance to come from having 'solved' the fight and then executing in that exact way ad nauseum thereafter, certainly. But it sure as hell isn't making the job more 'casual-friendly', despite its "low" relative healing requirements (how much rDPS is put at risk from damage intake) and starves rewards for those who'd like to have room to min-max the healing itself, rather than just healing-minimization. (And that's even without accounting for the counter-intuitiveness of a kit increasingly making its foundational tools redundant or outright punishing.)

And yet somehow many (including even Misshapen Chair) insist on implying that low relative healing requirements (little visible rDPS cost from healing) are "casual-friendly", or that if using virtually any GCDs at all, rather than just... slightly more of them... weren't purely optional or weren't meant only to salvage past mistakes then matchmaking would go all to hell because of the casual players? (All while complaining that the most casual players can't remember to sequence their many excessive healing oGCDs in scripted order before --or, as to prevent-- touching any of their GCDs heals?) It's a mess.

------

And yet, there are generally some things we can usually agree upon, per such ideals as "easy to learn, hard to master" or making that ideal true not just of the job as a whole, but it's actual interactions with content (so it's not just "hard af until you 'solve' the fight, then easy/boring af thereafter").

There are ways that we parse the optimizations available to a given job (what they can do for some degree of reward ultimately towards the uncapped throughput useful to the encounter) and look at which should be considered most core and therefore hold the largest portion of the pie, without so squishing all else that those other optimizations are hardly worth thinking about.

And we [S]should[/I], imo, expect a level of care in job design nearer to that.


__________________

Who is even supposed to benefit from the "Keep WHM exactly the same" approach?

Who gains from being maximally punished for each excess non-"free" heal and being so highly rewarded for having quickly 'solved' the healing bottlenecks of the fight and then having worked backwards from there to establish their then-constant rhythm of healing CDs? ...Is that really the... "casual healer" that seems slated to gain the most?

Who gains from precluding any further infrequent non-healing actions that could reduce the relative ppgcd cost of GCD heals? Depending on implementation, yes, having nothing but Glare and 2 Dias per minute could help those who are especially bad at tracking CDs (in general or, somehow, only if they're damage-producing) and/or pre-planning GCD heals (if such were ever required) to retain room for hitting their offensive CDs/DoTs more or less on time.

But does that single aspect of difficulty produce more of a skillgap between the elite and average player than does the aspect affected (minimizing GCD healing)? What about when we decrease the chance of falling asleep at the wheel/on the book/cane/nouliths?

[A_moth_called_rose]

...what do you like about those Jobs?

Sure sure, "more damage buttons/rotation", but is that it, or is there something more that could be incorporated into Healers? Mobility? Utility? Buffs? Melee attacks?

What are the things you like about your main(ish) DPS Job aside from rotation?

I can play the game without having to constantly move my mouse to UI elements. That's it. Most the DPS are homogenized to the point of being indistinguishable from one another mechanically, but until FFXIV support hover/mouseover casting for targeted abilities, I have no interest in touching the healers outside of leveling them once and being done with them.

I want to fight the bosses, not fight the UI.

[Monokhrom]

Dancer be nimble
Dancer be quick
Dancer will steal your chick

[Renathras]

I don't propose to keep WHM exactly the same, but simply not to alter it too much, so it won't alienate casuals, and then bring back AST and SCH to former glory. I fully understand that this is not ideal, however, it is realistic. How many times in this game's history did they make job harder and more complex, instead of easier and more brain dead? Which is why I think it's okay to have this sacrificial lamb, that people dissatisfied with the potential changes can turn to.

This is long been my argument. Even for a while with me holding the "keep 1 the same" argument, I usually make allowances such as "bring back Aero 3".

