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

[Saraide]

and are promptly told that's impossible

"2) Don't engage in hyperbole."

[ForsakenRoe]

What?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but you compared NOW's "glare only" vs "glare and proper Dia and Misery use (2 and 1 time per minute, respectively".

That's not relevant since "the gameplay now" would be "Glare and proper Dia (every 30 sec) and Misery (1 per min) use". There's no gap between Glare + 2x Dia + Misery vs Glare + 2x Dia + Misery. They're the same thing. G+2D+M = G+2D+M. There's no gap there at all. No one is asking for Glarespam to = G+2D+M right now. The question is for someone playing as they do now (G+2D+M) to have a very small gap so that they aren't negatively impacted by the change, since the point of the change is for you to be "less bored", not to have "a skill gap"...riiiiight?

On the other hand, your idea would have a gap if one only used Glare + 2x Dia + Misery vs Glare + 4x Dia + Misery + Elements. A gap that is greater than 0. This is the relevant topic of discussion. Comparing that to "Glare only" isn't relevant, since we aren't talking about "Glare only" players. We're talking about "Glare + 2 Dia + Misery" players. (Also Assize, but you get the point.)


As for what you want: That's dodging the question. I take it the answer is that you would prefer 3 change to none change, you just don't want to be on the record saying such for I suppose obvious reasons? But prove me wrong by answering the question straight.

I pointed out what was different, and we don't have a "Blessing of the Elements" button, so clearly that's difference, as would be gauge optimization, which I've been told is a big deal (on WAR), so we can't ignore that, and it doesn't change the fact 0-100 gauges are boring and overused at this point, we don't need ANOTHER one in the game. I thought we opposed homogenization?

A lot of the button consolidation cases are different to different people. I never felt I "lost" Esuna...considering I still have Esuna. (Aside: I more felt I lost Leeches on SCH, since that played into the class identity as a Doctrine of Humors physician). Never felt I "lost" Shroud, considering I still have it (effectively) in Lucid.

Considering how little WHM gameplay revolves around weaving and you don't really powerweave Assize

This also doesn't cover BoE which, as I said, you can just make PoM upgrade into and cut the CD to 60 sec, no silly gauge required. Why exactly would it not work? You still have the more varied stuff to do, so why is that insufficient...but some magical gauge that you have to try to shoehorn into a 2 min burst all the same is somehow better? What does that have to do with boredom?

As for Lily barrier: We already have Benison. We don't need YET ANOTHER button (when Solace and Rapture are borderline redundant AS IT IS) unless you're removing Benison.

I see it as doable using the existing buttons we have, you seem to think that we need "more buttons! some indeterminate amount of more!" when...we really don't.

the only thing changed here is you aren't futzing with a gauge that is a curse on literally every Job that has one other than maybe RDM.

You're getting 4x Dias per min, you're getting a big CD burst every minute, you're getting the elemental spells you always say you want, you're getting an additional GCD several times a minute...I'm failing to see why this isn't acceptable?

- You don't even know what you're arguing against, and this kinda shows it. The two 90% effectiveness ratings were derived from 'Glarespam now, vs Glares and optimal Dia refresh timings (2x)', on a dummy situation. Misery was not included because it is equal to the Glares it costs. By comparison, the 90.7%, from my design, was 'Glarespam, vs 15 Glares, 5 Dias, 4 Banishes', again ignoring Misery, or Blessing and it's refunds, because they're damage neutral and wouldn't be used on a dummy. The reason I used 'Glarespam with zero DOT uses' for both, is because my DOT would be 12s, and does not divide correctly into the 30s of the current game. It is easier to do a comparison between 'best case' and 'worst case', instead of some weird halfway point like 'in current game, player uses the DOT once (30s), whereas in Samantha-land, the player uses the DOT 2 times (24s)' because that'd cause irregularities due to the missed ticks, and paint a distorted picture. Also, It's 5 Dia's per minute with my design, not 4. If you want to compare someone who uses EXACTLY the current rotation, that is, 22 Glares and 2 Dias per minute (again ignoring Misery), then it'd be 7,680p per minute, which is 86.7% of 'fully optimal Samantha-design'. No doubt this 'proves' that the design is flawed and will cause enrages for years to come (spoilers, it doesn't, the game's built with some leeway in mind, me and my '31 Succors first-clear of P11S' are testament to that)

