Cure Formula Changes

[Economizer]

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.


So one possibility we’re considering is increasing the influence of the healing skill and MND, as well as increasing the HP recovery amount more than it is currently.

We believe this would involve making adjustments to jobs that have healing skill to improve the amount of HP recovered, but due to the fact that we will also be implementing cure potency equipment, implementing this aspect is simply one issue under consideration.

With that said our goal is not to make it so a certain job’s advantages are given to other jobs so they are able to do the same thing, instead we would like to look into how we can keep each job’s specialties intact and create ways that they can support other jobs.

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.

[Tsukino_Kaji]

Cliffsnotes please.

[Arcon]

I cant reed, plz halp!

Read the last paragraph.

[Economizer]

Cliffsnotes please.

You really should read the entire thing, it is formatted for readability, and uses things like grammar with minimal mistakes.

People reading a summary wouldn't be as completely aware with some of the issues (well, at least the ones I was able to list) with changing the cure formulas, but if you want a TL;DR:

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.

Even White Mages have complained about Cure VI, which is essentially a band-aid for the scaling problem, since Cure III/IV are coming up short.

SE commented on this, a condensed version of my already condensed quote:


So one possibility we’re considering is increasing the influence of the healing skill and MND, as well as increasing the HP recovery amount more than it is currently.

The goal of this thread is to start some deep conversation about what we want from cures without adding to spell lists, and to get SE's attention drawn to this subject more.

TL;TL;DR: Basically, talk about and suggest changes to the cure formulas.

[Tsukino_Kaji]

Read the last paragraph.I don't talk like a tool, please change your missquote to reflect that.

[SpankWustler]

I just hope the Development Bros realize the issue is with the soft caps themselves rather than reaching the soft caps. They can be very deranged at times, so I wouldn't put it past them to work on entirely the wrong side of the equations and then tell a thousand raging people "Hey, we fixed it!".

Without running any numbers, I'd say that just increasing all soft caps by 25% but leaving the formulas exactly the same would be easy to do and wouldn't break anything too horribly. Maybe less than a 25% increase for Cure V and Cure VI, since their caps aren't as brutal as those of their little bros.

Maybe a casting time reduction to Cure VI to give it a new niche as a MP inefficient "OH NO THINGS DONE GONE BAD!" button. I can't see people ever having enough HP for it to work as just another Cure, no matter how much HP it restores.

Honestly, I'm trying not to think too hard about what I want. It leaves the Development Bros with less room to disappoint me.

[Greatguardian]

Cure VI was built around a soft cap that no one will ever hit ever outside of brew/massive cruor buffs. I'm not sure what they were thinking when they introduced it.

[Motenten]

Here's my post working through the math for the changes I'd suggest for the cure formula:

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/15942-dev1029-SCH-Feedback?p=222103#post222103

The math is far more specific than Economizer's post, but I think that the suggested changes are quite reasonable. It gives greater weight to skill than mnd, and tones down the scaling restrictions past the soft (for Cure IV/V) and hard (for all cures) caps. So jobs with native healing skill will heal significantly better than jobs without that skill, though the overall effect will have jobs that might sub whm (or whatever) still curing for just slightly more than they do now.

Thus, no downside compared to current curing, but improves the amount cured by Cures 1-4 by around 25% at level 99 for those with native skill (before cure potency is applied).

[Economizer]

I just hope the Development Bros realize the issue is with the soft caps themselves rather than reaching the soft caps.

Yeah, I honestly didn't think of the possibility that they'd just make it easier to reach cap, which is the opposite of what I'd want.


Without running any numbers, I'd say that just increasing all soft caps by 25% but leaving the formulas exactly the same would be easy to do and wouldn't break anything too horribly. Maybe less than a 25% increase for Cure V and Cure VI, since their caps aren't as brutal as those of their little bros.

First off (as more of a point of interest really), Cure V and VI actually have a hard cap (I believe this was tested with a Primeval Brew). If you are interested, my source (http://ffxicalculator.com/) says they cap at:

Cure V
810 HP / 1215 HP
Cure VI
1140 HP / 1710 HP

This point of interest only really comes into effect when we talk about changing the soft caps on spells, because when soft caps are removed, (using my previous 400 Healing Magic skill, 140 MND, and 80 VIT stat block to remain constant with the starter post), we get the following numbers for cures. Note that I don't have soft cap numbers for Cure VI, and Cure V is above the hard cap. I'm a bit suspicious of these numbers, as the source (http://members.shaw.ca/pizza_steve/cure/Cure_Calculator.html) for these numbers has proven to be slightly unreliable.


Cure I
360 HP - 540 HP
Cure II
390 HP - 585 HP
Cure III
440 HP - 660 HP
Cure IV
720 HP - 1080 HP
Cure V
885 HP - 1327 HP


Second, I can't tell how exactly you intent to raise the cure amounts, given your wording about soft caps.

If you mean something simple like "just increase cure amounts by 25%" I can pull numbers for that fairly quickly, with this (just straight 25% across the board):


Cure I
43 HP - 64 HP
Cure II
121 HP - 181 HP
Cure III
255 HP - 382 HP
Cure IV
551 HP - 826 HP
Cure V
901 HP - 1351 HP
Cure VI
1175 HP - 1762 HP


Unfortunitely for me quickly pulling numbers out of the place I pull items in game, soft caps refer to something more confusing (to me). If my source (http://members.shaw.ca/pizza_steve/cure/Cure_Calculator.html) is right, here are the soft caps for cures.


Cure I
30 HP
Cure II
90 HP
Cure III
190 HP
Cure IV
390 HP
Cure V
690 HP


As much as it pains me to admit it, I'm not so mathematically inclined that I can look at the formulas for these things and know how to increase the softcap and produce a number easily. Still, after some toying around with a spreadsheet using the date from my source (http://members.shaw.ca/pizza_steve/cure/), I found how to do this more or less (the numbers below come with a 25% decrease in the rate number to boost cure power, which essentially lowers what we could call the softcap by 25% - interestingly enough, boosting the constant 25% as well just returns the 25% boost numbers almost exactly). I don't have the numbers that the calculator I'm using uses, so again, can't calculate Cure VI.


Cure I
37 HP - 55 HP
Cure II
100 HP - 150 HP
Cure III
209 HP - 314 HP
Cure IV
425 HP - 638 HP
Cure V
754 HP - 1131 HP


I'm not sure if these were the numbers you were looking for, but perhaps this helps provide a better understanding of the numbers we are looking at. Note that these numbers are about a five percent improvement on the current ones.

Ultimately, I'm not sure a simple 25% buff would solve things ideally, although it would be a solid start. My issues with just buffing spells 25% is a question towards how it would be done - how do we ensure that most of this buff is enjoyed by White Mages, Paladins, Scholars and Red Mages, and not anybody subbing White Mage or Red Mage? Moving from this, even if those four jobs essentially got a 25% buff to cures while well geared and other jobs didn't, would this be enough of an edge to satisfy main job healers? Lots of difficult questions for now, at least for those that would like an elegant solution.


Maybe a casting time reduction to Cure VI to give it a new niche as a MP inefficient "OH NO THINGS DONE GONE BAD!" button. I can't see people ever having enough HP for it to work as just another Cure, no matter how much HP it restores.

Considering that Cure V could be scaled up and up and up when the rest of the cures are (short of some situation where Cure V cures 2440 HP and the tank has like 4000HP), and it wouldn't really affect how White Mage does things, I don't think the amount Cure VI cures could help its case, although I wouldn't be so bitter if it was more MP efficient then Cure VI, even if I could never use that efficiency in the majority of situations. Or if Cure VI performed some ultility while curing sorta like Blue Mage's Plenilune Embrace does. Or something. As is, the spell leaves a bitter taste in my mouth, even when I'm using it for the one use I have for it - being able to main Cure while weakened in Abyssea.


Cure VI was built around a soft cap that no one will ever hit ever outside of brew/massive cruor buffs. I'm not sure what they were thinking when they introduced it.

I think it was a lot like a band-aid, or maybe just misplaced idealism, I'm not sure sometimes. The spell caps at least potency then a Cure V in every situation, and even hard caps faster then Cure V according to current formulas (this is a little harder to tell, but ultimately, pop a brew and we can see the super disappointing hard cap). I'm loathe to admit it even has found a use or two (the second one would be if I'm being lazy on super easy things), but I'd like to think that if Cure III and IV cured for more, even that limited use. I hate even talking about it, because I'd like this thread to be more then just about White Mages, but I can't help myself but complain about it sometimes. :(

Cure formula changes aren't about to fix Cure VI anytime soon in my opinion, but considering the priorities, I think that's okay. While it won't hurt for Cure V/VI to get masses of more HP cured, I don't really see how that will majorly affect balance. What is more important and will have more impact is for lower tiers, particularly Cure III/IV to cure more for jobs with native access, and this should help everyone.

[Motenten]

First off (as more of a point of interest really), Cure V and VI actually have a hard cap (I believe this was tested with a Primeval Brew). If you are interested, my source says they cap at:

Cure V
810 HP / 1215 HP


That implies a hard power cap of 1240. Adding that to my spreadsheet for personal reference.

After doing some re-writing to clean things up, I found that values that make the scaling on the lesser cures make sense. The overall pattern being used is much clearer now.

The current cures (aside from 6, though 6 is still similar to the others) follow fairly distinct patterns. It's clear that the design for the formulas is a mixture of power (value generated from skill/mnd/vit) and the amount that each spell cures (which how the caps get defined).

Cure 1 has a minimum cure amount of 10 HP, and increases by 10 HP per cap. Cure 2 has a minimum cure amount of 60 HP, and increases by 15 HP per cap. Etc. See table:


Min Cured Cure @Cap1 Cure @Cap2 Cure @Max Interval
Cure 1 10 20 30 40 10
Cure 2 60 75 90 105 15
Cure 3 130 160 190 220 30
Cure 4 270 330 390 450 60
Cure 5 450 570 690 810 120
Cure 6 660 960 1140 1140 300~


The amount of power required to reach those caps depends on a base value and the rate of increase the devs decided on. For example, Cure 3 has a base value of 70 and a rate of 4 (for up to Cap 1). To get from 70 to 160 HP cured at a rate of 2 power per HP means you need 90*2 = 180 power. To reach the next cap (30 more HP) at a rate of 4 power per HP means you need another 120 power on top of that. And so on.

Ultimately, everything is built around the intervals between each cap (generally doubling with each cure tier), and the maximum allowed power (1240).

The maximum allowed power is why the lower tier spells suck past a certain point. Cure 1, for example, reaches cap 2 at 100 power, and has an interval of 10 HP cured per cap. That means going from 100 power to the max 1240 power only increases the total amount cured by another 10 HP (1 HP every 114 power).

Cure 5, on the other hand, reaches Cap 2 at 560 power, and has an interval of 120. That means it improves by another 120 HP cured with an increase of (1240-560) = 680 power, or 1 HP every 5.67 power (about 2 points of mnd).

Cure 6 caps early because the absolute maximum power allowed (1240) hampers it (it hits the max power before it hits its natural cap).


Because of the way they've built it (now that I have a pretty complete picture of things), I can see how they might be hesitant to change it. For example, I don't know why the specific value of 1240 is used as a max power, but if it's hardcoded into various places, or there's other code that depends on that particular value, it could be very troublesome to change (and easily break stuff if they don't go through everything very carefully).

Likewise, they've built their cure tiers with progressively doubling intervals (though they didn't use 240 for Cure 6 for some reason). A large part of the balance of the game is the progression of damage taken vs damage healed. They have a 'nice' pattern for how healing improves, which, if they change, could throw the overall balance out of whack.

At this point I'm doing some rethinking of my proposed revisions based on these limitations (ie: min cured, 3 defined caps, max of 1240 power).

[Economizer]

I'm not exactly sure what you are thinking, but a few thoughts.

I read your previous numbers post that you linked back when you posted it, and reread it recently (to be completely honest, I couldn't really make sense of the second half whenever you talked about "scaling" - that is to say, I didn't know where you were applying the numbers.

I linked all my sources that I've been using previously, but I'll link them again more clearly, you seem to have a better head for numbers then I do, so the tools would probably help more.


Furen's FFXI Cure Calculator (http://members.shaw.ca/pizza_steve/cure/Cure_Calculator.html)
Furen's FFXI Cure Guide (http://members.shaw.ca/pizza_steve/cure/Index.html)
FFXI Calculator (http://www.ffxicalculator.com/)


FFXI Calculator is better for getting the true caps on spells, but does not show some of the finer workings that Furen's Cure Calculator does (plus Furen's is online), and you can see all Furen's notes on his guide, which explain cures quite well. I can only assume you've probably used/read one of these before, if not all of them, but I want to be sure we have the same resources.


That implies a hard power cap of 1240. Adding that to my spreadsheet for personal reference.

I checked the formula that FFXI Calculator had on this, and while Cure V does hit its hard cap at a power of 1240, the lower tier cures do not cap at any level, at least according to the calculator. I only remember people confirming the top cure amounts for Cure V and Cure VI on the FFXI Calculator forums, so we'd either have to be suspicious of the numbers given for Cures I-IV, or test it.

The easiest way to test this would be to pop a Primevel Brew and start curing people with lower tier cures, or possibly stack enough stats to get over the 1240 power amount, which again, only really seems possible in Abyssea. If anyone with access to the test server is reading this, perhaps you could test maximum possible cure amounts with a Primeval Brew for us?


Because of the way they've built it (now that I have a pretty complete picture of things), I can see how they might be hesitant to change it. For example, I don't know why the specific value of 1240 is used as a max power, but if it's hardcoded into various places, or there's other code that depends on that particular value, it could be very troublesome to change (and easily break stuff if they don't go through everything very carefully).

Blue Mage spells use the same formulas that White Mage spells do, with a bit added on or taken off. Changes to ours would probably changes theirs. Then mob power calculations come in - if mobs can heal more they would be more difficult, and so on. Or at least that's two reasons they might not want to change the formula.


At this point I'm doing some rethinking of my proposed revisions based on these limitations (ie: min cured, 3 defined caps, max of 1240 power).

When you do get a proposal to post, be sure to post something like an average cure amount. For example, I've been using the same stat block over and over for my displayed numbers when making points or answering questions so far.

[Motenten]

I'm not exactly sure what you are thinking, but a few thoughts.

I read your previous numbers post that you linked back when you posted it, and reread it recently (to be completely honest, I couldn't really make sense of the second half whenever you talked about "scaling" - that is to say, I didn't know where you were applying the numbers.

I linked all my sources that I've been using previously, but I'll link them again more clearly, you seem to have a better head for numbers then I do, so the tools would probably help more.


Furen's FFXI Cure Calculator (http://members.shaw.ca/pizza_steve/cure/Cure_Calculator.html)
Furen's FFXI Cure Guide (http://members.shaw.ca/pizza_steve/cure/Index.html)
FFXI Calculator (http://www.ffxicalculator.com/)


FFXI Calculator is better for getting the true caps on spells, but does not show some of the finer workings that Furen's Cure Calculator does (plus Furen's is online), and you can see all Furen's notes on his guide, which explain cures quite well. I can only assume you've probably used/read one of these before, if not all of them, but I want to be sure we have the same resources.



Furen's calculator doesn't include a true hard cap. I likewise was not aware of it until you linked to the BG thread on Cure 6 testing.

I actually used Furen's javascript code to verify the formulas I derived based on what's on the wiki.

Furen's formulas are the same that I'm using, with a couple modifications. For example, he uses:

(Power / 2) / rate

Where rate is what I call 'scale', except that I don't use Power/2, so my values would be the equivalent of

Power / (2*rate) == Power / scale

Then obviously my 'scale' values are twice his 'rate' values. His main page also indicates that only even values of Power cause a change in cure, and may be why he uses Power/2, but I don't see an indication that Power itself is divided and floored. There's tons of values where changing Power by 1 point won't change the amount cured, even in my setup.

I also simplified his [3 * Mnd + Vit + 3 * (Skill/5)] to be [3 * (Mnd + Skill/5) + Vit].


I checked the release notes of the FFXICalculator and noted the cap you mentioned. However with no source code available I can't really make any decisions based on that. Luckily the BG thread you mentioned has plenty of data to allow me to see where he got the values from, and I've incorporated them into my spreadsheet.


I checked the formula that FFXI Calculator had on this, and while Cure V does hit its hard cap at a power of 1240, the lower tier cures do not cap at any level, at least according to the calculator. I only remember people confirming the top cure amounts for Cure V and Cure VI on the FFXI Calculator forums, so we'd either have to be suspicious of the numbers given for Cures I-IV, or test it.

The easiest way to test this would be to pop a Primevel Brew and start curing people with lower tier cures, or possibly stack enough stats to get over the 1240 power amount, which again, only really seems possible in Abyssea. If anyone with access to the test server is reading this, perhaps you could test maximum possible cure amounts with a Primeval Brew for us?

The release notes on FFXICalculator also only list fixes to Cure V/VI, so it's not surprising it doesn't hard cap 1-4. But yes, would be nice if someone could brew on the test server to verify the max cured amounts for each.



Blue Mage spells use the same formulas that White Mage spells do, with a bit added on or taken off. Changes to ours would probably changes theirs. Then mob power calculations come in - if mobs can heal more they would be more difficult, and so on. Or at least that's two reasons they might not want to change the formula.

