Dev Request- Divine Seal adjustment

I feel like divine seal is a fairly weak effect on a very long timer. It doesnt keep up with the current pace of the game. What I'd like to see happen is have its recast dramatically reduced and then have its effect adjusted to compensate for the change. Something like-

1 minute recast
Cure potency based off the lvl of WHM- (WHMLVL +1)/2

So as a sub job you would get a 25% potency boost and as a 99 WHM it would be +50%. This also would make WHM's more comfortable subbing other things than SCH with them being able to take advantage of divine veil more often.

WHM is really only good at healing, it would be nice to have some of our tools refined.

Hey, SE believes we WHMs use DS for actual curing past 61.... as opposed to the actual use of it: -ga your -nas until you make a yagrush.

There's really no need to restructure the potency... cause at 99, that's not what the JA is used for.

SE usually feels like they need to take something in exchange for an adjustment like that... and it'd be a bit too powerful for /whm at full potency. I guess they could just cut the potency in half for /whm. This change would make those divine seal Job Points actually worth something though.

I definitely agree that lowering the timer is a good idea. A one minute timer would not only help with the ailment removal aspect but might actually make Divine Seal worth using for cure potency when AoE status removal isn't a priority. I don't like that it's just ignored.

Ultimately, with our cure potency being quite high as it is, I don't think a one minute double potency cure would actually have a dramatic impact on our healing capabilities in terms of raw HP healed. However, I can maybe see a one-minute Divine Seal being nice as a semi-consistent MP conservation tool - once per minute, your Cure III is essentially a free Cure IV. We could also use it for tactically doubling our cure stoneskin potency... Yes, this increasingly sounds like a lot of fun!

If subjob access to Divine Seal is likely to be a problem then we could just tag the reduced recast on as an effect of Divine Veil - then it's just not subable.

But JP is like merits where it only affects your main job....
Which is why the DS JP category is so silly/stupid/insulting: it'd be good for /WHM... Since that's the only place DS is used for actual curing...
But it's a main-job-only effect category...
So...
It's just a waste of grind.

(You know the category is bad when the benediction augment is the better of the two...)

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Originally Posted by Jerbob

Ultimately, with our cure potency being quite high as it is, I don't think a one minute double potency cure would actually have a dramatic impact on our healing capabilities in terms of raw HP healed. However, I can maybe see a one-minute Divine Seal being nice as a semi-consistent MP conservation tool - once per minute, your Cure III is essentially a free Cure IV. We could also use it for tactically doubling our cure stoneskin potency... Yes, this increasingly sounds like a lot of fun!

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This is one of the things i had in mind when i thought of this change. WHM (outside of subjob choice and gear) does not have access to any native forms of conserving or recovering mp outside of their 10min divine seal JA- No refresh spell/sublimation/conserve mp jt/auto refresh jt/aspir/convert etc... WHM gets clear mind, and that it... and i believe its the only mage that doesnt have access to a 2mp/tick refresh head also. So the reduced timer on Divine seal would act as WHM's 'conserve mp' ability.

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Originally Posted by Mikkel

So the reduced timer on Divine seal would act as WHM's 'conserve mp' ability.

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Not to be that person... but we don't really need that.
I mean.... if you have empy+2 pants.... you have no MP issues EVER. (except with the most suicidal DDs in your party)

Not to mention how that +2mp/tic bodies (of which there are a plenty)... serpentes set... Bolelabunga now... there's SO much refresh for WHM currently... that we don't need a auto-refresh head piece. (heck the only job that has a desperate need of that is RUN... but giving a refresh piece in lieu of a PDT/DT piece is what is currently gimping RUN... akin to the WHM days before the empyrean pants.)

So while it's true that we don't have a mp-restore (for ourselves anyways) in JT or JAs...
We have a buttton of auto-refresh gear.
Heck... Moonshade Earring might as well read "WHM: refresh +1"... Ain't no WHMs on mobs.

And even more silly/stupid... the Benediction JP augment might even wind up being a 1hr convert....

I think we could use other augmentations that are more.... pressing.
But to be fair... WHM should be pretty low on the table for tweaking... aside from.... bar-statuses being a waste of MP... there's not much growth for WHM.
Or if there is, I'm not seeing either it or the relevance of it.