- Sod your record. I would prefer to have all four healers change, and have room for a player to express their skillset on them, than for three/two/one/zero of them to change. I believe that leaving any healer in the state it is in, is a grave mistake, and a failure of game design principles. If SE changes 'less than all four' and leaves any to rot, that is their decision and I'll play one of the ones that didn't get left to stagnate. You will not catch me saying the exact line you want me to say, because I don't trust it to be quoted with full context. I also don't believe it, so why would I say it? If SE decides to do only three for whatever reason, it's entirely up to them and nothing any of us say will change anything. However, I believe that WHM getting left to rot, while the other three get improved, would cause a SB level exclusion from PF, which is why I insist on all four. Not to deprive you of your job (as the maths shows, your Ninja's Hyosho Dhit Critting vs not is about the same potency loss as 'purposely using only 2 Dias per minute instead of the possible 5'), but because I don't particularly feel like seeing SB's WHM exclusion again. So I expect SE will either change all four, or more likely, change none of them. God I hope the AST rework doesn't suck, but chances are it will be even more WHMlike.

- Name a Healer that has a 0-100 gauge that is built by using damage or healing GCDs, and spends 50 on a damage-neutral heal. Homogenization only applies if the two 'homogenized things' are in the same category. Since one's a healer (WHM) and one's a tank (WAR), it's a nonsense comparison to make, and it makes you look like you're grasping at straws. Is it 'homogenization' for RPR to have it's Enshroud mechanic because it works 'kinda similarly to MCH'? Or DNC and WAR because they both spend 50 gauge on 'big hit' (Saber Dance/Fell Cleave)? Should we delete everything until we have exactly one of each design element? Goodbye every melee then, sorry but DRG was the first to have 1-2-3 combos, so NIN/SAM/RPR/MCH/All four tanks have to go byebye. Cancel Viper too

- Lucky you, that you don't 'feel you lost anything'. I remember the discourse back then, of how much was removed from WHM and repackaged back to them. From the job guide at the time:
* The following actions were removed with the release of patch 4.0: Cleric Stance, Protect, Esuna, Stoneskin, Shroud of Saints, Divine Seal, Stoneskin II.
And so WHM had to spend 4 of it's 5 Role slots at the time, buying back things it already HAD in HW!

- I've played this game for 8 years. What the hell is a powerweave

- You are so desperate to shoehorn in 'no additional buttons on hotbar' that you sand off all the details. The reason it is not a 60s CD that replaces POM is because then it'd be a 60s CD that replaces POM. Replacing one button with another CAN work, but WHM is so barebones in systems compared to say AST, that it can afford to have things just 'added'. You're asking for something akin to 'hey what if we added Primal Rend, but remove Onslaught'. They're both gapclosers, so it's fine, right? Making the ability a 60s CD that empowers your spells would 'function', but it'd be lame as hell. Because, it's a 60s CD. You'd just use it on CD, with little to no deviation, or creativity in when and where to use it. As a damage neutral heal, it has versatility, it can be shifted around to better line up with raidbuffs, juggling it AND Lilies so that you go into raidbuffs with Misery AND two stacks of Quake/Flood/Tornado would be the optimization game that people seek in the class. And because it's 'damage neutral'. The gain is absolutely miniscule, such that you'd never notice it unless you were parsing. And you don't care about parsing or percentages, so it won't affect you. So there's no issue, and you just want to argue for the sake of it, or because you can't accept you were wrong about the maths

- Again, we don't need to 'remove' things from the class with the least buttons already. YOU might want every class to conform to a total button count of 32. SE clearly doesn't care about that. I'll go with SE's ruling on it over yours, but I also would consolidate things that can be consolidated. So I'd only add two buttons technically, those being the shield Lily spenders. Without those, I'm button-neutral so I don't want to hear about it.

- Re-read things. The 'indeterminate amount' is either 0 (if shield Lily spenders are NOT added), or 2 (if they are added). It's an extremely determinate amount and has been for the better part of a year. There was a time when it'd have been 3 (by adding Cleric Stance as a 60s CD) but I don't care enough about it to keep bringing it up, so 2 or 0 it is.

