We are a year and some change away from 6.0, and with that will come something many of us are anxious to see: changes to the healers to see if the homogenization and over simplification of these jobs will get fixed, get worse, or stay relatively the same. It's still a long time away, but I have been thinking about ways that could make the healers fun for everyone since the problems arose. I've created a document listing the new builds for each of the existing healers in ways I think we could accomplish redefining their identities and making the role much more engaging without raising the bar for entry.
You can find the full list of changes here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...it?usp=sharing
Here's a brief overview of the main goals and the healer changes:
Goals
The main objectives with these designs are to accomplish a few key points:
- Restore job identity to each of the healers
- Make DPS contributions fun and engaging, but in different ways that cater to different players.
In order to accomplish this, I wanted to focus in on a couple elements of healer design. Spells vs Abilities, for example, were one way I wanted to accomplish this. Healing abilities are actions that don't consume a use of the GCD, and we've been using them as our main source of healing to maximize damage. While raid damage has decreased over the years, our increase in accessible healing actions makes it easier to spend less time casting healing spells, so healers that will spend less time DPSing have had some of their abilities converted to spells on a long cooldown instead, meaning you can't ignore their cost of the GCD to use them.
The White Mage
This is the healer who should be a happy medium in time spent healing vs DPSing--an easy-to-learn healer that's forgiving on healing numbers but teaches the value of juggling healing and DPS. To do this, I reinforced the existing lily system to be about healing spells that fuel high burst damage through Afflatus Misery and Afflatus Agony.
The Scholar
This healer has been taken back to their roots as the "green DPS" which a far more interesting and complex DPS rotation than it's ever had before. Your Gambits and your Faerie give you the tools to heal and prevent damage through OGCDs, but with additional resources that you'll manage my optimizing your DPS rotation. Essentially, you're trying to build and maintain your resource engine as the Scholar so that you can continue to DPS aggressively while still healing. This is meant for the healers that want to be Green DPS.
The Astrologian
Their cards and sects have merged into a new system that stays balanced while giving each different card a more unique individuality as the cards now apply the arcanum to the AST and augment how certain actions function. Moreover, I wanted to reinforce their support-oriented nature by making DPS buffs to party members a spell rather than an ability. This means in order to contribute DPS to the raid, you'll actually be buffing allies constantly rather than casting Malefic. Your only direct DPS will come from Combust uptime and a few abilities, meaning you'll spend most of your time in a raid casting support spells instead.
Ultimately, creating a healthy set of healers that feel engaging and fun to play is something I find very important to me. I want everyone to have a healer that speaks to their own personal play style, and I want the identities of the healers to shine brighter than they ever have before. I'd love to hear how others feel on the subject, and what ideas from these builds you all like.
Continue reading...
You can find the full list of changes here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...it?usp=sharing
Here's a brief overview of the main goals and the healer changes:
Goals
The main objectives with these designs are to accomplish a few key points:
- Restore job identity to each of the healers
- Make DPS contributions fun and engaging, but in different ways that cater to different players.
In order to accomplish this, I wanted to focus in on a couple elements of healer design. Spells vs Abilities, for example, were one way I wanted to accomplish this. Healing abilities are actions that don't consume a use of the GCD, and we've been using them as our main source of healing to maximize damage. While raid damage has decreased over the years, our increase in accessible healing actions makes it easier to spend less time casting healing spells, so healers that will spend less time DPSing have had some of their abilities converted to spells on a long cooldown instead, meaning you can't ignore their cost of the GCD to use them.
The White Mage
This is the healer who should be a happy medium in time spent healing vs DPSing--an easy-to-learn healer that's forgiving on healing numbers but teaches the value of juggling healing and DPS. To do this, I reinforced the existing lily system to be about healing spells that fuel high burst damage through Afflatus Misery and Afflatus Agony.
The Scholar
This healer has been taken back to their roots as the "green DPS" which a far more interesting and complex DPS rotation than it's ever had before. Your Gambits and your Faerie give you the tools to heal and prevent damage through OGCDs, but with additional resources that you'll manage my optimizing your DPS rotation. Essentially, you're trying to build and maintain your resource engine as the Scholar so that you can continue to DPS aggressively while still healing. This is meant for the healers that want to be Green DPS.
The Astrologian
Their cards and sects have merged into a new system that stays balanced while giving each different card a more unique individuality as the cards now apply the arcanum to the AST and augment how certain actions function. Moreover, I wanted to reinforce their support-oriented nature by making DPS buffs to party members a spell rather than an ability. This means in order to contribute DPS to the raid, you'll actually be buffing allies constantly rather than casting Malefic. Your only direct DPS will come from Combust uptime and a few abilities, meaning you'll spend most of your time in a raid casting support spells instead.
Ultimately, creating a healthy set of healers that feel engaging and fun to play is something I find very important to me. I want everyone to have a healer that speaks to their own personal play style, and I want the identities of the healers to shine brighter than they ever have before. I'd love to hear how others feel on the subject, and what ideas from these builds you all like.
Continue reading...