At least in regards to how the job works today.
If you're talking about say... lol!melee or whatever... then there's a bunch of tweaking room. (Afflatus Misery has SO much room to be made better, for example.)

But I think Divine Seal, in terms of potency is fine...
Recast would be nice if it could be brought down to as low as 1min... but I don't see that happening. But it WOULD be nice... but, again, it's a "more of a good thing" type deal... instead of a fix or a real gain from some other ability.

Cause remember, unless we're changing the hard coding for the JA itself... which is a rare thing that is almost never done...
Any augments made via Merits or Job Points... will only apply to WHM as a main job.

At the risk of hijacking Mikkel's thread (please, tell me to shut up if I'm stepping on toes), I don't think this is a request based on a desperate need or fix for the job. Divine Seal is something of a relic of past ages of FFXI where a ten minute timer was reasonable. Today, it's as if Perfect Counter was on a ten minute timer - it doesn't make a lot of sense, and it ends up going unused (or underused). Divine Seal on a one minute timer wouldn't just be useful, it'd be fun to use - simply because you wouldn't always be leaving it available "just in case".

I would contest that our (definitely significant) access to auto-refresh equipment doesn't negate the value of MP conservation tools. At least half of the auto-refresh gear we have access to is stuff that I am not be comfortable using except when semi-idle between casts - and with the best intentions and reactions in the world, if a white mage is doing something that needs a lot of MP recovery then they're not going to have time to swap in and out of auto-refresh gear between every single cast - only when practical. Of course, auto-refresh macros are fantastic and extremely useful, but they are not a panacea.

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Originally Posted by Jerbob

I would contest that our (definitely significant) access to auto-refresh equipment doesn't negate the value of MP conservation tools. At least half of the auto-refresh gear we have access to is stuff that I am not be comfortable using except when semi-idle between casts - and with the best intentions and reactions in the world, if a white mage is doing something that needs a lot of MP recovery then they're not going to have time to swap in and out of auto-refresh gear between every single cast - only when practical. Of course, auto-refresh macros are fantastic and extremely useful, but they are not a panacea.

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I 100% disagree.
With the stupid amounts of cure potency available... A WHM can more than stand losing their roundel earring for a moonshade.
And if you're not in your empyrean +2 pants... You're being a bad WHM.
But then... So many SMNs gimp themselves due to iLvblindness... I can't really blame WHMs for being above such actions either.
WHM doesn't need iLv gear.
Sure, things like the RF1 hat and Tamaxchi are MUST HAVES...
But for slots like... Everything else.... A WHM is often better off with noniLv stuff.

Serpentes set gives you refresh and 5% cure potency. Sure this limits you into a cure potency body... But:
Heka's Kalarisis is pretty much the only VW body that is still good today. Why? Because nothing else is giving you +15% cure potency (1/3ish cap) and -15% cure cast time.
PLUS paring it with good macros will give you 3mp/tic refresh... Which is why I stand by that Heka's is still the best WHM body.
But others forgo the refresh of Serpentes for more cure potency. And they choose to use the empyrean brialt +2 for the SS buff.
Personally, I find Heka's to perform better. Sure you're casting cures slightly more often (as if even with the buff the SS doesn't get removed in 1 hit... 2hits at best.) but the 3mp idle and constant 1mp refresh makes you make up for that.

Basically: WHM is like SMN when it comes to gear choices: you don't gear for yourself.
A SMN gears for their Avatar, forgoing self buffs if they're good. (SO many gimp SMNs running around in Hagondes because "it caps perp"... As if perp is all that matters!)
A WHM gears for the survival of everyone else... At the cost of iLv stat vomit.
The job of the WHM isn't to have massive eva and Meva...
It's not to have +100 STR...
It's to keep everyone alive.
That's it.
If your gear is hampering you keeping everyone alive... You're not being the best WHM you can be.



But in regards to any changes to Divine Seal... They will not change the base JA...
ESPECIALLY not now that they believe it's used for cures.
If they do ANY tweaks... It will be through Job Points...
Which means we must ignore any benefit that /WHM might gain from such adjustment... Because Job Point augments are main job only.

