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

[Shurrikhan]

"If even an Ultimate raider is able to feel pretty engaged even in Extremes and Savage, then I'm happy. I don't need them to feel super engaged by MSQ solo fights."

I would think it a safe assumption that someone who capable of completing an Ultimate isn't going to be stressed if they're not challenged by an MSQ solo.

So let's consider the other, let's say - 80 % of the player population (a least) who doesn't typically complete an Ultimate. I would hope that even in normal content, it is not dull, and that it is not left out considering that that is a large part of the content where many people spend there time, it is after much more than just MSQ solo fights.

Again, if the players with the GREATEST amount of downtime and who are LEAST taxed by managing it, and therefore require the MOST resource to appease would feel engaged, it stands to reason that there'd be more than enough for those who need less.

Again, I'm referring to those PLAYERS who are able and have a desire to do content like Ultimate. Even they should feel quite enjoyably engaged even in Savage and Extremes (and those who'd only care to go as high as Savage in Extreme and Normals and those who only go so far as Extremes... etc., etc.). No part of what I said limits the desire for healers to be engaged to just Ultimate.

You asked me to exemplify what I meant by a "skilled" player, so I gave a couple quick illustrations and gave the implications for those illustrated levels of player, while just being realistic with the bounds of mechanics they'd care to play with, regardless of what role they make take on.

An Ultimate-loving DPS or Tank isn't likely to be engaged by Normal raids, so this would already be to say that healers can and should be redesigned to have a broader span of engagement than either of those roles, and I would say an Extreme is at least as far above Normal Raids as Ultimates are above Extremes. For those "(at least) 80%" of players... who don't do Ultimate... that'd leave you with everything except Ultimate as sufficiently engaging.

[Sebazy]

But alright, you have a fleshed out DPS rotation with procs and maybe even you job gauge is changed to fit with it. Now you do damage more often, or even more of it! However, enrages will be more strict as you are now designed around dealing more damage than before

Hold up just a second:

A decent blue log in P12S will see a healer using DPS GCDs at a ratio of 10 to 1 or more vs healing GCDs right now (At least on SCH, AST and Sadge, WHM will be lower due to Lilies ofc).

How do we fit in more dps abilities than we do already? Where is the assumption that we will do more damage with a 'fleshed out dps rotation' coming from? The amount of damage we do isn't decided by the complexity of our rotations, it's decided by how much potency we get, how it scales with our MND stat and how easily we can shovel it into the burst window.

Healers getting more do to isn't going to automagically make enrage timers tighter. If anything history has shown it to be the absolute opposite actually, remember E8S and how it was a complete snooze fest to heal with the add phase literally being the heal check? Yep, I think it makes a fair case for being the fight where healers were obligated to contribute the most DPS in perhaps any savage, not because healers had complex damage rotations, but because they had nothing else to do except spam glare for large swathes of the fight.

[ty_taurus]

Healing uptime is dictated by two things: how frequently damage is taken, and what tools you have to address that healing. You could have 30 different attack spells on each healer, and unless they interact with your healing in some way, they will have no effect on how frequently you spend your time DPSing.

[KenZentra]

Stop strawmanning those asking for a 'mere' 35-65% of a skill healers' casts being spent on healing as solely wanting "DPS rotations" and less than 8% of casts spent on healing and you'd find common ground real quick.

I'd absolutely love to see my strawman. I've never said "healers should spend 100% of the time healing" like you think I have. I've only said I think they need to spend more than 8% of their total (GCD and oGCD) casts on heals, which is what the math comes out to according to "ty_taurus". I've said time and time again, that adding more DPS buttons will not solve the problem of Healers feeling boring and what I think would fix it, is if they were required to cast more heals due to more consistent damage being thrown out and healing spells having more interaction with each other outside of "Heals X amount". I also argue that adding more DPS buttons will require Healers to focus more of dealing damage more than healing, which they already focus on currently. Again, I have never and will never say "healers need to spend 90%+ of their time/GCDs/Actions as healing". I said, "more than 8% of actions healing". Whats higher than 8%?

35-65% of a skill healers' casts being spent on healing

Ah, thanks for that.

