dev1024 - healing magic

[Cymmina]

How is a "better" Regen going to help? I agree that it "fits the theme", but it is hardly any help when mobs are now doing so much damage that hammering your Cure III and Cure IV macros back to back as fast as you can is not enough to keep up. Unless its ticks heal at minimum somewhere between Cure II and Cure III and are at least as frequent as a Helix, it's just going to be another "Look, you got something, now will you just please shut up now?" ability. I already don't use Regen IV as a WHM unless the fight is so easy that a RDM or SCH could handle the load and I have nothing else to do, giving it to SCH won't change anything.

I can't help but feel like since the 75 cap was raised, other jobs have received a new Rook or Bishop, while we've been given a handful of Pawns. Giving Cure V to other jobs won't change a thing for WHM. It was the best healing job at 75. It will still be the best healing job in the game, it just won't tower above the 2nd place jobs like it currently does.

[SpankWustler]

How is a "better" Regen going to help? I agree that it "fits the theme", but it is hardly any help when mobs are now doing so much damage that hammering your Cure III and Cure IV macros back to back as fast as you can is not enough to keep up. Unless its ticks heal at minimum somewhere between Cure II and Cure III and are at least as frequent as a Helix, it's just going to be another "Look, you got something, now will you just please shut up now?" ability. I already don't use Regen IV as a WHM unless the fight is so easy that a RDM or SCH could handle the load and I have nothing else to do, giving it to SCH won't change anything.

Pretty much this. I think some Scholars are suggesting low numbers or cumbersome job abilities just because they don't understand how quickly a White Mage restores large amounts of HP in a situation where White Mage is needed to comfortably win a fight. Regen spells just don't help for that kind of situation.

There's really no "second best" right now, it's just fights you need a White Mage to win or stuff in which all healers are interchangeable.

[Fadnog]

I agree giving SCH more regen isn't going too make it so that we can main heal on par with WHM, but I don't think SE wants other jobs to be able to main heal as well as WHM because that's WHM's main role.

Giving SCH more regen will allow us to be more effective at healing over time then WHM. The extra regen will make healing more manageable as well as making us more viable for more drawn out fights.

I believe that WHM is supposed to be better at healing then SCH or RDM for that matter. SCH however still does need a means of coming close to WHM in healing, in some shape or form.

[Drusenija]

Reading through this thread, an idea occurred to me, so I figured I might as well post it ^^

Scholars are tactical casters essentially, yes? Forgetting Cure V for a moment, why not give us a spell called 'Reversal' that nullifies the next attack on a player (similar to a shadow) but also absorbs a percentage of the damage as HP instead (affected by cure potency perhaps?) It fits in well with the whole tactical theme of the job (you need to plan to use the spell in advance, so it's proactive, not reactive) and bypasses the higher tier Cure argument because you're mitigating the HP loss in advance rather than having to Cure it after the loss has happened.

In a spell name type format:

Scroll of Reversal
Scholar Lv.51
Teaches the White Magic Reversal.
Absorbs the next attack on target party
member as HP. Amount absorbed is greatly
affected by the weather.

Spell cost: 120 MP
Cast Time: 3 seconds
Recast Time: 10 seconds
Spell element: Light
Target: Party
Magic skill: Healing

The basic idea would be you'd cast this spell on a party member, and the next attack they receive is nullified, and a percentage of the attack is absorbed back into their HP. The amount absorbed would depend on the element of the attack. If there was no elemental damage attached to the attack (in other words, a regular weapon attack) then this would restore a base amount of HP. If it was a TP move (which normally has an element attached) or a spell, then a larger HP boost would be granted if the Scholar had cast the spell with the appropriate storm spell active.

Casting the spell with Rapture active would increase the amount of HP healed, and Accession would make it AoE for the party (much like our Cure spells can be made AoE), with the usual downsides of doubling the MP usage, casting and recasting time.

Again, this plays into the tactical idea of Scholar, you need to know the enemy you're fighting and know the right storm spell to be using when you cast the spell, and need to anticipate who is likely to actually take the damage, since the spell needs to be active _before_ the damage is taken.