As for implementation details, there's a lot of theory crafting, with making GCD heals be worth it, making healers actually heal and so on. You could make AST cards GCD, but next malefic will deal 2x damage,

I've also made both of these proposals. My one for AST if cards were made GCD is to make Draw or Play (or both, but probably just one or the other) a GCD with an additional effect to increase the next Malific's damage by 100%, and that this buff can stack up to three (to reflect when you fire off 3 cards to party members in buffs), which...would basically make it into the Misery system, but that system actually WORKS, so that's not a bad thing, and it would reduce the hyper-APM during burst that a lot of people have issues with on AST. (I always add the caveat that AST is the one healer Job I don't play, and I know some people LIKE the business, so I think it pays to ask them; but if I was going to make a change, it would probably be that). And I'm also the one posting about how we could make GCD heals worth it and proposed damage neutral states on WHM GCD heals or SGE's barrier GCDs (both of which were shot down as being too good for casuals/eliminating mistakes/etc)

I think we discussed this enough in that SMN thread. It's complex set of issues, it's not just about damage, it's also about difficulty (both general and encounter-specific), utility and tax for it, mobility, community's perception and many more.

It is, though I still think that the issue is chiefly damage. People still brought BLM to raids in ShB even in the patches SMN did comparable damage. Both had a place, even though one had more utility. The issue comes when you're doing more work for even less reward. If you're getting the same reward with some added utility, people are often good with that trade. It's when you're actively harming your party vs the alternative that people balk.

.

We only have so many posts in a day. Which means only so many replies. And when half a dozen people in a thread are all talking to (or at) you, it cuts down on replies. Though I will try to use more [hb] tags. I do that fairly often anyway.

[ForsakenRoe]

This is long been my argument. Even for a while with me holding the "keep 1 the same" argument, I usually make allowances such as "bring back Aero 3".

Given that allowance for Aero 3 (use once per 24s, or every 10th-ish GCD), which part of my design was the part that went 'over the line', given that all I'm asking to do to the rotation (in terms of hotbar buttons pressed, not 'new actions') was Dia every 5th GCD instead of every 12th as it is now, and Banish every 6th GCD. Is it the shortening of the DOT, the addition of a seperate button, the CD on said button, or some combination of those 3 changes where 2 of them would be ok but the third is 'the straw that breaks the camel's back'? Because as far as I can see, your SCH pitch that most people found 'agreeable' at least, is about same as what I'm asking of WHM. So is the issue just that it's WHM that I did the changes to?

It is, though I still think that the issue is chiefly damage. People still brought BLM to raids in ShB even in the patches SMN did comparable damage. Both had a place, even though one had more utility. The issue comes when you're doing more work for even less reward. If you're getting the same reward with some added utility, people are often good with that trade. It's when you're actively harming your party vs the alternative that people balk.

While it wasn't BLM level, SMN back then required more skill to execute than it does now, what with the whole 'stand perfectly still in Baha windows so he doesn't miss Wyrmwaves due to moving' and all that. As such, you might be better off looking at all three casters, and seeing if RDM was significantly lower in participation metrics than the other two. I feel like it was a case of 'RDM for prog, swap after clear (or even maybe 'swap once enrage is reached, to push more damage')

edit

There's zero logic to doing this as opposed to just adding a new Job.
Good gosh, SOMEONE else has to see this? For the love of Newton, back me up, totally-not-an-echo-chamber forum. >_<

Yeh, normally I'd disagree with you since the amount of extra devtime would be long cos of VFX and such, but in this particular case, I think you're maybe right. To create a new 'elemental themed' healer job would take comparatively little time, especially compared to 'make 9 classes rebalanced such that they can tackle endgame content'. This is only because, however, SE has a combination of 'cut so much skills from jobs over the years', 'enemy attacks' and 'extra content actions (eureka/bozja)' that they already have all the VFX needed in the game files. The only one I'm not super sure about is Water 2, we can use Water 1 from Sprites/Fluid Aura, Water 3 can be one of those geysers from eg Dohn Mheg first boss, and Flood is used by Y'shtola sometimes (big ball)

The problem is, again, certain people (like me) are going to ask 'ok why did WHM have to lose it's elemental themes, just for some other bozo class to get it', even if said bozo class is 'literally the same class you were before you put on the egg-shaped job rock'

[ForsakenRoe]

just skip if your name is not RenThras, probably

Also, I don't dislike your Medica 2/Cure 3 idea. 30 sec CD 15 sec duration would put it about on par with Soil and Kerochole (without the mitigation).