When you do get a proposal to post, be sure to post something like an average cure amount. For example, I've been using the same stat block over and over for my displayed numbers when making points or answering questions so far.

Fiddling with numbers while keeping these limitations in mind. So far, kind of annoying, as there's a lot of variability to account for (amount cured at various levels, progressive spell efficiency at different power levels, etc).

[SpankWustler]

This thread is really great. I'm actually learning stuff from it, even. It's a lot like reading a Dostoevsky novel.

Every idea is well thought out. Everything is well-written. Most similarly, it's a depressing tale of sad individuals trapped by their own mistakes and misdeeds. True to form, the responsible parties are dragging others down along with them. My favorite part is that nobody among the Development Bros thought to check for a cap on Cure Power before creating Cure VI.

Perhaps the Development Bros could just remove the "Hurt by cures. Ouch!" property of Undead creatures then go ahead with whatever cure changes need to be made with somewhat fewer complications. Cure spells cast on Undead have the rare and distinguished honor of being more useless than the Banish line, so it would hardly be a loss if such a change allowed them to fix the restorative properties of Cure spells more properly.

[Economizer]

Sorry to disappoint, but this post is going to be a bit light on the math.


Perhaps the Development Bros could just remove the "Hurt by cures. Ouch!" property of Undead creatures then go ahead with whatever cure changes need to be made with somewhat fewer complications. Cure spells cast on Undead have the rare and distinguished honor of being more useless than the Banish line, so it would hardly be a loss if such a change allowed them to fix the restorative properties of Cure spells more properly.

To be honest, I would hope that with the formula change, we get the opposite of it getting removed, but rather, we get increased damage against undead. I'm not asking for much really, it isn't like I'm asking for the short period of time White Mages everywhere could nuke down undead with 99999 damage cures (although I am secretly hoping for it). I'm not really even asking for the ability to outnuke a Black Mage on undead.

Still, even something like a hidden trait that somehow reduces the 50% damage reduction of cures on undead for all jobs over level 50 or so would be amazing, since Cures, tier for tier, do not hit as high numbers as elemental magic does, and is still subject to resists. Further, they only work on undead. In deference to offensive magics, Elemental or Divine, I'm not sure a full removal of the damage reduction would be allowable (well, not without a more detailed examination of the math behind it), but any bone thrown would make the spells slightly more viable.

As a bit of a side point, I'd also hope that an enfeebling job, such as Red Mage would get a spell like "Zombie" that would make non-undead mobs weak to cure spells among other effects.

Wandering away from offensive applications of Healing Magic, I recently looked into gear that boosts Healing Magic skill, and unsurprisingly there isn't as much of it as there is of gear like Enhancing Magic skill or Enfeebling Magic skill. I wonder if it is made to be more useful if the amount of boost to this skill will be increased?

[Alkimi]

I think SE believe that giving Cure V to SCH and RDM would 'unbalance the game' and are attempting anything and everything to work around this in a different way.

Personally I believe it wouldn't and given the choice everyone I know would still pick WHM over the other two jobs when required in a healing capacity on tougher mobs. WHM will still remain the superior healer.

All I really want is something to remove Amnesia but that's a whole other subject....

[Daniel_Hatcher]

The release notes on FFXICalculator also only list fixes to Cure V/VI, so it's not surprising it doesn't hard cap 1-4. But yes, would be nice if someone could brew on the test server to verify the max cured amounts for each.

I tried it out, Naked:

Tier -- Amount
I -- 40
II -- 105
III -- 220
IV -- 450
V -- 810
VI -- 1140

If you want me to try with Cure Potency and such, just say.

[Motenten]

I tried it out, Naked:

Tier -- Amount
I -- 40
II -- 105
III -- 220
IV -- 450
V -- 810
VI -- 1140

If you want me to try with Cure Potency and such, just say.

Thanks. Those all exactly match the hard cap predictions, so we can be confident in the formula and limits. Cure potency test won't be needed.

[Economizer]

I'd like to state clearly that this is not the place to discuss who should get Cure V. This is a thread solely for the talk of the cure formula, and how it should be changed, and in the case it is, we're going to analyze it. Thanks to everyone who has been keeping on topic.

Extra big thanks to Daniel_Hatcher for getting us these numbers:


Tier -- Amount
I -- 40
II -- 105
III -- 220
IV -- 450
V -- 810
VI -- 1140

I've went and posted on the FFXICalc forums so the author of that tool can update it as well, we're going to need all the numbers as accurate as possible.

I suspect that Cure VI may cap at 1240 power as well, and may just have the formula be more based on the power calculation (such as PW-100) at higher numbers. This will be hard to verify compared to some what we've verified so far I think.


Thanks. Those all exactly match the hard cap predictions, so we can be confident in the formula and limits. Cure potency test won't be needed.

Good call on the hard cap of 1240 PW.

And yeah, we already know how cure potency affects cure numbers, so we won't need any more testing in that area. If anything, we could use some testing on the Blue Mage cures to see if they suffer the same hard caps, but I don't think this is really neccisary, we have a lot of evidence that they will in fact be affected by the same hard caps as the White Mage cure spells.

[Motenten]

I suspect that Cure VI may cap at 1240 power as well, and may just have the formula be more based on the power calculation (such as PW-100) at higher numbers. This will be hard to verify compared to some what we've verified so far I think.

Cure VI does cap at 1240 power. Its interval size is higher than expected (normal progression of doubling intervals between cure tiers would have put it at 240, but it's actually 300 between min and first soft cap), with min cured of 660 HP, and the first soft cap hitting at 960 HP. The gain rate above the first soft cap is 2.55 power per HP, and going from 780 power (power needed for first soft cap) to 1240 (max power) gives an extra 460 / 2.55 = 180.39 HP cured. 180 + 960 = 1140, the known hard cap healed.

Most likely the interval was intended to be 240, since 660 + 240 + 240 also equals 1140, but someone made a mistake on the first soft cap, and had to adjust the scaling on the upper tier to compensate.

[Motenten]

Ok, I think I worked out why the max power cap is 1240. It's a set value derived from the power formula for a combination of mnd/vit/skill that was deemed well above what players would ever likely reach (at 75 cap).

1240 power is reached with: 250 mnd, 250 vit, 400 skill. 400/5 skill = 80 + 250 mnd = 330 * 3 = 990 + 250 vit = 1240.


My suggested change to the power formula was 3 * (mnd/2 + skill/2) + vit. With the above numbers, that would end up generating a total power of 400/2 skill = 200 + 250/2 mnd = 200 + 125 = 325 * 3 = 975 + 250 vit = 1225. Nearly the same total value. Adding 10 mnd or 10 skill would reach the 1240 power cap. So overall I think it's still good.


Now, total amount cured while still using the current cap/interval config:

Cure 1
Current: 10 base, 10 interval, max 40
Revise: 10 base, 15 interval, max 55

Cure 2
Current: 60 base, 15 interval, max 105
Revise: 60 base, 25 interval, max 135

Cure 3
Current: 130 base, 30 interval, max 220
Revise: 130 base, 45 interval, max 265

Cure 4
Current: 270 base, 60 interval, max 450
Revise: 270 base, 90 interval, max 540

Cure 5
Current: 450 base, 120 interval, max 810
Revise: same

Cure 6
Current: 660 base, ~300 interval, max 1140
Revise: 660 base, 240 interval, max 1140 (changing this is optional)



Suppose we keep the first tier scale the same, at 2 power per HP. How would we adjust the remaining parameters to keep everything tidy?

Cure 1 offset: -10
Total power for first tier: 25 - -10 = 35 * 2 = 70
Additional power for second tier: 15 * 4 = 60
Total power for second tier: 70 + 60 = 130
Scale for third tier: (1240 - 130) / 15 = 74

Cure 2 offset: 20
Total power for first tier: 85 - 20 = 65 * 2 = 130
Additional power for second tier: 25 * 4 = 100
Total power for second tier: 130 + 100 = 230
Scale for third tier: (1240 - 230) / 25 = 40.4

Cure 3 offset: 70
Total power for first tier: 175 - 70 = 105 * 2 = 210
Additional power for second tier: 45 * 4 = 180
Total power for second tier: 210 + 180 = 390
Scale for third tier: (1240 - 390) / 45 = 170/9

Cure 4 offset: 165
Total power for first tier: 360 - 165 = 195 * 4/3 = 260
Additional power for second tier: 90 * 3 = 270
Total power for second tier: 260 + 270 = 530
Scale for third tier: (1240 - 530) / 90 = 71/9

Cure 5 offset: 330
Total power for first tier: 570 - 330 = 240 * 4/3 = 320
Additional power for second tier: 120 * 17/6 = 340
Total power for second tier: 320 + 340 = 660
Scale for third tier: (1240 - 660) / 120 = 29/6

Cure 6 offset: 570
Total power for first tier: 900 - 570 = 330 * 4/3 = 440
Additional power for second tier: 240 * 10/3 = 800
Total power for second tier: 440 + 800 = 1240
Scale for third tier: 0



Cure 1
Current second tier cap of 100 power cures 30 HP. 100 power in the above scale would cure 32.5.

Cure 2
Current second tier cap of 170 power cures 90 HP. 170 power in the above scale would cure 95.

Cure 3
Current second tier cap of 300 power cures 190 HP. 300 power in the above scale would cure 197.5.

Cure 4
Current second tier cap of 460 power cures 390 HP. 460 power in the above scale would cure 426.67


Total power to hit the second cap for Cure 5: 660 (generally pretty easy to hit by lvl 82)
Amount cured for each cure tier with 660 power (original, revised):

Original Revised Improvement
Cure 1 34 47 38%
Cure 2 96 120 25%
Cure 3 201 234 16%
Cure 4 405 466 15%
Cure 5 690 690 --

Tentative power at lvl 99: 330 skill, 150 mnd, 80 vit == 800 power.
Amount cured for each cure tier with 800 power (original, revised):

Original Revised Improvement
Cure 1 36 49 36%
Cure 2 98 124 27%
Cure 3 205 241 18%
Cure 4 417 496 19%
Cure 5 739 739 --

MP Efficiency at 800 power:

Original Revised
Cure 1 4.50 6.13
Cure 2 4.08 5.17
Cure 3 4.46 5.24
Cure 4 4.74 5.64
Cure 5 5.47 5.47


Subbing mage won't be as limited as my previous scaling. 150 skill + 150 mnd + 80 vit is 530 power, which hits the second cap for Cure 4, curing 450 rather than the ~500 for someone with (capped) native healing magic skill. However the entire setup is consistent with the current formulations, so should be more viable as a suggestion.

[saevel]

Blue Mage spells use the same formulas that White Mage spells do, with a bit added on or taken off. Changes to ours would probably changes theirs. Then mob power calculations come in - if mobs can heal more they would be more difficult, and so on. Or at least that's two reasons they might not want to change the formula.

BLU magic cures are identical to WHM cures. SE was incredibly lazy with them.

Magic Fruit is Cure V with -200 cure power
Plenilune Embrace is Cure V with -90 cure power
Wild Carrot is Cure III with a small reduction in cure power, don't know off the top of my head

White Wind is the only one that doesn't use a previous cure formula. It's only effected by your maximum HP
floor(MaxHP/7)*2
So you'd want to cure in full +potency and +HP gear.

[Economizer]

I'm not certain that even with changes to how much cures can cure that we will see Healing Magic actually take a satisfactory impact on what cures do (they certainly don't now) but perhaps on top of changing the cure formula to cure more based on that and other factors, Healing Magic skill will help with additional effects?

For example, perhaps having higher Healing Magic could result in effects such as (formulas below each for a general idea of what this could mean - these are not necessarily the formulas that should go into the game and are just present to illustrate):


Raised Enmity Generation / Lowered Enmity Generation while Tranquil Heart is available.
Modifier which is multiplied (or divided when Tranquil Heart is present) against the current enmity amount generated by cures.
Such as modifier = (Healing Magic Skill / 1000) +1
Reduced cast times.
Spell casting time = 1 - (Healing Magic Skill / 2000)
Reduced recast times.
Modifies the base recast (meaning that this bypasses the current 50% recast reduction cap). Base recast modifier = 1 - (Healing Magic Skill / 2000)
Reduced MP cost / MP return based on amount cured.
A reduced MP cost modifier could be something like this: Current spell cost = 1 - (Healing Magic Skill / 2000).
A MP return (like the WHM AF3 pants) could work something like Return Percentage = (Healing Magic Skill / 200)
Reduced Spell Interrupt Rate (Beyond what Healing Magic Skill already provides.)
Spell Interrupt Percentage added = (Healing Magic Skill / 20)


As you can see, none of these are the common "Give everyone a rip off of Afflatus Solace" that is normally seen, without boosting the cure amounts too greatly.

Part of the reason this thread was started was to increase the usefulness of Healing Magic Skill, but I'm not sure it will be a significant enough amount to compare to other boosts that things get from skills with cure amount modifications alone, especially since coming to a good balance number with how much things cure is very difficult as is.

Alternative changes in addition to the eventual formula changes to cure amounts themselves would definitely help sway this towards the proper amount of impact the skill has on jobs that use it.

[Economizer]

Today is a bit of a boring question, coming from my curiosity.

Okay, ever since we got the reply and testing of Enhancing Magic (and weak confirmations from other sources I never bothered to follow up that certain other magic skills cap in effectiveness at 500), I've started to wonder about White Mage's primary skill, which is part of the reason this thread got started. Of course, we know that healing magic has potency caps already, but does it have a potency cap on healing magic?

Looking at my previous post, I actually balanced the example numbers (that are only there for an idea of what effects could possibly do) around the number 500, which is somewhat funny.

Since I haven't actually bothered to gear around healing magic skill in... well, ever, I was wondering if someone else could test this for me? It should be fairly easy to check against a cure calculator, provided someone has the means to get a large amount of skill: "Does Healing Magic keep boosting otherwise uncapped cures after 500 skill?" For testing this, I suggest having a way to test at 500 skill and 510 skill which should (unless you have a decent setup that has well over 250 MND somehow) bring Cure V up by at least one point.

White Mage could in theory get up to ~566 (569 Lightsday) Healing Magic skill (although this would eat into cure potency gear, and be largely inefficient compared to gearing for MND).

[saevel]

Healing Magic Skill just adds to cure power. Each tier of Cure has its own soft cap on how much healing magic skill adds, after that it's only incredibly small amounts. Cure 1 ~ 4 reach their soft cap rapidly, Cure 5 has a much higher cap but it still exists. That's the whole reason BLU's M.Fruit and P.Embrace scale so well with healing magic skill, they have the same caps as Cure V but start at a much lower cure power. What SE needs to do is lift the caps and even out the scaling. It'll take more skill to go up in cure power but the soft cap would be much higher.

[Aleste]

I can hit 500 (508 actually) skill, though trying to find someone to lend me Hyksos Hat to test is proving rather difficult.

Whilst cure-power seems uncapped (or, specifically, that the cap hasn't been reached yet), what he was looking for is verification that any surplus (500+) healing skill isn't reduced to 500 for calculating the base cure power.

Presumably, it should be easy enough to test, if sufficient gear is available.

[Aleste]

[dev1076] Healing Adjustments
As part of a continued overhaul of healing potency, the calculation of certain bonuses will be adjusted as follows:

Revised Method
(1) "Cure potency +" and "Waltz potency +" will stack for a maximum bonus of fifty percent.
(2) "Potency of Cure effect received +" and "Potency of Waltz effect received +" will stack for a maximum bonus of thirty percent.
(1) and (2) may then stack for a maximum bonus of ninety-five(*) percent.

*The final value will be calculated in two stages, with (2) applied to the enhanced value of (1), allowing for a total bonus greater than the sum of the two percentages.

So, the first part of healing adjustments arrives... seems just to be a minor fix so that Healer's Roll (COR) isn't worthless.

=/

[Economizer]

I can hit 500 (508 actually) skill, though trying to find someone to lend me Hyksos Hat to test is proving rather difficult.

Actually, screw testing it lower, plop on your gear to test at 508. Just plug in the numbers to a cure calculator and test with Cure V. If the numbers are lower then expected by a point or two then we have our answer.

[Aleste]

As requested:

http://i41.tinypic.com/1zvfyv4.jpg
Fixed stats (119 MND 89 VIT) and varied Healing Skill
No potency, nigh-naked.

FFXIcalc and Furen's calculator both give the same answer as shown above.

[Economizer]

Fixed stats (119 MND 89 VIT)

Thanks for the numbers. I always feel silly when I can't test these things myself.

We now know that Healing Magic does not cap potency based on skill (but it does cap based on cure hard caps for the base numbers).

Another silly question. Basically, is weather gear still a separate check vs. cure potency received gear or not? I figure there are two possibilities, barring a major bug like them sharing a cap:


Weather gear and cure potency received mix additively.
Cap of 2.55x before job abilities under ideal conditions.
Weather gear and cure potency received mix with multiplication.
Cap of 2.73x before job abilities under ideal conditions.

[Aleste]

I honestly don't mind testing things, moreso if we learn something out of it...

I'll have to have a look around for some potency received gear but I imagine it'd be difficult what with the recent change to the gear..

[Economizer]

I'll have to have a look around for some potency received gear but I imagine it'd be difficult what with the recent change to the gear..

I was going to write out a suggested testing method on the test server, but I forgot whether the new changes to Corsair and healing have taken place yet and I didn't want to look it up at the moment I wrote the last comment.

