Why don't we have more DPS abilities ?

[Shurrikhan]

@Carighan

The WHM effect seems out of place to me (more Arcanist than CNJ or WHM), but I like the diversification. The AST effect seems especially interesting -- though note that the global recast time would also have to be affected, not just the cast time, for wax and wane to have the same outputs, and despite the thematic flavor there probably isn't much to optimize until we get a lot more opportunity for chained non-emergency GCD heals at the least.

[Naoki34]

Hello guys.

As a WHM player, I'm wondering why most of our DPS comes from spells ?

I means, if ~40% of our DPS came from spells and ~60% from short CD abilities (4 or 5 sec cooldown), we would prioritize healing spells over healing abilities when healing are required.

That way, it would be the occasion to bring back earth/wind/water to WHM while keeping light spells we have now. And we would have a more complex DPS rotation.

Ah, you must not be aware that the vast majority of Healers don't want to Dps, and as they complained to Yoshi-P, he decreed that all Healers would have just enough to defend themselves in MSQ.
Because when it comes down to it, we all do as we please, but the rules go for the majority, and in general, this forum, which should rather be called “The Complaints Office”, is populated by the noisy minority. Yes, that's democracy too...

Peace to all Healers who shouted: You don't pay my sub!
And who got more of the same in response.

[Mondodo]

Ironically the MSQ is one of the greatest reasons why healers need to get more interesting ways to do damage. Both me and my friend tried to be the healer as we went through the MSQ for the first time and although we got fast queues it wasn't worth it because the experience of trying to do the solo duties as healer was just dull as dishwater. It was fine until disciple of magic gear split for me at least because I played SMN/SCH but I don't know how this game is realistically going to get more people interested in healing if it's going to take twice as long to do a solo boss fight as healer than it is to do so as a DPS. It makes Healer something that relies on the player wanting to go back at max level and level a healer, rather than a fresh new player going through the game as a healer and enjoying themselves from day one.

A new DPS spell or two for each job would do wonders to alleviate this problem I think, as well as an increase in DPS for healers in solo duties in the MSQ. They could also some shoring up of WHM/SGE identities to either give them some utility or make their damage shine more as something as valuable as SCH/AST utility.

[Sunhwapark]

They could probably just make the primary spell rotate through 3 animations per cast for some visual diversity - kind of like what they did to with DRK's Bloodspiller under the effect of Delirium.

[Azurarok]

I really don't see it making much of a difference since it doesn't change the one button spam, especially if we're saying they should be the exact same otherwise.

PCT, PLD, and DRK's all also differ in potencies per step, but that only works because PCT and PLD have ways to adjust what step of the combo they'll be at when buffs come around, while with DRK it's exclusively used as a burst tool like PLD's Confiteor combo.

[Supersnow845]

Exactly PCT’s filler would be boring as dirt if it was just fire in red, aero in green and water in blue. Its filler works because it’s 4 seperate parts that interact with each other

[Katish]

I still believe less heal buttons actually ADDs more complexity to the job than having more...I herald blu mage nowadays as the best iteration of what a healer could be. Having to use GCDs when needed feels great...and having the option to have 70%+ of your kit be dps buttons you can use adds to the complexity of having to weave in those skills with heals.

The problem with having a bloated healing kit is they are never going to make enough mechanics that utilize all those skills, and even should they, what is the point when every skill can be used to answer said mechanic? Their solutions to "make healers heal" are just as boring as their current healer(s) design, and the dps kit has only suffered over it because the devs think the boring kit is 100% needed\justified as a healer...when I think again it has no need to be so bloated. The ridiculous amount of healing skills further detracts from what complexity could be added to the job as you now have even more skills to answer the same mechanic any of your existing other healing skills could have already answered. The downside also being the damage and or buffing\debuffing capabilities begin to lessen even more to make way for useless healing skills


Personally would love a mix of both where more unique skills were thought out such as a shield that reflects damage that you would put up whenever your shield would break for a new form of DoT or a heal that changed operation under some "form" like reverse healing that does damage. The point I am making though is their job design is fundamentally flawed if they think more is better when it comes to solely healing. It is rare you need to reach for a gcd heal....the new raid design showcases this even more...and they showed they aren't changing their minds on it. So why does the dps kit need to suffer if the design remains to be the same and no new mechanics are being added? We see the same old flares, meteors, stacks, etc. all answered the same way.

[Carighan]

The WHM effect seems out of place to me (more Arcanist than CNJ or WHM), but I like the diversification. The AST effect seems especially interesting -- though note that the global recast time would also have to be affected, not just the cast time, for wax and wane to have the same outputs, and despite the thematic flavor there probably isn't much to optimize until we get a lot more opportunity for chained non-emergency GCD heals at the least.

Oh that's a good point, I should have mentioned it affects the induced GCD by an equivalent amount, too. And yeah that waxing/waning would mostly be for flavor, not optimisation. I'd love some optimization in it, but encounter design would have to change for that to be realistic.

[Carighan]

The problem with having a bloated healing kit is they are never going to make enough mechanics that utilize all those skills, and even should they, what is the point when every skill can be used to answer said mechanic?

Exactly.

Or, if an expansive kit is desired for job-identity-reasons, it ought to work in an augmentative way. So instead of having an oGCD ability that performs the exact same heal+HoT as the casted GCD one (just maybe a tad weaker and of course on a CD), the oGCD adds the instant heal to the GCD which is otherwise just a HoT (or any other such example), because then you can add multiple such oGCDs, mutually exclusive and/or stackable as desired, with different effects. But ultimately you always cast that one GCD to apply the base HoT + the secondary effects from the oGCDs. The "effective kit" stays small, even with lots of supportive abilities built around it.

The most extreme case of this would be something like... I think it was the bonedancer from DAoC? They had carrier spells that designated the "type" (strong + slow cast, instant cast but weak, AoE, etc etc), and then while casting that had time to attach one or more "rider" effects onto the carrier, which otherwise didn't really do anything. This would reduce a class to maybe 4-5 actual abilities, but with the option to have 10-20 extra hotbar buttons, and also - I love that conceptually - have their nukes and heals be the same basic buttons.

You press Slow Cast, but then you decide to go for the main effect Damage and the secondary effect DoT. Next GCD you press PBAE as your base, main effect Heal, secondary effect Damage Reduction, etc etc. The riders could all have individual CDs as needed, the carrier spells naturally would not.

[LynxDubh]

I started in 3.2 as a healer main, and it stayed that way until I heard about the shadowbringer changes. It was a great expansion but by the gods it ruined my interest in healing. I now have a priority of tank >= Dps >>>>> Healing for roulette choice, only queueing if even tank times are slow. I'm only touching sage because it's the healer I dislike the least. If you asked a friend of mine you could receive a book-sized rant from me about AST (which is fine now but doesn't change the fact my job main for 1/3 of HW and all of SB was nuked from orbit).

Healing as far as FFXIV goes is not something I ever do to enjoy myself now, it is done because it's a last resort. Also hot take from myself but the 30s dot is boring because they do not interact with kits at all. I'll still take it because healers... really don't have anything else. Sage has a decent number of other attacks but they all have gigantic cooldowns so it all boils down to dosis spam.

I joined in 3.2 as well as an AST main. Once ShB hit I switched to DNC, and now that DT has made it unfun, it's hard for me to keep interest in the game as a whole. At this point my skills as a healer have degraded so far due to the simplified kits. Plus the attack spam just makes me bored and distracted now making my play even worse, ADHD has not been kind to my healer gameplay.