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

[Renathras]

It matches its...

No, it doesn't. Again, you're trying to use the politician definition of "cut spending", which isn't what any non-politician would accept as a definition for "cut". But I'm not going to fight with you over a semantic argument since you're damned and determined to use that word come hell or high water, even if it doesn't mean what you want it to mean, since you think it's somehow a win for you to do so.

Your sub-dividing those groups...

I'm not, though. I'm saying what the groups actually are. Something that's entirely relevant and which your argument requires not to exist.

does not change the simple fact that you can support all those desires within...

It's funny to me that people say I make long posts wasting words, but then you talk in a needlessly technical way that obfuscates what you're trying to say, increases likelihood of confusion, and makes conversations about even mundane topics needlessly cumbersome. Or to put it another way, "I'm disinclined to acquiesce to your request" sorts of language.

It can, in fact, mean both, and does to people. I know you don't particularly want to accept that, because it immediately defeats your argument.

Leading once again to:

Which is the entire reason I support the "4 Healers Model" in the first place.

[Shurrikhan]

<snip>

A: <Wants A>
B: <Wants B>
C: <Wants C>

Reasonable Design: Why not all of the above? There's a way to have all of the above without any degradation of those individual features.
Renathras Design: Nope, I'd rather specifically prevent that for one or more jobs.

Unless you classify those groups not by what forms of engagement they want, but instead specifically by what they want to disallow other groups to have, there is no real conflict here.

It's like you've been given an especially balanced Game of Life wherein every choice arrives at the same amount of total assets by retirement and tertiary education awards only enough to pay back its monetary opportunity costs from time and fees, but your take is that certain states should disallow tertiary education because some portion of the nation's population might not be interested in it.

[AmiableApkallu]

Which is the entire reason I support the "4 Healers Model" in the first place.

What exactly is this "4 Healers Model"?

[Shurrikhan]

What exactly is this "4 Healers Model"?

I'm sure Ren will clarify better in just a moment, but an outsider's summary can sometimes be helpful, too, if only to show which parts actually convey well to different groups/people:

Rather than letting each job develop without restriction as far as seems reasonable per their core themes, the "4 Healers Model" sort of sub-divide the jobs into different categorical niches meant to appeal to a portion of the overall healer playerbase to ensure that each "camp" has a job meant for them.

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, you're also kinda screwed, since you can't simply have a larger kit capable of meeting both gameplay aspects (especially, prior to extreme optimization). It can also get a bit screwy if the number of camps don't perfectly match up, some camps are considerably larger/smaller than others, etc. It also ignores where multiple gameplay desires, given the extreme amount of lenience in this game, do not have to be mutually exclusive to each other (having both X and Y doesn't mean that one actually needs to use both X and Y, even if they aren't necessarily on shared resource costs).

Consider it like if you had an uncapped way of spending Cards towards direct offense; it'd be slightly inferior, almost always, to spending them to buff an ally, but you might have that option, so if you really, really don't like tabbing through your allies to select the best recipient, you could just Lord your target and be done with it. But if you make AST specifically the "buffing job" rather than a "Cards job", or prevent it from having extra buttons that could feed into offense because "there's already a healer with more than just 4 attack buttons", then it'd be disallowed.

Honestly, the differences aren't necessarily huge; the biggest gap is in the principle between approaching things as zero-sum (someone's gotta get screwed over / there can be no increase to total satisfaction, only fairer distribution of satisfaction) or reconcilable (no positive desire has to be screwed over / there can be an increase to total satisfaction, and such should be provided insofar as is possible first).

[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.)

.

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.

.

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.

.

I'm sure Ren will clarify better in just a moment, but an outsider's summary
...
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

[Shurrikhan]

My own line in the sand (sorta): no more additional difficulty (nerfs to mere Malefic spam by consequence of more potency being moved elsewhere than is added to AST's ceiling, or the like) spread away from the existing more blanketing/engulfing factors (like mere minimization of overheating or keeping ones GCD rolling) to former or new rewarded mechanics that someone who could barely clear Savage before, on average, would now, on average, have trouble clearing Extremes, etc.

If it's just added carry potential, rather than any added difficulty, though, then you're right to say I have no line in the sand.

I don't suspect we'll be allowed even that much stringency, though, so I'm not sure it matters; we'll probably just stack the rewards of those new optimizations (especially as minor/finished as they'll be, given opportunity costs) entirely *atop* the existing healer maximum throughput rather than at all requiring their use (by nerfing Malepam, oGCD healing, etc., in compensation).

And if we do actually shuffle or spread healer difficulty around, then the larger impact would still be on the healing side of things anyways (making minimizing healing more complex than *just* avoiding at-cost heals 99% of the time), at least unless healer fillers were absolutely nuked (which wouldn't happen unless they had extreme amounts of shared resource cost attacks, because players still deserve to be able to level reasonably on healers)...

[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.