What Healer kit (not encounter) change would make GCD heals NOT bad gameplay?

[Renathras]

Well, while https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...lers.../page13 is the thread that discussion was happening in, it moved on.

Man the topic shifted.

So new thread then:

Wanted to ask a question after reading Nizzi's post here in the SGE thread: https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...=1#post6309157

So, I'm confused about something:

SGE: Toxicon is bad because you shouldn't use GCD shields because they're GCDs, but if you do, Toxicon is still bad because it's a DPS loss. So using Toxicon or using GCD shields are bad and that needs to be changed.

WHM: Using non-Lily GCD heals are bad because they're a DPS loss. So actually using GCDs on WHM that aren't Glare or Rapture is bad...but that needs to not change, as making those other things damage neutral would be bad.

I'm trying to figure out what change we can make to these Jobs to make it where using GCD heals is NOT bad gameplay.

So, the question:

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How would you make using GCD heals NOT bad gameplay, if not them being damage neutral?

How would you change WHM's mechanics such that using Medica instead of Rapture or Cure 2 instead of Tetra is actually good gameplay?

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Note that the question is not "How do we make these things proc from oGCDs". We have all these GCD heal buttons. How can we make them useful and valuable and not poor gameplay to use, aside from making them damage neutral?[EDIT: Note that this isn't some intent to push the damage neutral thing. I'm genuinely wondering what other options are out there.]

[Aravell]

Depends on how you define "bad gameplay". Do you mean "I lost damage", "I'm overhealing" or what? There's basically no way to make GCD healing not "bad gameplay" in regards to how the current playerbase thinks as they're too used to the abundance of free healing tools we have now. You can see all the calls for Toxikon to be damage neutral, nobody nowadays wants to lose damage when there's so many free tools that lose you nothing.

The only thing they can do without making damage neutrality is by massively cutting down the free tools on every healer, return to the HW style of healer kits (mostly GCD, limited OGCD). If WHM is to flourish as a GCD healer, every other healer also has to have a cost to their healing or WHM is made worse by default.

In short, if everyone loses damage when healing, no one will be lambasted for healing and losing damage for it.

[Semirhage]

Depends on how you define "bad gameplay". Do you mean "I lost damage", "I'm overhealing" or what? There's basically no way to make GCD healing not "bad gameplay" in regards to how the current playerbase thinks as they're too used to the abundance of free healing tools we have now. You can see all the calls for Toxikon to be damage neutral, nobody nowadays wants to lose damage when there's so many free tools that lose you nothing.

The only thing they can do without making damage neutrality is by massively cutting down the free tools on every healer, return to the HW style of healer kits (mostly GCD, limited OGCD). If WHM is to flourish as a GCD healer, every other healer also has to have a cost to their healing or WHM is made worse by default.

In short, if everyone loses damage when healing, no one will be lambasted for healing and losing damage for it.

Pretty much. "It's a damage loss" is only a problem because you have a different healer five feet away you can point to who does exactly the same thing, but for free, with no interruption to damage at all.

There's also the problem with the healing kits being uninteresting flat landscapes of nothing. Do you want to heal one person for (an amount)? Or one person for (higher amount)? Or everyone for (amount)? Or everyone for (higher amount over time)? If WHM isn't allowed to have interesting downtime, and isn't allowed to have interesting healing, then its gameplay loop is....uh... spam!

[ASkellington]

Reduce oGCDs and balance them by cost in either MP, CD or both.

If I had say my lv70 AST tool kit with maybe Macro and Exalt only added with Exaltation being on maybe a 90s cool down it would mean I would have 1 aoe heal on a 3min CD that heals more with more damage taken. 1 single target heal on a 1min CD that reduces damage and then heals at the end. A charge of a strong burst heal every 40s that heals more the less health a target has, 2 AOE HoTs, one with a small radius to HoT with and the larger radius to mit and a massive AOE that covers the arena that I can detonate early or plan out and get a massive heal with after 10 seconds. And my GCD heals for back up with Synastry finally being "ok" (I still want it to work with the HoT part of A.Benefic dammit!)