Testing method: Go White Mage, equip cure potency gear to cap cure potency, a Twilight Cape, a Korin Obi, and sub Corsair. Go somewhere with Light Weather such as Nyzul Isle. Use Healer's Role (be aware it will only have half potency, refer to this page for numbers (http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/19789-dev1069-Corsair-Job-Adjustments?p=264442&viewfull=1#post264442)). Post results with what roles results, weather and your MND/VIT and cure potency values.

I have no clue if the changes for Healer's Role have been implemented on the test server however.

[Aleste]

Havn't tested the above, but it looks like we've got our healing magic adjustments today.

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/20454-%E3%83%90%E3%83%88%E3%83%AB%E3%83%90%E3%83%A9%E3%83%B3%E3%82%B9%E8%AA%BF%E6%95%B4%EF%BC%9A%E3%82%B1%E3%82%A2%E3%83%AB%E5%9B%9E%E5%BE%A9%E9%87%8F%E3%81%AB%E3%81%A4%E3%81%84%E3%81%A6?p=273476#post273476

Google translate is a little sketchy... can we have a translated version community reps?



Cure adjust the amount of recovery
is to receive healing magic skill is greater than the impact of the recovery amount of Cure. Increase the amount of recovery higher than traditional skills, skills for low reverse recovery amounts to virtually eliminate the impact.
This effect has been set as a difference in the growth range depending on the type of Cure, we have focused on the following adjustments, particularly Cure IV.
(For adjustment of the scope of this magic system recovery Kearuga / Kearura, and dancer for waltz is not eligible.)
Cure I ~ IV: The amount recovered up to approximately 1.4 times the conventional
Cure V ~ VI: almost no effect
When this adjustment has been mention last Sun review of up amount healed Cure Released Date / amount healed Cure or ex two, and aims to increase the number of opportunities回Reru Standing healer in job-based mage than White Mage .


Underlined: 'almost' meaning better or worse I wonder?

[Daniel_Hatcher]

Havn't tested the above, but it looks like we've got our healing magic adjustments today.

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/20454-%E3%83%90%E3%83%88%E3%83%AB%E3%83%90%E3%83%A9%E3%83%B3%E3%82%B9%E8%AA%BF%E6%95%B4%EF%BC%9A%E3%82%B1%E3%82%A2%E3%83%AB%E5%9B%9E%E5%BE%A9%E9%87%8F%E3%81%AB%E3%81%A4%E3%81%84%E3%81%A6?p=273476#post273476

Google translate is a little sketchy... can we have a translated version community reps?



Underlined: 'almost' meaning better or worse I wonder?

Will be better but probably only by a couple of points.

[Economizer]

I'm a bit afraid to see this Google Translate in this thread as the community reps have taken a liking to having certain threads locked and if they post in a different one in the last day or two (I suppose it is understandable). I'd really hope this thread doesn't get locked if they do happen to post in a different thread for whatever reason, although I might be a bit biased, having started this thread.

Still, considering the generally more calm attitude in this thread compared to other parts of the forum, I think I'll be safe to speculate a bit on this right now. Given the lack of details (on top of this being a machine translation) I'm going to stick my speculation on the 1.4x number. Assuming they mean that Cure I-IV are getting a boost to this magnitude, that would mean that Cure I-IV would be more MP efficient then Cure V for the first time in ever.

While I understand not boosting it by the same amount since multiplicative boosts to cures with larger cure amount impact the game more, I would really hope that Cure V remains the most MP efficient cure (well, actually, I'd hope Cure VI becomes MP efficient, but somehow I doubt this will happen) even if it is by a slim margin. Assuming the 1.4x number with Cure IV at 50%/424/160/80 we'd be seeing potency numbers go from 7.10 (10.96/14.80)-> 9.94 (19.44/26.24). For reference, compare this to Cure V's 8.15 (13.76/18.57), or Cure VI's pitiful 6.44 (9.50/12.10).

Perhaps the argument was that increasing the cure amounts on these spells would be too game breaking - which I can see the argument for, regardless of if I agree or not. However, I think at very least giving a lowered MP cost for these spells (In Cure V's case, lowered when Healing Magic Skill is higher, in Cure VI's case, that and lowered in general) to bring them in line with at least the HP/MP ratios of the speculative Cure IV amounts (assuming the speculation is correct) would be nice way to keep the current efficiency superiority of Cure V. I don't think we'd die without such an adjustment on Cure V/VI (I know I certainly haven't suffered all that much from just about never using Cure VI, but I suppose that's because it sucks) but it would be the right thing to do, should my speculation about what these possible changes happens to be correct.

Still, this is just some speculation on a machine translation. Guess we'll have to wait and see what gets posted.

[Motenten]

Unfortunately, the posted notes are only so much fluff. We know that they changed -something-, partly with respect to how skill impacts the amount healed, but we don't know the exact mechanics. Testing will be needed before we can render any real judgement.

[Mageoholic]

Id wager you will see cure 4 approach the same numbers as cure V with the limiting factor being it can't be spammed. A great option for all healing jobs. As it give WHM another big heal to help with the lack luster C6, and actually gives RDM and SCH a big heal. (granted it can't be spammed but C3 will be the new C4).

More or less along the lines suggested in this thread. http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/15587-Healing-Magic?p=209217&viewfull=1#post209217 (yes it was by me so what.)

Id wager the formula didn't change much, probably just reduced the reduction value of healing magic over a certain point. Or hopefully that is how they did it. Will still be nice to have a /mage be able to support heal as they currently can, and not ruin them completely. If they didn't lock in current values they are asking for trouble at lower levels.

[Daniel_Hatcher]

Actual translation.


Cure Potency
Cure potency will be affected more significantly by healing magic skill. If a player has high healing magic skill, cure potency will be greatly increased, but low healing magic skill will have almost no effect on cure potency. The effect of skill level on cure potency will vary based on the type of cure, but cures lower than Cure V will be affected the most. Note that Curaga, Cura and Waltzes will not be affected.
Cure I-IV: Up to 1.4 times the normal cure potency
Cure V-VI: Almost no change
With this adjustment combined with the increase of cure potency mentioned earlier, we would like to increase opportunities for mages jobs other than white mage to serve as healers.

[Economizer]

Actual translation.

Posting it again from the source proper for linky goodness:




Cure Potency
Cure potency will be affected more significantly by healing magic skill. If a player has high healing magic skill, cure potency will be greatly increased, but low healing magic skill will have almost no effect on cure potency. The effect of skill level on cure potency will vary based on the type of cure, but cures lower than Cure V will be affected the most. Note that Curaga, Cura and Waltzes will not be affected.

Cure I-IV: Up to 1.4 times the normal cure potency
Cure V-VI: Almost no change

With this adjustment combined with the increase of cure potency mentioned earlier (http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/20089), we would like to increase opportunities for mages jobs other than white mage to serve as healers.


Its pretty much as I thought so my speculation post stands. We could use more information however, this is no better then the machine translation. Still, given the data so far, this sounds beyond our conservative suggestions in most ways and I hope and imagine that when we get more data it will require no more then minor tweaks to perfect. Not everything can be peachy when it comes to designing and administering a game, but the pieces seem to be falling into place for the 99 cap.

[Economizer]

Another weird question... do the WHM AF3 pants grant an MP return with Blue Mage cures?

[Laxedrane]

Another weird question... do the WHM AF3 pants grant an MP return with Blue Mage cures?

If blue mage cures are effected by the stat "Cure potency" and "Cure Recast time-" Then I say yes. Never tested though.

[Arcon]

Another weird question... do the WHM AF3 pants grant an MP return with Blue Mage cures?

Just had a friend test it, it did not return any MP. Healing Breeze (didn't have Wild Carrot, but was enough for testing purposes) for 194 with +1 pants should have returned at least 5 MP, however it still consumed 55 MP.

[Economizer]

Just had a friend test it, it did not return any MP.

Disappointing, but even if it did and Blue Mage spells get affected by the cure changes it still won't change subjob selection, so no big loss. I suppose this is just another statistic to add to a wiki now though.

[Ophannus]

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.

A White Mage casting Refresh gains as much MP as a RDM. A BLM casting Haste grants the same attack speed bonus as RDM. A WHM using convert is as potent as a RDM using convert. Healing specialist job gets high level enfeebles like Addle but enfeebling specialist doesn't get healing spell since level 48 :/

[Aleste]

Let's at least pretend like we're keeping this on topic.

Hopefully I'll get some time set aside to test the new formulas on cure 1-4, but till then let's see some discussion on cure V sets.

I've been aiming for this sort of setup:

Arka IV / Verse Strap +1 / Empty / Mana Ampulla
AF3 Cap / Ajari Necklace / Roundel / Celestial Earring
AF3 Body / Augur's Gloves / Aquasoul Ring / Aquasoul Ring
AF3 Cape / Cascade Belt / AF3 Legs / Zenith Pumps (4%P w/ 6skill)

Totals:
50% cure potency
-7 ENM
+60 MND
+31 skill

Could switch:

Ajari with Fylgja+1 -6MND +3%P -2ENM
AF3 with Tempered cape +1%P +2ENM +4Skill
Zenith with Marduk +10MND -4%P -4ENM -6Skill

Would gain 4 MND, -4ENM and loose 2 skill... comes at the cost of doing salvage though...

[Economizer]

Let's at least pretend like we're keeping this on topic.

Yes, if you are complaining or talking about something that isn't healing, please go away. We don't care here. There are other threads for that.

[Aleste]

Healers roll adjustments in relation to weather testing method.


Testing it atm;

Watersday, in Nyzul Isle (perma single light weather)
99WHM/COR
Surya+3 / AF3+2 head / Facio Bliaud (12%) / Serpentes Set / Twilight Cape / Korin Obi
424 Skill, 118 MND, 86 VIT, 50% potency, obi/cape

No roll 1229
Healers roll 5 1290
Healers roll 10 1314
Bust! 1179



Healer's Roll
Increases the amount of MP recovered while healing -> Enhances potency of "Cure" effect received
Roll Effect Value
1 +3%
2 +4%
3 +12%
4 +5%
5 +6%
6 +7%
7 +1%
8 +8%
9 +9%
10 +10%
11 +16%
Bust -4%
Bonus +4%



Edit: Beaten in math speed~

[Economizer]

Healer's Roll should be giving you the bonus from being a White Mage, and then because you are subbing Corsair the roll values should be halved in effectiveness.



No roll 1229
Healers roll 5 1290
Healers roll 10 1314
Bust! 1179

No Roll falls in exactly with your gear setup against the calculator.

Healer's Roll 5 gives a 5% (6%+4% /2) multiplicative boost.

Healer's Roll 10 gives roughly (1 point off, however the value difference above that is small enough that hitting it with the floor might be causing this), a 7% (10%+4% /2) multiplicative boost.

Bust gives a -4% potency multiplicative "boost".

Based on all that I think it is safe to say that the new Healer's Roll changes (and by extension cure potency received) is multiplicative, not additive with day/weather bonuses as well. This was the expected result as well.

Again, thanks for testing.

[Motenten]

424 Skill, 118 MND, 86 VIT

Predicted Cure V amount: 713


50% potency

713 * 1.5 = 1069


obi/cape

1069 * 1.15 weather bonus = 1229


No roll 1229

Match


Healers roll 5 1290

Roll 5 = +5%

1229 * 1.05 = 1290
Match


Bust! 1179

Bust = -4%

1229 * 0.96 = 1179
Match


Healers roll 10 1314

Roll 10 = +10%

1229 * 1.10 = 1351
Not a Match

Can't be +7% (1229 * 1.07 = 1315)
Can't be a different base (1314 / 1.1 = 1195, which can't be reached by any combo I can think of)

So something's not right with that result. Capped HP, maybe?

[Aleste]

Popped Giants drink to help with the testing and repeated each result multiple times (mostly due to a mob beating on me while I had to wait on healer's roll wearing off to re-roll) to ensure accuracy.

Here's waiting on the cure formula adjustments...

[Economizer]

Here's waiting on the cure formula adjustments...

Its great you tested this before those went in... I'm not looking forward to the work involved with getting the math for the new healing values, plus Steve's Calculator will finally be completely out of date (he doesn't play anymore).

I'm not so secretly hoping SE will just give us the new values, but I'm not holding my breath. Luckily for us though, this time we have the test server where you can just plug in values for how much skill you have.

[Aleste]

It shouldn't be too bad to calculate, I've plenty of healing magic and MND gear to swap around to give a decent range of values...

Though, has SE ever released an in-game formula in the past?

[Economizer]

Cure spells will be adjusted so that Healing Magic skill will play a greater role in determining their potency.

At high skill levels, Cure spells will heal more HP than before, while low skill levels will see minimal benefit. The degree to which Healing Magic skill affects HP healed will vary by spell, with Cure I-IV seeing the most significant adjustments.


Cure I-IV: Amount of HP recovered may increase by as much as 1.4 times
Cure V-VI: Minimal adjustments.
*Curaga I-V and Cura I-III will remain unchanged.


-----
If you wish to discuss or submit feedback on this topic, please use the [dev1094] tag.

Guess the new cure formula is up on the test server.


On a quick test.

Cure I
naked: 56
/sch: 58
13%: 63
33%: 77

Cure II
naked: 131
/sch: 133
13%: 148
33%: 176

Cure III
naked: 286
/sch: 293
13%: 323
33%: 389


Messing about with Cure IV on the test server I got these numbers:

Naked (RDM capped skill): 532
Naked (Light Arts): 547
13% Potency (87+26 MND / 80+2 VIT): 630
33% Potency (87+26 MND / 80+2 VIT): 742
33% Potency (Primeval Brew): 851

Didn't have the body (still after it), torque or earring to test at 50%.

Okay for the numbers he gave this is what he should have got if he wasn't on the test server:




They basically fall into what SE said would happen, but I'm not really feeling mathy at this exact moment and I'm not sure what we can glean from this yet. Additionally these numbers could be subject to change on top of that so it is hard to say if we should be poking at this too hard.

Still, anyone else on the test server feel like doing some tests?

[Arcon]

I'm feeling mathy, but I can't get on the test server, keep getting a weird error. If anyone can supply more data, it would be great. The following would be interesting to know:
WHM1 to determine a low cap, if one exists
Test with different, mid-range (300~400) healing skills with same MND/VIT
High skill test (400~500) with same MND/VIT as the previous test, to see if there's a different formula based on tiers
Max skill test (500+), to see if there's a cutoff at some point
Different MND or VIT (not both), to determine the effect each of them has, all performed with the same skill (Atma should be a good way to get lots of one specific attribute)
Brew test, to see if there's any cap for MND or VIT

All of those should be performed using Cure IV (since I suspect other cures follow the same formula only with different base values and Cure IV is the highest, so rounding errors are lower), preferably without any Cure Potency gear. Abyssea - Empyreal Paradox would be a great place to do it, MM Atma for constant Refresh with HP cruor buff, which can be canceled to get into low HP. (Do you have access to all Abyssea abyssites on the test server?) Could also use cruor buffs to get MND and VIT increases seperately. Just have to pay attention that the Atma you equip don't have an additional effect that may interfere with the testing. Would be great if anyone could provide those numbers, even just partially.

[Aleste]

I don't expect anyone to test all of these but anything anyone decides to test would be great.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AvH-8hDeWGVldEtyUnNHbDRCZURhT3ctMWEzemcxeWc
http://www.freeimagehosting.net/newuploads/tqnfp.jpg
Legend:
BLUE - Cure 1
RED - Cure 2
ORANGE - Cure 3
GREEN - Cure 4

Duplicated the second sheet and added graph, however I'm unable to test <300 healing magic skill without varying MND and VIT excessively.

[Motenten]

I also did some calculations in this thread on FFXIAH (http://www.ffxiah.com/forum/topic/28978/%E3%82%B1%E3%82%A2%E3%83%AB%E5%9B%9E%E5%BE%A9%E9%87%8F%E3%81%AE%E8%AA%BF%E6%95%B4new-cure-potency/) to work out some of the scaling and inflection points. Probably do better with Aleste's data. Btw, what's the mnd and vit on those?

[Arcon]

I also did some calculations in this thread on FFXIAH (http://www.ffxiah.com/forum/topic/28978/%E3%82%B1%E3%82%A2%E3%83%AB%E5%9B%9E%E5%BE%A9%E9%87%8F%E3%81%AE%E8%AA%BF%E6%95%B4new-cure-potency/) to work out some of the scaling and inflection points. Probably do better with Aleste's data. Btw, what's the mnd and vit on those?

MND 96, VIT 85, it says so at the bottom of the sheet.

[Aleste]

Just eyeballin' but I would guess there's a change at ~310 and ~424 marks...

[Motenten]

If possible, get one of 331 (preferred), 351, 371, 391 or 411 (I know this is possible since it's on the chart) skill, and test using Cure II: Try to get 1 point increments of mnd to see how rapidly mnd improves HP healed, and the same for vit (after resetting mnd). Even if you can't get exacts, try to get a few points' worth of additional HP cured.

[Economizer]

Duplicated the second sheet and added graph, however I'm unable to test <300 healing magic skill without varying MND and VIT excessively.

I wasn't sure because I'm not actually on the test server but I'm guessing that this means you can't just change Healing Magic to whatever value you want on the test server? (Anyone care to answer this for me, I feel dumb not knowing for sure.)

