Soothing Helix - A new approach to SCH healing

[Zhronne]

This idea has been offered by many other players over the course of the last months, I'm just trying to give it a more structured feeling.
My intent is to make so SE can find an inspiration, and to confront myself with other people's opinions, to see what they think about it.

Spell Name: Soothing Helix
Element: Light
MP cost: 150 (???)
Casting time: 1 second
Recast: 120 seconds
Effect Lenght: 60 seconds (average)

Description:
It's just like an offensive Helix spell, but it heals a target instead of doing damage. It would be alligned with "Healing Magic", making it work with all of the Light Arts stratagems.
Just like Helix spells, it would gain a considerable boost from weather/day (Aurorastorm, for example).
Just like helix spells, its tics would occur every ~9 seconds.
This spell would heal for an initial small amount, and then repeat with HoTs every ~9 seconds.
The spell mechanics would be so it would work better by stacking MND instead of any other stat. It would not be affected by Cure Potency.

Special Effects:
If the SCH who cast Soothing Helix attempts to heal a target with such spell, his heals will receive a bonus of 5% Cure Potency (stacking over the natural cap of 50%).
The currently ongoing Helix spell would also last for one additional tic.


New Job Ability: Veritas Aequitas
Syntax: /ja "Veritas Aequitas" <me >
Recast: 5 minutes
Effect: Same effect as Modus Veritas, but it affects Soothing Helix. As you can see the syntax involves the user and not a target, that's because the JA works on all of the targets affected by Soothing Helix.




Final Comments:
HoTs (Healing Over Time) are something that have never been thoroughfully explored in Final Fantasy XI. While there are many DoTs, there is almost just one form of HoT, and that's Regen.
We already know that very soon SCH's Light Arts will affect in some way Regen and that SCH will get Regen IV as well. This has the potential to make SCH's regens stronger than WHM's.
Adding "Soothing Helix" would make SCH an even more HoT based healer and could partially cover the gap SCH currently has as a healer while compared to WHM.
SCH would become a better healer than it is now while not outclassing WHM, doing it in a very original and unique way instead than just "copying" WHM.


Balancing of Soothing Helix
The numbers I put are probably not very well thought. 150mp is a big cost for a HoT spell, it's higher than the cost of Cure V.
I imagine Soothing Helix to be a spell with a very very fast casting time, a high recast (so that you can't spam it but must choose carefully when to use it, especially if you want to pair it with Rapture or Accession) that gives SCH a new "way" of healing, by opening up new bonuses (the special effects and the synergy with the new JA).

[Delvish]

Your proposition has a lot of merit, something we have been clamoring for some time. Given SCH not receiving cure V, this would be a mandatory implementation as little else would bring us to the level we need to be at.

A few critiques though, first off your special effects confuse me and contradict the statement that it is not affected by cure potency. Secondly, having a JA only usable with a single spell is rather silly so I personally recommend compatibility with modus. This if course would have to include modifications to modus recast.

Finally I believe your mp cost and recast could use some modifying. I'd say 60:60 recast:duration so you can always keep it active on one person at a time, which is a party balance requiring good enmity control. The mp cost as you said could certainly be lower. I'd say about the same as cure v or vi, since it is our version of that spell essentially.

To expand upon this, implementing tiers of a healing helix might be a good idea too, allowing lower levels access to this but more potent versions as we increase in level.

[Zhronne]

A few critiques though, first off your special effects confuse me and contradict the statement that it is not affected by cure potency.

I probably just worded the sentence wrong. Sorry about that, english is not my mother language.
It's a concept pretty common in other mmorpgs.
You put a "buff" on a target, if you try to heal targets with that buff active, your heals will be more powerful.
So basically you put Soothing Helix on a target, if you try to heal that target with a Cure IV, your Cure IV will be 5% more powerful, and this 5% will go beyond the 50% cure potency cap.
So the spell that receives the bonus is not Soothing Helix itself (which is not affected by Cure Potency) but other following curing spells that you cast on targets affected by Soothing Helix.
Of course this special effect will work only for you, the person who did place Soothing Helix on a target, and not for everybody else.
5% might seem like a very small amount, and it is, but since Soothing Helix can potentially last a lot of time (perpetuance etc) I didn't want to make it overpowered.
I just wanted an original, unique and interesting healing mechanic; something new to the game that would make healing "different" than it is now for WHM and the jobs that imitate it.

Secondly, having a JA only usable with a single spell is rather silly so I personally recommend compatibility with modus. This if course would have to include modifications to modus recast.