Good to hear, unfortunately for you, 45s is probably still too low for the idea. I'd expect it (Med2) at 60s if anything, see, if we make it 30, you pretty much remove any reason to use Rapture. Now, this results in the whole Lily system inverting, and healing becomes 'Med2>Cure3 combo for AOE, Solace with lilies on tanks', which A: means the tanks are even more unkillable (since this healing would be on top of their selfsustain), and B: it completely kills the point of using Regen. Med1 (and Cure3 with no bloodlily build) would be there in those cases where you'd need to AOE heal even if it costs you damage. But again, I was spitballing, I'm not enamored with this idea anyway

I did finally get around to this. Here are the healer posts I found

Yes, same, for some of them. And I put them in my post. Not all, but some of them you have there stand out as 'I remember putting that in there', like the one that got Lovely Branch/Adorable Sapling mixed up when asking for Feo Ul SCH glam, or the RERAISE! fella, I remember that one very well

Shoutout to the PLD's asking for Raise though. They'll be locked slot for prog, and as soon as prog's over they gotta throw away the shield and get the gunblade, cos that Raise is gonna put them 8% behind the others cos 'utility tax' or whatever

But yes, it is a spitball example. I've also proposed other changes to WHM:

...Glare, Glare, Glare, Holy (or Banish)...
...Casting 3x Holys = one free Misery cast...
...Make Assize a GCD with a 30 sec CD...

...Rotation of A, 3G, 1H, 3G, 1H, 3G, A, H, 3G, H, 3G, H, 2G, A if no damage is being taken by the party. Of course, it wouldn't be exactly this, since you're also using 3 Lilies in there somewhere, and then a Misery after the 1/2/etc min Assizes

Now THIS is a rotation with some real chest hair, and it's now ended up having more buttons to think about than even mine! Oh no wait, I think it's equal, assuming you've left Dia off cos it's pruned in your rework. So it's similar to my thinking, but different in some regards. It's a lot more rigid and cyclical, whereas mine having the staggered timers of 12 and 15s would mean you can't build a 'block' of rotation in a sense, as yours can with '3G, 1H'. Still, if this was put in the game, I'd be more than satisfied I think (especially in AOE, you might want to tie getting the free Misery to the 'empowered holy/banish' buff, rather than the pseudo combo of 3H>1M, that's an alarming amount of AOE potential)

I'm a WHM vet, and I'm not being alienated by leaving WHM alone. I'd be alienated by changing WHM

You would have got alienated when they changed WHM from SB to SHB, you just didn't notice because the changes happened to the part of the class you didn't like. Kinda like if BRD lost it's songs and just became 'guy with bow', BRDs would hate it, but the people who want Ranger as a job would not be 'alienated' because the change aligns with what they want from the game

LESS ideally, my Glare->empowered Holy/Holy->Dark Arts Misery/Assize GCD with a 30 sec CD are all me being malleable and offering changes. WHILE, again, giving up completely ALL THREE other healers as blood sacrifice/tribute to your god of complexity.

...which, once again, is me being far more malleable and flexible than literally any of you have been towards my position.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but this is the first time we've seen all of these pitch points (and the rotation they'd lead to) in one place, no? I remember seeing your 3 Glares > 1 Superholy before a couple of times, but not the '3 Superholy > 1 Free Misery' I don't think

And please don't be lumping us all together re: flexibility, I went back to my design and added stuff because of feedback from you specifically. Stuff like changing Protect from 'lowbob Aquaveil' to 'lowbob PI', and adding Nature Gauge build values to the non-lily GCD heals (something about 'healing resource built only via damage is not good for casuals' iirc). I can be flexible when I think the argument I'm being presented is convincing (Protect PI is a convincing argument), but if I think something's not good I'm not gonna be swayed

Personally, I'd like a healer to not have a DoT.