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Originally Posted by FaeQueenCory

I 100% disagree.
With the stupid amounts of cure potency available... A WHM can more than stand losing their roundel earring for a moonshade.
And if you're not in your empyrean +2 pants... You're being a bad WHM.
But then... So many SMNs gimp themselves due to iLvblindness... I can't really blame WHMs for being above such actions either.
WHM doesn't need iLv gear.
Sure, things like the RF1 hat and Tamaxchi are MUST HAVES...
But for slots like... Everything else.... A WHM is often better off with noniLv stuff.

Serpentes set gives you refresh and 5% cure potency. Sure this limits you into a cure potency body... But:
Heka's Kalarisis is pretty much the only VW body that is still good today. Why? Because nothing else is giving you +15% cure potency (1/3ish cap) and -15% cure cast time.
PLUS paring it with good macros will give you 3mp/tic refresh... Which is why I stand by that Heka's is still the best WHM body.
But others forgo the refresh of Serpentes for more cure potency. And they choose to use the empyrean brialt +2 for the SS buff.
Personally, I find Heka's to perform better. Sure you're casting cures slightly more often (as if even with the buff the SS doesn't get removed in 1 hit... 2hits at best.) but the 3mp idle and constant 1mp refresh makes you make up for that.

Basically: WHM is like SMN when it comes to gear choices: you don't gear for yourself.
A SMN gears for their Avatar, forgoing self buffs if they're good. (SO many gimp SMNs running around in Hagondes because "it caps perp"... As if perp is all that matters!)
A WHM gears for the survival of everyone else... At the cost of iLv stat vomit.
The job of the WHM isn't to have massive eva and Meva...
It's not to have +100 STR...
It's to keep everyone alive.
That's it.
If your gear is hampering you keeping everyone alive... You're not being the best WHM you can be.



But in regards to any changes to Divine Seal... They will not change the base JA...
ESPECIALLY not now that they believe it's used for cures.
If they do ANY tweaks... It will be through Job Points...
Which means we must ignore any benefit that /WHM might gain from such adjustment... Because Job Point augments are main job only.

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I had to read through your post several times before i understood the problem with what you're saying... you don't know that you can swap your gear. You should have (situationally) 8mp/tick in your Idle set AND close to capped PDT. A dead WHM is a useless WHM. If you're not curing in your AF3 body YOU are doing it wrong. That was one of SE's best gifts to WHM, it allows us to basically 'break' the potency cap with extra cureskin.

I'm not going to bother getting into the SMN discussion...

ALL of that is irrelevant to what is being asked though. Divine seal generally goes unused because of its long recast... people sit on it JUST INCASE they need to AoE an erase or -na spell. Lowering the recast would not only help with WHM's ability to remove staus effects, it would make using it for the extra cure potency a consideration. You wont be thinking 'oh, i better not use divine seal i MIGHT need AoE a spell in the next 10 minutes.' Which would mean our JPs in divine seal would actually become somewhat useful.

Talking about its use as a 'conserve MP' tool is just an additional boon.. its not the reason for asking for the change. This adjustment would make being a WHM a little easier and a lot more FUN (this is a game afterall) and its not game-breaking in any way.

In conclusion, asking for an adjustment doesnt mean that we NEED it, or that we're playing our job incorrectly. . . thank you for your input, but please stop trolling the thread.

Edit: ALSO, who said anything about JPs having an affect on Divine seal's use as a sub job? We all know how JPs work... The only thing i mentioned was i thought the potency should be reduced as a sub because double pot cures on a 1 min timer would be pretty OP for /WHM.

well i dont find the suggestion wrong, i do think however other jobs need more help then whm in the healing department. Namely RDM and SCH respectivly. they get it decently done, but cant touch a really good whm (thats like 5% of the whms out there) at all. they have fallen behind, moreso RDM. This addjustment would give RDMs and SCHs the final nail in their healing coffin unless you throw some adjustemnts along to them.

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Originally Posted by Damane

well i dont find the suggestion wrong, i do think however other jobs need more help then whm in the healing department. Namely RDM and SCH respectivly. they get it decently done, but cant touch a really good whm (thats like 5% of the whms out there) at all. they have fallen behind, moreso RDM. This addjustment would give RDMs and SCHs the final nail in their healing coffin unless you throw some adjustemnts along to them.

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But rdm and sch would get access to the same JA, albeit at a lower potency. But it would make their jobs easier as well.

It would also give more reason to sub /whm. It's hard to justify sometimes with /sch giving full -na's and erase, and the ability to aoe them on a 2 min cd.

