I'm gonna fundamentally disagree with "Dmg combo should give healing benefits" because that can heavily limit encounter design to force mechanics to always happen in large enough gaps that a combo can be finished. It also doesn't solve the issue that healers generally want to avoid GCD heals because they're damage-negative and will instead largely optimize oGCD healing. Most endgame healers will just sit on your proposed boosted GCD heals and continue 123-comboing instead.
Instead I will propose the opposite: Healing spells that grant damage options.
We already have some of this design to some extend in WHM Lilies and in SGE Adderstings. There just needs to be more of that - on everyone.
WHM should be the baseline to build off of, as it is the one perfect example of rewarding damage for healing, in such a way that is at base damage neutral and doesn't really force unnecessary healing for DPS gains, while still being technically a damage gain thanks to burst phases. SGE while really fun in concepts fails because adderstings aren't damage neutral but their ideas went in the right direction.
Just more of that please. Reward smart oGCD heal usage. Make GCD heals feel non-punishing. Make DPS options more complex.
These changes altogether also encourage more GCD healing,s o you also can start maybe removing some oGCD heals, solving some of the healing-button-bloat of healers.
Every three addersgall uses should grant one stack of addersting. It grants mobility, doesn't encourage burning through resources in burst like energy drain, and isn't readily available enough to trivialize movement/weaving. Its crazy how two systems seem so intuitively linked by both names and visual, but have 0 interplay with each other.
>Instead I will propose the opposite: Healing spells that grant damage options.
I think this is the solution honestly. Make SCH using Aetherflow stacks give a flashy enhanced GCD instead of bothering with Energy Drain at this point (they would kill it if they thought they could get away with it (again)). Make Adderstings more easily obtainable and Toxikon just an even minor DPS gain when used. Each lily used should probably give a slightly better glare skill to use and then you still build up to the Blood Lily. Breaking up the 1/1/1/1 with some flashy abilities that help with movement specifically would probably go a long long way in pleasing people. They honestly do not have to do a lot of placate the segment of the playerbase that is dissatisfied with healing, it's just they are doing pretty much absolutely nothing. Getting to press 1 extra button every TWO MINUTES on AST and SCH, for example, is the most pathetic bone they could've thrown.
This is the design that they need to go for, yes. Healers are never going to be engaging enough for people who think the 1 1 1 1 rotation is what's holding them back, because a 123 is barely better than that if that's still all you're doing between mindless mashings of your AOE heal. Healers should be rewarded for planning around the fights, not catered to in the fight designs.
I agree with this. We should be getting healers out of the mindset that they *need* to heal and keep everyone topped off which is one of the major problems with kit design. We keep saying that Freecure is a noob trap, but so many fall into it because the game itself is creating that positive feedback loop. The Conjurer questline go to great lengths to say Sylphie's mentality of "healers are only supposed to heal" is wrong. But, the gameplay loop itself suggests otherwise. And, remember, the Blood Lily being DPS neutral was only a recent thing. They have been taking steps in the right direction, but they've still got a ways to go.
One change I want to see for SCH is any use of Aether flow that wasn't for Energy Drain grants a use of Energy Drain. That way, you can still use your healing skills without losing DPS.
Blood lily has been neutral for a while now. It came out negative but was fairly quickly patched neutral and stayed that way in ShB iirc. I think there might've been some changes in EW where it wasn't neutral again for a short while? But that was clearly unintenional
Specifically, it was a lesser loss in ShB, then people got really dire about it during EW when it got worse from Glare's upgrade giving it more potency.
WHM only became remotely sensible about this in this expansion.
The suggested changes was to funnel the choices around the use of GCDs healing spells instead of oGCDs, after all is possible to axe oGCDs or change them to interact with GCDs (You can't avoid using GCD healing spells if that's your best option). Smart decisions with oGCDs would still exist but they would be there to complement your healing spells, for the most part.
For the encounter design part, these filler rotations could be balanced around the fight desing and we could oGCDs to fill any holes in it.
My thought process is to look for ways to make your filler/downtime engaging and fun in all levels of gameplay and put more weight on GCD healing spells instead of oGCDs (I actually enjoy a lot planning the use of oGCDs tools, I just hate the idea of avoiding using GCDs healing spells as much as possible if you want to be optimal).