- DRG Gauge is a curse? I kinda prefer it over 'looking at my buff bar to see if I have BOTD timer spare'. NIN's Huton gauge is a curse? Again, I'd rather look at it than the buff for Huton that jumps all over the place when shields and raidbuffs get applied. I can't imagine half of the jobs we have now without a gauge. What the hell would BLM do without it's gauge? What would BRD? The reason I'd add this element to WHM's gauge is simply: It barely HAS a gauge right now. It's a very pretty over-decorated graphic that tells you 'Solace/Rapture have 3 shared Charges, here is how many you have' and the Misery counter. This could all be done without a gauge at all, by just having 'Blood Lily Blooming' as a buff with no timer, and at 3 stacks you can execute Misery. The WHM Gauge is so hollow at the moment, it could do with what I suggested just to get it up to the level the other healers are at. SCH has two elements (AF/Fairy), SGE has two (Addersgall/sting), AST has... a lot going on (Major/Minor/Seals for Astrodyne). WHM's uniquely 'empty'

- Again, it's 5 Dia's a minute. It's hard to take what you say seriously when you can't even get the details of what you're arguing against right. But for the other stuff, I don't want a big CD burst every minute. We have Misery for that. You have taken what I asked for, a gauge that charges a powerful GCD heal, and turned it into 'what if it was a 2min meta conforming damage CD?'. If you cannot understand why anyone would find that unacceptable, I'm not sure we're playing the same game. The two things (GCD heal/60s damage steroid) have like, one thing in common: that they'd be a button on your hotbar that you press. Also, if it's a damage CD that you press every 60s, you introduce the potential for someone to drift it, losing them damage for the rest of the fight, and potentially even more if that loses them a use. Oh, and both WOW and FF have the same issue on the last point: A GCD that doesn't do anything directly feels awful to press. I've seen complaints about how bad Bahamut feels to summon, because he doesn't do anything for that GCD. It is a 'dead button', only there to activate the 'actual damage' buttons. OGCDs prevent this feeling somewhat, as they don't cause 'dead air' in the rotation. IDK why Bahamut can't do one Akh Morn on summon, and a second when enkindled (same damage, but the summon button has damage attached to make it feel better)

tl;dr you missed the point of why I made design decisions I did to such an extent, it's almost impressive

[Sebazy]

Actually, question:

What do you guys think the Devs will do with Healers in DT as of the way things stand right now?

Is something like "main spam attack upgrade (mostly visual, minor potency bump), aoe attack upgrade (mostly visual, minor potency bump), possibly DoT upgrade (mostly visual, minor potency bump), something in their kit gets a second charge, some new healing oGCD" a pretty reasonable assumption?

Pretty much, I'm fully expecting DT to be patch 5.11 or thereabouts, still sticking firmly to the foundations laid by Shadowbringers. SE's bean counters certainly aren't going anywhere, thus I suspect it'll take a change of guard at the top of CBU3 to get any real shifts at this stage. The development direction is supremely cautious and risk averse. Big sweeping role changes are risky, thus as much as I want to see a big change, I don't think we're going to get it until the game eventually has a pretty significant crash in player subscriptions. Even then I suspect it'll follow FFXI's template of more and more focus on NPC parties to do 'group' content rather than a significant attempt to revitalise gameplay, thus the groundwork we see being laid these last few years.

(Also, most people DO say they want to replace the downtime with more healing - and are promptly told that's impossible

That's not a fair comment at all and you *should* know that. Of course it's possible to replace the downtime with more healing. But tell me, how does that work in solo duties? How does that work in more casual endgame content like the current Alliance raids? How does that work in intermissions in high end content? How does that work in puzzles such as Rubicant? How does that work when I'm duoing maps with a friend?

Are you telling me that an Agitated Apkallu should see me coming and start busting out the Harrowing Hells so I have something to do? Is that comment truly hyperbolic given that a less drastic increase in damage taken is likely going to have me dropping an Asylum etc and pretty much continuing the Glarespam as normal?