Asking for just the one over the other is merely running with the premise of the thread (IF you had to pick ONE) and/or a note on the state of the devs' willingness to actually do squat, in which case solely improving the downtime kit would work for all situations without potentially excessive decreases to accessibility (some decrease is fine; losing all but your very best healers is not), while solely increasing uptime can satisfy only in harder group content and requires a much larger host of accordant changes to make feasible. If you must, blame the OP for the false ultimatum, but the sheer number of people quickly saying "NEITHER should stay the same" or "BOTH should change" should already have clued you in to this.

Oh. Well, Im sorry that I was staying on topic? Crazy that in a thread about having one or the other, I decided to talk about having one or the other. Even still however, If healing kits (and by extension encounters) are revamped to heal more often, then you will have less time to DPS, so no, you would probably not get more DPS actions. That also applies vice versa, if you have an expanded DPS kit, you will most likely have the same or less healing actions to avoid button bloat and job complexity.

Again, I tank and heal, and mained healing from HW until EW. I guess playing a role makes me a "DPS in disguise"?

Talking about strawmanning, btw:

I have said Healers need to heal more than what they do, which according to someone else looked like 8% of their actions.
-You said that I was in favor of flipping it to 92% of actions as healing, rather than damage.

I have said if Healers have a bigger or complex DPS kit, they will be spending less time healing, as to keep up their DPS they will forgo GCD Heals, which they already do and will continue to enforce a meta already in motion that Healers DPS more than they heal, by a lot.
-You said I am strawmanning people asking for 35-65% healing casts as wanting DPS rotations, which I did not.
In fact, I had actually said that I'd be more than happy to have a healer that does decent damage like SCH used to do in the past and that healers shouldnt have to spam any button over and over again, whether thats healing or DPS. Its almost like I want healers to be fun also? While you are over here actually strawmanning many things I've been saying. You can just like, not agree with me instead of starting an argument?

[KenZentra]

Hold up just a second:

A decent blue log in P12S will see a healer using DPS GCDs at a ratio of 10 to 1 or more vs healing GCDs right now (At least on SCH, AST and Sadge, WHM will be lower due to Lilies ofc).

How do we fit in more dps abilities than we do already? Where is the assumption that we will do more damage with a 'fleshed out dps rotation' coming from? The amount of damage we do isn't decided by the complexity of our rotations, it's decided by how much potency we get, how it scales with our MND stat and how easily we can shovel it into the burst window.

Healers getting more do to isn't going to automagically make enrage timers tighter. If anything history has shown it to be the absolute opposite actually, remember E8S and how it was a complete snooze fest to heal with the add phase literally being the heal check? Yep, I think it makes a fair case for being the fight where healers were obligated to contribute the most DPS in perhaps any savage, not because healers had complex damage rotations, but because they had nothing else to do except spam glare for large swathes of the fight.

So how do you view a more fleshed out DPS kit? Will it do the same amount of damage it does right now, less, or more? How do you expect these abilities to interact with each other?
The only things I can think of is procs, DoTs, combos and charges.

So, if you cast, lets say Glare, you can get "Blinding Glare". Does Glare to its current damage or less than that? If its less, does "Blinding Glare" make up the difference in the sense of to original Glare casts, or does it do more than what two original Glare casts would do?
DoTs dont really solve anything per se, so unless there is something interesting that can be done with that, im just going to leave it at not really solving the issue at hand.
For combos, again, they either start off doing less, unless you finish it, in which they are still the same potency as however many Glares it would take before, or it does more damage than that.
You have a few actions to choose from, but they all have charges (except Glare), Do they all just do the same damage as each other, and glare is less than that?

The issue Im seeing is that it Healers need to complete their rotation, before switching to healing. And that if you dont have to worry about switching to healing, that you are just a DPS anyways.

And again, not that this is what you are advocating for, but this is the problem I think of when expanding DPS kits and how they are inevitably going to be "This does more damage overall" thus enforcing that Healers are DPS 1st and Healers 2nd.

[Maltothoris]

The issue Im seeing is that it Healers need to complete their rotation, before switching to healing. And that if you dont have to worry about switching to healing, that you are just a DPS anyways.

Thing is they fixed this issue with melees and tanks with the fact that using their range attack no longer interrupts their combos and some stuff for the paladin like holy spirit and atonement not disrupting it as well. iF you could applying the same thing with healers it could work and not a full dps rotation. FOr whm it would something ala Black mage lite. Maybe integrate it like one stance increases damage dealted in a small amount and then the other stance increase healing and some mit since whm lacks mit. An idea but again the reason we are at his part is that Yoshi and his team may play healers but they do not MAIN healers and thus are somewhat fools on the matter.

