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

[Mimilu]

AST could have a button sorta like gemshine. On its own it’s inactive but it changes when you deal a card. Like if you deal balance or spear this new spell becomes a flat potency single target. If you deal ewer or spire this spell deals slightly less damage and debuffs the enemy. Anyone who attacks that enemy regen’s HP. Something like that.

Somewhat unrelated: should AST stances come back?

I started a write up about how I would change the healers and for AST, one of the things I thought of was bringing back the Sects but I changed Nocturnal to focus on burst healing and placing a buff that reduced incoming damage for 6 seconds to mirror both Nocts old barriers and Disable. (゜▽゜; )

[Hyperia]

Healers shouldn't need a damage rotation, there should be sufficient incoming damage that they should be constantly busy healing the group or individuals. 80% of our GCDs should be occupied with some form of healing, the rest can be buffs or some DPS, but we should be mostly busy with healing.

I'm going to come right out and say that I believe its encounter design problems. I am also going to come out and say that not everybody can or should be a healer, its a difficult job and it should be challenging, just like tanking.

Every game I have healed since Everquest in 2001 through WoW in 2014, I had to heal and heal a lot, it was a challenge and I enjoyed it. XIV had the same feeling back in ARR 2.x but it gradually diminished the further I got into the game up through Endwalker.

I think that the Devs have spent too much time trying to make healing so easy that nobody needs healers.

Edit:

<humor> Well, if they keep simplifying healers, sometime in the future we will be down to 2 buttons. A DPS button that charges up a 2nd button that does a full group heal and then back to DPS to charge up for another big group heal. </humor>

[Aword3213]

Just confidently incorrect as always. Making healing more difficult would put strain on people who just spam medica 2 over and over. Giving them 2 extra dots or whatever wont. Normal modes dont have enrages, ex trial enrages are always the dps' fault. Meanwhile heal checks exist in all content. They are very easy in normal mode for a reason.

Sure, but the issue where high end contents could be completed by non healer comp still won’t be addressed.

Something needs to be done to healers other than moooooore damage buttons.

You can have the most engaging damage rotation in the world, but non healer comp still don’t want you. Healers are still not needed aside from that mandatory healer participation requirement enforced by duty finder.

[Doragan]

Sure, but the issue where high end contents could be completed by non healer comp still won’t be addressed.

I understand this is a healing issue, but in this case, wouldn't the issue comes from tank and DPS kits?

[Sebazy]

Sure, but the issue where high end contents could be completed by non healer comp still won’t be addressed.

Something needs to be done to healers other than moooooore damage buttons.

You can have the most engaging damage rotation in the world, but non healer comp still don’t want you. Healers are still not needed aside from that mandatory healer participation requirement enforced by duty finder.

Clean energy doesn't solve world hunger, thus it's time to reopen the coal mines!

Seriously though, it's 2 different problems and as such, likely needs 2 different solutions to resolve both. (Personally I don't actually think no healer comps are that big a deal, IMHO a big part of why it blew up was that healers were already pretty salty at the time, it was just extra material to be annoyed over).

[SargeTheSeagull]

So I'm not an AST main, never have been, and I play mainly on console/gamepad (tho im starting to get more into mnkb). I wouldn't mind GCD cards in principal because drawing a card, recognizing which it is, deciding who to give it to, tapping down on the D pad between 2 and 7 times, and hitting play in the span of less than 2.5 seconds is a LOT of inputs very very fast. So here's the question: What solution is the best?
1. Draw/play are on the GCD with a 2.5sec recast.
2. They're ogcd as they are now.
3. They're on the GCD but accelerated like eukrasia
4. They're ogcd BUT they extend the gcd when you use them. So you cast malefic- 2.5 sec gcd, .5 sec later you hit draw, it extends the GCD by another .5 seconds.
5. They're ogcd but auto target someone. Say we have SB cards back. You draw bole, it automatically goes on whoever has highest aggro. You draw ewer it auto goes to whoever has the lowest MP. etc etc
6. They're ogcd but all of them are always party wide.

[IDontPetLalas]

So I'm not an AST main, never have been, and I play mainly on console/gamepad (tho im starting to get more into mnkb). I wouldn't mind GCD cards in principal because drawing a card, recognizing which it is, deciding who to give it to, tapping down on the D pad between 2 and 7 times, and hitting play in the span of less than 2.5 seconds is a LOT of inputs very very fast. So here's the question: What solution is the best?
1. Draw/play are on the GCD with a 2.5sec recast.
2. They're ogcd as they are now.
3. They're on the GCD but accelerated like eukrasia
4. They're ogcd BUT they extend the gcd when you use them. So you cast malefic- 2.5 sec gcd, .5 sec later you hit draw, it extends the GCD by another .5 seconds.
5. They're ogcd but auto target someone. Say we have SB cards back. You draw bole, it automatically goes on whoever has highest aggro. You draw ewer it auto goes to whoever has the lowest MP. etc etc
6. They're ogcd but all of them are always party wide.

I'm just going to put out there there that I read through them, and as you say- you're not an AST main, there are AST mains who play on console ( I don't play on console) who don't have those specific issues, just as I spent time on my HUD so that I can quickly apply cards and switch targets.

