Make Deployment Tactics DPS Neutral

[Aravell]

Nice strawman. What is the difference between healing DPS-neutrally with an OGCD on a cooldown versus with a GCD on a cooldown? Keywords here are "on a cooldown".

By the way I literally gave you the examples. There is absolutely no reason for you to be this obtuse, unless you want to see Lily heals gone from the game because you don't understand how they work and think they are braindead?

Why yes, I would like lily heals gone from the game if it's damage neutral. I vastly preferred the ShB incarnation, you can plan around a damage refund, you don't have to plan around damage neutrality. It's not hard to see that total damage neutrality removes meaning to your choices because there is no consequence, unless you're the one being willingly obtuse perhaps?

I think Aravell wants a trade: deal extra DPS or Heal... much like how PLD is with Clemency. The current situation with the rest of the healer is like how WAR is at the moment, dealing damage and at the same time, healing themselves in the process.

Yes, I want the healer role to choose. You either do damage or you heal, you shouldn't be handed things for free by being allowed to do both at the same time. I don't mind certain things to be damage neutral, but if the cost isn't damage, it should be something else, a long CD or MP perhaps? Lilies are too cheap for what they offer. 4 totally free casts per minute is way too much, and that's without mentioning WHM's other ways to heal without losing damage.

[AnotherPerson]

Why yes, I would like lily heals gone from the game if it's damage neutral. I vastly preferred the ShB incarnation, you can plan around a damage refund, you don't have to plan around damage neutrality. It's not hard to see that total damage neutrality removes meaning to your choices because there is no consequence, unless you're the one being willingly obtuse perhaps?

Yes, I want the healer role to choose. You either do damage or you heal, you shouldn't be handed things for free by being allowed to do both at the same time. I don't mind certain things to be damage neutral, but if the cost isn't damage, it should be something else, a long CD or MP perhaps? Lilies are too cheap for what they offer. 4 totally free casts per minute is way too much, and that's without mentioning WHM's other ways to heal without losing damage.

This problem is a bit more nuanced than dps refund or not. Frankly, healing skills being a DPS loss/partial refund actually results in less choices in the current design because there's really no decision to be had when the current meta of healing is lossless healing via healing abilities (oGCD healing). You choose the less expensive choice, which ultimately ends up being free healing without dps cost. The current problem with healing brings 2 states of failure for engagement:

1. You have too many healing skills and choices that most of them doesn't matter. However, with both oGCD heals and DPS neutral healing, at least you CAN choose which heal you want to optimize healing efficiency when things go bad. However, that becomes an illusion of choice if consistent damage is severely lacking.
2. When you have different cost in damage refund, it ultimately becomes "what is the least expensive cost skill to heal with?" And in the current state with all this oGCD healing, the choice is so linear that damage refund skills can become a static healing rotation -- which is the worst choice for a playstyle that wants to adapt to situations like a healer. Likewise, turning all skills into a DPS refund is basically a convoluted method to reducing the amount of damage on your nuke and turning your damage refund skills into the new "oGCD healing" priority buttons. I wouldn't call that really engaging since it's basically the healer way to look at 1-2-3 rotations. Though if it just becomes all partial refunds that does damage greater than your nuke in one GCD, we might just end up saving it all on a burst window, so it still becomes 2-1-1-1-1-1-1-1 until then.

The reason why partial dps loss works on SCH so well is because Scholar addresses both of these issues and can get a DPS gain when they manage their aetherflow skills properly rather than always facing a partial DPS loss -- without compromising on adaptive play. Scholar faces skill lockout throughout its toolkit (soft locks like Aetherpact, Hard locks like Dissipation and Seraph), and this is what makes the current state of Scholar where everything becomes a 'tactical' balancing act work. On top of trying to manage a DPS gain, they also have to consider changing their strategies if people suddenly start taking avoidable damage while facing skill lockout. There becomes choice with the change in combat rather than a static rotation which always grants a partial DPS gain/loss via aetherflow.

Though, considering how some people dislike skill lockout (dissipation), that's not a playstyle I think everyone will enjoy and doesn't need to be replicated on other healers.

But because damage is generally low and scripted, a lot of SCH end up facing the illusion of choice anyway in simple content because they never need to adapt when everyone knows what to do.