A significant enough increase in healing pressure to make an actual impact in something like an Alliance raid is going to cause problems for less skilled players. We've seen this with bosses like Thunder God Cid where more casual healers would get overwhelmed with the combination of movement, cleansing and healing often resulting in unfortunate vote abandons etc rather than working at it and trying to improve to get the clear.

A significant enough increase in damage complexity is going to make next to no difference in the same context. The same struggling player may do less damage overall (And that's assuming they were even doing decent damage with existing kits which most certainly isn't a given) but what exactly is that going to impact here?

[ty_taurus]

A significant enough increase in damage complexity is going to make next to no difference in the same context. The same struggling player may do less damage overall (And that's assuming they were even doing decent damage with existing kits which most certainly isn't a given) but what exactly is that going to impact here?

Again, discussion about the ability for one to clear content is missing the point of his argument. Regardless of how significant or insignificant any added DPS abilities may be to a person's ability to clear, the issue is that if every healer has this new series of attacks to work with, a player who engages with that new series of attacks is going to be a "better player" than someone who doesn't perform that added depth optimally, or chooses to abstain from it. The only way you're going to convince him to accept some form of added DPS variety to White Mage (or whichever healer is selected to be the "simple healer") is if that added depth is exactly as strong as DoT + Glarespam, or is weaker than DoT + Glarespam. Because that way, the "playstyle" of wanting to perform as effectively as a master without any of the training or practice of a master is preserved.

[AmiableApkallu]

Also, most people DO say they want to replace the downtime with more healing - and are promptly told that's impossible, trying to get them to agree to more DPS instead.

In the great Wikipedia tradition: [Citation needed]

What's claimed -- or what I personally believe, anyway (if I don't want to speak for others without citing them) -- to be "impossible" is replacing ALL downtime, or nearly all downtime, with healing. And I've yet to see anyone demonstrate otherwise in the context of FFXIV.

There is most definitely room to replace some downtime with more healing. I think ty_taurus has a great graphic that depicts the current situation.

[Aravell]

Something I tend to think of when people ask this kind question, "Why does this matter to you?":

If it matters to them/you, why should it not matter to me (or anyone else)?

You're missing the point by a mile again. I do not care whether or not this matters to you or anyone else, I am pointing out the fact that the damage loss from 10% shaved off filler spam is so negligible that anyone that tries to blame a healer for an enrage will look like an absolute tool. I am pointing out that "players will no longer be able to meet enrage by playing as they are now" is an extremely flawed argument.

Also, I don't know what world you live in where people who do 80%-90% of their total output is considered a bad player, but whatever. I will just say I completely disagree that a 1% difference is enough, I think effort should be rewarded and people who don't put in the effort should be nowhere close to optimal, I don't care if it makes someone feel bad. I felt bad too back when I just picked up healer and couldn't heal big pulls, I just practiced and got better, others can do the same if they choose to.

Everytime it's being pushed that people want to feel good about doing the best and any skill ceiling would be bad for them, I start to believe Ty more and more that this is about the funny coloured numbers on the numbers website, there's really no other reason to care if you're having fun.

[ty_taurus]

Also, most people DO say they want to replace the downtime with more healing - and are promptly told that's impossible, trying to get them to agree to more DPS instead. If the option is "more DPS" or "more healing", I choose more healing. If the option is "more DPS" or "nothing/keep things as they are", I choose nothing.

You're misconstruing the situation here. It's fairly well recognized that there is a problem with healer gameplay right now, only how severe of a problem that is does vary between the people you ask. Wanting more variety in healer DPS gameplay is a criticism that has been prominent in forum discussion since particularly Shadowbringers, and a common retort to that criticism is "why add more DPS when you can just make healers heal more?" And that sounds like it makes sense, because wouldn't you want healers to heal more frequently?

The problem with that retort, though, is that in order for the amount of healing alone to satisfy the people who have an issue with healer design currently would require that all content, including things meant to be easy and simple, would need an astronomical increase to the frequency of outgoing damage and a dramatic rework of how healing kits work, and those of us who are very experienced healers who feel the pains of a boring DPS rotation recognize that the volume of healing we would need to make the one-button DPS structure no longer a pain point would require such an extreme increase in outgoing damage, that it would make the role unplayable for the average healer who currently struggles with content like Barb EX. It has been said multiple times at this point, which makes me confused as to why this is still being misunderstood, but I have not, nor have I seen anyone in the pro-DPS camp say that healing requirements cannot increase at all. Rather, what has been said is that they cannot be increased enough for us to be engaged in the healing role from the healing alone.