Adjust the timers of my oGCD AOEs to 90s and/or 2min annnnd now I can't use Celestial Opposition every unavoidable AOE damage and ES now now needs to be planned.

Or at least... it makes it feel more rewarding to use my oGCDs.

My GCDs... I feel the recast timer is too short for that. Its like ESO healing - you spam. The cast time being short makes slide casting easy. If I need to use Benefic 2 several times in a row my MP doesn't suffer for it (hello cards, hello Trashdyne) But it doesn't make using my GCDs fun to use.

There's no... weight to them I guess. And they're so far removed from my oGCDs (at least on AST).

But either way, reducing the amount of oGCDs we have and balancing them by at LEAST increasing the recast timer would help in part bring them more use.

[Supersnow845]

oGCD’s should be pruned and healers should need to actually treat mana as a resource again, I have no idea who the hell signed off on astrodyne but it is the stupidest skill because it makes AST a literal bottomless tank of MP even on 0 piety

You should have to juggle between limited oGCD’s (imagine how impactful a well positioned lilybell would be if you didn’t get 1 lilybell per minute just spamming rapture) and mana heavy GCD’s to maintain everyone’s health and damage becomes a “do I have enough mana and time for this”

While all healing can be done with limitless free oGCD’s GCD’s are never going to feel good

[Aravell]

There's also the problem with the healing kits being uninteresting flat landscapes of nothing. Do you want to heal one person for (an amount)? Or one person for (higher amount)? Or everyone for (amount)? Or everyone for (higher amount over time)? If WHM isn't allowed to have interesting downtime, and isn't allowed to have interesting healing, then its gameplay loop is....uh... spam!

This part is actually a big concern to me after EW launch. The moment the anticipated new healer was revealed to be a Nocturnal AST framework with SCH cooldowns slapped on it along with an Aetherflow gauge that charges over time instead of pressing a button to trigger it, I now fear that the dev team no longer have any ideas on how to move the healer role forwards.

It's not even solely about the damage kit, the healing kit is also showing signs of becoming stale and no longer creative. We get gold here and there like Macrocosmos, Panhaima and Expedience, but everything else is just so similar.

[Supersnow845]

This part is actually a big concern to me after EW launch. The moment the anticipated new healer was revealed to be a Nocturnal AST framework with SCH cooldowns slapped on it along with an Aetherflow gauge that charges over time instead of pressing a button to trigger it, I now fear that the dev team no longer have any ideas on how to move the healer role forwards.

It's not even solely about the damage kit, the healing kit is also showing signs of becoming stale and no longer creative. We get gold here and there like Macrocosmos, Panhaima and Expedience, but everything else is just so similar.

What you mean you don’t want another pointlessly overpowered heal at level 100 that doesnt gel with your kit at all and then have yoshi p say “idk we didn’t know what to do with you”

Shock horror, healers demanding way too much as usual

[Sebazy]

There's a few different ways SE can approach this. All of them have their issues though, imo there's no perfect route to solve this, IMO the least disruptive way is to reduce the relative value and pressure to min-max every GCD into Glare spam.

Right now our GCD nuke is around 65-80% of our damage total on a well played healer. Unsurprisingly WHM has the least with optimised play landing at around 65%, SCH has the highest hitting 80%+.

The most straight forward way to reduce this is pressure is to simply move more of our potency onto our dot and off our nuke. The downside to this approach is it feels like a nerf even if it isn't. Our most visible damage numbers going backwards isn't going to be a great feeling. So one possible angle that could help course correct that is to add other forms of bursty damage refund akin to WHM's misery. There's lots of different ways you could do this, random freebie ideas include making aetherflow charge usage cause an aoe explosion around the fairy, giving the lady minor arcana card a thorns style damage shield effect.

Basically, the more you dilute the relative value and importance of each individual nuke, the less important it becomes to focus on nuking every last GCD.

