I'm bored when I heal because I need more complex DPS rotations

[Shurrikhan]

IMO don't need a more complex DPS rotation. You need encounters that actually make you play as a healer instead of a green DPS.

They're not mutually exclusive, after all.

Yeah, you'll lose some of the filler, and sometimes have too much healing required to fully optimize the new DPS options in themselves, but... so what?

[Aravell]

They're not mutually exclusive, after all.

Yeah, you'll lose some of the filler, and sometimes have too much healing required to fully optimize the new DPS options in themselves, but... so what?

It seems like some people are under the misconception that it's an either-or situation, like people will kick a healer that's not doing a fully-optimised dps rotation in regular content(nobody does that).

What baffles me is that everyone can agree that a healer's main job is to heal, but when the topic of extra dps buttons is brought up, suddenly all the dps buttons must be pressed in perfect order before you can heal? It doesn't make any sense.

[Shurrikhan]

It seems like some people are under the misconception that it's an either-or situation, like people will kick a healer that's not doing a fully-optimised dps rotation in regular content(nobody does that).

What baffles me is that everyone can agree that a healer's main job is to heal, but when the topic of extra dps buttons is brought up, suddenly all the dps buttons must be pressed in perfect order before you can heal? It doesn't make any sense.

Heck, we could even say "A Healer's primary job is to maximize their contribution to rDPS" and... that'd still mean keeping people alive over optimizing their own dps, unless everyone else came in with broken gear and a single brain cell.

[Rein_eon_Osborne]

[...]They're not mutually exclusive, after all.

Yeah, you'll lose some of the filler, and sometimes have too much healing required to fully optimize the new DPS options in themselves, but... so what?

Ok ok, so... let's get them to design better healing buttons. Hoorraaayy!

We get to play interestingly for... 25% of the encounter, and boringly for 75% remainder?

Wow lmao.

[Shurrikhan]

Ok ok, so... let's get them to design better healing buttons. Hoorraaayy!

We get to play interestingly for... 25% of the encounter, and boringly for 75% remainder?

Wow lmao.

???

Again... they're not mutually exclusive. Having our healing buttons not be weirdly stratified, stupidly obvious/rigid in their use cases (Bell, Panhaima, etc.), redundant or wasteful of former tools, etc., having an MP bar with the potential for positive gameplay impact instead of acting as a clunky rez meter, etc., do not prevent having more interesting downtime tools.

[Rein_eon_Osborne]

???

Again... they're not mutually exclusive. Having our healing buttons not be weirdly stratified, stupidly obvious/rigid in their use cases (Bell, Panhaima, etc.), redundant or wasteful of former tools, etc., having an MP bar with the potential for positive gameplay impact instead of acting as a clunky rez meter, etc., do not prevent having more interesting downtime tools.

Nay, I agree totally with you. I would love for them to design it better on all front. Healing buttons, dps buttons, utility, heck even encounter (lol fat hope). Just chiming in that fixing only the healing side of gameplay won't magically fix all the issue the role have.

I forgot to put '/s' at the end so that was on me.

[angienessyo]

IMO don't need a more complex DPS rotation. You need encounters that actually make you play as a healer instead of a green DPS.

Agreed. I don't think healers would really be complaining about the state of their DPS rotation if their role was actually engaging on the healing end.

[ForsakenRoe]

Where's my WHM with a mildly more interesting DPS kit, perhaps along the lines of ForsakenRoe's proposal? Where's my simple, direct HP restoration and regen healer with a DPS kit based on direct damage that isn't godawful boring?

Sorry brother but you'll have to keep asking, cos mine had Dia stay as a DOT so it doesn't count /s

Agreed. I don't think healers would really be complaining about the state of their DPS rotation if their role was actually engaging on the healing end.

Probably, but I expect it to be even less likely for SE to make healing engaging than to give us some 'mostly ignorable extra damage buttons', since 'not being able to keep up with the extra healing' directly translates to 'party wipes because they hit zero HP'

[Renathras]

Where's my WHM with a mildly more interesting DPS kit, perhaps along the lines of ForsakenRoe's proposal? Where's my simple, direct HP restoration and regen healer with a DPS kit based on direct damage that isn't godawful boring?

Are you proposing we add a healer?

I mean, this goes both ways: Where's my non-complicated SCH, AST, or SGE? Where's my SCH, AST, or SGE with simple DPS and focus on GCD healing? Where's my healer Job that is focused on healing instead of damage dealing? Where's my healer that doesn't have an annoying, tedious DPS "rotation"? (I find DPS rotations boring, that's why I don't play DPSers as I don't find their "gameplay" engaging).

Either we have what we have now or we have a mix. There's no useful situation where we go to all the healer Jobs going from the same 2 button rotation to all having a complex DPS rotation. All you're doing then is changing which group of people you're pissing off, so that's not a valid solution.

Agreed. I don't think healers would really be complaining about the state of their DPS rotation if their role was actually engaging on the healing end.

...some would. There legitimately are some people that play healer Jobs but really want to be DPSers.

But I agree most wouldn't be complaining if the healing was actually interesting in high end content.

To be fair, though, many people aren't complaining NOW. So that's something to consider as well, that many people are content with the current system.

