Before I begin, I really wish I could put a dev tag on this thread, but SE has not yet issued one to this topic (they should, it is important). While I posted this in the White Mage thread for obvious reasons, this also involves Paladins, Red Mages and Scholar quite extensively - and I hope we can fight not each other, but the common enemy of crappy cures. Perhaps by doing this we will be able to get SE to resolve the issue on a faster time table as it becomes more obvious how important this is to us.
As many of you should be well aware of by now, SE has stated that they are looking into changing the formula for Cure spells as an option. This has been something asked for by all the jobs that can heal, even White Mages. Clearly, the spells do not scale well to high levels, and even SE now acknowledges this.
Now one of the most persistent things about these forums is the constant asking for Cure V for other non-WHM jobs. This has basically come down to Cure IV not being enough, and White Mage having Cure VI. These both resolve to the same issue - lower tier cures do not scale well.
There is some work being done with Regen spells and increased amounts of cure potency gear. However, Regen spells only do so much, and cure potency caps at 50% (and the implications of raising it are worse then simply adjusting the cure formulas). Thus, boosting cures below Cure IV would be very helpful.
Even on the higher end this is relevant - as any competent or remotely intelligent White Mage will tell you, Cure VI sucks, and is essentially Cure V on a different timer, for 92 more MP. Perhaps if after the formula changes Cure VI isn't utter crap my opinion about it would change, but as it stands, one could make a serious argument about simply removing the spell from the game. It might have useful situations now, but I'm currently disappointed to the point of disgust with this spell. While I could spend an entire thread complaining about this spell and players who think it justifies any sort of spell list changes for other jobs, the ultimate issue is that this spell was just a band-aid for poor scaling.
Here is a list of the current cure spells and their current cure amounts (this list assumes a modest gear set of 400 Healing Magic skill, 140 MND, and 80 VIT, both 0% and 50% cure potency gear are shown). This list is a bit incomplete for true analysis on the cures, as it lacks HP/MP ratios, but it is good for a general feel of what each cure does in terms of raw curing power.
- Cure I
35 HP - 52 HP- Cure II
97 HP - 145 HP- Cure III
204 HP - 306 HP- Cure IV
441 HP - 616 HP- Cure V
721 HP - 1081 HP- Cure VI
940 HP - 1410 HP
As anyone can see, the bigger the cure, the more effect cure potency has on it. There are other implications too, but the important thing is to get a feel for the current cure amounts.
Onto the spells in general, I will start about what we can say about cure formula changes that, and some implications of this.
First, we know that the changes will ideally make it so everyone can cure better, but the main focus will be on making jobs that natively have cure spells (or rather, Healing Magic Skill) heal even better then jobs subbing those jobs. This is to say, White Mage, Paladin, Red Mage and Scholar.
To reiterate, this is one of the key complaints about spell scaling - White Mages, Paladins, Red Mages and Scholars should be able to cure more then jobs that sub these jobs with Cure I/II/III/IV. A White Mage casting Fire does not do as much damage as a Black Mage doing so, a Paladin casting Utsusemi does not get as many shadows as a Ninja, a Red Mage using Curing Waltz does not heal as much as a Dancer, and a Scholar using a summon does not get as strong a pet as a Summoner. If all these jobs do not offer as much, even when wearing equal gear, then why should a cure heal as much when subbed as it does on someone who gets it natively?
Basing this entirely on Healing Magic Skill, however, starts to run into problems. While subbing White Mage for example, someone would have access to Cure I/II/III/IV, and at level 47, 144 (150 at 49) Healing Magic Skill. But when subbing Scholar, you get Cure I/II/III and the ability to pop Light Arts to change your 128 Healing Magic Skill into 346 Healing Magic Skill. This is basically C skill +1, or better then a Paladin, Red Mage, or Scholar not under Light Arts can get natively.
There are a few solutions to this problem, many of which are bad. First, Light/Dark Arts could be gimped for subjob level skills, which wouldn't affect jobs that natively have some skill in the relevant skills, but would horribly affect ones that don't, such as White Mage trying to Dark Arts + Aspir with Scholar sub. Second, Cure III and lower could still be crappy to cast, but this defeats some of the purpose of the formula adjustments, which would ideally make it so jobs without Cure V have at least two solid cure spells.
A third solution would be to accept this, and simply make Cure IV scale well enough that jobs with it would be in a much better boat then jobs with only Cure III, but still boost Cure III enough that it is useful. Ultimately, the formula changes for cures would be very difficult to perform right, especially with balancing jobs subbing Red Mage or White Mage for Cure IV and jobs subbing Scholar for Light Arts and Cure III, while still making it so that Healing Magic Skill has a more drastic affect on cures.
A forth solution would be to simply give a Job Trait to White Mage, Paladin, Red Mage and Scholar to ungimp the cure formula more then other classes will get, which ignores some of the more difficult formula design with the third solution while completely ignoring Cure III/IV balance.
Moving onward, we have the White Mage AF3+2 pants, which reduce the cost of cure spells for White Mages. The enchantment is very potent, and I think it would be reasonable to expect it to not be on gear ever again, due to the potent effects. Still, this leaves a 5% refund on healing for White Mages, who would probably get the most benefit in terms of maximum cure amounts from formula changes. This gives us a very clear maximum amount that cure spell will be allowed to cure, which I will list here. All maximum amounts are accounting for Light Arts.
- Cure I
8 MP (8 MP) - 160 HP- Cure II
24 MP (22 MP) - 440 HP- Cure III
46 MP (42 MP) - 840 HP- Cure IV
88 MP (80 MP) - 1600 HP- Cure V
135 MP (122 MP) - 2440 HP- Cure VI
227 MP (205 MP) - 4100 HP
These numbers are quite high compared to what the numbers should be in most cases, however they are still important to be aware of.
Currently spell effects give about a 4-5.5 / 6-8 HP/MP ratio. Spells would have to do better then this when boosted. Scaling all spells up, the ideal would be to make Cure III and Cure IV be able to perform a competent amount of healing more in line with current HP totals, without being able to outperform Cure IV/V.
I will leave the exact numbers of what these should be to discussion (and might even give some suggestions, but not in the starter), but ultimately, every spell should get a boost in cure amount. This is more relevant for lower tier cures, and more of a trivial change for larger cures. Hopefully this thread will start some deep conversation about what we want from cures without adding to spell lists, and will get SE's attention drawn to this subject more.