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Originally Posted by Underpanties

But rdm and sch would get access to the same JA, albeit at a lower potency. But it would make their jobs easier as well.

It would also give more reason to sub /whm. It's hard to justify sometimes with /sch giving full -na's and erase, and the ability to aoe them on a 2 min cd.

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the strenght of whm cureing doesnt come alone from afflatus solace and its cureskin, yes it helps (alot with empy body +2), but whm empy legs +2 are a constant fixed (or more) 50% conserve MP for any competent whm, slap curagas on top of that and a whm barely runs out of MP at all.

I totally agree that RDM could use (a lot of) adjustments for just about every aspect of their job... but SCH has MORE than their fair share of tools and spells. This adjustment would do nothing but help them anyways. Assuming a SCH is in a party just to heal, being able to DS curaga II on a 1 min timer would save them strats and fill in their biggest healing weakness. Besides, any non-yagrush WHM would be using DS mostly for AoE -na spells.
I also dont see how you can even compare SCH to WHM... Are you saying that SCH should be able to heal just as well as a WHM? because the list of things SCH can do is already really long. SCH is one of the reasons RDM has become so unattractive... SCH is so good at so many things that they stomp on the toes of most of the other mage jobs already.

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Originally Posted by Mikkel

I totally agree that RDM could use (a lot of) adjustments for just about every aspect of their job... but SCH has MORE than their fair share of tools and spells. This adjustment would do nothing but help them anyways. Assuming a SCH is in a party just to heal, being able to DS curaga II on a 1 min timer would save them strats and fill in their biggest healing weakness. Besides, any non-yagrush WHM would be using DS mostly for AoE -na spells.
I also dont see how you can even compare SCH to WHM... Are you saying that SCH should be able to heal just as well as a WHM? because the list of things SCH can do is already really long. SCH is one of the reasons RDM has become so unattractive... SCH is so good at so many things that they stomp on the toes of most of the other mage jobs already.

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I am not saying SCH is bad, but it could use some help in the healing department, it is grossly overlooked in the healing department by the majority of the playerbase, because it cant touch a good whm in that department. I am not saying it should be as good as whm on healing, but there should be some options to make SCH healing more viable. anything that requires huge amounts of bomb healing constantly will leave a sch fast withotu any MP as opposed to a good whm that can handle that easy with some curaga III and proper equipment (hint empy leg +2) and it costs them almost no MP, not to mention the cureskin that give them some air to breath. Again not saying SCH cant heal, it just cant come close on healing regarding anything remotly hard as opposed to whm. There shoulndt be only 1 healer choice, there should be 3 different to choose from. Same with Tanks at the moment we have 1 Tank choice as opposed to haveing 3. We need more job flexibility imho.

whm can do also alot of things schs can, you can even nuke nowadays with tier 1 nukes for 1k+ dmg per nuke (assuming /sch).

As for RDM... that is a total different story, the job lacks so many things, starting from the current magic skill ratings, to unique spells over to healing department etc.

I would be happy and fine for the divine seal adjustments if afflatus solace can be subed too for other jobs.

The issue is not SCH not being able to heal hard content... its the playerbase thinking that it cant. A good SCH is capable of healing in harder content, i've done it many times. I will admit i feel more comfortable healing on WHM, but i've played WHM for a much longer time than SCH and the SCH i use isnt my main character. If SCH is made any better at healing WHMs will end up be sitting in the corner with the RDMs. Why bring a WHM when you can have a more versatile job like SCH? When i compare jobs i usually consider what they're capable of w/o a subjob. Every job should be able to stand on its own to some degree. SCH is one of the few jobs in the game i actually consider well balanced. Which is one of the reasons why i proposed this adjustment- so WHMs could function more easily w/o subbing SCH. I dont know about other WHMs, but i feel like i have my hands tied if i sub anything other than SCH on WHM.

Edit- I would have no problem with Solace cureskin working as a SJ, but i want the regen enhancement from light arts in exchange.