-

Anyways I've also been interested in Cure V/VI changes although they'd be more slight. This has been particularly important due to the numbers in that FFXIAH thread where Cure V/VI have their cure amounts cut during a brew.

I'm obviously not a math major so I won't claim to have the best testing methods, but I have a few more questions that popped up before I've looked at your data. First order of business is whether or not Healing Magic skill affects the numbers you get with a brew. This is something I should have wrote earlier and I feel stupid for not thinking of it as a possibility earlier.

I also have a few theories (not backed by any evidence yet, I haven't more then skimmed over more testing numbers yet). One of them is that perhaps the cure formula didn't change but instead having a high Healing Magic skill acts as a multiplier. One way to test this would be to take a set number of skill, take it again with capped cure potency, then test again at a high number of skill with and without cure potency and see if the numbers match up as expected.

-

Okay I've been pouring over the numbers I have been given for inspiration. I don't really have any at this time so I'll post a (probably useless) chart instead (http://i.imgur.com/mZ1V2.png).

http://i.imgur.com/mZ1V2.png

[Aleste]

I wasn't sure because I'm not actually on the test server but I'm guessing that this means you can't just change Healing Magic to whatever value you want on the test server?

Unfortunately not, the =TEST= Moogle GM will:

"Read instructions"
"Change parameters"
- Edit main job level (also assigns all skills to cap)
- Reset ability timers
- Obtain max merit points
- Receive all spells/rolls/attachments
- Unlock all jobs and support jobs
"Teleport to key locations"
- Towns
- Outposts
- Staging Points
"Warp to Home Point"
"Recieve items"
- Weapons (Fake empies and some of the newer JSE weapons)
- Armor (+3 stat earrings and RR hairpin)
- Expendable items (pet broths, angon, nin toolbags)
- Medicine or Food (self explanatory)
- Instant magic scrolls (warp, retrace)
- Storage Slips (allows you to edit the gear on storage slips)
"Obtain 100,000,000 gil" Congratulations, you are now a gillionaire!

Oh, and you've access to your full inventory that was loaded onto the test server, every single trial item and every item on a storage slip.


If possible, get one of 331 (preferred), 351, 371, 391 or 411

I'll see what I can do~



What I've been doing was setting my main job as WHM (or SCH or RDM) and using the merit attributes to balance out my stats. Then I would lift all the gear off storage slips that varies healing magic skill for those jobs which don't change stats (EG: sch af legs, sch relic feet nq/1/2) and proceed to test as many values as I could. I'd then add on a few healing magic merits and retest.

[Economizer]

- Edit main job level (also assigns all skills to cap)

I wonder how SE expects us to test this. Not easily apparently. I can think of a few ways to get the desired skill levels but they're time consuming and won't get a good effort/reward ratio for information unfortunately (well, unless that bug where setting a job to lower levels also lowers skills on other jobs is still around).

Since I have doubts that SE is going to allow us to edit skill levels for this I'll have to give up on it for now.

If you feel up to it can you test two things? I'm not sure they're worth testing but I might as well ask in case you think they are.

Does Healing Magic Skill effect numbers under a brew?
Naked, capped Healing Magic, 99 WHM, Primeval Brew for Cure I-VI.
A higher amount of Healing Magic (as high as possible using whatever non-potency gear you have and merits), 99 WHM, Primeval Brew for Cure I-VI.
Is the new effect of Healing Magic Skill just multiplied on top of cures?
Cure IV on Scholar without Light Arts, with and without the cure potency staff.
Cure IV on White Mage, with and without the cure potency staff.

Honestly I'm thinking Motenten probably has a better lead onto this then I do but I'm not going to give up on trying to figure this out in a creative manner yet.

[Aleste]

I've spent the majority of the day with econ collecting values and bouncing back and forth ideas and theories.

HP healed varied by healing magic skill
http://i.imgur.com/P17hZ.jpg

Old/new cure ratios
http://i.imgur.com/prE9w.jpg

[Arcon]

I wonder how SE expects us to test this. Not easily apparently.

Not at all, would be my guess. Or did you forget about how secretive they are with absolutely everything? When they say "test server" they just mean we should look for bugs, nothing else.

[Economizer]

Reported test server values of cures under a Primeval Brew compared to older values:

Cure
40->65
Cure II
105->145
Cure III
210->340
Cure IV
450->640
Cure V
810->780
Cure VI
1140->1010

[Motenten]

Current best guesses that I've made. General informational update on my work so far. I lack any solid information on mnd/vit scaling, so no guarantees there yet.

Power = Skill + Mnd/2 + Vit/4

Scale N: x == how much power (x) is required to raise amount healed by 1 (valid up to cap for N)

Cure
Min power: ?? (10 cured)
Scale 1 (to cap of ??): ??
Scale 2 (to cap of 45): 12.5 ?
Scale 3 (to cap of 65): 20
Max power (guess): ?? (637 if scale 1 is 2.5 to cap of 25)

Cure II
Min power: ?? (60 cured)
Scale 1 (to cap of 100?): ?? (5?)
Scale 2 (to cap of 130): 10
Scale 3 (to cap of 145): 20
Max power (guess): 640 + base

Cure III
Min power: ?? (130 cured)
Scale 1 (to cap of 150): 2.5
Scale 2 (to cap of 250): 4/3
Scale 3 (to cap of 340): 5
Max power (guess): 633 + min

Cure IV
Min power: 60? (270 cured)
Scale 1 (to cap of 325): 1
Scale 2 (to cap of 480): 7/6
Scale 3 (to cap of 640): 2.5
Max power (guess): 636 + min

No data on Cure V/VI

I know that some of the values don't quite add up, but I'm missing data (especially at the low end) to solidify the results.

[Fredjan]

While I may not be able to test stuff as well as others, I figure, may as well voice my opinion on the changes on the test server which'll most likely be live as well.


Reported test server values of cures under a Primeval Brew compared to older values:

Cure
40->65
Cure II
105->145
Cure III
210->340
Cure IV
450->640
Cure V
810->780
Cure VI
1140->1010

Or in other words, with 50% potency:

Cure I = ~97.5 HP
Cure II = ~217.5 HP
Cure III = ~510 HP
Cure IV = ~960 HP
Cure V = ~1170 HP
Cure VI = ~1515 HP

As Cure V+ got slightly reduced in potency, considering the major increase in the other 4 spells (I and IV by as much as 62-63%), I'm quite content to be honest. They needed the most attention by far. People weren't really capable of reaching the maximum amount on Cure V+ anyways and the difference will be pretty minimal on Cure V. I may think Cure VI may have been reduced a bit too much, but it's also become much less worthwhile to cast (as if it was amazing to begin with as it's still an abyssea only spell to me OR for an emergency cure).

Definitely gotta say -enmity setups just became that much more important with the stronger HP healed.

[SpankWustler]

I have to imagine that "emergency use only" is the idea that the Development Bros have in mind for Cure VI, since the amount was reduced alongside Cure V rather than increased. Well, assuming they have ideas and minds and stuff.

These changes seem like a big win for every job involved. Red Mage and Scholar will have a substantial Cure in Cure IV and even Cure III will be workable. White Mage will more-or-less have three flavors of Cure V after these changes go live. Traditional Vanilla (V), a quirky Dark Chocolate with Toffee Bits (IV), and Sugar-Free Low-Fat Gooseberry Licorice that melted and refroze (VI).

Everybody's MP efficiency will go way up, and White Mage's MP efficiency on lower cures will be huge. It's hard to care that Cure VI is apparently intended to be mostly superfluous when, well, Cure VI is going to be mostly superfluous.

[Economizer]

I've been mostly trying to hold off my analysis on the Cure V/VI numbers for a brew until we see the lower numbers for them at realistic stats, although I certainly have an earful if the brew numbers are the norm for Cure V/VI.

However an interesting trend is that they were the same at 424 and at a higher skill number when they were tested.

Since I've been relying on essentially one (brilliant) tester to get these numbers it has been a pain to get more information on this and the added difficulties that are coming up for testing, particularly for getting Cure V/VI numbers.

I've been digging through various forums here and there and it seems like this is the authoritative and almost nearly only source, although I did see a handful of numbers from an FFXIAH thread. I grabbed those numbers and referenced them against Aleste's numbers and while it is a pretty small sample and I was unsure of the testing method that person used it gave an interesting (although frustratingly hard to read) chart as a result. (Also regretfully I forgot to plot in Daniel_Hatcher's numbers he gave with this until I started typing this, but I have a sneaking suspicion that this numbers are starting to look more and more consistent with something.) I'm not sure if my sudden urge to post charts is a result of latent progress or lack of sleep so I'll have to leave it at that.




I also dug through the JP forums and didn't find much in the way of testing but perhaps my lack of results was due to the reliance on an abusive machine translator.

I can't really seem to fit any sudden inspiration or humor into this post so I'll leave it at this for now.

[Aleste]

My thoughts for today:

Upon sleeping on it and thinking some more, it seems to me that the cure4 formula has at least 3 different gradients in it; initially observed yesterday and eyeballed with some rulers.

Here is a very terrible and quick mspaint-job to get the point across.
http://i.imgur.com/KrC3k.jpg

Mathematically we can approximate where the lines meet by calculating the gradient of both lines and figuring out the intersect point between them. This should give a good idea where to further investigate for testing.

NOTE: Working to 4 significant figures. It's an approximation after all.

We can do this by approximating the 2 lines using the standard straight line formula y=mx+b.
Gradient(m) of the 141-157 line is:
(413-405)/(157-141) = 0.5

We can then substitute in a few values to obtain our b value:
(405)=(0.5)(141)+b
b=405-(141*0.5)
b=334.5

Thusly Line A (141-157) can be approximated by:
y=0.5x+334.5

Now for the second line:
Gradient(m) of 264-299 is:
(497-473)/(299-264) = 0.6857

Substitute in some values:
497=0.6857(299)+b
b=291.96

Line B can be approximated by:
y=0.6857x+291.96

Aaaaand now its graph time.
http://i.imgur.com/I5nCT.jpg

These 2 lines intersect around the ~240 mark.

---------------

It would appear that the effect of healing magic on cure4 seems to scale differently (at least, lower bounds not tested) in the following areas:

ADDITIONAL EDIT:
<240
240-340
340-???
???-???

My aim for testing today is to physically test values around the 240 mark, above and below in the hopes of observing the precise point at which the gradients change.

If there is a gradient change at the 240 mark, we can then pick a few more scattered skill values between the 2 to confirm or deny extrapolating the line.
If there isn't a gradient change at the 240 mark, then we can assume there is at least 2 more points at which the graph changes.

Additional edit note: maybe it's just me, but the gradient of the highest tiers seems to be different than the 340-400 ish results. I'll do the gradient math in a sec to see if its just my eyes playing tricks on me.

Though, it would be handy if it was 0-140, 140-240, 240-340, 340-440, 440+

[Aleste]

Tested more values on the spreadsheet. Managed to get the 225-260 values, and a few gaps dotted here and there.

I'm starting to become incredibly inventive (read: stupid) trying to figure out how to get the 100-220 values...


Edit:// I've given up for today, all this stat jiggling is giving me a headache. I /think/ i can get some of the 120-140 values, but it's being a complete pain in the arse...

[Motenten]

Would still appreciate if you could do the mnd and vit tests. Would probably be easiest on Cure III. Anything above 231 skill (260 HP healed) takes 5 skill per HP. Do enough to find out exactly how much mnd/vit is needed to bump the amount cured up a point for at least 3 cure values.

I've got exact scaling values for all of tier 3, and most of tier 2 (Cure 1 only has data from the ffxiah post, and Cure 4 is a little peculiar), and amount cured for caps 3 and 2.

[Motenten]

Also, can you recheck Cure III @345 skill. Is it 283, or actually 282?

[Aleste]

I've coloured it in and stuck a note on it. I'll test it when I'm done with voidwatch tonight. doing it atm.


http://i.imgur.com/hmHju.jpg
You're correct, its 282. Adjusted value on the spreadsheet.

Since it's going to be pretty much impossible to get the remaining gaps in my graph, I'll try doing some scaling by MND and VIT tomorrow for you mot.

[Economizer]

Apparently we're closing in on an answer. Or more accurately players on Fenrir (Seriously, Furen was on Fenrir too (http://members.shaw.ca/pizza_steve/cure/Cure_About.html), what is is about Fenrir and discovering the cure numbers? The forums may never know.).

I tried to dig up more threads but this is all I found:




Kinda sad considering how important these numbers are.

Anyways if we're doing testing made to order can you test this too:
Cure Potency and Healing Magic
WHM 99 Capped Skill, with and without cure potency (24% should suffice however 50% would work better if possible).
WHM 99 Capped Skill + Merits (although more would be acceptable), with and without cure potency.
I'm thinking the results of this test will be very predictable but they'd completely destroy any theories for a multiplier, helping to alleviate any lingering doubts.
Cure V/VI
Just need a handful of numbers on this one, mostly to ensure that nothing too scary changed, especially with the threatening brew numbers. MND/VIT being the same would be a plus but not a requirement. I'm mostly interested in the natural cap number personally but extra data is always useful.
Numbers to test at for skill: 500+, ~450, 424, 301, 232 (Cure V only).

[Aleste]

Motenten's and Economizers testing has been knocked out today.

I think we officially debunked econ's theory today... kinda sad really, I had hoped it was the lesser of 2 evils.


In other news. Take that cure5~ +50 MND adding only 7 hp when naked...
http://i.imgur.com/FlMbD.jpg

[Economizer]

Aleste's numbers (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AvH-8hDeWGVldEtyUnNHbDRCZURhT3ctMWEzemcxeWc#gid=9) for Cure V were at first comforting (they were a slight buff) around Healing Magic 424, MND 97, VIT 86. Then he added some MND. It looked normal. Then he added some more... and we noticed a trend... it wasn't improving as fast as it normally would.

The picture in question shows 97+50 and actually shows one more point of HP then the current formula but if you continue to increase the MND it gets worse. At a reasonable and perfectly achievable outside Abyssea amount of MND, the new formula will perform worse then the old one for the same value of Healing Magic. It is disturbing to say the least.

Considering that Cure V is already less MP efficient then Cure IV by a wide margin with the new formula I don't think a nerf of the effect of MND was neccisary.

I have more thoughts on this matter but I'm not sure I want to write them all out right now. I'm hoping the implications of this are clear enough to get some discussion going.

[Motenten]

Well, I'd hoped you could stretch the mnd tests out to at least +20 (and vit needs a wider span as well), but working with what's available..

And actually, if you could redo it with a skill value that's divisible by 10 (eg: add 3 merits to take it to 430 total skill, or even full merits to take it to 440 (divisible by 20)), that would eliminate one element of uncertainty for now (whether any factors are added together before flooring).


Relative values:

Cure I and II scale at 20 skill per point of HP, so the range isn't nearly large enough to show results for mnd and vit. Ignoring them.

Cure III scales at 5 skill per HP.
Cure III scales at 9 mnd per HP. Not enough points to check for rounding.
Cure III doesn't have enough range to check for vit scale.

Cure IV scales at 5 skill per 2 HP.
Cure IV scales at 9 mnd per 2 HP. Would like a few more points of mnd checked to be certain of this.
Cure IV scales at 12 vit per 1 HP. (so either 24 or 25 vit per 2 HP)

Cure V doesn't have any skill scaling data.
Cure V scales at 10 mnd per 2 HP.
Cure V scales at 12 vit per 1 HP. (so either 24 or 25 vit per 2 HP)

Slight discrepancy between IV and V that may be related to overall scaling. Since we don't have skill-based scaling for V, can't say for sure.

Cure VI doesn't have any skill scaling data.
Cure VI scales at 10 mnd per 2 HP.
Cure VI scales at 12 vit per 1 HP. (so either 24 or 25 vit per 2 HP)

Cure VI appears to scale at the same rate as Cure V.


Overall power formula appears to be approximately:

Power = skill + mnd*5/9 + vit/5

Or, alternatively you can think of it as:
45 skill = 45 power
45 mnd = 25 power
45 vit = 9 power

So let's see if that fits with prior test results..

96 mnd + 85 vit = 53.33 + 17 = 70 power

Cure II, cap 2 = 130 cured @ 331 skill
70 + 331 = 401

Cure III, cap 2 = 260 cured @ ~231 skill
70 + 231 = 301

Cure IV, cap 2 = 520 cured @ 331 skill
70 + 331 = 401

Estimated cap 1 for Cure IV
405 HP @141 skill, scaling rate of 2 skill/HP
390 HP would be reached at 111 skill
70 + 111 = 181 power


Would guess that I'm at +1 over actual power. Not sure which element is off.


FFXIAH data:
92 mnd, 83 vit, 67 power from stats

Would then be 3 power lower than Aleste's data, and expect to reach same amount cured as Aleste's with 3 lower skill.



Skill Cure3 Cure4
334 280 520
A331 280 520
368 286 533
A365 286 533
404 294 548
A401 294 548
424 298 556
A421 n/a n/a
464 306 572
A461 n/a n/a
489 311 582
A486 311 582
504 314 588
A501 314 588


Aleste's data with 3 lower skill exactly matched all instances of the FFXIAH data, aside from the skill values that Aleste doesn't have data for.

[Motenten]

Making some estimates on power. Ignoring the +1 anomoly.