Probably, but I expect it to be even less likely for SE to make healing engaging than to give us some 'mostly ignorable extra damage buttons', since 'not being able to keep up with the extra healing' directly translates to 'party wipes because they hit zero HP'

If we're talking Savages (or even Extremes), that's irrelevant, since not doing enough DPS also leads to party wipes due to enrages.

EDIT:

I do agree with the idea overall, But isn’t this ultimately just the same thing?

Well, I tend to think of SCH as being more like old SMN or SB SCH while SGE I would think is more akin to RDM (RDM has no DoTs) or BLM or something, where it's more about combo actions or relations. This could take the form of Dualcast-esque mechanics like RDM, or SGE being ranged with pew pew lasers means it could be designed to have a damage kit something like MCH, which would be more active but less "upkeeep/DoT" focused. I think either would feel different to play than old-SMN-esque DoT mage.

So these would still be two different playstyles.

SCH can have a DPS focus via DoTs since it could use oGCDs to weave Faerie abilities and use Eos more seriously as the basis of its healing.

Likewise, SGE can have a DPS focus via direct damage spells (or even WEAPONSKILLS if we go the MCH route), leveraging Kardia and oGCDs that enhance, boost, AOE-ify, etc Kardia so that its healing is primarily through the Kardia mechanic and proper rotation increases the healing done

SCH would, of course, have Diagnosis and Prognosis to fall back on if the player horribly flubbed their damage rotation or something and lost healing that they needed to make up for, but the goal should be to heal by damage upkeep in this case, which contrasts with SCH's kit under this idea being upkeep of DoTs while freely weaving oGCD Faerie abilities to conduct its healing. SCH's healing would be more active on the part of the player directing Eos (and just keeping DoTs up "on the side" to maintain damage output) while SGE's would be more automatic while doing their damage rotation, with Kardia swapping and Kardia-boosting/modifying oGCDs weaved to enhance its effects to be sufficient healing for the party.

And yeah, AST as a party buffer makes more sense as its already built that way. They just need to make cards more available (instead of one charge per 30 sec) to make it feel like you're constantly throwing out buffs left and right, not just cramming 3 out all at once and then not doing any for a few mins.

Except it's still not an either-or situation. The devs have proven that they can create a satisfying healing kit with good interactions, a satisfying dps kit with room for skill expression and good fight design that requires healers to heal, all this was done back in SB. We're asking for them to go back to that good balance of design instead of trying to push all the complexity into the mechanics dance itself, which is clearly not working because you only progress a fight once, after you clear, you now understand the fight to the point that most of the complexity is already gone. (Also, the more complex moving parts they put into a single mechanic, the more limited the solution becomes, but that's another problem entirely.)

You mean the expansion where one healer was completely benched, one spec of the one healer with specs (AST) was mostly benched, and people who didn't enjoy DPSing on healers were sidelined from content?

That doesn't sound like an improvement.

...and, ironically, notwithstanding that: You DO know my proposal IS to more or less revert SCH and AST to SB, right? The only change I'd make offhand is for SCH to keep Expedient and the far better pet responsiveness we have now.

As for the damage kit, it could be expanded somewhat. But, my concern is S.E. will not provide us with challenging content. That would result in healers using their damage spells most of the time. They'd be like blue mages rather than healing classes. That's why I lean toward the idea of changing the healing toolkit to make healing fun again; rather than, adding a more involved damage rotation.

Just wanted to say I very much agree with this.

It would really suck if we're just given DPS kits instead of healing and told "Now you shouldn't be bored since you have DPS rotations!"

I hate DPS rotations. If I liked them, I'd play DPS Jobs. The reason I don't play DPS Jobs is because I don't like DPS rotations, I like healing and supporting the people that do. If they make all healers more DPS intensive than SMN, I'd just play SMN or a tank, and that would suck. I might just quit the game, which would suck even more.

[ForsakenRoe]

a complex DPS rotation.

If we're talking Savages (or even Extremes), that's irrelevant, since not doing enough DPS also leads to party wipes due to enrages.

You gotta stop saying 'a complex DPS rotation', nobody is proposing 'a complex DPS rotation', just a 'more complex one than we already have'. Going from 1 inch off the ground to 2 inches is not a massive distance, but it's still an increase in altitude. Saying 'complex DPS rotation' calls to mind, for a lot of people, the likes of BLM, MNK optimizations, NIN's burst window, etc. And what most people suggest for healers, especially WHM, is still much simpler than new-SMN.

As for enrages, if the healer doing their rotation wrong (but still doing damage GCDs, eg just spamming Glare) causes a wipe in an EX trial, there's bigger issues at hand. Like, they're tuned to be clearable with like 6-8 deaths (assuming you don't get body-checked). And in Savage, there's plenty of lenience built into the enrage timer to factor in the fact that the healers will be GCD healing a lot more in week 1. I lost like 30 GCDs to GCD healing in my first clear of P11S, in week 1, and spent all but FOUR of my Aetherflow on healing. Still a clear. This 'people will wipe because they do their healer damage rotation wrong' angle purposely ignores that 'there is lenience to enrages already', or that 'potency difference between filler spell and new additions can be tuned to be low-punishment', etc. Though, given what SE did with Abyssos, I guess I can see why there'd be skepticism regarding SE's ability to balance things. But I am not about to go hamstringing my ideas of what WHM could get, because 'what if SE is really bad at balancing potency numbers'