You're right, but after all Modus Veritas is a JA only useable on a single class of spells as well, so it's not much different.
Actually one thing that could be done to balance Veritas Aequitas is to make it share a cooldown with Modus Veritas (which in all honesty should be brought down to 5 mins, it makes no sense anymore to have it on 10 mins, seeing its accuracy issues).
The reason why I created this new JA instead of just using Modus Veritas is because Modus is used on a target, while Aequitas is used on yourself, which means it affects ALL the targets buffed with Soothing Helix, and not just a selected one.

Finally I believe your mp cost and recast could use some modifying. I'd say 60:60 recast:duration so you can always keep it active on one person at a time, which is a party balance requiring good enmity control. The mp cost as you said could certainly be lower. I'd say about the same as cure v or vi, since it is our version of that spell essentially.

Yes, Those numbers are just very preliminar ones, it's feedback like this I was looking for
I kinda agree on the mpcost, but I kept it high initially because I was afraid of making it too powerful, same reason why I didn't make it 60:60, that way it would be too easy to just keep it up 100% of the time, while the "challenge" of this style of healing would be that of trying to keep it up as much as possible, and gain advantage of it. Making a "strategic use" of the spell, and not just mindlessly casting it whenever it's ready.
After all if we want to extend its lasting time we can always use Perpetuance. With AF3+2 hands it's 2,5 more lasting time
It would be very coherent with the way SCH works now, using Stratagems to empower his spells, no?

To expand upon this, implementing tiers of a healing helix might be a good idea too, allowing lower levels access to this but more potent versions as we increase in level.

I thought about a single one, powerful, to be learned around level 96, but sure, your idea of 3 or 4 tiers is cool and I see no problem with it.
You would only have to change the multipliers/variables inside the formulae, the mechanism of the spell itself would be the same

[Soranika]

A cure based helix. I'm game. But you have to wonder if it'll surpass maybe Regen IV.

[Zhronne]

More than being being better or worse it would be different. It would heal a small chunk of HP at start (Regen does not), it would last longer with bigger but slower tics, it would cost more mp, it would be much faster to cast, it would have a much higher cooldown, it would grant additional special effects and, last but not least, it would actually stack with Regen IV, so you wouldn't be forced to choose one or the other

[Ahrana]

I've honestly become fairly pessimistic about how SE has handled the curing/damage prevention side of things in ffxi. The four different kinds of tools that they provided players with are enfeebles, buffs, regens and cures, but to be honest the only one that works well is curing.

Enfeebles use to be very good, but apparently SE took exception to rdm/nin soloing stuff with potent slow II/paralyze II so they made the new generation of HNM's largely immune to them. Blind and bio were never really effective at preventing much damage on HNM's, and silence and gravity tend to be all or nothing spells that are almost always nothing. Other things that could be included in enfeebles are stuns and elegy, but many more monsters are either immune to stun or gain an immunity, and elegy usually lands on the same monsters that slow II will land on. SE has also been making monsters who just push out TP moves instead of regular attacks (iron giants, that harpy from bastok VW, etc) so even if you do land slow it means next to nothing.

Buffs are largely ineffective also, with the exception of shell. Giving jobs extra vitality is laughably ineffective (whm or stormsurge sch) and the gains from protect spells are minimal at best. Phalanx is useful if you're farming weak monsters, but when you start fighting HNM's that can push out 1k+ damage TP moves who really cares if you're shaving 32 damage off the top. The only thing that really helps is -%damage taken, and occasionally barspells if you can pump them up high enough. It's also worth noting that baddies who can dispel multiple/all buffs are more common, which makes this class of spells less useful. Even worse are the HNM's who absorb buffs.

Regen spells also suffer from the dispel/absorb problem of other buffs, but the real issue is that SE doesn't allow stacking the same buff on someone in general. If 3 people can regen someone who is taking damage, only 1 will actually take effect. If 3 people can cure someone who is taking damage, all 3 cures take effect. The other major problem with heal over time spells in ffxi is that they're not really potent enough to be of any use in end game activities.

This is ultimately why I'm so lukewarm on the idea of a scholar helix heal. It would likely be party only, it wouldn't stack with the same spell from other scholars, and would be underwhelming in terms of potency. I'd love to be proven wrong, but I know better then to be hopeful.

Oh, and cures. Pretty much the only things that works for HNM's right now. HNM's aren't immune to them, they can't dispel them, and they're the only thing potent enough to keep someone on their feet when a monster gets all TP/spell spammy.

tl;dr version:
In the current game/HNM design an additional heal over time spell wouldn't really help the situation at all for scholar. It would probably have a neato animation though.

edit:
There was a little hyperbole in this post (I can't think of a immune to all enfeebles full buff absorber HNM off the top of my head), but I think that the problems that I listed above do reflect a lot of the problems that redmage and scholar are running into for end game healing.