Cure
Scaling for tier 3: 20
Cure at cap 2: 45
Power at cap 2: 200? (somewhere between 198 and 218)
Max cure: 65
Power for 2 > 3: (65-45) * 20 = 400
Power at cap 3: 600?

Cure II
Scaling for tier 3: 20
Cure at cap 2: 130
Power at cap 2: 400
Max cure: 145
Power for 2 > 3: (145-130) * 20 = 300
Power at cap 3: 700

Cure III
Scaling for tier 3: 5
Cure at cap 2: 260
Power at cap 2: 300
Max cure: 340
Power for 2 > 3: (340-260) * 5 = 400
Power at cap 3: 700

Cure IV
Scaling for tier 3: 2.5
Cure at cap 2: 520
Power at cap 2: 400
Max cure: 640
Power for 2 > 3: (640-520) * 2.5 = 300
Power at cap 3: 700



Cures 2, 3 and 4 seem to cap at 700 power. Cure 1 caps at 600 power. No data to make a guess at cures 5 and 6 yet.

This is different from the current formula, where all cures reach cap at the same power (1240).


Old cap reached at: 400 skill, 250 mnd, 250 vit.
~~ (250 mnd + 400/5 skill) * 3 + 250 vit
== (250+80) * 3 + 250
== 990 + 250
== 1240

New cap reached at approximately: 496 skill, 270 mnd, 270 vit.
~~ 496 skill + 270 mnd * 5 / 9 + 270 vit / 5
== 496 + 1350/9 + 270/5
== 496 + 150 + 54
== 700

or

598 skill, 135 mnd, 135 vit.
~~ 598 skill + 135 mnd * 5 / 9 + 135 vit / 5
== 598 + 675/9 + 135/5
== 598 + 75 + 27
== 700



Aleste's graphs of Cure IV indicated another inflection at about what would be 300 power. So its progression would be like:

Min power: ??
Cap 1 power: 300
Cap 2 power: 400
Cap 3 power: 700

With scales of:
Scale 1: 2.0
Scale 2: 10/7 (1.429) (originally estimated, corrected to exact value)
Scale 3: 2.5

That means the amount cured at cap 1 should be: 520 - ((400-300) / 1.42) = 450

That matches the test data from Aleste. So...

Amount cured at:
Min: 270
Cap 1: 450
Cap 2: 520
Cap 3: 640

However that implies that the power required to reach cap 1 is at least (450 - 270)*2 = 360, when we're only at 300 power.

The above Scale 1, 2 and 3 are all verifiable as 2.0, 10/7 and 2.5, respectively. Therefore there has to be a fourth tier at work.


Given that the difference between Min and the above Cap 1 (450-270 = 180) is much larger than the difference between the other caps, we have a fair bit of room to work with in making a preliminary estimate. In the current model, the scaling rate is 1.0 for the very first tier for most spells, so I'll find a value set that matches that.

Revised:

Min cured: 270 HP
Min power: 40
Tier 1 scale: 1.0
Cap 1 cured: 370 HP
Power to reach cap 1: 100
Total power at cap 1: 140
Tier 2 scale: 2.0
Cap 2 cured: 450 HP
Power to reach cap 2: 160
Total power at cap 2: 300
Tier 3 scale: 10/7
Cap 3 cured: 520 HP
Power to reach cap 3: 100
Total power at cap 3: 400
Tier 4 scale: 2.5
Cap 4 cured: 640 HP
Power to reach cap 3: 300
Total power at cap 3: 700

I chose a min power of 40 to match a rough scale of min power of 10/20/30/40 for cures 1/2/3/4, similar to the current model. Obviously all of this needs testing to find the actual values, but the progression seems pretty clean.

What we see is an initial fast gain (1.0 scale) that slows down (2.0 scale) as it approaches the cure capability of someone subbing a mage job (thus ~150 skill and maybe around 250 power). It then speeds up again after power passes the 300 mark (10/7 scale), followed by another slowdown (2.5 scale) for the highest levels.


Testing the lowest end will require the no-subjob trick and the no-skill trick.

For the no-subjob trick, described here (http://www.bluegartr.com/threads/103925-Player-Stats-Sheet-Help-add-to-it!?p=4934154&viewfull=1#post4934154).
For the no-skill trick, as I understand it, you need to get the moogle to set your job level (41 whm for cure 4), and then choose one of the teleport options without exiting the menu. This should prevent auto-capping your skills.

Together this should put your total power in the 30-ish range. From there you can do minor tweaks to merits and such until your cure amounts start going above baseline.



As an aside....

Currently I cure in.. 88+40 mnd, 80+3 vit (from what I remember offhand). Light Arts puts me at 404 skill, plus 35 skill in gear. Total power would be approximately 526.

Assuming that's roughly in the neighborhood of a normal average-to-good build, that would put typical cures at about:
Cure 1: 60, 90 with 50% potency
Cure 2: 135, 200 with 50% potency
Cure 3: 305, 460 with 50% potency
Cure 4: 570, 855 with 50% potency





Checking the same with Cure III, but assuming 4 tiers to start with:


Min power: 20?
Cap 1 power: 170?
Cap 2 power: 200?
Cap 3 power: 300
Cap 4 power: 700

With scales of:
Scale 1: 2.5?
Scale 2: 1.0?
Scale 3: 2.5
Scale 4: 5

Amount cured at:
Min: 130
Cap 1: 190?
Cap 2: 220?
Cap 3: 260
Cap 4: 340


Much more difficult to make good guesses here due to lack of low-end data.

[Vyvian]

Don't know how helpful it is, but you can also manipulate skill levels by changing to 1 job to get a certain skill, and then going to a Nomad Moogle (Selbina, Mhaura, Kazham, Rabao etc) and changing jobs with them. The limitation is if you lower a job level, it takes every job down with it, so this is good for getting your skill reduced to subjob levels without lowering the level of WHM.

So for the sake of example, if you wanted to test like 100 healing skill, change to a job with no healing skill, and sub PLD (C skill), then set your main job level to 70, which will cap your skills. C skill with a level 35 job is 100 skill exactly. Leave the mog house as that job, and get to a nomad moogle, change jobs to whm, and you will still have 100 healing skill (although your whm will still be level 70).

It may not be that much more helpful than what you're already doing, but it may provide additional data for specific skill points after large increases in MND or VIT (because you're using a job that is twice as high a level for the same skill).

[Aleste]

Well, I'd hoped you could stretch the mnd tests out to at least +20 (and vit needs a wider span as well), but working with what's available..

And actually, if you could redo it with a skill value that's divisible by 10 (eg: add 3 merits to take it to 430 total skill, or even full merits to take it to 440 (divisible by 20)), that would eliminate one element of uncertainty for now (whether any factors are added together before flooring).


I'll change the healing magic to 430 and retest a larger range for you tomorrow.




Testing the lowest end will require the no-subjob trick and the no-skill trick.

For the no-subjob trick, described here.
For the no-skill trick, as I understand it, you need to get the moogle to set your job level (41 whm for cure 4), and then choose one of the teleport options without exiting the menu. This should prevent auto-capping your skills.

Together this should put your total power in the 30-ish range. From there you can do minor tweaks to merits and such until your cure amounts start going above baseline.


Unfortunately this doesn't seem to work for me, upon changing primary job level, the dialogue with the GM moogle closes. Skills are auto capped whenever you use the change main job level function.



Stat adjusting stuff


Actually, that's pretty much what I've been doing to get the lower bounds values, the trouble is that it becomes a very complicated juggling game of stats. Adjusting merits, trying to find magian trial staves with appropriate stats, and hunting through claim slips for gear.

The main trouble I've been having is that I'm attempting to vary one stat, whilst maintaining the other 2 so we have less variables to worry about. Although, that said, if we became 100% sure of the formula, in theory we could just work with cure-power and graph any combination of job/level/stats/skill.

I'm on nightshift tonight, so I'm afraid I won't have time to do it today... however tomorrow I'll make a much larger sample size of MND and VIT scaling, which'll hopefully help confirm Motentens formula. I'll then change my main spreadsheet to work with cure-power rather than with skill, and then work on getting the lower bounds.

I'm actually surprised that the change to the formula isn't being more discussed... it has a huge knock-on effect across the other jobs.

[Motenten]

Well, I've finally got access to the test server, so I'll try to get some testing done as well when I have some free time tonight or tomorrow.

[SpankWustler]

I've finally got access to the test server

http://images.sodahead.com/profiles/0/0/2/3/9/9/7/9/5/Happy-Cat-41445571377.jpeg

[Aleste]

cat

That... I... I can't help but smile at that face >.>;

Retested MND and VIT scaling (0-25) at 430 skill.

I'm guessing there are some soft caps at work there that is throwing off making any assumptions...

EDIT:// We've now got a formula for cure power.

Cure 1/2/3 graph
http://i.imgur.com/vJq5O.jpg

[Economizer]

Okay so as the testing gets more and more wrapped up I feel the time for analyzing the implications of the change that is being tested gets closer and closer.

Skill: 430 MND: 122 VIT: 86
AF3+2 pants and 50% cure potency

Cure: 22.5HP/MP
Cure II: 16.87HP/MP
Cure III: 22.65HP/MP
Cure IV: 22.26HP/MP
Cure V: 15.95HP/MP
Cure VI: 9.75HP/MP

Note that none of these are factoring in cureskin effects.

Personally, despite the nerfed Cure V/VI values I'm currently not really too upset about how much HP they heal but rather how inefficient they are now. Cutting the MP cost of both spells would be an easy way to make up for their loss of power, especially if magic users will be able to cast large Cure III/IV spells now (one of us will get to this at some point, I'm sure).

If Cure V's MP cost was dropped to 112 MP (a mere 23 MP difference) it would remain competitive with the other cure spells before it. The same would be true of Cure VI if it was dropped to about 142 MP. However it is possible that it is SE's intention that Cure VI remains slightly MP inefficient as an emergency cure. And this would be understandable if it was special in some way aside from the enhanced enmity properties but this is currently not the case. Perhaps the cureskin effect on Cure VI could be enhanced in some way such as providing a -50% damage taken buff while it is still on (effectively doubling the maximum 400 point stoneskin effect for players who have not capped damage reduction to a maximum 800 point version) or greatly increasing the defense of the player who has the cureskin effect until it wears off.

These are major changes as it is so I really hope people understand the implications of what is happening here. Everyone needs Healing Magic support at one point or another and I don't know very many players who solely rely on Blue Magic, pets, and potions to cure them so the effects these numbers will have on the game are simply huge.

[saevel]

Has someone replied to the dev's about Cure V / VI receiving a slight nerf? While we like to think things like that are on purpose, it could of been something the dev's missed while redoing the cure formula. The dev's like WHM, liked so much that they refused to give Cure V to anyone else. I have a hard time thinking they would then nerf it on purpose.

Also Cure IV comes with the penalty of a metric f*ck ton of hate if cast over time. I know on RDM/SCH I used to pull hate curing with Cure IV during lv 95 void watch (before procs become easy). Using that to main heal would be a death sentence for a healer.

[Aleste]

Well, they did warn us of a 'slight adjustment', which we presumed to be bad. It's always bad :S Math-wise, the average WHM dropped about 10-40 points on cure V, which isn't a huge nerf to the spell. Efficiency has more or less remained the same as well.

The trouble is more that the other spells received a 40-60% increase over the old formula, whilst cure 5/6 (at best) remained approximately the same... I guess at this point in time it is difficult to say whether 30% HP/MP efficiency is worth the enmity generation.

Although, the comparable efficiency of the spells is one thing we're worried about, there are a number of things we've lightly discussed in googledoc-chat... (changes to gear, SCHs new healing prowess, item economy)


Motenten hopefully will have finalized Cure1-4 formula and soft caps; so today I'll work on getting a larger selection of Cure 5/6 values and hopefully perform a graphical analysis to help confirm motentens predicted soft caps/rates.

EDIT:// figure I'll throw in what the scales are. Horizontal scale is healing power, calculated by the formula that we discovered. POWER = SKILL + MND/2 + VIT/4 (each individual term truncated). Vertical scale is HP healed with 0% potency.



Cure1 graph:
http://i.imgur.com/MtQZY.jpg

Cure2 graph:
http://i.imgur.com/qfzrM.jpg

Cure3 graph:
http://i.imgur.com/Bm8pb.jpg

Cure4 graph:
http://i.imgur.com/RdQ1e.jpg

INITIAL Cure5 graph:
http://i.imgur.com/JgXz2.jpg

INITIAL Cure6 graph:
http://i.imgur.com/ApTfU.jpg

[Aleste]

[Space saved for analysis/thoughts]

Rough napkin math::
Using an ideal build...
WHM cure5 is ~1120. cure4 ~890
SCH cure4 ~1005, ~1605 raptured w/+2 head

Mage food is now pretty terrible.

Wondering whether it's worthwhile rolling a 49% potency build.. the difference is 1hp cured on cure5, 2 inventory, and gaining -2enm.

Cure5 doesn't scale as much comparatively via healing magic skill as the other cure values.

Possibility of SCH/RDM (job combo) taking the healing magic crown with strong cure4's (can achieve capped -enm in nigh-perfect build), regen5 potency, embrava and phalanxga.

Tefnut/genbu combo isn't as strong as magian staff build.

Cure6 was terrible before, now it's even worse.

MND gear will now primarily be used for enfeebles, WS mods and divine magic.

Healing magic skill gear (and merits) is now incredibly useful.

[SpankWustler]

Another implication is that a Blue Magic healing set and a normal Healing Magic healing set will soon look totally different since Healing Magic skill will matter so much. My inventory is doomed.

I am almost impressed by how bad Cure VI will be. I imagine one of the Development Bros beaming with pride and schadenfreude after bringing it's efficiency below 10 and well-below half that of Cure IV.

If Cure VI is meant to be that inefficient both in general and compared to the new standard of Cure IV, I'd really like to see some bonus added to it. A special property in the cureskin or a .5 second casting time or CHARGIN MAH HOLY LAZER for the full value regardless of how much HP is restored or something.

This is more a matter of principle than practicality, I guess. The solution is just not to use it but I hate useless spells when it feels like they could easily be given value.

[Aleste]

http://i.imgur.com/afCa8.gif

http://i.imgur.com/lBui0.jpg
Right click and view image for larger version.

[Motenten]

Some efficiency charts.

Without light arts:

http://images.bluegartr.com/bucket/gallery/452d5f10fc5b9f5bf9bd89f5e6f8fa85_thumb.png (http://images.bluegartr.com/bucket/gallery/452d5f10fc5b9f5bf9bd89f5e6f8fa85.png)

With light arts:

http://images.bluegartr.com/bucket/gallery/28482d281861cebda13f49b57f55050b_thumb.png (http://images.bluegartr.com/bucket/gallery/28482d281861cebda13f49b57f55050b.png)

With light arts and whm af3 pants (assuming no over-curing):

http://images.bluegartr.com/bucket/gallery/b18bec801d603cfb45a6bac862920cb5_thumb.png (http://images.bluegartr.com/bucket/gallery/b18bec801d603cfb45a6bac862920cb5.png)


Analysis:

Whm is going to generally be around 500-ish power. Using Light Arts and AF3 pants, Cure V would run a little over 8 HP/MP. Cures 3 and 4 would be up around 11.

Rdm or Sch using Light Arts and Cures 3/4, and assuming somewhere near 500 power, would be hitting 7 HP/MP (or 10-ish for sch with Rapture).

Cures 3 and 4 are clearly the efficiency spells. Cure 5 is acceptable with AF3 pants, and trades efficiency for low enmity. Cure 6 kinda sucks no matter what.

[Motenten]

Also, quick comparison of base amount cured with Cure V and Cure VI, since it was noted that the max caps had been reduced.

Assuming:
439 skill (Light Arts, otherwise uncapped) with 35 in gear (body/hands/ring)
125-128-131 mnd (taru/hume/elvaan) with +35 in gear (head/hands/rings/ammo/feet/waist)
83-86-89 vit (taru/hume/elvaan) with Sirona's ring



Old Power Cure V Cure VI
Taru: 719 717 HP 929 HP
Hume: 731 720 HP 935 HP
Elvn: 743 722 HP 943 HP

New Power
Taru: 521 726 HP 902 HP
Hume: 524 727 HP 904 HP
Elvn: 526 727 HP 905 HP


Cure V ends up being a smidge ahead with a typical gear set, so the reduction in the cap doesn't mean much; it's right in line with where it's always been.

Cure VI ends up being 3%-4% behind, which is enough that, combined with the very high MP cost, warrants a bit of concern. We should probably ask that Cure VI be reviewed by the devs.

[Economizer]

Looks like the testing team finished hammering out the rest of the formula while I was asleep earlier (sorry guys!) and we now have the official formula.

As per what we should be testing now are a few quick tests on stuff SE has stated haven't changed such as Automatons, Blue Magic, Cura, Curaga spells, and the Light Spirit (SE didn't mention this one that I remember actually). This should be pretty simple to do since it is a easy check of the test server vs. the game just to be sure nothing else has changed (and it probably hasn't). A less easy to test bit of interest are NPCs and monsters and cures.

