Would you rather healers get more complex healing kits or more complex DPS kits?

[Saraide]

I have a question for y'all. Which healer do you think should have the most complex dps rotation? Should it be white mage because white mage's healing is the most simple? Should it be sage because sage was advertised for that?

[AmiableApkallu]

Which healer do you think should have the most complex dps rotation?

Mu.

Design each healer's kit so that it matches its identity (or gives it an identity). Let the complexity and skill ceilings fall where they may.

Then, revisit designs if most of the jobs end up with a BLM-like skill floor, where the kit seems straightforward enough against a striking dummy but turns out to be a challenge when faced with mechanics.

[Saraide]

I don't want any to become X just because they were 'advertised' as X. I just want to see each kit develop organically. And I suppose a bit again depends on what you mean by a "rotation".

I wouldn't want WHM's healing (and sustain support tools, etc.) to remain as simple as now (nor any other healer's, though with WHM's probably rising in proportion unless shields go from mostly thought-diminishing to thought-provoking), so I'd rather not make predictions around that premise. That said, the elements underpinning its class, especially if they were returned to the forefront and the all-in-one basic "Light" element restricted to a burst mode of sorts (or changed into meta forms of each element, as in Light, Spirit, Flow) seem to me to have a ton of opportunity to build out something easy to learn but thoroughly difficult to master.

-snip-

Tl;dr: I wouldn't want to attempt backward design on any of the kits to fit some preconception of how they should end up (I'd rather only polish at the end for a bit more diversity if necessary), but I had to guess around the revisions I'd like to see for each job, the actual damage kits complexity would probably fall from WHM to SGE to SCH to AST, while the total downtime kit complexity for each would be about equal, with some aspects clicking for some more than for others (making job A seem easier to player A, but job B seem easier to player B, etc.).

I do think there are natural design progression paths for each of the healers based on what already exists or has existed in the past before even thinking about how difficult the endresult should be to play but not all of them are strictly gameplay related. Sure, scholar's dots are very much a thing people remember but whm's elemental part is largely aesthetic. Stoneskin, aquaveil and divine benison all do the same thing aesthetically. There is gonna be wiggle room.

Mu.

Design each healer's kit so that it matches its identity (or gives it an identity). Let the complexity and skill ceilings fall where they may.

Then, revisit designs if most of the jobs end up with a BLM-like skill floor, where the kit seems straightforward enough against a striking dummy but turns out to be a challenge when faced with mechanics.

You're gonna have to tell the other people who responded to un-answer if I were un-ask the question lol

[IDontPetLalas]

I do think there are natural design progression paths for each of the healers based on what already exists or has existed in the past before even thinking about how difficult the endresult should be to play but not all of them are strictly gameplay related. Sure, scholar's dots are very much a thing people remember but whm's elemental part is largely aesthetic. Stoneskin, aquaveil and divine benison all do the same thing aesthetically. There is gonna be wiggle room.

Well, there's some merit to this. What I would view as "design progression" is more job identity, and I like how this was expressed in the PVP changes, I believe that with the latest changes, I feel that each healer is distinct in PVP, I don't find any of them more complex, although I may prefer one over another in various situations.




You're gonna have to tell the other people who responded to un-answer if I were un-ask the question lol

It's rather tricky saying "there are natural design paths" for each healer given , for example AST- I don't look at AST and say "there was a clear, well-thought out roadmap". It's a history of patches, emergency changes, rollbacks, reversals, large population, and now it's the least popular healer with yet another major design change.

Hah un-answering? this made me laugh. Good one (and quite diplomatic)

[Saraide]

It's rather tricky saying "there are natural design paths" for each healer given , for example AST- I don't look at AST and say "there was a clear, well-thought out roadmap". It's a history of patches, emergency changes, rollbacks, reversals, large population, and now it's the least popular healer with yet another major design change.

Hah un-answering? this made me laugh. Good one (and quite diplomatic)

From what I gathered the exploding star is a well liked ability on ast. I think you could structure ast's damage output around putting up delayed attacks which would also tie into job lore about predicting stuff.

[IDontPetLalas]

From what I gathered the exploding star is a well liked ability on ast. I think you could structure ast's damage output around putting up delayed attacks which would also tie into job lore about predicting stuff.

