How would you solve the boring "damage rotation" of the healers?

[Shougun]

Suggested before, but imo they should make half the healers consume the concept of support damage. Remove some healing, ensure that the overall healing required for content isn't lost due to this, create a split between the healers with one being enemy focused and the other being ally focused. Support skills that focus on ally would have added damage limiters for better expectation and balance (if you have 5% damage to all party members, this would bias larger parties).

SCH and SGE would become offensive healers, much of SCH would be returned to the way it was. New healing spells could also be introduced (or remixed of current ones), like what I suggested in Dark Healer thread- curse that prevents X out going damage. Primary difference being target.
WHM and AST would become support healers. An example of a support skill that is damage limited would be an en-skill like en-stone on WHM might add 100 potency per skill to the allied target, and 50 potency per self cast to self buff that is expended on next damage skill, up to 500 potency (if not in a party both effects affect the healer). If skill issue of your allies is a concern can make the buffs last a while, or add backup mechanics like if the buff expires with potency remaining grant WHM a buff that allows them to oGCD instant cast stone/glare for 80% of the remaining potency (at no cost).

The idea being SCH and SGE would target the enemies a lot and the allies sometimes, WHM and AST target allies a lot and the enemy sometimes. Both would be dealing damage, both will have similar healing capabilities as before but less healing skills and or healing skills combined with other mechanics (like if there was a curse heal, it might be mixed with just dealing damage- as SCH deals BIO via bane all enemies also get ticked by 50 (3 or more afflicted)/100 (1 afflicted) potency of prevented damage that stacks until consumed by the enemy dealing damage).


Biggest issue is that gear linearly grows (we don't have a horizontal gearing system), content gets easier (self balancing for a large audience), and tanks are self sufficient in easier content (when players use their abilities). Now if you nerf the tanks you don't solve the issue, but would delay it a bit, and then it would be a few heals before going back to 1 2 1 2 1 2. When content is new, even in EW, there was a lot more going on because of bad gear, no echo, and no tank skills. I think the primary issue is actually the gear, then tank skills, and then any sort of content player buffs.

I think without massive changes to multiple systems the easier solution is to concentrate some of the healing actions and bring in support for some of the healers (that leads to damage) and return / reinforce the offense that other healers had liked (for example returning much of SCH, if not improving it 'in that focus').

[TheDustyOne]

Healers not healing enough is a fight design problem, not a healer kit problem. It only becomes a healer kit problem when we don't have enough healing tools for the incoming damage.

That still doesn't take away from the fact that:

1. We can still have a varied DPS kit when healing isn't needed.
2. The existence of a DPS kit doesn't mean that less healing is needed. That's up for the boss to dish out.
3. Damage from the bosses should be increased in all content going forward.

Handicapping healer kits by telling them that they shouldn't have more DPS options because "hEaLeRs OnLy HeAl" is destructive to how we can design healer jobs. At least if healers have a more compelling DPS kit, they won't get bored during the lull periods where no damage is going out from the boss.

Only fixing damage output from bosses isn't good, it only solves half the issue. Only adding in DPS spells isn't good, it only solves half the issue. Both are needed to solve the healer issues.

I think I'm starting to understand how Ty feels.

[ChrysOCE]

Handicapping healer kits by telling them that they shouldn't have more DPS options because "hEaLeRs OnLy HeAl" is destructive to how we can design healer jobs.[/SIZE]

Who here has actually said "I ONLY want to heal, as a healer"?

[TheDustyOne]

It has cropped up in this thread in the past, and usually it comes across from people asking to keep DPS kits how they are "because I'm a healer, not a DPS, make me heal more", typically not realising how much we need to increase incoming damage to actually make us use most of our kits, or that you can have more to heal alongside extra DPS options. You yourself said in the first page:

If I wanted an interesting DPS rotation, I would play DPS. When I play healer, I want to heal/mitigate/support.

The sentiment is still very much the same. Healer kits should be bad because you're a healer and not a DPS.

[ChrysOCE]

It has cropped up in this thread in the past, and usually it comes across from people asking to keep DPS kits how they are "because I'm a healer, not a DPS, make me heal more", typically not realising how much we need to increase incoming damage to actually make us use most of our kits, or that you can have more to heal alongside extra DPS options. You yourself said in the first page:



The sentiment is still very much the same. Healer kits should be bad because you're a healer and not a DPS.

No that is not the same sentiment. Saying that, when I heal, I want healing/mitigation/support to be my focus is not the same as saying "hEaLeRs OnLy HeAl".

[Maltothoris]

Well there a thing with the mitigation and support for healers. They've taken away quite a few things that healers used to be able to do in those categories. In mitigation, scholars lost virus and that was turned into addle and feint while astros lost disable and that was eliminated. For support,astro had all the different cards but not it can only do damage and its clear in their minds that only astro and sch should be able to buff the damage of the party.

I hate to be rude but Yoshi-p and his team are fools when it comes to healers.

[TheDustyOne]

So what exactly do you want to do when there is no healing required?

If you want healing to be at a point where you're healing for a large majority of the fight, then you pretty much do just want healers to only heal. If you want there to be some level of downtime for recovery and optimization, then DPS should be more interesting in that period than Glaroillicosis + DoT and I have no idea why you would be against more DPS options.

[ChrysOCE]

So what exactly do you want to do when there is no healing required?

If you want healing to be at a point where you're healing for a large majority of the fight, then you pretty much do just want healers to only heal. If you want there to be some level of downtime for recovery and optimization, then DPS should be more interesting in that period than Glaroillicosis + DoT and I have no idea why you would be against more DPS options.

Individual/party support management, boss debuff management, I don't know, I'm not a game designer. I'm not saying I don't want to do ANY DPS. I'm also not saying that ALL I want to do is heal. But if the majority of what I am doing is DPS, then it starts to feel like that is all I am.

[TheDustyOne]

Individual/party support management, boss debuff management, I don't know, I'm not a game designer. I'm not saying I don't want to do ANY DPS. I'm also not saying that ALL I want to do is heal. But if the majority of what I am doing is DPS, then it starts to feel like that is all I am.

Then you and I don't fully disagree, the existence of extra DPS buttons doesn't mean that we heal/support/mitigate/debuff less. It just means we have more to do when those aren't needed. A buffer job like AST could fill the niche for buffing allies when healing isn't needed while still meaningfully contributing to the parties damage.

We do have to be careful however when increasing healing requirements. We can only go so far before it goes from engaging and fun to frustrating, and that can vary massively with player skill. I do think it needs to be higher in all forms of content, but casual content I think can't go too much higher than what Zeromus or P10 offered.

[IDontPetLalas]

Then you and I don't fully disagree, the existence of extra DPS buttons doesn't mean that we heal/support/mitigate/debuff less. It just means we have more to do when those aren't needed. A buffer job like AST could fill the niche for buffing allies when healing isn't needed while still meaningfully contributing to the parties damage.

We do have to be careful however when increasing healing requirements. We can only go so far before it goes from engaging and fun to frustrating, and that can vary massively with player skill. I do think it needs to be higher in all forms of content, but casual content I think can't go too much higher than what Zeromus or P10 offered.

Perhaps, however what attracted me to AST was the ability to heal, buff and DPS.

If you look at the results of this survey https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...aler-additions then the highest percentage here for AST is actually related to attacks (DPS actions) , followed closely by Draw/Play actions and changes to the the arcana gauge- actions related to buffs.