Bit of an aside, any Community Reps wanna check out the formula we have and confirm it to be true? :D

-

Since we have the numbers I think it is time explain implications and answer questions. I've compiled some questions I've seen here and the other forum the cure numbers have been posted for the benefit of the reader:


With the new emphasis on healing skill, will jobs with only subbed healing skill have their cures be weakened?
No, cures for subjobs are not being weakened relative to their power now since that would gimp low level healers. They will be much less then a main job cure but in general they are significantly more powerful then before assuming you have capped skill for your subjob.
How is Blue Mage affected by this change?
According to statements by SE (which we kindly quoted previously in this thread) there should be none. However we haven't tested changes to spirits, pets, Blue Mages, Cura, or Curaga spells yet so we only have SE's statements to go by on these.
Will Red Mage and Scholar be able to main heal now?
In Scholar's case, most definitely. In Red Mage's, most probably.
The case that SCH is now the most powerful healing job is one that could be made quite easily between larger Cure III/IV, obscenely efficient Regen V spells, AoE Phalanx with /RDM, and even Embrava in situations where speed is important. And arguably for most stuff even just a Red Mage would suffice.
Where is Paladin in all this?
Curing almost as much as the rest, the main thing holding Paladin back now is a lack of cure potency gear. Regardless a Paladin should be able to pull more hate then before with cure spells due to the increased cure amounts.
What gear should I be equipping now?
If you are a White Mage, equip your AF3+2 pants. For maximum cures, the general rule of thumb will be Cure Potency > Healing Magic >>> MND >> VIT. Enmity down gear will probably help if you are bombing Cure III/IV, especially if you are a Scholar. A bit of Fast Cast and Haste will help recast timers as well.
What should I be meriting now?
Mind merits now suck for healing since you'll only be able to get +6 power with full Mind merits now. Meriting Healing Magic is actually a viable choice now, since +16 Healing Magic is +16 power.
Will the update fix Cure VI?
No. It broke it more. Cure VI sucks and anyone that thinks it makes any job more powerful doesn't understand basic game mechanics.


-

Once again I will reiterate the need for feedback now more then ever. This is time to give opinions in force, and that's means you, the reader should take a gander at the charts and formulas and give an opinion! Don't disappoint us!

[Motenten]

Should this be getting put into a thread in the Test Server Feedback forum? Or at least the Cure VI stuff?

[Economizer]

I wish there was a PM function, but since there isn't:


Should this be getting put into a thread in the Test Server Feedback forum?

I'm not completely sure but I think if grabbing the attention of the devs via the community reps is your intention then it would be a very good idea to start a thread there with your impressions of it with any relevant data.

I think the risk of splitting up discussion into several threads isn't remotely an issue compared to the benefits of getting people talking about this if a new thread in the test server subforum would do that.

Also, thanks for all the amazing formula work.

-

(More stuff since I found something to add.)

I finally found some discussion in the JP forums today about this, apparently there was a little bit of testing (nothing like what we did though) a few people did that I managed to miss (which by the way is why we use Dev Tags people... or that's what I'd be telling them if I could understand Japanese).




They have a small sample and some impressions in a Scholar thread as linked by the quotes. The discussion goes on but the machine translation isn't fully capable of deciphering it into readable English so I can only guess by the gist of it that they are talking about Scholar, enmity generation, and something about the heal amounts bringing back the days of meripo.

While it is heart warming to know there is someone talking about it, meripo is a very bad word here. :( By the way, if anyone knows Japanese and wants to help out, we could use the general impression our fellow players have, machine translations are horrible and we could use more opinions.

[SpankWustler]

I think it would be a great idea to make a topic about Cure VI in the test server forum. It seems to be very frequently read by the Community Bros compared to all other forums and the spell is bad enough to essentially be the Ancient Magic of cures at this point. If nothing else, and I always expect nothing else, we might learn the thought process behind Cure VI.


While it is heart warming to know there is someone talking about it, meripo is a very bad word here.

I've seen the phrase "meripo" in a relatively large number of posts while poking around the Japanese forums for Community Bros posts and I can never make out what anyone is going for with the expression. Based on what context I can make out, I think it's just that entire nation's term for "fighting a bunch of not terribly challenging yet not terribly easy monsters" or "I'm over level 75 and I'm fighting a monster, yosh!" or something.

However, I'm certainly no expert on matters that involve Japan but exclude such things as breaking through the heavens with one's drill or people being so dorky that their lives become a black comedy of loneliness.

I'd love to know what is actually meant by "meripo" just to satisfy my own curiosity, because it doesn't seem to be a reference to past situations given that I've seen the word used in the Prism Staff thread and other forward-thinking threads.

In other unproductive news, looking through that Scholar topic with Google translate makes my everything hurt. It's a generic topic about Scholar, so getting context is impossible and it feels like everyone is talking about five totally different PHONETICALLY WRITTEN Scholar abilities in every single post. I also get the general idea that most of them are wowed by the scope of the change, though, which I think is very similar to English community.

[Aleste]

Some quick WHM gearset analysis
(I'll do some sch, rdm and pld later)

Now that the formula is knocked out, we can accurately figure out how well gearsets perform in relation to one another.

AF3+2 pants should be worn on always. The efficiency gained through their use effectively warrants a "best in slot" status.

I'm going to be using my basestats for the calculations. Consider the weakening of MND/VIT in the power formula other races shouldn't perform too differently.

440Skill
106MND
86 VIT
~(514 power)

Let's start with some Afflatus: Solace sets...

Here's a pretty good representation of the previous set we used to use at 99:

More power <------> More -ENM

http://i.imgur.com/0qPbS.jpg

50% Potency
+29 Skill +29 Skill
+65 MND +30 MND
+0 VIT +0 VIT
-0 ENM -31 ENM
(~61 power) (~44 power)

Cures:
1 - 94.5 93
2 - 207 205
3 - 471 465
4 - 885 874
5 - 1113 1105
6 - 1402 1386


http://i.imgur.com/xaAsh.jpg
Google-doc chat about best sets came up with this~

50% Potency
+65 Skill
+39 MND
+3 VIT
-6 ENM
(~84 power)

Cures:
1 - 96
2 - 208
3 - 477
4 - 898
5 - 1123
6 - 1423


Same as previous but switching fylgja+1/healing to colossus/orison

49% Potency
+66 skill |+69@lightsday
+37 MND
+3 VIT
-7 ENM
(~84 power | ~87@lightsday)

Cures:
1 - 95 96
2 - 207 208
3 - 473 475
4 - 892 894
5 - 1106 1117
6 - 1414 1416


http://i.imgur.com/hecJi.jpg
Similar to the first set, keeping augurs gloves and trying rubeus shoes

50% potency
+63 skill |+66@lightsday
+37 MND
+3 VIT
-3 ENM
(~81 power |84@lightsday)

Cures:
1 - 96 96
2 - 208 208
3 - 477 477
4 - 897 898
5 - 1122 1123
6 - 1420 1423

http://i.imgur.com/GWOJE.jpg
Attempted to keep healers mitts and rubeus on. Although, it works out at a similar power as above, but with only 48% potency, and thusly performs worse.


Tefnut/Genbu combos used to be pretty decent pre-change, post-change it perform worse than any of the sets you see above... I'll math em out if anyone specifically wishes.

[Motenten]

Other things to consider:

Under the existing system there's no real benefit to casting in Orison body while under Afflatus Misery; you're better off with a +mnd body. In the new system you probably want to use the Orison body regardless. Curas/Curagas will still want the +mnd body, though, since they'll still use the existing formulas.

Tefnut Wand/Genbu's Shield combo still has the advantage of more easily capping cast time reduction. It's possible to hit 80% cure cast time reduction with augmented Genbu's Shield, AF3 neck/legs, Loquacious Earring, and various AH gear (HQ Kalasiris, Cure Clogs, ring, waist, ammo). Doable without Genbu's as well, with Aceso's Choker and the fast cast back piece, but seems easier to achieve with Genbu's (especially when you can start dropping small FC pieces as you account for subjob Fast Cast or Light Arts).

Tefnut is worth about half as much in contributing to the underlying cure value (old: ~6 HP on Cure V; new: ~3 HP on Cure V), but that difference is almost inconsequential. It's still a good piece, especially as an AH item.


Enmity.

Rough approximation (since Kaeko's tables don't go up to level 99), with 525 Power and 50% cure potency.

Cure 3: 305 * 1.5 = 457
Cure 4: 570 * 1.5 = 855
Cure 5: 727 * 1.5 = 1090

Cure 5 generates a flat 400 CE / 700 VE
Cure 4 generates about 510 CE / 1530 VE (would have been about 620 CE / 1860 VE at level 75)
Cure 3 generates about 270 CE / 810 VE

The difference in VE between Cure IV and Cure V will take an extra 14 seconds to decay. There's actually not much difference in the amount of CE generated, but -20 enmity would make them about equal. It would also drop VE by an extra 300, making the difference in decay time just 9 seconds.

If you had -12 enmity in your Cure V kit (Orison Cape/Earring/Fylgja Torque+1/Verse Strap+1), you'd want -30 enmity in your Cure IV kit to reach the same CE amount. That would give an 8 second difference in VE decay.

Of course Cure IV and Cure III have lower recast times than Cure V (8 and 6 seconds vs 10 seconds), which, combined with the lesser amount cured, means you'll probably be using them somewhat more often, so hate will likely build up a bit faster regardless.

In comparison, the 700 VE (616 with -12 enmity) of Cure V takes ~10 seconds to decay; with a 10 second recast (~8-9 seconds with Haste on), you'd have to be spamming it to have any net gain in total VE.


So, I'd probably aim for -25 enmity in my Cure III/IV kits. In addition to the -12 already in use:

Feet: Several options here.
Marduk: +10 mnd, -4 enmity
Teal: +6 mnd, -4 enmity
Relic+2: +8 mnd, -4 enmity
Aife's: -8 enmity
Blessed: +3 mnd, 2% haste, -4 enmity
Blessed+1: +4 mnd, 3% haste, -5 enmity

Can probably consider -4 enmity the baseline.

Leisure Musk, Metanoia Ring and Pythia Sash give another -12, for a total of -28 enmity at the cost of 13 mnd, which is all of like 2-3 HP cured.


Total enmity build-up.

Cure V (with -12 enmity) would take have to cure about 15k HP to reach 'significant' build up on CE (~5000 CE). However there would be no significant VE to go with it, so would still be fairly safe.

Cure IV (with -28 enmity) would reach 5000 CE with about 12k HP healed. If constantly spammed as fast as recasts allow (~100 seconds), that would have built up 10000 VE to go along with it. That capped VE would take about 3 minutes to decay. So, if all the curing was spread out over about 5 minutes, there would be no significant VE buildup, and it would be as safe as using Cure V. However if it was done in 2 minutes, the healer could be reaching notable hate problems.

Cure IV with the default gear set (-12 enmity), would reach 5000 CE with about 10k HP healed, and would reach that in ~80 seconds if spamming. They would also be at cap VE by that point (~5000 CE + 10000 VE), meaning they'd be running into hate issues far more easily.

[Motenten]

Additional note on efficiency: Cures 3 and 4 gain more efficiency from cure potency than cure 5, which gains more than cure 6. So on the charts I posted on the last page, the closer to the top of the chart, the faster it improves as you add cure potency (leaving Cure 6 even further behind, relatively speaking).

[SpankWustler]

One important thing to keep in mind is that Cure V is still pretty much Cure V. Cure IV has gotten way better rather than Cure V becoming notably worse.

In situations where Enmity is an imminent concern, a bro using mostly Cure V isn't much more likely run out of MP after the changes than before. Situations that go bad due to post-change Cure V expending too much MP would have been very tense already. There's simply the new option of using an extremely MP-efficient cure instead of an extremely Enmity-efficiency cure.

Overall, I really like the implications of these changes.

Equipment will matter more now than ever, whether it's Healing Magic skill for power or -Enmity for not being eaten. There will be strategic elements in deciding which Cure to cast that weren't present before. A lot of equipment that was almost pointless before, such as Sirona's Ring and the Healing Magic skill grip, will have a reason to exist. Healing Magic skill merits will mean something other than "This person, this person is not a smart person."

One thing that really surprises me is that it appears people subbing White Mage or Red Mage will have very slightly stronger cures than before, particularly if they go the extra mile and macro in the few Healing Magic skill pieces that don't compete with Cure Potency slots to get the most mileage out of their sub-jobs.

It must have taken the Development Bro who passionately loves bad things longer than he expected to make Cure VI even worse, perhaps because it was already pretty bad, since everything else seems to be improved or relatively unchanged.

[saevel]

So basically use Cure V whenever possible and Cure IV as a resort to prevent hate build up.

SCH and RDM could main heal a party but hate problems will be created.

Basically kill it before hate becomes an issue.

[TimeMage]

Changes have been pretty good, but other than fixing Cure VI (seriously, SE... Give it a purpose that is not sucking!), I think they could revise the static enmity values of Cure V. At 75, the enmity difference against Cure IV was more noticeable, and now that Cure IV is much more MP efficient, Cure V could use a slight improvement in the enmity department.

BTW, has anyone tested if this changes affect the WHM and RDM PUP automatons? RDM auto could become really interesting with boosted Cure IVs, and the tendency of spamming Cure VI of WHM automaton could be more annoying now, haha.

[Aleste]

BTW, has anyone tested if this changes affect the WHM and RDM PUP automatons? RDM auto could become really interesting with boosted Cure IVs, and the tendency of spamming Cure VI of WHM automaton could be more annoying now, haha.

Eco's been asking me to check the values on this, cura, curaga and BLU cures, but I can't say I've had a moment free to test it...

I'd hazard a guess and assume that they're using the new formula, otherwise they would have included it in the bolded part below:

Reference quote:


Cure Potency
Cure potency will be affected more significantly by healing magic skill. If a player has high healing magic skill, cure potency will be greatly increased, but low healing magic skill will have almost no effect on cure potency. The effect of skill level on cure potency will vary based on the type of cure, but cures lower than Cure V will be affected the most. Note that Curaga, Cura and Waltzes will not be affected.

Cure I-IV: Up to 1.4 times the normal cure potency
Cure V-VI: Almost no change

With this adjustment combined with the increase of cure potency mentioned earlier (http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/20089), we would like to increase opportunities for mages jobs other than white mage to serve as healers.
[/LIST]

[Economizer]

Eco's been asking me to check the values on this, cura, curaga and BLU cures, but I can't say I've had a moment free to test it...

They also said there is no change to Blue Magic and I believe somewhere they even said no change to automatons (I wouldn't give my guarantee that I actually saw that one however). On most of those I just want a test to be absolutely sure, but it would probably just be a waste of your time sadly.



It is gonna be strange having to gear MND for AoE cures while gearing Healing Magic for single target ones, even stranger then Cure V not being the most MP efficient cure on the block.

[Aleste]

I recall someone saying that Camate posted it, but I'm unable to find it... maybe you'll have more luck ?

Should be easy to test (BLU cures), I doubt the constant has changed from the old formula...

[Economizer]

I recall someone saying that Camate posted it, but I'm unable to find it... maybe you'll have more luck ?

I did, and I was about to edit my previous post, but I'll just add it here instead. Spoiler'd is the whole thing, I've also taken the important parts.







Will the values of blue magic-type healing spells also be increased?

Since the main focus of this adjustment is for Cure–Cure VI, there will be no changes to blue magic spell’s cure potency.

So here is the bit about Blue Magic. I honestly can't find the automaton thing but I really thought I saw it.



Was receiving benefits from stacking MND put off?

After looking into various possibilities such a MND and healing magic skill itself, we decided to go with adjustments to healing magic skill after considering the benefits this would give to jobs that possess this skill. MND affects cure potency more than in the past and the effect will remain as it is.

I had forgotten I had seen this. To clarify, here is the part that bugs me:


MND affects cure potency more than in the past

[SpankWustler]

That part caught my attention when it was first posted, because I couldn't figure out when "the past" was referring to.

He mentioned that MND was not being adjusted but then said it had more of an effect than in the past, implying there was a time when MND had even less of an effect on Cures than it has at this very moment. I assume it is either a reference to an extremely old update that I can not even remember, or the vaguest and most unclear reference ever to Cure V becoming much more prevalent as players have gone from 75 to 99.

There was a big update to the Cure line back in 2003, but the update notes don't mention MND. Maybe it was later than that if it existed at all? I no longer expect what the Community Bros say or what the Development Bros do to make sense, so I didn't look too hard. (http://ffxi.gamerescape.com/wiki/Category:Version_Updates)

[saevel]

Yep he's referring to the old cure update in either or 03 or 04. It's the one where they lifted the hardcaps on cures. You can add more MND and it would give you slightly more cure amount.

I'm interested to see what happens to BLU magic, it used the Cure V formula just less base cure amount. They said they have no plans to change Blue cure magic, yet I wonder how they go translated to their actual coders.

[Aleste]

Efficiency numbers worry me... I don't feel that it's progressing the way it should...

Cure1 : 4.57 -> 31.33 -> 42.00
Cure2 : 3.43 -> 18.82 -> 25.36
Cure3 : 3.58 -> 26.00 -> 35.06
Cure4 : 3.89 -> 24.42 -> 32.94
Cure5 : 3.20 -> 16.79 -> 22.65
Cure6 : 1.96 -> 10.32 - >13.28
[ Cureskin/MP -> Cure/MP -> Cure+Cureskin/MP ]
[ 99WHM/SCH, Light arts, AF3 body/legs, Solace ]

Overall I feel that Cure6 is pretty useless now and isn't worth casting (less-so with the bolster to cure3/4s strength) when compared against the MP cost.