To avoid it being used up on a basic attack from an enemy, you could build in a percentage based proc so the absorb effect only kicks in if a certain percentage of damage is done (percentage so the spell scales well both inside and out of Abyssea). That would widen the margin of error somewhat so you don't have to guess _exactly_ when a TP move is going to be used ^^

[Judge]

I'd like to see Stoneskin2. Iron-hide or Steel-skin etc.
blocking 600 dmg~ for a short perioud of time. 3 minutes duration instead of 5, 75ish mp cost, and 3 minute recast(minus haste effect)
so in order to spam it more often you would have to use up strats. thus making it not a WHM replacement, just an alternative.
having the party not take dmg in the 1st place would remove the need for higher cures.
whms wouldn't feel that their territory is being invaded. RDM i guess could get it @ 99 too.

[TimeMage]

Scroll of Reversal
Scholar Lv.51
Teaches the White Magic Reversal.
Absorbs the next attack on target party
member as HP. Amount absorbed is greatly
affected by the weather.

Spell cost: 120 MP
Cast Time: 3 seconds
Recast Time: 10 seconds
Spell element: Light
Target: Party
Magic skill: Healing

This is BRILLIANT. Recast time, duration of the status, trigger HP damage, MP cost, etc. should be tweaked to make it balanced and useful, but I love the general idea. I'm going to spread this idea around as much as I can, I think it's perfect.

[Economizer]

Reversal certainly sounds like a good concept. I think that aside from other adjustments the level should be a bit higher, but certainly a good idea, provided it doesn't break game balance.

Hearing about Stoneskin II is interesting. One suggestion I could give would be to start off by uncapping the limit of damage Stoneskin absorbs (this would about double the amount absorbed) - this would mainly help Accessioning Scholars in a small way. A second tier should be much, much faster casting, and still be self target, with a greater amount absorbed then just 600 (given a long recast, ~1500 is closer to a fair amount, especially if duration is reduced). Even with White Mage and Red Mage getting it, it would be most useful for Scholars, assuming that it casts fast enough to be able to quickly run in and AOE it.

[Drusenija]

Following on from our Sublimation concept, why not add in a new job ability? Let's call it "Sanguinem" (Latin for bleeding). Like Sublimation, it drains x/tic HP from you and stores it in a pool (to make it actually viable as an ability, you'd probably need it storing y:1 in the pool for each tic taken, much like Sublimation grants 3:1 MP:HP; if you had a 20:1 ratio, then you'd store 400hp per minute, which is roughly equivalent of 1 Cure IV every minute, hardly game breaking). It would need to stack with Sublimation though (this is where Regen spells are useful ^^)

I'm going to link this to my Reversal idea. When Reversal is cast on a target party member whilst the Scholar is under the effect of Sanguinem, any stored HP is immediately granted to the target party member and the effect of Sanguinem is removed from the Scholar. So essentially it turn Reversal into an immediate Cure spell (whose potency is affected by the amount of time the Scholar was under the effect of Sanguinem), plus has the benefits of Reversal.

Edit:
20:1 is probably unreasonable due to the minor loss of HP to the Scholar for what you're storing. The 20 is probably okay, but it might be 20:3 for example so you'd lose 60hp per minute by having this up. When combined with Sublimation, you're losing 4hp/tick so 80hp/min. Still manageable with Stoneskin and/or Regen.

[Economizer]

If you want some sort of ability that works sortof like a hybrid of Martyr and Sublimation, it would probably be merited. The biggest problem would be making the cap no based on your max HP like Sublimation, because for a cure, this would be terrible unless it was at least half of your total HP, if it is an ability to you want use as an extra Cure IV or whatever. Better would be making the cap based on some mix of healing magic skill, VIT and MND, such as Cap = Skill + VIT + MND, or Cap = Skill + 4/3MND + VIT/2.

I personally would try to avoid linking this to a suggestion about a spell that already Blinks/Absorbs damage, as considering balance issues seems to be a full time job for the devs already, but it is definitely something that may fit the job if it isn't useless.

[Bubeeky]

Could also give sch their own unique brand of cures that are reactive in nature, acting as a buff that automatically heals the recipient when they are hit, so like, for the next 3 mins or so, whenever the tank actually takes damage, the cure automatically gives him say, 100 hp back, no regen or direct cure involved.