Honestly, same. 'DOT management' is probably one of the weakest aspects of my gameplay. Part of me probably would prefer it if WHM was full of Hard-CD GCDs ala Phlegma, such that EG: my reworked Dia is not a 12s DOT, but a 12s CD burst hit. In fact, it's 'inspiration'/older brother, Holy Priest, does exactly this, with Holy Words lowering CDs on things so there's interplay. Akin to 'Casting Stone or Holy advances the CD on Assize by 1 second' in our terms. And that could be a cool design, but it's a bit of a radical overhaul to add that kind of thing, so it'd have to be a 'AST/DRG rework' kind of announcement. But as for DOTs, I also acknowledge that A: WHM's always had a DOT and removing it is kinda not great, B: Banish (or in your case, Assize-GCD) already fills that role (and having two would lead at least one person to say 'why not combine them' in a reddit post), and C: I can appreciate the idea of 'multidotting' being a way to express skill in certain situations, and I wouldn't want to remove that (Eg doublechecking my design brief potencies, it's better to multidot 2 targets, Holy becomes better than Glare at 3 but multidotting all 3 is still better (430 from DOT vs total of 420 from Holy), and then straight Holy becomes better at 4+. Banish remains part of the AOE at any target count)

Which leads us to... SGE, if you can believe that. A new healer, focused on 'do damage > cause healing', it'd have been the perfect time to add a healer that does not have a DOT. Instead, they could have had Eukrasian Dosis/E.Phlegma have unique effects that play into the damage-healer archetype more, Toxicon could actually do something other than be 'Ruin 2 with terms and conditions attached', etc. If it weren't a bloody shield healer (or the split didn't exist), the first thing that comes to mind (and I'm about to go to bed so it's not exactly functional atm) is that E.Dosis could apply a small regen to the Kardion target (same damage potency as regular Dosis, higher MP cost so you can't just spam it), and E.Phlegma could be... idk, some AOE shielding emanating from the Kardion target (Prognosis still exists for those times where Phlegma did not line up with the raidwide).

DOTs can be cool design. But I don't think they're cool design when A: everyone has one, and B: everyone has one. SGE didn't really need one, if anything it feels like it was just thrown on there to try and justify Eukrasia being a button a bit more. I'd also consider removing Combust IF! and only if, said removal is what has to be done in order to focus the class more on it's buffing aspects. Like, if we're playing 'would you press the button' and it's 'unique card effects like SB, ...BUT... Combust is die', personally I'm slamming that button frame 1, and I'm not stopping to think. They removed all the Time Magic stuff so the chances of 'AST manipulates it's DOT with its abilities' is pretty dead, and that was the saving grace for Combust's continued existence IMO. Axe it and replace it with something more interesting, something to do with the cards like a Minor Arcana rework (cough). SCH can have 3 DOTS again cos that's it's schtick, and WHM can have just one short one, so it feels bursty and strong


By the way, I do hope you two stop going in circles soon, I would quite like it if we could see less of the word 'inflexibility' and more of things like potency balancing or cooldown tweaking, since the former has zero chance of consensus and the latter has... well, not much chance, but it's at least higher than zero% right

thank in advance

[Renathras]

...

Medica 2 - I was thinking Soil/Kerachole. SCH and SGE have those every 30 sec while also having Indom/Ixo. In theory, both can also get more resources than WHM (Rhizo/Dissipation), but I dunno. Could also make Medica 2 cost a Lily I guess. I've been asking for a Lily spender that's a HoT for a while. I think the CD is more based on the potency than anything. If we're taking something that can be spammed and putting a CD on it, and presumably it still has the cast time and MP cost (so akin to Pneuma/Macrocosmos, I guess?), I dunno, I feel like 30 would be fair, though 60 would be the other logical choice.

