How DPS complexity can make healers more forgiving

[Shurrikhan]

Not a critique, just more a curiosity on my part:

Can you generate a Healer damage idea that has no DoTs?

DoTs are just two things:

1. Soft CDs (you can, for near-proportionately reduced value, reuse them before their "ideal" timer; being late to use them also does not therefore cascade increasingly towards some punishing level of desync, as they can be easily corrected)
   
   
2. per target (meaning that more targets = more [simultaneously-recharging] charges of that soft CD = more available exploitation up to the point where they're overtaken by AoE spammables anyways) that therefore appear on your Target's Status Effects instead of your Status Effects (which makes them easier to track for some, harder to track for others).

Take off the latter portion, and voila, you've got a similar effect, just with a slightly lower skill ceiling in what few contexts have lie between purely single-target and AoE-spam-is-optimal.

Adjusted Sample:

DPS Spells

• Broil IV - Deals 150 potency.
• Bio III - Deals 350 potency. 3-second recast time. Damage is reduced to 70 potency after use, increasing back to 350 potency over 12 seconds after completing its recast time. Applies 1 stack of Virus; only 1 Virus can be applied by Bio III at a time.
• Miasma III - Deals 580 potency. Damage is reduced to 100 potency after use, increasing back to 580 potency over 24 seconds. Applies 1 stack of Virus; only 1 Virus can be applied by Miasma III at a time.
• Fester - 100 potency on targets with no virus stacks. 240 potency on targets with 1 virus stack. 510 potency on targets with 2 virus stacks.
• Shadowflare - Deals 750 potency. Damage is reduced to 75 potency after use, increasing back to 750 potency over 30 seconds.

The problem, of course, is that you then make SCH an exceedingly bursty assassin whose 750*1.3 relative-potency Shadowflare would deal over 333% of the AoE damage of an actual Flare (even when using AF3 and the highest value of Enochian), since TTK no longer acts at all as a limiting factor.

[ForsakenRoe]

The problem, of course, is that you then make SCH an exceedingly bursty assassin whose 750*1.3 relative-potency Shadowflare would deal over 333% of the AoE damage of an actual Flare (even when using AF3 and the highest value of Enochian), since TTK no longer acts at all as a limiting factor.

Finally, a healer design that would be good at Deep Dungeon solo runs, instead of being a fight against the timer due to low damage output

[Shurrikhan]

Finally, a healer design that would be good at Deep Dungeon solo runs, instead of being a fight against the timer due to low damage output

Aye, but even in that approach, you'd likely see at least some 10% each of the ppm from the non-fillers go to the filler instead in order to level it out (i.e., to not deal almost a tenth of its potency per minute in a single GCD of Shadowflare).

Though, if not for that ultimate fight against the timer, wouldn't WHM be similarly "bursty" already, between Assize and Misery? Which would still be the bottleneck here that SCH faces, even if it manages to frontload its ppm enough to further spare a few healing GCDs per minute, as SCH's ppm would still be just as low as ever.

[ty_taurus]

But yeah, however it'll take me a bit of time to re-math things for a different job.

Okay, so I have something for White Mage. One thing I'd like to mention first, though, is that unlike Scholar which I could largely just build off the tools it used to have, the other healers never had anything other than just less DoTs than Scholar (which is why I'm not really a fan of the 'just bring back Aero 3' argument. I don't want the healers to just be a handful of DoTs and that's it). So I built something from scratch, and in the effort of saving time, I just kinda rolled with the first ideas that came to mind, so it's definitely unrefined, but it's a decent starting point for discussion. Oh and I'll use hidden boards this time since this one is longer.

Let me start by establishing what current White Mage looks like in terms of values. I'm still using the 26 cast reference point just because it's been what I was using previously, and like before this is only counting single target and doesn't include Assize as this is just the GCD.