[Zhronne]

Your concerns are understandable and very much right if I may add. It's the way the game works, spikes are usually so high that no form of defensive buff or regen will be enough to defend against that (btw, you forgot about Scherzo/Migawari/EarthenArmor when analyzing defensive buffs).
It's also a shame that Defense for players became so largely useless. Maybe it was ok to stack defense and use Defender in 2004, but it kinda sucks otherwise.

Now back on Soothing Helix. I imagined the spell as useable outside of your party, just like Embrava.
As for the multiple stacking... I didn't think about it. Normal Helixes are stackable on a target, each SCH can put one helix of choice on the same target. Following the same pattern, Soothing Helix should be the same on players, right?
But I'm a bit afraid that would lead up to situations where people stack SCHs and just exploit the potential of the spell, stacking a big amount of Soothing Helix and then abusing of Veritas Aequitas.
So, for balance reasons, Soothing Helix should probably work different from normal helixes, and be affected by the limit of "one soothing helix per target", no matter who casts it.

Your worries about the dispellability of buffs are right, but remember that Soothing Helix provides other pros compared to Regen.
It's a much faster, almost instant.
It heals a small bunch of hp at start
It's more powerful than regen
It can stack with regen
It improves your normal healing spells


All in all it wouldn't make SCH as powerful or as good as WHM in healing, and in all honesty I do not want that, I'm very fine with SCH being a worse healer than WHM is, it's just that as we all have acknolwedged over the last months, the difference is too big atm.
You can solve it in two ways imho: by imitating WHM (i.e. giving an additional cure tier to SCH) or by finding an original way of going around the issue.
The incoming buffs to Light Arts and Soothing Helix look like the second choice to me, and I personally find it more interesting because you wouldn't play SCH as a gimp WHM with a lots of stratagems, but as a different job, making it more entertaining to play.
At the end of the day we focus so much on performance and efficiency of gear and spell that we sometimes forget one of the major reason why we play a videogame: to entertain ourselves.

[Yukichibi]

I may be wrong, but helix don't stack, the last cast replace the one already in effect.

[Zhronne]

That's for the Helixes you cast. One SCH can only place a single Helix on a target, the last one you cast replaces the one already in effect. But a target can have more than a single helix debuff on himself, if more SCHs cast it.
Let's say there's a Dhalmel, me and you are SCH. You cast Pyrohelix and I cast Cryohelix. The Dhalmel should receive both helixes.

This is the way people used to exploit SCH before they nerfed Modus Veritas. Because if a SCH uses Modus Veritas, it will affect ALL the helixes on that target, not just the one you sticked.
Pretty sure this is the way it was, doubt it changed recently.

Nonetheless, like I said before, I think that having more than one Soothing Helix on the same target (cast from different SCHs) might lead once more to strategies involving SCH stacking within alliances, and I don't want to see that happen, so I'd rather say that Soothing Helix cannot stack on a single player, no matter who casts it.

[Ahrana]

Your concerns are understandable and very much right if I may add. It's the way the game works, spikes are usually so high that no form of defensive buff or regen will be enough to defend against that (btw, you forgot about Scherzo/Migawari/EarthenArmor when analyzing defensive buffs).

Whoops, I did. I wrote it late at night, wanted to go to bed.

Let's say there's a Dhalmel, me and you are SCH. You cast Pyrohelix and I cast Cryohelix. The Dhalmel should receive both helixes.

This is the way people used to exploit SCH before they nerfed Modus Veritas. Because if a SCH uses Modus Veritas, it will affect ALL the helixes on that target, not just the one you sticked.
Pretty sure this is the way it was, doubt it changed recently.

It's so rare for me to have 2 scholars in one alliance that I'll actually have to test this, but I don't think that is the way it works. According to ffxi wiki, a monster can only be under the effect of one helix spell at a time.

The MV nerf was different then what you described though. If there was one scholar to MV a helix it would do double damage. If a second scholar would MV it would do four times the damage. If a third used MV it would do eight times the damage. So it followed the equation X * 2^Y, where X is the base damage of the helix and Y is the number of scholars that can use MV.

If you had a full allinace of 18 scholars you would do (base damage)*242114, but in all honesty you usually only needed 10-12 scholars to one shot most NM's in the game.

But back to the healing helix, having multiple people stack HOTs to keep someone alive should be the point, not seen as an abuse. Right now one white mage with some refresh support can do this with direct cure spells, if HOTs can't provide the same amount of utility they they will be passed over for what works.