Rotations - I know I've proposed a couple versions of the Glare/Holy one before, and I know I proposed something for the AOE rotation before, though I don't remember what (it might have just been every fourth Holy was empowered or something, it's been a while). I've proposed Assize with a CD before, but usually as a nosequeter in other discussions. I distinctly remember saying I like Plegma I just wish it was a ranged attack (instead of "near melee"), and Assize is due to its radius. I also pointed out before I'd rather have a GCD with a CD than a DoT. I believe I have proposed each of these before, at least in some form, just not all together, probably? I also do prefer short block rotations (I like that about SMN, and I like that about PLD as well) better than irregular rotations of off-timer DoTs. Like if you have a 15 sec and 21 sec duration DoT, they constantly drift around each other. Vs Glare Glare Glare Holy, which will be consistent. I find a similar(ish) situation with PLD vs GNB. Not the BEST example (GNB is somewhat rigid as well with Gnashing timings), but maybe you get what I mean. PLD doesn't care what part of its rotation its on when it goes into Requiescat other than using a HS in it, GNB is more concerned and has to do some more work to avoid drift and stuff like that. The other thing is I already feel like we have enough buttons, so my ideas, you might note, generally don't add any. You could do all of the things I listed at once, and it wouldn't add a single hotbar slot, yet would make a more varied rotation at the same time.

Paladins - Yeah, who knows? One that I saw that would be a potential is the person that suggested PLD Raise and Hallowed Ground share a CD. In that sense, it's basically a once per fight (twice in long fight) choice, and it's one or the other. So in prog, you'd probably use the Raise more, but in farm, you'd use Hallowed. And PLD already does less damage than the other tanks. I can't imagine they'd have it do 8% less, but it's hard to say. The Dev teams balance is decided by a Chaotic Neutral Wild Mage more often than not, I think.

...that said...I legit just forgot Dia in those examples. I wasn't actually suggesting to remove Dia. Not that I'd be upset removing Dia/a DoT, mind you, but that wasn't actually intentional.

Lumping People - Oh, don't mistake me; that comment was entirely to Ty along with my ire at the moment (in case there was ANY ambiguity on that point).

DoTs - Honestly, I don't terribly HATE them (I mean...I do, but...), there are cases where I find them engaging. The trick is they actually have to have a connection to the kit. Like my SCH proposal where the DoTs generated Faerie Gauge, which could be used for Aetherpact (Lustrate) or Energy Drains. That interaction is interesting to me. Bane and Fester interaction is pretty meh - it IS interaction...but really bland "increases damage" (Fester was only correctly used with all your DoTs up anyway, as was Bane, and both did nothing but increase your damage output...which is boring) - but I think something like giving you extra uses of your other tools, especially my SCH mockup where you can choose to turn it into healing or damage, and it gives you additional abilities to use (even just dumping them on ED is more interesting than Bane actually reducing non-Broil casts and Fester being a throwaway oGCD you used 2-3x and then...didn't for another minute until AF came off CD), which I find more fun, personally.

SGE - I agree on the DoT thing there. RDM has no DoT. SMN has no DoT. SGE could have been built to have a rotation similar to either of those in complexity, no DoT needed. The irony to me is that the Devs seem like they want to reduce DoTs over time...but then make sure every single healer Job has one, and every party has at least two Healers, so would then be guaranteed at least two DoTs. I get Sabezy's argument, but it's just weird to me. Heck, they could have made Eukrasia Dosis the Ruin 2. That would have made it distinct from Dosis while also giving SGE a movement tool like Ruin 2, but which was also different than Ruin 2 since you need the 1 sec CD Eukrasia first, making it only good for single weaves so a side grade of Dosis for use when you need to move. Might not get much use due to Icarus, but it'd be more different than just another DoT. Could also have then opened up Toxicon to be...something better.

AST - I've never thought of AST as a Time Mage. I know a lot of people have because of Gravity magic and Time Dilation, but when I think Time Mage, I think damage dealing support with the spells Haste, Slow, and Stop (even if most things are immune to Stop), probably a damage over time spell, and some utility abilities like Reflect and Regen. Basically the FFTactics Time Mage. And I really love the FF7 and FF8 animations on the Haste and Slow spells (with the clocks). Add to that Comet, Demi (Gravity, though usually as a single target spell), and possibly Meteor. AST has...well...Regen. That's all of that which AST has. Extending buffs isn't strictly a Time Mage thing (I'm not sure any version of Time Mage has ever had such an ability directly; some have had support abilities that increase the durations of HoTs/enhancement spells, but that's passive not an active thing), and they haven't traditionally been healers as far as I can recall. I know some people will die on that hill, but I just can't ever agree to it. Then again, Dark Knight has often been a damage dealer instead (though FF11...), but then again again, it's also named Dark Knight, AST isn't named Time Mage, so...