[ForsakenRoe]

So how do you view a more fleshed out DPS kit? Will it do the same amount of damage it does right now, less, or more? How do you expect these abilities to interact with each other?
The only things I can think of is procs, DoTs, combos and charges.

The main issue most people seem to have with current healer DPS kit, is how big the difference in 'number of uses per minute' there is between our filler (Glare etc) and 'literally anything else in the kit'. Tackling that, by reducing how often Glare is cast (by expanding how often other things are used) would go a long way to quelling the unrest, I think. To that end, what I'd do to WHM:

- new gauge, 0-100 bar style (can be any other max number, make it 0-50, 0-500, doesn't matter to me, I'll just go with 0-100 cos it's what we know from other jobs)
- Glare now gives 1 gauge
- Dia is now 12s duration (meaning 5 uses per minute instead of 2), and gives 1 gauge on cast, and 1 per tick (total of 5)
- Water (upgrading into Banish) has a 15s CD and gives 5 gauge on cast. Also it's instant for mobility
- Holy gives 2 gauge per enemy hit (so in a trash pull of 7 mobs, that is 14 gauge per cast)
- 50 gauge is spent on an AOE heal. I call it 'Blessing of the Elementals', but you could just as easily call it Cure 4, name's not set in stone
- using the new heal gives 3 buffs (or elements on the job gauge, to prevent buff cap issues), associated with earth, water, wind. Stacks to 2 of each

- while you have these stacks, Glare becomes Quake (100p stronger and 50% damage falloff for AOE), Banish becomes Flood (100p stronger and 50% damage falloff for AOE), and Dia becomes Tornado (30p stronger on cast,
20p per tick, totalling 110p. Also is 50% damage falloff for AOE, so you can DOT big packs with it). This all combines to make the heal damage neutral with one Glare, taking inspiration from Misery (and how well received it is)

- With Glare at 310, Dia totalling 430 (150 on cast, 70 per tick) and Banish at 350, the total potency per minute from GCDs is a mere 60p a minute higher than our current output (8140 now vs 8200 projected), so damage checks can remain as they are and be unaffected

So it sounds like a lot maybe, but in the end it would boil down to 'press Dia every 5th GCD, Banish every 6th, Glare as filler'. But it opens many doors for optimizations, and design space for the devs to add new things later, like new actions that build gauge, spend gauge, a CD that makes your gauge spending free for 3 uses like Inner Release, etc. Just the fact that there's AOE damage falloff to the elemental abilities, means that we go from 'just spam Holy in AOE' to having three new damage buttons to use when doing dungeon trash pulls, greatly enhancing the variety in visuals we'd be seeing. Our 'optimal burst window' would change from 'Dia, Misery, 6 Glares' to something like 'Tornado, Flood, Misery, Quake, Quake, Tornado, Glare, Flood'. And of course, the main point, doing this would change us from doing Fig A, to Fig B:



Reducing our Glare usage from 75%, to about 30%. Or less, depending on if we need to actually cast a Medica 2 or something occasionally. But, the important thing to note is that if we have to heal with a damage losing GCD like Medica 2, it either replaces a Glare, or it replaces a Dia/Banish but we then move that skill backwards by a GCD, we don't lose the cast, we just adjust it along the timeline such that we still push a Glare off. So if anything, something like this helps us to preserve our damage output, because it's the 'lowest contributor', Glare, that gets sac'd to do that heal

They don't have to do this exactly, of course, but the general idea behind it, of reducing how often we cast Glare by increasing how often we cast other things, is what they should aim to do IMO. If they increase healing required of us such that it puts heavy pressure on the timing of the use of 'Cure 4', such that you can't just hold it and burn it right before raidbuffs (which you could do to optimize if you wanted to, that's intentional), that'd be great too. But I think that adding a kit similar to this as a groundwork to build that 'extra healing required' onto is probably a better idea. I dunno about others, but I feel like I have to resort to things like Medica 2 faster on WHM than any other healer. I think back to Curtain Call in P4S and how much easier it was to manage as an AST, just because of how many more tools they have at their disposal