EDIT:: There's a thought, I wonder how it compares against those Regen numbers I ran ages ago.

Regen 3 (gear, merits - 700hp) 10.93 HP/MP
Regen 4 (gear, merits - 975hp) 11.98 HP/MP

[Economizer]

Regens might be slightly better now with the AF2+2 body's new boost (assuming you didn't account for that), but not by much. But really, what White Mage in their right mind merits regen or carries around regen gear when the boosts are so small and the opportunity costs are so high?

That said Scholar's regen spells boosted with strats even make a White Mage with great gear have their cure spells look inefficient by a wide margin. I think I would have a very hard time ranking who is the better healer after these changes - and any situation where you need more nuking support occasionally or anything where 2hour abilities are concerned is a straight up win for Scholar.


Overall I feel that Cure6 is pretty useless now and isn't worth casting (less-so with the bolster to cure3/4s strength) when compared against the MP cost.

This is definitely a problem. We're not exactly asking for Cure VI to cure more, it just costs too much and this has been a problem since before the changes were even put up for testing.

There are a myriad of ways to fix Cure VI that I've thought of just brainstorming with other White Mages like Aleste, but the simplest and easiest one is just to cut the MP cost. Even if Cure V/VI are fated to eat more MP then Cure I-IV I still feel that Cure VI costs too much, even for an "emergency" cure.

By the way, if decreasing the MP cost isn't on the table, I figured I'd list some of the ideas that have been thrown out about Cure VI, any one of these implemented would be an improvement:


Largely increased Cureskin
Perhaps a 50% cureskin effect that scales to 100% with the AF3+2 body (with no cap obviously)?
Enhanced Cureskin
Cureskin takes reduced damage as if the target had a ton of defense and magic defense.
Reduces enmity when cast
Literally lowers the enmity on the White Mage when this spell is cast. Optionally it could also add that enmity to the target.
Lowered cast/recast time
It costs a ton but has a near-instant cast time, or no recast time.
Provides a buff tied to cureskin
Like Plenilune Embrace it could buff the target with enhanced stats while the cureskin is still on the target.
Increases Cure Potency Received on target
A short duration buff to cure potency received on the target depending on HP cured. It could either last for multiple cures or just the next one.
Enhanced Afflatus Solace charge rate for Holy
Single Cure VI casting curing for maximum HP could fill the charge to full.

[Daniel_Hatcher]

Enhanced Cureskin
Cureskin takes reduced damage as if the target had a ton of defense and magic defense.


I like this one, the rest are either weird for a cure spell or OP, maybe even a -25% DT trait for the duration.

[SpankWustler]

Enhanced Cureskin
Cureskin takes reduced damage as if the target had a ton of defense and magic defense.


I'd love a buff like this for Cure VI. Things are presumably very bad already if somebody is opting to use the post-change Cure VI, so a strong defensive buff would be very helpful in that kind of situation.

[Economizer]

I like this one, the rest are either weird for a cure spell or OP, maybe even a -25% DT trait for the duration.

I know the list was kinda weird in general because most of it was just brainstormed ideas without any real filter, although I'll contend that none of the concepts are overpowered (the bolded part) and the potentially imbalancing part would be how they are implemented.

For example, the first one listed had a suggestion of how underneath it that was up to a 100% cureskin effect - Cure VI is so inefficient that such an effect would only make the spell's efficiency including cureskin to be close to matching Cure V's efficiency including cureskin - the question becomes if about 1000~1500 more health for a few seconds to absorb a big move is overpowered.

-

I didn't want to rank them by usefulness at all since I was just throwing them out but I too would personally favor a Cure VI specific buff to the cureskin that is ideally defensive in nature and wears off when the cureskin gets eaten - something strong enough to make Cure VI worthy of its tier and MP cost while not being something you'd want or need to spam constantly.

[Aleste]

We're not exactly asking for Cure VI to cure more, it just costs too much and this has been a problem since before the changes were even put up for testing.

I think we need a DEV Beacon for this one.. it was bad before, and now it's even worse...


Although, as far as the rest of it is concerned I think I'm content with Cure4 being more MP efficient than Cure 5 purely because of the enmity associated with it.

[Economizer]

[dev1094] Cure Spell Adjustments
At high skill levels, Cure spells now heal more HP than before, while low skill levels see minimal benefit. The degree to which Healing Magic skill affects HP healed varies by spell, with Cure I-IV seeing the most significant adjustments.

Cure I-IV: Amount of HP recovered may increase by as much as 1.4 times.
Cure V-VI: Minimal adjustments.
*Curaga I-V and Cura I-III will remain unchanged.



Okay so this update is now live (and hopefully we'll actually discuss what this means now that people have no choice but to test it for themselves).

Once again I'll hold onto my thoughts since we only have a few regulars actually posting theirs here until we get more input on the matter, but I only have negative things to say about the way people treat support roles in general if we don't get an active discussion from more people then the handful that have been posting on the implications of this change now that it is actually going live.

-

Anyways, for those who are just showing up thinking "WTF my cures have changed" here is the new formula and the power numbers:

http://i.imgur.com/afCa8.gif


Power numbers. (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AvH-8hDeWGVldEtyUnNHbDRCZURhT3ctMWEzemcxeWc)

[Babekeke]

Looks like this just puts even more weight into /SCH for jobs like SMN and BRD if they don't need to cast na spells or haste.
Probably looking at ~200 power from /whm which gives a 400~ cure 4. /SCH should reach closer to 500 power giving a cure 3 for over 300.

[Daniel_Hatcher]

Looks like this just puts even more weight into /SCH for jobs like SMN and BRD if they don't need to cast na spells or haste.
Probably looking at ~200 power from /whm which gives a 400~ cure 4. /SCH should reach closer to 500 power giving a cure 3 for over 300.

/SCH only has Cure III, Cure IV even subjob WHM or RDM still heals more.

[Arcon]

/SCH only has Cure III, Cure IV even subjob WHM or RDM still heals more.

But is a lot less MP efficient, for the few places where that still matters.

[Daniel_Hatcher]

But is a lot less MP efficient, for the few places where that still matters.

Perhaps, but if you're getting hit enough that you need to cure yourself Cure III wont save you.

[Babekeke]

Perhaps, but if you're getting hit enough that you need to cure yourself Cure III wont save you.

SMN, BRD or BLM subbing SCH can all cap Cure potency, giving a 450 HP cure 3 for 42 MP. That's a decent chunk of HP for very little MP. Great for a little backup healing to take some stress off the WHM, and give you something to do between BPs or Songs. I don't imagine most BLMs ever going for this, but it's an option.

[Economizer]

SMN, BRD or BLM subbing SCH

I'd say you'd have to look at all the benefits. Cure IV is a large benefit even if your Cure III suffers as a result, so you'd really want to be sure you are getting enough healing out with just Cure III. You also have to look at other boosts you get, such as Haste, or Fast Cast.

Bard would probably benefit more from having access to Haste and Fast Cast or Haste and Stona then it would from weather spells and arts. Other jobs have more situational decisions to make. Summoner for example will probably find situations where Cure III with Light Arts is more then enough when combined with weather spells to proc their gear, such as Sandstorm for boots for speed or weather spells for AF3+2 gloves to significantly reduce MP costs.

Black Mage has a pretty hard choice between Red Mage and Scholar as well, since both have extreme MP efficiency (people really forget that SCH with Arts and strats can make you as much MP as a Convert can, and Sublimation is as useful as Refresh) which will make it depend more on the situation and what benefits from each job you end up using. Red Mage has some nice benefits with easier spell access (no Arts switching neccisary), some Magic Defense Bonus, Cure IV, and Haste (which ultimately makes it better for a self-sustained Stun recast), but Scholar has its own tools, such as Arts skill boosts, strats, and most of all, weather spells. Black Mage's subjob choices aren't as cut and dry as that of a White Mage's in this regard (where Red Mage is inferior and only even gets a consideration because of Refresh and Convert, which barely equate to Scholar's MP longevity to the point where if one was slightly nerfed in any way then Red Mage wouldn't even be an option due to significant MP inferiority - truly those who call for nerfs of /RDM in regards to White Mage are fools who don't understand the game).

I think the change just makes /SCH more viable for situations when you need its weather spells but you might consider light healing important (and of course makes /SCH even better for skill deficient White Mages while still being the best sub for skill capped White Mages too).

[Jerbob]

On the subject of Cure V and Cure VI, I think our unique healing magic spells should be more than just enmity-conscious situational (V) and extreme emergency situational (VI). I'd like to see both Cure V and Cure VI get a native bonus to "Converts X% of "Cure" amount to MP" like our empyrean Pantaloons +2, but have the amount relative to healing magic skill.

For Cure V, an example:
Cure amount converted to MP = 0 + (Healing Magic Skill / 150)
A Cure V healing its full potential (eg. 1100) on a target would return an extra 2.8%ish of cure amount to MP, reducing the cost (with +2 pantaloons) to 53MP. Lower healing magic skill would reduce the return, as would healing for less than full potential ("overhealing").

As a result, Cure V's MP cost becomes competitive with IV again, with the added enmity reduction bonus, and Healing Magic Skill has worth for Cure V. This also encourages white mages to use Cure V properly instead of just spamming it without looking at how much healing is actually required.

I haven't used Cure VI since the "update" but it heals significantly less now? I'm not sure what value of Healed >> MP would be required to make VI useful again. Indeed, with IV's new potency VI is even more pointless before even considering absurd MP cost. Something new is required, but I wouldn't want anything really complicated... perhaps have a strong regen as an additional effect based on Afflatus Solace power/Healing Magic skill in tandem with native Cure >> MP effects?

At this stage I'd probably be in favour of removing VI entirely and replacing it with something more creative... a over time healing magic effect that removes one debuff every X seconds based on healing skill? A spell that gives a buff that converts the next enfeebling effect someone recieves into a buff to the attribute related to that status effect's element, duration based on healing skill? I dunno, lots of possibilities.

[Daniel_Hatcher]

Cure VI needs something, Cure V doesn't. The fact it has ridiculously low Enmity makes up for the extra MP.

Though I don't believe it should be in the form of MP conservation.

[Economizer]

While I'm not certain that Cure V needs any changes, I'll retort:


Cure VI needs something, Cure V doesn't. The fact it has ridiculously low Enmity makes up for the extra MP.

I've spent the last few days mostly spamming Cure III/IV on things as a White Mage. I've tried a few gear setups but most of them involve me wearing very minimal enmity down gear, and in fact, I cure in a Goading Belt for recast purposes. I think that should sink in for a moment. I wear no more then -15 net enmity in terms of gear, and usually way less, so I'd say I'm not really wearing as much as someone who has what they'd consider a perfect gear set.

Short of people dying, I have not gotten hate once, even when I was spamming Cure III, IV, lower tier Curaga spells or any other amount of spells that should be grabbing hate. There have been cases where I throw in a Flash or two here or there to skill up Divine Magic. Still no hate.

There have been fights were I was lazy (due to the inclusion of large amounts of Refresh) and tossed out a few Cure V's like they are candy, or fights where I've overcured excessively or went to older habits of mostly spamming Cure IV/V rather then III/IV, but for the most part I've been spamming III/IV with not only no penalty, but for great benefit for my MP efficiency.

I think what Cure V has going for it now isn't reduced enmity or a very slightly larger amount cured, but the fact that it is another cure timer to burn through without killing your MP pool to the shear amount that Cure VI does. That's pretty much the benefit now, because it is very hard to get hate with lower tiers of cure in most cases.

All that said, Cure VI is most definitely broken crap.

[Jerbob]

I suppose it comes down to whether you think the reduced enmity and extra few HP healed is worth that extra ~40MP. In some fights where enmity is a bit wobbly I am sure it will be valuable, but I think Cure V deserves a lot more, being as it is one of our signature spells. I think it should be objectively better on most/all fronts. Sorting out the MP efficiency would do this and let it function even better as our flip/flop IV/V pair of heavy duty healing spells.

The only reason I am so keen on sorting out MP cost for Cure VI is that I can't think of a suitable secondary effect that could possibly make the spell worth that sort of cost. Even if a suitable effect is found - removing multiple status effects or something - you've then got to find a situation in which you simultaneously need both obnoxiously expensive high potency healing and the full effect of the secondary function, or your efficiency goes down the toilet; you will also end up with people using Cure VI only for the secondary effect, and that kind of wastefulness does not sit well with me.

[Concerned4FFxi]

Since the update Cure 5 is almost trash. It gives only 20-25% more healing than cure 4 and at 1.5x the cost, the only thing it offers now is a slight -enmity. They said they wanted whm to be main healer but by not buffing cures 5 + 6 with this update, they just made sch a better healer since they can use -enmity spell on all their cures and cure 4 with light arts isn't far behind cure 5 (it's certainitly better mp use now to use cure 4 over 5 on ANY job if -enmity isn't a concern) on a whm and they can cast cure 4 with lower enmity than a whm can cast cure 5 if they use their -enmity spell.

Cure 6 was always trash, offering 1.5x the cure power of cure 5 at 2x the cost. Now cure 6 is even worse in reguards to mp vs. cure power use. Thx SE, thx.

I have no problem with ALL single tier cures being raised in power, the way it stands now is seriuosly lacking and is the EXACT opossite of what they said they wanted. They said they wanted to help rdm and sch assist in curing, but what it has done has trashed whm's best cure spell (cure 5) and made no adustments to the already inferior mp hog that is cure 6.

Summary: All single tier cures need this adjustment, not just cures 1-4. Cure 5 +6 are seriuosly lacking.

[Daniel_Hatcher]

I suppose it comes down to whether you think the reduced enmity and extra few HP healed is worth that extra ~40MP. In some fights where enmity is a bit wobbly I am sure it will be valuable, but I think Cure V deserves a lot more, being as it is one of our signature spells. I think it should be objectively better on most/all fronts. Sorting out the MP efficiency would do this and let it function even better as our flip/flop IV/V pair of heavy duty healing spells.

The only reason I am so keen on sorting out MP cost for Cure VI is that I can't think of a suitable secondary effect that could possibly make the spell worth that sort of cost. Even if a suitable effect is found - removing multiple status effects or something - you've then got to find a situation in which you simultaneously need both obnoxiously expensive high potency healing and the full effect of the secondary function, or your efficiency goes down the toilet; you will also end up with people using Cure VI only for the secondary effect, and that kind of wastefulness does not sit well with me.

Then I agree on one thing. Replace Cure VI with a better spell, it wasn't needed before and it still isn't now. The question now lies in what kind of spell?

[Vyvian]

While I'm not certain that Cure V needs any changes, I'll retort:



I've spent the last few days mostly spamming Cure III/IV on things as a White Mage. I've tried a few gear setups but most of them involve me wearing very minimal enmity down gear, and in fact, I cure in a Goading Belt for recast purposes. I think that should sink in for a moment. I wear no more then -15 net enmity in terms of gear, and usually way less, so I'd say I'm not really wearing as much as someone who has what they'd consider a perfect gear set.

Short of people dying, I have not gotten hate once, even when I was spamming Cure III, IV, lower tier Curaga spells or any other amount of spells that should be grabbing hate. There have been cases where I throw in a Flash or two here or there to skill up Divine Magic. Still no hate.

There have been fights were I was lazy (due to the inclusion of large amounts of Refresh) and tossed out a few Cure V's like they are candy, or fights where I've overcured excessively or went to older habits of mostly spamming Cure IV/V rather then III/IV, but for the most part I've been spamming III/IV with not only no penalty, but for great benefit for my MP efficiency.

I think what Cure V has going for it now isn't reduced enmity or a very slightly larger amount cured, but the fact that it is another cure timer to burn through without killing your MP pool to the shear amount that Cure VI does. That's pretty much the benefit now, because it is very hard to get hate with lower tiers of cure in most cases.

All that said, Cure VI is most definitely broken crap.When I tried WHM after the update, I found myself doing the same thing, Cure IV, Cure III, maybe in WoE when we had 2 bosses I tossed a couple Vs out because III wasn't going to cut it, never cast VI once.

In terms of the hate thing, Cure IV was never a hate issue unless you were playing with really bad tanks (dd now), even back in the earlier 75 days, you had those WHMs that absolutely never cast Cure IV (I have parses of it), I'd spam it because in terms of actual efficiency it was more efficient to cast (because V would overheal pretty much always in Dynamis). Now we heal for quite a bit more, but we also have Tranquil Heart IV or V added to the equation that I think is offsetting that.

I personally prefer to cast in more than that, because it is nice when things go bad, and I do like that feeling of being able to do whatever I want without pulling hate.

[saevel]

The update for Cure III / IV was nice for anyone not a WHM. For WHM's it made your healing cheaper overall. Your still not going to be replaced by a RDM, might be with a SCH in extreme situations. For big damage that is what Cure V is for. Cure VI is worthless currently.

Cure V / VI need some special effect to make them more attractive. I would think they would be given a higher cureskin cap and longer duration (60s vs 30s). Also give WHM Erase II which would be capable of removing multiple status effects at once.

[Daniel_Hatcher]

Hello I have a issue related to the Storage slips number 13 is not letting me store my Thief Relic hands +2.
How can I fix this issue I have tried to buy the same slip 3x now and I still cannot store the upgraded relic hands they have no augments on them or trials and the GM's told me to come to this forum so I finally gave in.
By the way this is my first post/reply so I have no idea what I'am doing on here other then trying to seek help with in game issues I could not figure out how to make my own thing to talk about the issue sorry if this gets in the way of a conversation.:eek:

You can only store the augmented versions, so the ones you get for 30k EXP in Dynamis.