So with that being said, and with the history Ask's recent prior comments, which I am generally aligned with, I wouldn't be all interested in (5). One wouldn't be a great option, 3 could be interesting, 2 is business as usual (OK), 4 I would want to know more about, and 6 would be very interesting, but I don't expect that would be accepted.

[ForsakenRoe]

So I'm not an AST main, never have been, and I play mainly on console/gamepad (tho im starting to get more into mnkb). I wouldn't mind GCD cards in principal because drawing a card, recognizing which it is, deciding who to give it to, tapping down on the D pad between 2 and 7 times, and hitting play in the span of less than 2.5 seconds is a LOT of inputs very very fast. So here's the question: What solution is the best?
1. Draw/play are on the GCD with a 2.5sec recast.
2. They're ogcd as they are now.
3. They're on the GCD but accelerated like eukrasia
4. They're ogcd BUT they extend the gcd when you use them. So you cast malefic- 2.5 sec gcd, .5 sec later you hit draw, it extends the GCD by another .5 seconds.
5. They're ogcd but auto target someone. Say we have SB cards back. You draw bole, it automatically goes on whoever has highest aggro. You draw ewer it auto goes to whoever has the lowest MP. etc etc
6. They're ogcd but all of them are always party wide.

The least favourable of these IMO are 5 and 6, because they remove agency from the player. You don't get to choose who to put it on, it's either automatic based on certain conditions (which might not be ideal, eg Bole you might want to put on the OT, not the MT, for a OT-targetting TB) or it just hits everyone (which would only be 'good' if all the effects were the same, like now)

One thing that does come to mind is, while NIN got GCD mudras, and that 'slowed the class down', it also opened up room to fill that OGCD space with new tools, so we could fit more of the OGCD stuff in Trick than before. Additionally, the mudras became stronger due to being GCD. Raiton was 360, now it's 650. So if cards were on a 'fast GCD' like Ninjutsu (either the 0.5 of the mudra, or 1.0 of the Ninjutsu button), it'd mean they'd be made stronger in effect to compensate. Rather than 6%, maybe they go to 1.0s GCD but are 10% effect. But again, I don't see the GCD being the problem, I see the reduction in CPM as the problem. If we keep the CPM the same with OGCD weaving something else in place of the cards (or there being faster GCD speeds, like cards being mudra-speed) then it equals out IMO

Looking at 3, 'accelerated GCDs'. If Draw and Play were 0.5s GCDs, they'd be like Mudra speed. Meaning that doing your burst window now of 'Card, Draw, Card, Draw, Card, Draw Minor, Minor', that'd be 3.5s total. Ironically, this would be faster than the current cards, in terms of 'window to react to new card, and play on correct person'. Currently you have Draw (0.7s animation lock), Play, or more often, Draw (0.7s), Malefic (0.7s), Play, Draw. The above GCD layout though, would only give 0.5s to react, rather than our current 'usual' 1.4s, so I could see SE making them 1.0s or even 1.5/1.0 like Eukrasia. But then again, I'm not exactly enthralled with 'Draw' as a button, I would not mind if it was removed (so cards are drawn automatically, MP restore moved to Play) and the CPM it contributed were shifted elsewhere in the kit

I can't wait for the AST rework, only because I want to see what a dumpster fire it is. I have pretty much zero faith that SE will do anything right with it, given that they've been doing 'wrong' with it for two expansions in a row now

[Aravell]

One thing that does come to mind is, while NIN got GCD mudras, and that 'slowed the class down', it also opened up room to fill that OGCD space with new tools, so we could fit more of the OGCD stuff in Trick than before. Additionally, the mudras became stronger due to being GCD. Raiton was 360, now it's 650. So if cards were on a 'fast GCD' like Ninjutsu (either the 0.5 of the mudra, or 1.0 of the Ninjutsu button), it'd mean they'd be made stronger in effect to compensate. Rather than 6%, maybe they go to 1.0s GCD but are 10% effect. But again, I don't see the GCD being the problem, I see the reduction in CPM as the problem. If we keep the CPM the same with OGCD weaving something else in place of the cards (or there being faster GCD speeds, like cards being mudra-speed) then it equals out IMO

Unfortunately, I don't think they'll use the design space a change like that would open up at all. Let's take NIN for an example again:

OGCDs used in burst before GCD mudras:
All ninjutsu
Dream within a Dream
Bhavacakra
Meisui
Ten Chi Jin
Mug
Trick Attack

OGCDs used in burst after GCD mudras:
Dream within a Dream
Bhavacakra
Meisui
Ten Chi Jin
Mug
Trick Attack

All they did was remove ninjutsu from the OGCD pile, they added nothing to keep the speed. Just look at NIN during non-burst play, they've undeniably been slowed down. I don't expect SE to account for the slowing down of AST if they make cards GCD either, they'd just slap cards onto the GCD and do nothing else. Most changes they've made have been that way lately, they just take from a design and give nothing back. So I'd rather keep the OGCD cards and not imagine a better system with GCD cards, because there will be none.

[Mecia]

Put Draw on the GCD and make it deal damage equal to Malefic? Give AST a card to start with and make Draw not require a target for downtime purposes.