I've done idea-thinking for the other 3 healers, but WHM is the one I cared about the most at the time since I mained it, and it's the one I believe is most in need of such a shakeup, so it's the one I put the most effort into

[ForsakenRoe]

Thing is they fixed this issue with melees and tanks with the fact that using their range attack no longer interrupts their combos and some stuff for the paladin like holy spirit and atonement not disrupting it as well. iF you could applying the same thing with healers it could work and not a full dps rotation. FOr whm it would something ala Black mage lite. Maybe integrate it like one stance increases damage dealted in a small amount and then the other stance increase healing and some mit since whm lacks mit. An idea but again the reason we are at his part is that Yoshi and his team may play healers but they do not MAIN healers and thus are somewhat fools on the matter.

Oh I wouldn't even bother with that stuff, a simple 'this has a X second CD' on a skill means that there's no combo to even break in the first place. Or, like RDM, 'X ready' statuses could be leveraged to create pseudo-combos. If we have, for example, a level 20 CNJ having a 15s CD on Water, a Stone spell, and an Aero with a 12s duration, then it doesn't matter if they need to heal, when they come down from healing and go back into doing damage, they just have to follow the general priority system of 'is Aero up? if not, use that. If it is, is Water ready to cast? If yes, cast that. If not, then cast Stone'. If they had to cast 25 heals in a row for whatever crazy reason, they'd come back to doing damage with everything up and ready, and go 'oh, Aero fell off, I'll refresh that' as per the priority chart, then Water next GCD, then Stones.

Ironically, we had what I asked for in the post above (12s DOT, 15s CD) in ARR. But the 15s CD was OGCD (Fluid Aura), and the 12s DOT was accompanied by a separate 18s DOT (Aero2 and Aero1). We managed back then (with old Cleric Stance too) so I'm really not sure how we're apparently going to break down into nervous wrecks if we got only half of that stuff back. Maybe the devs have conniptions at the thought of a DOT duration that doesn't end in a 0 and that's why we're where we're at, though

[Renathras]

I dunno what you people want I've got 3 hotbars full of abilities and you want more!?

Right?

If AST gets anything close to its HW Card gameplay back, that'd be at least 4 more buttons than it has now. Including 3 (Sprint, LB, and Potion) on your hotbars, PLD has the most with 37 (34 without), DRK and SCH are second (36, 33 without), and then AST tied with GNB and NIN at 35 (32 without). Crossbars are 16 each, so two sets to toggle between makes 32 at the most before having to shoehorn in solutions like macros or "press and holds". Keyboard and mouse, that's over three rows of abilities. And in a simple consideration, THREE 10s (30) is a lot of abilities, regardless of what game one is talking about.

Ran the numbers here for the curious: https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...for-discussion

I don't necessarily think it's bad to have a few Jobs with lots and some with less buttons, but it's kind of getting out of hand as it is.

I'm not really sure what others deem a "rotation" Because in my mind, the requirements for a set of attacks to be considered a "rotation" is extremely low. If Sage got the PVP treatment of reducing the DoT duration to 15 seconds, reducing Phelgma's cooldown to 20 seconds, made Pneuma a DPS tool instead of a healing tool every 60 seconds, and made Toxikons OGCD and generated offensively, that I would describe as a rotation. I would describe Stormblood Scholar as having a rotation. What makes current healers not have a rotation in my eyes is that repeatedly casting a single spell is not a rotation because there is no looping of anything, and there isn't enough variation to keep the healer breaking away from that. It's one thing if there's a rhythm where you're, say, casting your neutral three times, then doing something else, but having... what is it? twelve casts of your neutral game between DoT application? When you have repetition of action usage in games, generally you do it in groups of twos, threes, or fours, not groups of twelves.

It's one of the many "well akshually" technicalities people try to use all the time to discredit me while studiously avoiding my actual arguments.

I'm with you on this one. A rotation need not be particularly RIGID, nor with actions that directly connect (e.g. combos). Those things aren't needed. Besides which, it's a generic term for "sequence of actions". MNK's sequence of actions is extensive before it cycles, yet it's still described as a rotation not "collection of DPS buttons that is most definitely NOT a rotation and how dare anyone suggest it is".

In any case, I was using it in general sense for "collection of DPS actions all used in combat", Shurrikhan was just being not-nice.