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Originally Posted by Mikkel

The issue is not SCH not being able to heal hard content... its the playerbase thinking that it cant. A good SCH is capable of healing in harder content, i've done it many times. I will admit i feel more comfortable healing on WHM, but i've played WHM for a much longer time than SCH and the SCH i use isnt my main character. If SCH is made any better at healing WHMs will end up be sitting in the corner with the RDMs. Why bring a WHM when you can have a more versatile job like SCH? When i compare jobs i usually consider what they're capable of w/o a subjob. Every job should be able to stand on its own to some degree. SCH is one of the few jobs in the game i actually consider well balanced. Which is one of the reasons why i proposed this adjustment- so WHMs could function more easily w/o subbing SCH. I dont know about other WHMs, but i feel like i have my hands tied if i sub anything other than SCH on WHM.

Edit- I would have no problem with Solace cureskin working as a SJ, but i want the regen enhancement from light arts in exchange.

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I didnt say SCH cant heal, I actually did it myself, but when it comes to VD fights or anything that dishes out damage like nothign else, I am sure as hell going whm. It is infact much much easier to keep people alive on whm and not run out of MP then on SCH, when mainhealing. From my personal experience, SCH can heal good, but when it comes to hardcore stuff, it will barely cut it, especially if your melees are some PUGs that dont like to swap at times some gear out for more defensiv options or there are massive amounts of AoE damage taken, 4 Accessions Cure IVs in succession can hurt your MP pool very bad very fast.

I'm failing to follow you're argument... you're saying SCH can heal, but needs to be even better at it because-
-It cant heal as well as 5% of the WHMs out there
-It has trouble keeping up on VD content when your DPS and support are not doing their jobs.
-SCH doesnt have access to cureskin /whm
-there should be more healers than just WHM
is that right?

So you're basically saying SCH should be just as good at healing as WHM, even though SCH is far more versatile... By your posts i can tell you spend a lot of time on SCH and also must like the job so i understand that you would like it to be even better. But why should WHM exist if SCH is made to do the only thing WHM does well (just as well) AND be able to do a bunch of other stuff also? If only 5% of WHMs out there are out-healing you on SCH, how much of that gap do you want filled?
You running out of MP sounds like you dont have proper support and your DPS not using DT sets in VD content are not problems with SCH... those are problems with the people you're playing with. I guess i'm very lucky to have a LS with a full alliance worth of competent people, so i don't experience the same things when healing on SCH.
I agree there should be more jobs capable of healing outside of WHM AND SCH. I would love to see RDM revamped, and SMN given healing skill + some cure spells. Those are both jobs that i feel could use the extra attention.
As far as cureskin goes... its great, but not as great as you're making it sound. I honestly would not care if they made it usable from /whm. That would make subbing WHM even better (just like a divine seal recast reduction). The only problem with that adjustment (i feel) is Cureskin doesnt work with Curagas, but would work with SCHs AoE spamming cure 4s... once again giving SCH another advantage.
So we agree that SCH can heal. Can we agree that SCH doesnt actually NEED an adjustment? Its just something that would be nice... like the Divine seal recast reduction.

Edit- ALSO, these are the WHM forums... why dont you take your SCH complaints to the SCH forums? Your argument is about as relevant as a DNC hopping in here complaining they cant keep up with a WHM... its a different job with different strengths.

Divine seal should definitely have a shorter cooldown. 1 minute sounds good, 2 minutes is the absolutely longest cooldown it should be given. It should also give the next spell +25% fast cast to make up for the time it took to activate DS, considering time usually is of the essence when playing whm.

To make things fair, black mages should probably be given a similar change to their elemental seals. Increased accuracy for one spell every other minute (and reduced cast time) doesn't seem like it would be overpowered to me.

Neither JAs should be nerfed when subbing the jobs. It's not going to make SCH or RDM broken in terms of healing power, after all.

At the same time, enable Afflatus solace/misery when subbing whm as well, although perhaps make it a bit less potent. A 15% cureskin sounds good to me, considering whm can get it to what, 35% if they want?

Yeah, i agree that Elemental seal is another JA that should have its timer reduced. Should be like 3~5 min recast IMO. *can hear RDMs everywhere scream in frustration over Stymie becoming even less useful*

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Originally Posted by Mikkel

Yeah, i agree that Elemental seal is another JA that should have its timer reduced. Should be like 3~5 min recast IMO. *can hear RDMs everywhere scream in frustration over Stymie becoming even less useful*

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considering the potency of ES, anything lower then 5 min would make the ability very very overpowered, unless you lower its potency.