It would be great to see some increase to healing requirements and a return to an environment where healer gameplay more often involves utilizing healing GCDs rather than only relying on, or almost entirely relying on healing OGCDs. But we still would require an expansion of DPS tools in order to find the healer role sufficient. Just making healers heal slightly more often will only scratch the surface of the issue unless taken to such an extreme that the current healer population will crumble.

[ForsakenRoe]

Also, I don't know what world you live in where people who do 80%-90% of their total output is considered a bad player, but whatever. I will just say I completely disagree that a 1% difference is enough, I think effort should be rewarded and people who don't put in the effort should be nowhere close to optimal, I don't care if it makes someone feel bad. I felt bad too back when I just picked up healer and couldn't heal big pulls, I just practiced and got better, others can do the same if they choose to.

Everytime it's being pushed that people want to feel good about doing the best and any skill ceiling would be bad for them, I start to believe Ty more and more that this is about the funny coloured numbers on the numbers website, there's really no other reason to care if you're having fun.

It's kind of sad that the point keeps getting exhumed like some necromancer's minion, because I already went through the back-and-forth on the point. With who? Me. I knew ahead of time, while writing the original design a year ago, that someone would invariably say 'well what about the player who drifts Banish and doesn't keep it on CD, or drops Dia at times, or overcaps on gauge because they didn't need a single heal in that whole minute?', and I made adjustments based on those self-arguments. I've already 'fixed' the issues he raises, he just never got to see the original version. I also can't help but think that it's entirely about the funny numbers. If it's because 'being suboptimal feels bad', well he said he gets green-blue on EX trials and Savages, and purples in 24mans. By definition of how the colour brackets work, he's suboptimal as is. So am I, and so is everyone who doesn't consistently get gold/pink/high orange. By contrast, the one time I got an orange on healer this expansion, my reaction was not one of joy, but of sheer confusion. I often get middle-of-purple, how on earth did I get an orange that time? By doing the same thing I always did. I probably just crit more.

But I recognise that some people want to be able to clear content without sweating about the fine details of optimization, so I did the design elements I did, so that people could make quite literally ANY mistake they want, so long as they don't make the big one: failing to keep the GCD rolling. And lo and behold, it's still not enough, it's never going to be enough. I could make Glare 3, Banish 3, and Dia, all do 350p each, so that no matter which GCD you used, it'd be the same damage. And STILL there'd be people doing more damage than others, be that because of 'some players put Blessing's refund into raidbuffs, some don't', or 'some players put Misery in raidbuffs, others don't', or 'some players use Banish and Dia effectively for mobility, others just drop GCDs entirely to move'. Or just Crit Variance, everyone's favourite feature. There's no way to make a design that is acceptable, because there's always going to be a way for someone more skilled than me or you or Ren or whoever, to deal more damage than us.

I play BLM like an ape, and RDM pretty badly too when I use them in EX roulette. I drop Thunder all the time. I sometimes forget that it's 60 gauge in AOE to do the RDM melee stuff, so I have to try and salvage it with Manafication if it's up. And god forbid I go as BRD, DOTs dropped, Songs refreshed off-sync, Refulgent procs overwritten, it's full clownshoe city. And yet, I still have enough fun that I don't think 'wow that was awful I'm never doing that again'. I don't care about how 'optimal' I was in the EX roulette, because it does not matter.