I think we're all in agreement that healers -- whether it be via job design, encounter design, or some combination of the two -- need to spend less time on filler.

Yes, I think this is something that ALMOST EVERYone agrees on (apparently, saying "everyone" means if even one person does not, it's a lie and that the person daring to say it must be hammered for their grotesque oversight, so I'll make sure to put ALMOST EVERYone to ensure clarity...)

I think line vs rotation isn't really a great distinction outside of BLM, mostly because "line" isn't a generally used term with a common definition. If you asked me "What is a spell line to you?" I'd say "An upgrade path, like Stone 1 -> Stone 2 -> Stone 3 -> Stone 4 -> Glare - Glare 3 or, alternatively, a named 'line' such as 'the Cure Line of Cure 1, Cure 2, and Cure 3' or 'the Medica line of Medica 1 and Medica 2' as the X-Line of spells."

I feel rotation is generally understood and used to mean "sequence of attack actions". Again, MNK's "rotation" goes a very long way before repeating exactly (it's sort of a fractal in that there's the normal rotation of, what, 21 abilities? But then this can be disrupted by Nadi generation/consumption, and oGCDs aren't always up in the same exact place in the overall cycle each time). So I don't think a closed loop is necessarily part of the definition (despite that sounding like what it should be). But as you note, 12111111111 is technically a closed loop.

.

But yeah, we agree healers need less filler, even if we don't necessarily agree on exactly what should take its place.

Every guide on Youtube, every player you talk to, the first thing they mention is "Healers have to do DPS too!". These guides also tell you how to optimize your healing, so you can do more damage. You hear often times in Savage content, "Healers, you shouldnt need to use any GCDs on healing in this duty. Only used oGCDs for healing."

Maybe take a step back, and look around elsewhere on the forums to see what folks are saying? There are folks falling over themselves begging for more DPS buttons because they spend a majority of their time DPSing. You can find plenty of people on the forums and on Reddit for "Tales From Duty Finder" that complain when a healer is healing too much. If I can find it, I'll post a quote from someone who told me, (not exact words) they'd hate to have more consistant damage coming out from bosses, because it would cut into their DPS.

Also, you are incredibly rude.

More or less most of this.

Though I think it's not the whole community, it definitely IS a very vocal portion of it.

Haha, so true Tank/DPS main besties! Healers heal! Healers shouldn't be allowed to have fun in every bit of content like you can, how could we forget!

As a healer in literally every game I play that has healers:

Healing IS fun.

Healing IS what I enjoy doing. There are a lot of people that play healers that want to DPS and find it fun. I do not. If I found DPS fun, I'd probably spend most of my time playing a DPS Job. I do not find DPSing fun. I find healing and/or supporting my party fun. Hell, I find tanking more fun. Healer main telling you this.

SCH and AST used to be unique in the sense of how different their jobs were when you thought of a healer. AST gave out some serious and unique buffs to party members, and SCH could focus heavy into doing damage and being a "off-healer" when needed using ARC's spells. But both of those aspects were removed. Im so down for a Healer than doubles as a DPS, that'd be awesome! But just giving that to every healer is not the fix you think it is and will eventually move to removing the idea of a "healer" and end up with them being DNCs with expanded healing abilities.

Oh my god, yes! All of this. ALL of this...

[KenZentra]

Snip

I really like what you've shown here and breaking down what it could look like. Thank you so much!

I like the idea that you build gauge by doing DPS, but it also ties into healing as well without it looking like you'd need to continue your rotation to completion before needing to heal with a GCD AND on top of that it ties back into when you use your DPS. You could easily interrupt your DPS to heal, and with a good deal of wiggle room, you (hopefully) dont need to worry about capping a resource you gain from healing.

While I still hope for more healing GCDs, as thats what I like, the synergy from both doing your DPS and using the heal via the Job Gauge is something I think should've already been implemented. It just feels like what you said should've been done long ago it just feels that... fundamental? If that makes any sense? Like doesn't seem obvious that even when you do have to DPS (even if it were not very often) that it should contribute someway to your healing, not just as a reward of "Oh you efficiently healed the party, here is some time to do some extra damage", but even "You efficiently healed, here is some time to do extra damage, which will also further your ability to heal".

Again, thanks for your break down of what it would look like, genuinely!