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

[ty_taurus]

As for the idea itself, the intent seems to be to create healing busywork? I personally think it's not a good idea, it's vaguely reminiscent of the idea that everyone should do less damage as their HP falls, which encourages overhealing. This kind of change would probably cause newer healers to overheal a bunch.

To be honest, I have no idea what "busywork" means. It's a word thrown around from time-to-time, but it's never consistent on what actually qualifies as busywork. Whether damage comes from the boss, another player, yourself, or anything else... damage is damage. If healing HP spent on actions is busywork, then isn't healing unavoidable damage also busywork?

Like I said, I'm not specifically advocating for that mechanic. It was just an idea I thought would be interesting to discuss, but as a criticism of the concept, I don't really understand this. I totally understand wanting damage to come from more interesting places as well, rather than just make a shock field on every battle arena that deals damage over time to all party members as another example. But having one does not mean the absence of the other. We could, in theory, have both.

[Shurrikhan]

To be honest, I have no idea what "busywork" means. It's a word thrown around from time-to-time, but it's never consistent on what actually qualifies as busywork. Whether damage comes from the boss, another player, yourself, or anything else... damage is damage. If healing HP spent on actions is busywork, then isn't healing unavoidable damage also busywork?

To me, hitting a button without any need for thought beyond, at most, "Will I need to move within the next second?" So, fillers the value of which could be easily replicated by auto-attacks / auto-casts delayed by use of any other weaponskill/spell, etc. If the amount of consideration would be unchanged even if its consequent button-presses per minute were removed, it's busywork.

In this case, having everyone's HP drain per action would provide no more thought than a negligible but constant DoT that further penalizes Speed. The resulting Regen casts it'd oblige wouldn't quite fit my way of defining busywork above, but would come damn close, so I can see why Aravell would have that complaint.

[Aravell]

To be honest, I have no idea what "busywork" means. It's a word thrown around from time-to-time, but it's never consistent on what actually qualifies as busywork. Whether damage comes from the boss, another player, yourself, or anything else... damage is damage. If healing HP spent on actions is busywork, then isn't healing unavoidable damage also busywork?

Like I said, I'm not specifically advocating for that mechanic. It was just an idea I thought would be interesting to discuss, but as a criticism of the concept, I don't really understand this. I totally understand wanting damage to come from more interesting places as well, rather than just make a shock field on every battle arena that deals damage over time to all party members as another example. But having one does not mean the absence of the other. We could, in theory, have both.

I don't know what other people mean by the word, but to me "busywork" means extra work external to the fight itself. Like if you're playing an RPG and your party member just continuously consumes their own HP so you have to heal them or they die, I don't consider that healing requirements, I personally consider that external busywork. To me, continuous damage to the party external to boss mechanics (such as the lightning floor on Behemoth in LotA, the fire floor after Eternal Darkness in A11) doesn't exactly make healing any more interesting, it's similar to every raidwide being 60s apart and applying a 60s long bleed.

I'd personally want to see more pressure from the boss itself, the constant chip damage from Barbariccia was a good mechanic. I'd rather see high-speed healing mechanics rather than a slow burn, if that makes sense. It's just personal preference, I'm not dismissing the idea outright and saying that it's outright bad, I just wouldn't prefer it.

[ForsakenRoe]

It's just an idea that is interesting to think about. How would the landscape of FFXIV look if that were implemented?

Given that a healer's GCD is 250p-330p (depending on which healer), and a DPS's is... more, usually (too many to list), I'd imagine the answer to that question is 'exactly the same as now, but the DPS bitch at the healer to have 100% Medica2 uptime to invalidate the HP draining effect of their weaponskills, thereby turning what was intended to be a DPS mechanic into an entirely Healer focused one'

[Shurrikhan]

Given that a healer's GCD is 250p-330p (depending on which healer), and a DPS's is... more, usually

Yes, but don't forget to multiply the healer's ppgcd per its trait modifiers (1.3x). If you're going to compare across roles (Tanks/Melee, Rangers, Casters/Healers), you'll need to do so in relative potency, not merely what's on the skill tooltips.

Dosis III spam, for instance, is a 429 relative ppgcd (+221 cppgcd). Eukresian Dosis is a relative 975p, Misery 1612p (yes, almost twice the relative potency of even a buffed Guren, a 2-minute SAM CD), etc.

[ForsakenRoe]

Yes, I did forget to factor in Maim and Mend's effect. However, we also have to consider that Medica 2 is AOE, and therefore would be 'one GCD to save ALL of the DPS/Tanks from having to press their self-heal GCD', meaning we'd be comparing one Glare Dosis etc lost, vs... let's call it 5 (two tanks, two melee, one physranged) GCDs of varying potencies

Besides, let's be real, even if it were 'a gain' in RDPS for the DPS to manage their own HP (eg, the healer's GCD works out to be like 15% more RDPS contribution for that GCD compared to the amount the DPS are going to lose by all pressing their selfheal), the healer would STILL be the one to 'suck it up', because it's the healer's job to heal

[Deceptus]

To me, hitting a button without any need for thought beyond, at most, "Will I need to move within the next second?" So, fillers the value of which could be easily replicated by auto-attacks / auto-casts delayed by use of any other weaponskill/spell, etc. If the amount of consideration would be unchanged even if its consequent button-presses per minute were removed, it's busywork.

In this case, having everyone's HP drain per action would provide no more thought than a negligible but constant DoT that further penalizes Speed. The resulting Regen casts it'd oblige wouldn't quite fit my way of defining busywork above, but would come damn close, so I can see why Aravell would have that complaint.

An old log showed a WHM cast their filler (Glare) almost the exact same times the PLD tank auto attacked.

So yeah, our filler is the definition of busy work.