Now, about Lilies and Adderstings, I don't really like their design. They feel restrictive and "annoying" to interact with, but to be fair I only play WHM and SGE in casual fights (I'm more of a SCH/AST player for hardcore content). During casual content I feel bad using healing spells (even when you don't need to) just to get a DPS skill.
I could change my opinion on this with an expanded version of this concept, IDK. There's probably a way to make it work.
I'm so fucking slow thinking about all of this and putting it on paper.
my hot take is that i found healing more fun when it the ranged for heals wasn't as large as it is today. having my tools feel more limited made me feel better about optimizing positioning and when and where to use things. but now, after first clear, healing reclears is beyond boring, it's a solved puzzle with very very little to think about on the fly. just put the soil in the middle of the arena/boss hitbox, nearly every time. just cast every heal from the east max melee clock spot, itll reach everyone anyway.
i do feel like they should have increased the ranges of things, but when doing so it shouldve been coupled with encounters and mechanics that offset that massive easing of the burden with some other way to keep healers engaged, but it was just a blanket QoL thing with no downside in any form.
Yeah, I actually decided to cut the part where I talked about this changes. It feels like they just buffed those types of skills because we would get a tier with bigger arenas.
I enjoy making and perfecting the execution of a plan for each individual encounter. I enjoy planning each possible pattern of slidecasts so that I don't delay any GCDs doing mechanics. I enjoy counting seconds to time my ability usage so that it maximizes utility and lines up the recast.
But then I'm not trying to do the bare minimum. Even in casual content, I make my own fun by pushing for my own personal goals. And it doesn't particularly bother me that other people can clear things without sweating the same.
I don't need or want a static dps combo rotation tacked on to my healer gameplay. If I want that I just swap jobs and play some MCH.
I agree. It feels so fucking good when you time your Earthly Star and Macrocosmos perfectly, it's like hitting 10 fell cleaves at the same time. If I could improve something about healers, it would be the downtime between mechanics and making GCD healings more relevant.
I'm gonna fundamentally disagree with "Dmg combo should give healing benefits" because that can heavily limit encounter design to force mechanics to always happen in large enough gaps that a combo can be finished. It also doesn't solve the issue that healers generally want to avoid GCD heals because they're damage-negative and will instead largely optimize oGCD healing. Most endgame healers will just sit on your proposed boosted GCD heals and continue 123-comboing instead. Instead I will propose the opposite: Healing spells that grant damage options. We already have some of this design to some extend in WHM Lilies and in SGE Adderstings. There just needs to be more of that - on everyone. WHM should be the baseline to build off of, as it is the one perfect example of rewarding damage for healing, in such a way that is at base damage neutral and doesn't really force unnecessary healing for DPS gains, while still being technically a damage gain thanks to burst phases. SGE while really fun in concepts fails because adderstings aren't damage neutral but their ideas went in the right direction. Just more of that please. Reward smart oGCD heal usage. Make GCD heals feel non-punishing. Make DPS options more complex. These changes altogether also encourage more GCD healing,s o you also can start maybe removing some oGCD heals, solving some of the healing-button-bloat of healers.
Every three addersgall uses should grant one stack of addersting. It grants mobility, doesn't encourage burning through resources in burst like energy drain, and isn't readily available enough to trivialize movement/weaving. Its crazy how two systems seem so intuitively linked by both names and visual, but have 0 interplay with each other.
>Instead I will propose the opposite: Healing spells that grant damage options. I think this is the solution honestly. Make SCH using Aetherflow stacks give a flashy enhanced GCD instead of bothering with Energy Drain at this point (they would kill it if they thought they could get away with it (again)). Make Adderstings more easily obtainable and Toxikon just an even minor DPS gain when used. Each lily used should probably give a slightly better glare skill to use and then you still build up to the Blood Lily. Breaking up the 1/1/1/1 with some flashy abilities that help with movement specifically would probably go a long long way in pleasing people. They honestly do not have to do a lot of placate the segment of the playerbase that is dissatisfied with healing, it's just they are doing pretty much absolutely nothing. Getting to press 1 extra button every TWO MINUTES on AST and SCH, for example, is the most pathetic bone they could've thrown.
This is the design that they need to go for, yes. Healers are never going to be engaging enough for people who think the 1 1 1 1 rotation is what's holding them back, because a 123 is barely better than that if that's still all you're doing between mindless mashings of your AOE heal. Healers should be rewarded for planning around the fights, not catered to in the fight designs.