.

Regarding "Inflexible" - At the risk of sounding like a child, Ty literally started it. He decided that was a thing to quite a dictionary definition of, call me it, and has been doing so in (I think?) every one of his posts replying to me since then for the last two days.

He does this fairly often. Comes up with an insult (which almost always applies to him more than it does me and is easy to debunk it even applies to me), then calls me it for days on end in most every reply, wielding it like a linguistic cudgel. It's an obnoxious thing that pseudo-intellectuals do to talk down at people they think are their lessers. Thing is, I'm not an unintelligent person, so it doesn't go over my head. In fact, intellectually bullying probably makes me madder than most people for a very specific reason. (Not to go into details, but I was very bright as a kid and my older brother had learning problems. To give you an idea of my insight, around age 6 I realized I was learning things in school and they came to me so easily, but the exact same concepts were very difficult for him to pick up. It made me realize I did nothing to gain my intellect, I just had it without having to earn it, and so I resolved then to never look down on people like him or think myself better since I hadn't done anything to earn it. One of the things in life that pisses me off more than anything else is an "intellectual" trying to bully people with their "betterness", which often involves wielding language and vocabulary against people. I'm not always perfect in it, but I really don't look down on other people due to intellect or lack thereof. I may look down on them for OTHER reasons, but not that.)

But yes, when he stops doing that, I'm cool with calm conversation. I try to engage in it all the time until he mouths off with his stupid snark and insults (and for some reason, people seem to think rampant, clearly meanspirited and disruptive snark is somehow acceptable), which creates a spiral because he'll start it, I'll react heated, he'll get mad at me being heated (despite him being the cause of it) and be even more dickish, and it creates a feedback loop until I get mad enough I step away (Ty never apologizes, even when dead to rights wrong about something regarding me; always claims he has no reason to due to something or other to give him an out), and then when I come back cooled off, I get into other conversations and things go fine until he gets on his insult cudgel thing again. I'm more than willing to engage in civil conversation and not tit-for-tat. It's why I get so annoyed with people attacking me so often, because all it does is break down any productive - or even cordial - conversations.

...but...I will try to ignore his posts that are doing that. TRY.

I'm going to start by ignoring his post right below yours to try and move onto a normal conversation, something he's actively ignored thus far, and keeps up with his insults and snark, preventing us from moving on. But maybe he'll listen to you if not to me, and if I ignore him until he stops egging me on, he won't be able to keep egging me on if someone like you will ask him nicely to stop after a few pages of it. Maybe. <_<

[ty_taurus]

...c'mon Ren...be strong.

I read the first line...god...damnit.... >_<

If you want to appear as the better person, maybe don't do what you're trying to accuse me of doing?

So let's talk about your two examples. In both cases, you immediately shoot down your own ideas in your initial posts. "Those are the changes. I know everyone will hate them...though perhaps not. You guys do surprise me from time to time, and this is more complex than most of my proposals." "Now, proceed to hate away and tell me how these changes would somehow dumb down the game (seriously, HOW??) and make things worse, and how current WHM is far more nuanced, high skill ceiling, etc than this lobotomized (HOW??) baby version would be." Both of these lines come across as snide and insincere, not great ways to try and rally people to want to work with you. But they also make it seem like you aren't really invested in your own ideas either, which makes it hard to want to engage with that idea if you aren't even sold on it. You also never bring up these ideas after the fact or ask for input to work on them as a team. You've stated multiple times that your "leave one alone" argument seems to be your exclusive stance.

You already like White Mage, it's the one healer available immediately at level 1, and it makes sense for it to be a beginner-friendly healer, so I'm more interested in talking about it than Scholar who came from a place of being more involved and complex, and also is born from a DPS and strikes me as a very poor choice in healer to shoot for this objective with.