Yes, but don't forget to multiply the healer's ppgcd per its trait modifiers (1.3x). If you're going to compare across roles (Tanks/Melee, Rangers, Casters/Healers), you'll need to do so in relative potency, not merely what's on the skill tooltips.

Dosis III spam, for instance, is a 429 relative ppgcd (+221 cppgcd). Eukresian Dosis is a relative 975p, Misery 1612p (yes, almost twice the relative potency of even a buffed Guren, a 2-minute SAM CD), etc.

Those attacks are also modified by weapon damage. I'm pretty sure a 100 potency attack on a DPS is going to hit harder than a 100 potency attack on a healer

[Shurrikhan]

Those attacks are also modified by weapon damage. I'm pretty sure a 100 potency attack on a DPS is going to hit harder than a 100 potency attack on a healer

Since the changes to magical vs. physical weapon scaling...

An unbuffed "potency" of damage on Tank/Melee is worth the least, because those roles have no permanent output increases.
A Ranger's attack potency is worth 20% more than a Tank's/Melee's potency, due to their Job Action Damage traits permanently increasing their damage by 20%. A Tank/Melee's potency is worth only 83.3% of a Ranger's potency.
A Healer's/Caster's potency is worth 30% more than a Tank's/Melee's potency, due to their Mend and Maim traits permanently increasing their output by 30%. A Tank/Melee's potency is worth only 76.9% of a Healer's/Caster's potency.

The "unbuffed" potency-value comparisons are as simple as comparing their permanent damage buffs.

The kicker is BLM, who gets 130% output from role traits, 123% output from Enochian, and 180% output on Fire spells during AF3, for a 275.4% or 287.8% modifier (the 340p Despair is actually worth 936.4 or 978.5 Tank/Melee potency), depending on whether Enochian and Maim and Mend are multiplicative.

For my part, I'd like to see the role bonuses, at least, replaced with just potency upgrades at those levels so Tank/Melee potency = Ranger potency = Caster/Healer potency, with any differences just coming from the damage/crit/dhit buffs we're under.

[Absurdity]

Since the changes to magical vs. physical weapon scaling...

An unbuffed "potency" of damage on Tank/Melee is worth the least, because those roles have no permanent output increases.
A Ranger's attack potency is worth 20% more than a Tank's/Melee's potency, due to their Job Action Damage traits permanently increasing their damage by 20%. A Tank/Melee's potency is worth only 83.3% of a Ranger's potency.
A Healer's/Caster's potency is worth 30% more than a Tank's/Melee's potency, due to their Mend and Maim traits permanently increasing their output by 30%. A Tank/Melee's potency is worth only 76.9% of a Healer's/Caster's potency.

It's not just worth the least because tanks lack permanent damage increasing passives, they actually use a different formula for attack power calculations than dps jobs that is intentionally lower.

[Shurrikhan]

It's not just worth the least because tanks lack permanent damage increasing passives, they actually use a different formula for damage calculations than dps that is intentionally lower.

The damage formulas are consistent across jobs.

This is the damage formula for physical direct damage (periodic damage adds a SKS/SPD multiplier in the second set, after tenacity), compliments of Ahk Morning, whether it be done by a Tank, Melee, or Ranger:

{[[[Potency × f(Attack Power) × f(Determination)] /100] /1000} × {[f(Tenacity)/1000 × f(WeaponDamage) / 100] × Trait] /100} x {[[D2 × CRIT? /1000] × DH?] /100} x {rand[95,105] /100} × buff_1 × buff_2 x ....

• (Like buffs stack multiplicatively.)
• DHit uses a value of 125 if direct hitting; else, 100.
• Crit uses a value of f(Crit) if critting; else, 1000.

This is the damage formula for magical direct damage, whether done by a Caster or Healer:

{[[[Potency × f(Attack Power) × f(Determination)] /100] /1000} × {[f(Tenacity)/1000 × f(WeaponDamage) / 100] × Trait] /100} x {[[D2 × CRIT? /1000] × DH?] /100} x {rand[95,105] /100} × buff_1 × buff_2 x ....

...They're the same.

The only differences occur within periodic damage/healing, because SkS and SpS both affect periodic affects but are two different stats, with physical jobs' abilities and weaponskills using the first and magical jobs' abilities and spells using the latter.

The dominant difference between two jobs' potencies across roles is just due to this part here:

{[[[Potency × f(Attack Power) × f(Determination)] /100] /1000} × {[f(Tenacity)/1000 × f(WeaponDamage) / 100] × Trait] /100} x {[[D2 × CRIT? /1000] × DH?] /100} x {rand[95,105] /100} × buff_1 × buff_2 x ....

I.e., when a job gets an extra 30% damage from its traits, it's going to deal a lot more, pre-buffs/conditionals, than a job that gets no bonus damage from its traits.

Other random/fun facts:

• Melee-ranged use a pre-weapon-delay-adjusted auto potency of 110, while Ranged autos do 100, but Dancer uses melee autos / Melee-ranged and Dancer use a pre-weapon-delay-adjusted auto potency of 110, while non-Dancer Ranged autos do 100.
• Jobs may vary by up to 5 output-affecting main stat from one another, due to initial flavoring of base stat spent on stats which have no effect for that job (like higher base DEX on SAM). In effect, this just means that SAM gets 3 less and MNK gets 5 less Power than other DPS, while PLD and GNB get 5 Power less than WAR and DRK, and NIN gets 5 less Power than BRD and MCH.

Edit: I got thrown off by the previous wording --"different formula for damage calculation"-- when I should have been thinking about the factors behind said formula. Tanks do indeed produce even less damage per potency than even Melee, due to a ~30% penalty to their Attack Power.