[Economizer]

Hello I have a issue related to the Storage slips number 13 is not letting me store my Thief Relic hands +2.

Which is not related to this thread's stated topic of Cure Formula Changes. Please refrain from off topic posts.

Welcome to the official forums. The correct place for you to post your concern would probably be in the general section, however I can tell you now that you need to get the second augment to be able to store your equipment. Given that you are on my server you can just send me a tell and I'll try to answer additional questions. In the future please try to post things where they belong though - if you aren't sure you can always post a new thread in the General Discussion (http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/forums/86) section.

If you have anything to add which is on topic, that is to say, anything related to healing really, feel free to add it, we could always use more feedback and research about healing.

[Aleste]

I've been refraining from commenting on the effects of the cure changes since the update rolled out. I've been trying to get into the swing of recalculating gear sets and trying to get more comfortable with casting cure3(4) more often.

Honestly, as far as WHM goes I've been:
Casting cure5 (and 3/4 when timer is down and a heal is required) in fights where accruing a large amount of hate is bad.
Casting cure3/4 for peak efficiency on fights where enmity isn't a concern.

A minor problem I've found is that there are very few fights where you particularly have to worry about enmity anymore (be it from other players capping it quicker, or temp items that give pax) which has lead to a reduction of casting Cure5.

I've been mulling over gearsets, and I believe to have settled on these 2. The top is for Cure1-4. Bottom is Cure 5-6.

http://i.imgur.com/aIpKU.jpg
Itemsets:
Cure 1-4 http://www.ffxiah.com/item-sets/254971
Cure 5-6 http://www.ffxiah.com/item-sets/250420

Edit: Typos

[Economizer]

Been in contact with Furen/Steve once again. He's upgraded his legendary calculator, however I didn't provide him with enough information for it to be completely correct (I forgot how the rounding was done for the spreadsheet). Still, it is pretty close:

Calculator (http://members.shaw.ca/pizza_steve/cure/Cure_Calculator.html)

Does anyone remember how the rounding was carried out for the formula? Was it add all the modifiers up then round down or round the modifiers as you calculated them? Also anything else I should be telling Furen/Steve for the calculator to be more accurate?

[Aleste]

Every number was floored in the calculation before adding them.

power = skill + floor(MND/2) + floor(VIT/4)

Probably should make him note that curagas, blue magic and waltzs still use the old formula.

[Fredjan]

Not sure if this has been covered, but I decided to do some math to end the Arka IV vs. Tefnut + Shield discussion once and for all as I had seen some shouts in Port Jeuno that motivated me to do this.

Note that this does not cover cure casting time- on the shield, this is pure potency/skill/mnd/vit (barely) comparisons as I am not a Tefnut+Shield user and I can cap cure casting time- in gear without that.


Arka IV (24% potency)
Curatio Grip (3 skill)
Mana Ampulla (MND+3)
Iaso Mitra (10 skill, 11% potency, 10 MND)
Phalaina Locket (3 MND, 4% potency)
Orison + Roundel Earring (7% potency)
AF3+2 body (+20 skill)
Healer's Mitts +1 (7 MND, 15 skill)
Haoma's Ring (8 skill)
Sirona's Ring (3 MND, 3 VIT, 10 skill)
Tempered Cape (4 skill, 4% potency)
Bishop's Sash (5 skill)
AF3+2 pants (7 MND)
Zenith Pumps +1 (6 skill augment)

Total: +50% potency, +81 healing skill, and +33 MND (Not going to factor the VIT as it is the same in both sets I thought up)


Tefnut Wand (15% potency, 10 MND, 5 skill)
Genbu's Shield (5% potency)
Mana Ampulla (MND+3)
Iaso Mitra (10 skill, 11% potency, 10 MND)
Phalaina Locket (3 MND, 4% potency)
Orison + Roundel Earring (7% potency)
AF3+2 body (+20 skill)
Augur's Gloves (7 MND, 5 skill, 4 potency)
Haoma's Ring (8 skill)
Sirona's Ring (3 MND, 3 VIT, 10 skill)
Tempered Cape (4 skill, 4% potency)
Bishop's Sash (5 skill)
AF3+2 pants (7 MND)
Zenith Pumps +1 (6 skill augment)

Total: +50% potency, +73 skill, +43 MND

Differences:
Staff/Grip has 8 more skill
Club/Shield has 10 more MND

8 skill > 10 MND

And that's that. If that was discussed earlier in the thread already, disregard, but I felt this needed to be shown to prove that Tefnut+Genbu's in ideal situations is inferior now. It was to an extent slightly better, but now it isn't even with the best gear possible.

[Aleste]

Zenith Pumps +1 (6 skill augment)


Augmented zenith pumps would have 4% potency on them (ideally) allowing you to change the neck for healing/collossus' torque to gain an extra 7(10) skill at the cost of 4 MND. Though, this mis-count occurs in both sets, so the net effect doesn't change.


ADDITIONAL MULTI-EDIT::



Arka IV (24% potency)
Curatio Grip (3 skill)
Mana Ampulla (MND+3)
Iaso Mitra (10 skill, 11% potency, 10 MND)
Phalaina Locket (3 MND, 4% potency)
Orison + Roundel Earring (7% potency)
AF3+2 body (+20 skill)
Healer's Mitts +1 (7 MND, 15 skill)
Haoma's Ring (8 skill)
Sirona's Ring (3 MND, 3 VIT, 10 skill)
Tempered Cape (4 skill, 4% potency)
Bishop's Sash (5 skill)
AF3+2 pants (7 MND)
Rubeus Boots (10 skill)

50% Pot, 85 skill, 33 MND 3 VIT
~+102 power



Arka IV (24% potency)
Curatio Grip (3 skill)
Mana Ampulla (MND+3)
Iaso Mitra (10 skill, 11% potency, 10 MND)
Collossus' Torque (7-10 skill)
Orison + Roundel Earring (7% potency)
AF3+2 body (+20 skill)
Healer's Mitts +1 (7 MND, 15 skill)
Haoma's Ring (8 skill)
Sirona's Ring (3 MND, 3 VIT, 10 skill)
Tempered Cape (4 skill, 4% potency)
Bishop's Sash (5 skill)
AF3+2 pants (7 MND)
Zenith Pumps +1(6 skill 4% potency)

50% Pot, 91 skill, 30 MND 3 VIT
~+106 power



Tefnut Wand (15% potency, 10MND, 5 skill)
Genbus Shield (5% potency)
Mana Ampulla (MND+3)
Iaso Mitra (10 skill, 11% potency, 10 MND)
Phalaina Locket (3 MND, 4% potency)
Orison + Roundel Earring (7% potency)
AF3+2 body (+20 skill)
Healer's Mitts +1 (7 MND, 15 skill)
Haoma's Ring (8 skill)
Sirona's Ring (3 MND, 3 VIT, 10 skill)
Tempered Cape (4 skill, 4% potency)
Bishop's Sash (5 skill)
AF3+2 pants (7 MND)
Zenith Pumps +1(6 skill 4% potency)

50% Pot, 83 skill, 44 MND 3 VIT
~+105 power

[Fredjan]

[EDIT: Okay, those two sets would result in similar performances, didn't really doublecheck. Derp. Basically re-posting this as my general summary was incorrect due to forgetting zenith pumps +1's cure potency augment.]

I would picture that Tefnut set winning outside of Lightsday where the Arka IV setup will win due to the extra healing magic skill. This is what I just put on the Tefnut Wand page on FFXIAH:


Post-healing magic skill update:

See the following item sets for comparison (VIT+ is the same for both sets):

Item set # 255028 - Staff
Total bonuses: +50% Potency, +88~91 Healing Magic Skill, +30 MND

Item set # 256460 - Tefnut / Shield
Total bonuses: 50% potency, +83 skill, +43 MND

The staff build DOES have more skill, but considering 1 skill ~ 2 MND, the +13 MND on the Tefnut set accounts to an extra ~6.5 skill roughly so it would be SLIGHTLY better (+1.5~ skill advantage worth of potency) outside of Lightsday where the Staff build will win regardless.

Suppose it boils down to preference nowadays. Get lucky on Genbu's augments? Use Tefnut. Don't like club/shield? Use staff. There's situations one is better than the other, at least until more gear comes out. There isn't a given "X is always better than Y" here.

In order for Tefnut + Genbu's to be better, you not only need 5 potency on Genbu's, but perfect augments on zenith pumps +1 (these are in fact mandatory, you would need perfect augments on these for the build to win in the long run). While that helps both builds, it's enough to give the Tefnut set a 1.5 skill advantage (from the MND difference being worth approximately 6.5 skill). Iaso Boots wouldn't be enough either, you flat out need the skill.

Factoring builds without Zenith Pumps +1 would factor using Rubeus Boots for skill instead, while switching out hands (Healer's Mitts +1 > Augur's Gloves) to reach 50% for a Tefnut set and honestly giving up 10 healing magic skill is too damaging in that situation (however in this situation both sets would be using Phalaina Locket anyway). That is how required zenith pumps +1 are for a Tefnut build. Quite a bit of effort for a marginal improvement, and I do mean marginal. And on Lightsday, all that effort would be for naught vs. a staff/grip build using the same gear except for Colossus's Torque over Phalaina.

[Aleste]

I suppose it all depends on how you specifically feel about the club/shield combo.

Non-lightsday, the club/shield combo with perfect augments will pull 1.5 power higher than the perfect staff equivalent.
Lightsday, the staff set pulls ahead of the club/shield combo by 1.5 power.

This however doesn't change during lightsday (or weather) for optimal max cure... we'd prefer to use korin obi and twilight cape for the additional day/weather bonus;

The staff set (collossus'/zenith) changes as such:
back to twilight cape [-4% potency, -4skill, gain day/weather boost]
waist to korin obi [-5 skill, gain day/weather boost]
neck to Phalaina locket [-7 skill, +3mnd, +4% potency]
>Net worth: -16 skill, +3MND, 1.5 day/weather boost.
Set drops from ~103 power to ~88

The tefnut/genbu set changes as such:
back to twilight cape [-4% potency, -4skill, gain day/weather boost]
waist to korin obi [-5 skill, gain day/weather boost]
hands to augurs mitts [-10 skill +4% potency]
>Net worth: -19 skill, 1.5 day/weather boost
Set drops from ~105 power to ~86

Seems that when the sets are modified to take korin obi/cape into account, it still sits ~2 power ahead.

So under perfectly ideal situations, the club/shield combo will cure stronger by an exceptionally small amount on average (when you factor in 1/8 day chance and the scarcity of light weather).

Sidenote: Personal mileage will vary.

[Fredjan]

Yeah, it boils down to preference. Either option is going to work (although Tefnut build takes more effort to beat Arka IV build obviously). I occasionally overheal a target anyways and don't see the maximum amount my cures even do. Admitedly I'm more paranoid in VW when my DDs can be oneshotted and temps ensure MP is near infinite (as long as they're properly replenished, anyway). 1.5 skill bonus isn't something I'd factor as noticeable enough to completely justify the change (given the potential costs involved).

Light weather isn't something I'd honestly factor either unless you're doing Nyzul on WHM or something since it's always active there, or once Limbus gets renewed and Temenos gets additions.

/does listings for lightsday/light weather for personal reference:
Staff +50% Potency, +88-16 Healing Magic Skill, +30+3 MND becomes:
+50% potency, +72 skill, +33 MND.
Tefnut/Genbu set: 50% potency, +83 skill, +43 MND -19 skill becomes:
+50% potency, +64 skill, +43 MND.

And then it's down to 8 skill vs. 10 MND again.

tl;dr: We agree, but I do tend to ramble. lol I also can't justify carrying more gear for such a minimal impact. It's reasons like that that I'd also be carrying an Arka IV build around, and in my reasoning, guess it boils down to keeping it simple. :p

[Aleste]

Yeah, not disagreeing with anything, the math is right on both accounts. It's nice to know that those with tefnut wands won't have to worry about the price depreciating on them anytime soon.

Personally I've been interested in the most efficient -enmity set (presuming capped potency) and the reduction it has on overall cure power.

[Fredjan]

Yeah, not disagreeing with anything, the math is right on both accounts. It's nice to know that those with tefnut wands won't have to worry about the price depreciating on them anytime soon.

Personally I've been interested in the most efficient -enmity set (presuming capped potency) and the reduction it has on overall cure power.

That reminds me, I've been uncertain of how effective Tranquil Heart is. Easy enough to build an -enmity set, but that job trait could have a value that counts as additional gear enmity- and we all know it caps at -50.

Even without that though, aiming for capped potency and capped enmity- is rather difficult. At least Tranquil Heart in theory helps with this, I just don't know how much it does.


Arka IV
Pax Grip
Leisure Musk
Iaso Mitra
Phalaina Locket
Orison Earring
Roundel Earring
Orison Bliaud +2
Blessed Mitts +1 (first thing that came into my head with decent enmity-, likely something better here)
Metanoia Ring
Trooper's Ring
Tempered Cape
Theta Sash (again, there's that -7 belt, but...)
Orison Pantaloons +2
Marduk's Crackows

Undoubtedly missing the better pieces as it took me a whole 1 minute to think that set up, but that keeps 50% potency and like -37 enmity. A fair bit of loss of skill in that set which I'd consider pretty noticeable, but if one's comfortable with less, easy enough to replace some of the enmity- gear with skill+.

[Economizer]

That reminds me, I've been uncertain of how effective Tranquil Heart is. Easy enough to build an -enmity set, but that job trait could have a value that counts as additional gear enmity- and we all know it caps at -50.

Testing shows it ignores and does not count for the gear cap. Here is the information. (http://wiki.bluegartr.com/bg/Tranquil%20Heart)

[Economizer]

Before I forget again, FFXI Calculator (http://www.ffxicalculator.com/) has been updated with the new cure values. I haven't checked to see how accurate it is to the spreadsheet (and it could use some work, like a Twilight Cape checkbox or one for Rapture enhancing gear) however it seems mostly correct from a casual glance.

[Economizer]

Furen's Cure Calculator (http://members.shaw.ca/pizza_steve/cure/Cure_Calculator.html) has been updated again. It should be showing updated values to account for the proper method of rounding. Hopefully it is completely accurate now.

[Aleste]

Bumping for great justice!

Mostly I've been enjoying the new cure changes (mostly on scholar, jesus...). Though the following things bug me:

Cure 6 and Regen Spells
Efficiency numbers at reasonably high end scenarios.
Cure1 ~40 hp/mp
Cure2 ~25 hp/mp
Cure3 ~35 hp/mp
Cure4 ~34 hp/mp
Cure5 ~22 hp/mp (efficiency lost is gained through its reduced enmity generation)
Cure6 ~12 hp/mp
Regen1 ~25hp/mp
Regen2 ~15hp/mp
Regen3 ~13hp/mp
Regen4 ~14hp/mp
Cura's and Curaga's are something I'd like to touch on later...

Cure6 was pretty poor before the cure formula changed, and only got worse. It is THREE TIMES worse than cure4 at curing... for a spell that is supposedly one of our highest tier cure spells this shouldn't be the case.

Whenever they announced Regen5 for SCH, i wrote this:

As a white, i feel like it's a little bit of a slap in the face to have regen merits and enhances regen on our relic body only to not have access to the highest tier regen spell.


Honestly I'm not sure where I stand on the matter now... part of me feels that because SCH has gained regen 'mastery' (as witnessed by most potent/longer duration regens and Regen V) that we're not going to be seeing any fix for them on WHM. The reduction in casting time sorted out one of the problems with the spell line, but it seems in need of some sort of boost.

Cura/Curaga spells



Cure spells will be adjusted so that Healing Magic skill will play a greater role in determining their potency.
At high skill levels, Cure spells will heal more HP than before, while low skill levels will see minimal benefit. The degree to which Healing Magic skill affects HP healed will vary by spell, with Cure I-IV seeing the most significant adjustments.
Cure I-IV: Amount of HP recovered may increase by as much as 1.4 times
Cure V-VI: Minimal adjustments.
*Curaga I-V and Cura I-III will remain unchanged.
-----
If you wish to discuss or submit feedback on this topic, please use the [dev1094] tag.



Why were these not changed over to the new cure formula? Was there a specific reason? (is there even a reason at all?).

[Fredjan]

Testing shows it ignores and does not count for the gear cap. Here is the information. (http://wiki.bluegartr.com/bg/Tranquil%20Heart)

Ah, I didn't recall reading that page, cheers. I checked otherwiki instead... /should know better than that. Moving on!


Why were these not changed over to the new cure formula? Was there a specific reason? (is there even a reason at all?).

I honestly don't understand why they weren't changed either. If one line of cure spells gets modified, the rest should too. Admitedly, I do not really know Curas well enough, but I know curagas used the same formula for potency.

This just results in us having inconsistency with the cure setups, although I would not be surprised if "balance" was a reason, or rather, potentially even MP cost adjustments and they'd want to avoid that.

Meh, I'll just blame their vision of "balance" on that. Seems to be the trend. I can understand why curagas weren't changed, but I will definitely concur with the thoughts on Cure VI.... I definitely don't agree with their nerfing of its potency, given its immense MP cost. It's a joke to use even as an emergency cure, lol.