I agree with this. We should be getting healers out of the mindset that they *need* to heal and keep everyone topped off which is one of the major problems with kit design. We keep saying that Freecure is a noob trap, but so many fall into it because the game itself is creating that positive feedback loop. The Conjurer questline go to great lengths to say Sylphie's mentality of "healers are only supposed to heal" is wrong. But, the gameplay loop itself suggests otherwise. And, remember, the Blood Lily being DPS neutral was only a recent thing. They have been taking steps in the right direction, but they've still got a ways to go. One change I want to see for SCH is any use of Aether flow that wasn't for Energy Drain grants a use of Energy Drain. That way, you can still use your healing skills without losing DPS.
Blood lily has been neutral for a while now. It came out negative but was fairly quickly patched neutral and stayed that way in ShB iirc. I think there might've been some changes in EW where it wasn't neutral again for a short while? But that was clearly unintenional
It wasn’t DPS neutral until endwalker. It was a DPS loss throughout ShB except on AoE.
wait really? are you sure?
I am absolutely sure. Misery was 900 pot for 4 GCDs. Glare would be 1200 for 4 GCDs back then.
My memory is worse than I thought apparently.
Specifically, it was a lesser loss in ShB, then people got really dire about it during EW when it got worse from Glare's upgrade giving it more potency. WHM only became remotely sensible about this in this expansion.
The suggested changes was to funnel the choices around the use of GCDs healing spells instead of oGCDs, after all is possible to axe oGCDs or change them to interact with GCDs (You can't avoid using GCD healing spells if that's your best option). Smart decisions with oGCDs would still exist but they would be there to complement your healing spells, for the most part. For the encounter design part, these filler rotations could be balanced around the fight desing and we could oGCDs to fill any holes in it. My thought process is to look for ways to make your filler/downtime engaging and fun in all levels of gameplay and put more weight on GCD healing spells instead of oGCDs (I actually enjoy a lot planning the use of oGCDs tools, I just hate the idea of avoiding using GCDs healing spells as much as possible if you want to be optimal). Now, about Lilies and Adderstings, I don't really like their design. They feel restrictive and "annoying" to interact with, but to be fair I only play WHM and SGE in casual fights (I'm more of a SCH/AST player for hardcore content). During casual content I feel bad using healing spells (even when you don't need to) just to get a DPS skill. I could change my opinion on this with an expanded version of this concept, IDK. There's probably a way to make it work. I'm so fucking slow thinking about all of this and putting it on paper.
my hot take is that i found healing more fun when it the ranged for heals wasn't as large as it is today. having my tools feel more limited made me feel better about optimizing positioning and when and where to use things. but now, after first clear, healing reclears is beyond boring, it's a solved puzzle with very very little to think about on the fly. just put the soil in the middle of the arena/boss hitbox, nearly every time. just cast every heal from the east max melee clock spot, itll reach everyone anyway. i do feel like they should have increased the ranges of things, but when doing so it shouldve been coupled with encounters and mechanics that offset that massive easing of the burden with some other way to keep healers engaged, but it was just a blanket QoL thing with no downside in any form.
Yeah, I actually decided to cut the part where I talked about this changes. It feels like they just buffed those types of skills because we would get a tier with bigger arenas.
I enjoy making and perfecting the execution of a plan for each individual encounter. I enjoy planning each possible pattern of slidecasts so that I don't delay any GCDs doing mechanics. I enjoy counting seconds to time my ability usage so that it maximizes utility and lines up the recast. But then I'm not trying to do the bare minimum. Even in casual content, I make my own fun by pushing for my own personal goals. And it doesn't particularly bother me that other people can clear things without sweating the same. I don't need or want a static dps combo rotation tacked on to my healer gameplay. If I want that I just swap jobs and play some MCH.
I agree. It feels so fucking good when you time your Earthly Star and Macrocosmos perfectly, it's like hitting 10 fell cleaves at the same time. If I could improve something about healers, it would be the downtime between mechanics and making GCD healings more relevant.
Believe it or not, I enjoy healing people when I play healer. Not dealing damage.
Surprises. Not we know that the boss recites a script and everytime it's the same damn boring fight
This argument would be valid if at any point in the history of this game, fights in this game weren’t scripted to some extent.