Between Diacloud and Triple Glare into Holy, the later is already something I am fine with and used in the... wait for it... drum roll please... Paladin inspired White Mage idea, and a concept I've grown really fond of. I've spent more time thinking about that in the past and I'll share the very simple breakdown:

Spark - Single target damage; instant cast; 250 potency. Grants 1 Glint to a max of 3.
- The new filler spell

Tempest - AoE damage around your target; 2.5 second cast; 150 potency. Grants 1 Absolution (max 3). If you have 3 Glints, this spell hits twice.
- The first part of your AoE "Combo" but is also your single target finisher.

Glare III - Single target damage; 1.5 second cast; 300 potency. If you have 1 Absolution, this spell hits twice.
- Upgraded to a heavier nuke. You don't need Absolution to cast, but you will not get the second hit.

Dia - AoE damage around your target; instant cast; 200 potency. If you have 1 Absolution, inflicts 3 stacks of Dia on the first target and 1 stack of Dia on all other targets (each target can have up to 5). When you hit a target with the Glare, Dia, or Ablution spells, a Dia stack is consumed dealing 200 potency damage.
- The DoT is removed in place of stacks you detonate. This means there's no more timing element--no need to reapply Dia right as its falling off. It functions similarly to a DoT but is much more forgiving on time. Stacks do not fade away as well so if you apply it before a boss phase changes, you also aren't losing damage like you would with a DoT. And that means no hard DoT, which you would enjoy.

Ablution - AoE damage around your target; 1.5 second cast; 175 potency on the first target and 60% less on all other enemies. Grants 40 seconds of Flow (to a max of 70 seconds). If you have 1 Absolution, this spell hits 3 times.
- Starts out as the water spell. Flow grants 5% increased damage and increased healing, 10 potency MP regen as long as you keep up the buff, and allows lilies to generate. Works similarly to Warrior's buff as you can extend the duration before the buff falls off, something you also mentioned liking.

Afflatus Misery - AoE damage around your target; instant cast; 1150 potency on the first target and 50% less on all other enemies. Costs 1 Blood Lily. Grants 1 Absolution. Has a 20 second cooldown on the GCD.
- Adjusted to effectively substitute your Spark > Tempest "Combo" (4 casts totaling 1150 potency and grants you that Absolution from Tempest). You can store 2 Blood Lilies, which is why the cooldown is added.

Holy III - AoE damage around self with a potency of 300 for the first enemy and 50% less for remaining enemies. Stuns for 4 seconds. OGCD on a 60 second cooldown with 2 charges.
- Not 100% sold on this, but wanted Holy to feel more special than an AoE spam since it's supposed to be White Mage's grand spell in other final fantasy games.

Germinate - Nourishes the Blood Lily; instant cast; GCD action that causes the GCD to have a 4 second recast timer. When cast out of combat, grants 60 seconds of Flow. When cast in combat, grants 20 seconds of Flow.
- The 4 second recast timer applies to all spells (the same as Six-Sided Star on Monk). Not suited for combat use, but useful for phase changes or when no enemy is targetable.

TL;DR: Your normal gameplay involves Spark > Spark > Spark > Tempest, and from there, you store Absolutions on Dia for a softer form of damage over time, Ablution for buff management, and Glare for damage. This is slightly more complex than Paladin's 1-2-3 into Atonement, but there is no Goring Blade, only 1 OGCD with charges, no Holy spirit/circle, and no Confiteor combo. You just have Afflatus Misery on the side to occasionally interrupt this gameplay. It's very simple and easy to manage as all the resources are very gentle (long buff duration, can be extended, stacks instead of a duration on Dia, etc)

Single target vs AoE situations:
Single Target: Spark x3 > Tempest > 1 Absolution for Glare/Dia/Ablution
AoE: Tempest > 1 Absolution for Dia/Ablution

Here's a visual mockup of the flow:

I feel like that captures a lot of things you specifically have referenced liking or not liking.

[Renathras]

If you want to appear as the better person,...

That's how much I read.

Please try again.