There are other ways of skewing this number of course, but IMO they are far more problematic, bringing back accuracy for nukes is one such way, making our nuke mp cost prohibitive is another. But doing these without offering a compelling alternative to spend our GCDs on would be disasterous. Remember that whilst the importance of our gcd nukes is one side of the coin, the complete lack of need to actually GCD heal for the majority of content is very much the other side and it can't be overlooked.

Regarding the above. I've been saying SE are creatively bankrupt for job design for years now:

https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...ealer-designer.

The tiny job team hasn't scaled up since the days of ARR. That's absolute madness given how much the game has grown in size and complexity not to mention the job count has effectively doubled. IMO the current ethos of homogenisation and safe stale incremental design is as much a byproduct of trying to rush things through with minimal cost as it is any concern over balance.

[ty_taurus]

So, I'm confused about something:

I'm trying to figure out what change we can make to these Jobs to make it where using GCD heals is NOT bad gameplay.

First of all, "Bad" is a gross simplification of the situation you're describing. I can't speak for everyone who's engaged with these conversations in the past, but I do understand what someone means when they refer to GCD healing as "Bad."

The best healer player is a player who has maximized their damage output while still providing just enough healing to sustain the party throughout the entire encounter. Ignoring lilies for a moment, GCD healing comes at the opportunity cost of damage--using a spell like Cure means you've lost a cast of Glare, essentially. This does not mean GCD healing is inherently useless, but when you are trying to perform to the best of your abilities as a healer, you need to think about what you lose when you cast a spell like Cure II or Medica II, including the damage you lose as a consequence of needing to heal. In other words, if that healing spell is not necessary, you are hurting your performance casting it. Thing is, that opportunity cost itself is not actually a bad thing. As the healer, it's at your discretion to choose when you need to cast a heal, and when you can attack. That ability to choose at any given moment makes healing interesting and makes healing feel rewarding when done correctly.

The problem we have with GCD healing now is not because GCD healing is "Bad," but that it's been power crept. Tanks have gained a considerable amount of self-sustain, removing a lot of need to spot heal them in encounters. Healers have gained many additional OGCD healing actions as well--heals that come at no opportunity cost at all. The result is an environment where GCD healing is almost never necessary at all. Dungeons, Trials, Normal Raids, Alliance Raids, even some Extremes and Savages can be completed while healing exclusively with OGCD healing (at least with Scholar and Sage), and the lilies, while being GCD, refund the damage they cost by rewarding you with Misery. Medica II isn't "Bad" because it's a weak heal. It's just not needed anymore, most of the time. It still is necessary in most Savages and Extremes to some degree, though.

That said, the reason I say that the current healer design philosophy is not sustainable is because if we continue down this path, get two more free healing actions in 7.0, tools like Medica II are just going to get even more power crept and will be used even less often. We can't just keep adding more and more heals, adding more and more regens, barriers, or other secondary healing effects to existing cooldowns, and leave the healers like that. We are bloating out hotbars and knocking existing healing tools out of circulation. Once upon a time, Succor was a major part of playing a Scholar, but now it's almost never needed.

Having said all that, I also don't mean to imply that OGCD heals are inherently bad or unhealthy for the development of the game either. I would say that the total lack of OGCD healing in ARR meant that healing felt more binary. In HW, each healer got more, but also didn't have that many either. It created more opportunities for choice, and the removal of Cleric Stance in SB allowed that choice to feel more fluid. In HW, you'd need to drop Cleric Stance to use Tetragrammaton effectively, but in SB you could weave it directly after an Aero II. Yet GCD healing still wasn't so heavily power crept in SB, and you'd still rely on your healing spells regularly throughout even casual environments. It's all about striking a good balance.

What I'm getting at is, the solution isn't about making Medica better than Rapture or Cure 2 better than Solace or Tetragrammaton. It's pruning excess healing and ensuring that content creates enough reasons to actively ask players to make those opportunity costs again. Free healing is something we should have a limited amount of and that we can use to our advantage.

[Eastwall]

To this day, l still can't get the why healer needs to contribute to dps check.