You mean earthly star? Sure, and there have been some ideas that other people have thrown out. That's the general idea, personally I'm not so much of a purist when it comes to lore however I do respect that it's very important to some people, and to SE's credit, the animations on some skills , such as SE, really have been well done and are consistent with astrology and its theme.

[Aravell]

It's rather tricky saying "there are natural design paths" for each healer given , for example AST- I don't look at AST and say "there was a clear, well-thought out roadmap". It's a history of patches, emergency changes, rollbacks, reversals, large population, and now it's the least popular healer with yet another major design change.

I would honestly say that AST is a job that never had an identity, even at release. They tried too hard to cram it into the role of WHM-lite or SCH-lite that AST never got to have their own identity.

[KenZentra]

I have a question for y'all. Which healer do you think should have the most complex dps rotation? Should it be white mage because white mage's healing is the most simple? Should it be sage because sage was advertised for that?

Sage for sure, but I think SCH should also have the DPS options it had before in HW. Honestly get rid of Art of War (or whatever their AoE is) and replace it with Shadowflare, Bio, Miasma spreads (but maybe have the spread built in like it is for PVP).

Anyways! Yeah, I'd love if SGE went ALL in on dealing dps to heal and expanding the scope of Kardia, maybe as an ability that you can place on up to a certain number of players for the brunt of their AoE healing.

[Shurrikhan]

I have a question for y'all. Which healer do you think should have the most complex dps rotation? Should it be white mage because white mage's healing is the most simple? Should it be sage because sage was advertised for that?

I don't want any to become X just because they were 'advertised' as X. I just want to see each kit develop organically. And I suppose a bit again depends on what you mean by a "rotation".

I wouldn't want WHM's healing (and sustain support tools, etc.) to remain as simple as now (nor any other healer's, though with WHM's probably rising in proportion unless shields go from mostly thought-diminishing to thought-provoking), so I'd rather not make predictions around that premise. That said, the elements underpinning its class, especially if they were returned to the forefront and the all-in-one basic "Light" element restricted to a burst mode of sorts (or changed into meta forms of each element, as in Light, Spirit, Flow) seem to me to have a ton of opportunity to build out something easy to learn but thoroughly difficult to master.

If we were to actually make Kardia a % heal, which would in turn entice Sage to increase its control over its damage dynamics, and then develop those dynamics yet further to reward foresight and/or good gambles, then it's going to end up with decently complex damage-dealing, but not likely in a "rotational" fashion. After all, unless you just make SGE's damage just a means of building gauge/MP to then be spent for healing later (so, just a reversed, more uptime-dependent Lily), the damage dynamics have to be capable of flexing to and around healing needs.

Personally, I've never been much of a fan of making damage and healing nigh inseparable from one another (so massive a loss to combined throughput if one declines to put up their 'damage-also-heals' buff that it's obligatory on all but striking dummies), so even that revised SGE wouldn't be as appealing to me as a revised SCH or WHM likely would be (AST being so different, due to cards, that it didn't seem the fairest contrast), but it'd be a damn sight more appealing than now.

Tl;dr: I wouldn't want to attempt backward design on any of the kits to fit some preconception of how they should end up (I'd rather only polish at the end for a bit more diversity if necessary), but I had to guess around the revisions I'd like to see for each job, the actual damage kits complexity would probably fall from WHM to SGE to SCH to AST, while the total downtime kit complexity for each would be about equal, with some aspects clicking for some more than for others (making job A seem easier to player A, but job B seem easier to player B, etc.).

[Mayhemmer]

I have a question for y'all. Which healer do you think should have the most complex dps rotation?

I'm of the mind that healers shouldn't be subjected to adherence to rotations at all. At least, not 'rotations' as we would prescribe to DPS jobs. Obviously the game just isn't really designed that way, and there will always be a math'd out meta the get the best results out of each job. I personally just want healers to provide an (engaging) experience I can't get with DPS or even tanks, but to do that, I feel their design would have to shift to lean far more into weaving their central mechanics into their kits to a far greater degree than we have right now. In short: where DPS and tanks lean into pretty rigid rotations (with notable cases of flexibility), I'd like if healers provided more dynamic gameplay at every level of play. I don't hate that this game is a hallway, but I just want that hallway to be broadened a bit.

WHM, SGE, and AST all already have this to some degree, with Lilies, Kardia, and Cards interacting with and contributing to other parts of their kits, but I'd like to see that taken way further. I want fun kits, and to play healer for reasons other than just wanting to skip a queue.