Endwalker

DPS Spells

• Glare III - 310 potency
• Dia - 65 potency + 65 DoT over 30 seconds (715 total potency)
• Afflatus Misery - 1240 potency

2 Minute Potential

• Dia - 4 casts = 2860 potency
• Glare IIIx22 - 6820 potency

*Note: I'm not including Afflatus Misery since it's equal to glare use, but naturally you can sub Glare casts for Afflatus heals and Misery here or anywhere really.

Total 26 Cast Potency Potential: 26 casts = 9680 potency

Remaining Glare III Casts: 22 casts = 6820 potency

Total Possible Potency in 2 Minutes = 16500 potency
26 Cast Contribution: 58.7~%
Remaining Glare Contribution: 41.3~%
Value per Glare III: 1.9~%

Theorycraft White Mage
Now that we have a reference of what the current White Mage looks like, this is the concept. It'll need a small amount of explanation since it's a more original concept than with the Scholar examples.

On the Healing Gauge, every 60 seconds, a White Lily blooms, which an be spent on Afflatus Purgation. This works like Polyglots on Black Mage (i.e. after one generates, the cooldown for the next has already begun even before you cast Afflatus Purgation)

New Gauge: The Retribution Gauge. Each casts of Banish or Ablution raises Retribution by 1 level. At level 4, enhances the Holy III spell.

Spells

• Glare III - 165 potency
• Afflatus Misery - 660 potency
• Afflatus Purgation - 480 potency.
• Dia - 120 potency. Inflicts 4 stacks of "Dia" as a debuff on the target (no duration). When casting Banish or Ablution on the target, consumes 1 stack to deal an additional 200 potency damage. (920 total potency)
• Banish - 300 potency. No MP cost. Has a 20 second cooldown on the GCD with 2 charges. Shares a recast with Ablution. When Banish is cast, you can immediately cast a free Banish or Ablution again regardless of the cooldown (think Ogi Namikiri from Samurai).
• Ablution - 300 potency. Heals self and nearby party members with a potency of 250. 800 MP cost. Has a 20 second cooldown on the GCD with 2 charges. Shares a recast with Banish. When Ablution is cast, you can immediately cast a free Banish or Ablution again regardless of the cooldown.
• Holy III - 120 potency + 4 second stun. When at level 4 Retribution, increases to 360 potency, is instant cast, and turns Glare III into a 2 action combo of Ruach into Eschaton (Think Verflare/Verholy > Scorch). This "Combo" cannot be interrupted by casting other spells.
• Ruach - 180 potency + 180 potency DoT over 15 seconds (1080 total potency)(Although this is a DoT, it's not an uptime DoT. Think Circle of Scorn from Paladin).
• Eschaton - 480 potency.

2 Minute Potential

• Dia - 3 casts = 2760 potency
• Banish/Ablution - 12 casts = 3600 potency
• Holy III - 3 casts = 1080 potency
• Ruach - 3 casts = 3240 potency
• Eschaton - 3 casts = 1230 potency
• Afflatus Purgation - 2 casts = 960 potency

Total Non-Glare Potency Potential: 26 casts = 12870 potency

Remaining Glare III Casts: 22 casts = 3630 potency

Total Possible Potency in 2 Minutes = 16500 potency
Non-Glare Contribution: 78%
Remaining Glare Contribution: 22%
Value per Glare III: 1%

Theorycraft Summary
I know it's a lot more information because it's very new, but it's a lot more simple than it seems. Basically, Banish and Ablution share a cooldown and both do light burst damage in two casts. One costs no MP, the other heals. They have a 20 second cooldown with 2 charges, and you just want to apply Dia before you cast those. When you do so is quite flexible.

Every 40ish seconds (once you've cast 4 Banishes/Ablutions) you'll hit Retribution level 4, cast Holy III, followed by a double up of Ruach/Eschaton, which are just bonus actions that replace Glare after Holy III. This cannot be interrupted unlike with Red Mage, though, so if you need to heal around that time, you can. Lastly, you can toss in an Afflatus Purgation once a minute. It's probably not perfect. As I said, I really just tried to roll with what came to mind at first just to establish this as quickly as possible, but maybe it could be a starting point for a more well-fleshed out idea.