Fun's subjective and all, and I don't speak for everyone, but I'd imagine that being able to throw out such powerful spells as Quake/Tornado/Flood (for first/all other targets, Q: 410/205, T: 430/215, F: 450/225. Holy is 150, for comparison) in AOE pulls would be 'more fun' (compared to Holy until eyes bleed) to a lot more people than Ren cares to admit. I forgot to mention I'd make QTF have 50% AOE falloff so they can be used in AOE, and that Holy would give 2 gauge per mob hit (such that a pack of 7 mobs would give 14 gauge per cast). I'll go add that now, it might be a bit important. Problem with it though, is that it means 'having to' press the Glare/Dia/Banish keybinds, in AOE situations. 'Having to' being in quotes because you don't 'have to', nobody's got a gun to your head demanding those buttons be used. You could still use just Holy, or use Holy, and the heal to sustain the tank, and then because the pack's almost dead, hold the QTF casts for the opener on the next boss. That's an example of the 'versatility' I would like to inject into the job

It has been said multiple times at this point, which makes me confused as to why this is still being misunderstood, but I have not, nor have I seen anyone in the pro-DPS camp say that healing requirements cannot increase at all. Rather, what has been said is that they cannot be increased enough for us to be engaged in the healing role from the healing alone.

Last time I did P11S, I was not terribly engaged with the healing required (because we're all BIS now). I was engaged with healing a couple of days ago, when I was healing Garuda. In UWU. I had not been in that fight in like, 2 years, so the rust meant I was using a lot more GCD shielding than usual (to the point where it was occasionally causing LB generation problems). I'm not of the opinion that 'we cannot increase healing requirements at all', I'm of the opinion that 'in order to 'solve' the issue using just 'healing requirements' adjustments, the amount we'd have to see healing requirements go up by is too high for most players to handle'. As a certain picture showed, there is no overlap between 'amount of healing most players can handle' and 'amount of healing required to make healers engaging as a role, with 'healing' being the primary source of engagement', there is no Venn diagram, it is two separate circles

I also think that it's way easier for the devs to add to the damage side of the kit than adjust the healing requirements. There's so little there, it's easy to find new design niches for new skills, to avoid another 'we didn't know what to do with SCH' moment. And unlike healing, if you 'get it wrong' with damage you lose a bit of damage (very minimal amount, if my yelling got through to SE). Whereas if you 'get it wrong' with healing, it can lead to deaths, wipes, and the dreaded 'player friction'. That's not to say we can't have more healing requirements. It's just more like... rather than boosting healing required by 100%, they add something like what I posted for WHM, and then boost healing requirements by 30-40%.

[mallleable]

Another potentially whacky idea is to turn a good number of healing ogcds into gcds -- they can still be instant. And rework piety so that it reduces the cast, and recast time of healing gcds, and it stacks with spell speed. And add situationally spammable dual-purpose healing, and damage spells that are both affected by new Piety, and spell speed.

[Aravell]

But I recognise that some people want to be able to clear content without sweating about the fine details of optimization, so I did the design elements I did, so that people could make quite literally ANY mistake they want, so long as they don't make the big one: failing to keep the GCD rolling. And lo and behold, it's still not enough, it's never going to be enough. I could make Glare 3, Banish 3, and Dia, all do 350p each, so that no matter which GCD you used, it'd be the same damage. And STILL there'd be people doing more damage than others, be that because of 'some players put Blessing's refund into raidbuffs, some don't', or 'some players put Misery in raidbuffs, others don't', or 'some players use Banish and Dia effectively for mobility, others just drop GCDs entirely to move'. Or just Crit Variance, everyone's favourite feature. There's no way to make a design that is acceptable, because there's always going to be a way for someone more skilled than me or you or Ren or whoever, to deal more damage than us.

I want to address this point by pointing to another job, MCH. MCH has a very rigid rotation with some forced crits through Reassemble, the variance is very small in high-end content, but some MCH still do more damage than others, because of crits outside of Reassemble, because of drifting their tools, etc. There is absolutely no way to make sure everyone does the exact same output no matter what, even if you make the simplest/most rigid job in the world, even SMN has variance, and a lot of people think it's really simple.

The main point though, is that content is not being gated from people if healers change. The dps check of Anabaseios is widely regarded as more lenient, and the amount a healer not performing at average loses is so negligible that it's mind-boggling that anyone is even trying to argue that they'd be gated from content. I'm thinking that people don't actually understand how little healers contribute to the total damage nowadays. The gap between a grey and high orange WHM is about 3000 dps, that's around a 62.5% gap in performance, looks like a large amount, right? That's 4.69% of the P9S dps check, the melee DPS critting some big hits would immediately cover that difference.