Has anyone quit healing?

Oh yeah ARC was pretty strange at the time because of the branching jobs which meant that it wound up with a cure AND a raise, and inadverntaly allowing the former to be accessible on Casters (NGL it was helpful for soloing on BLM, but not so much in group stuff), which unsurprisingly was phased out with the Role skill revamp. To date the only ARC skills left on SCH are DoT's, Aetherflow and the res right?

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Originally Posted by tinythinker

I doubt it was about simplification to appeal to more players, or if so, it missed the mark. There seems to be shade thrown at casual players and those who don't raid, but, there was nothing confusing or hard about Aero 3. The lily system WHM has now isn't complicated, but it's far more complex that what WHM did previously, so if it's all about simplification why add that? Putting one or sticky DoTs on a target and using Bane wasn't complex or hard either, certainly no harder than managing the new tools SCH got. And the changes to Astro cards are almost a draw. Before you had to know which job would benefit from which card by how the mechanics of other jobs worked, as some loved more speed for instance but it threw other jobs off. Now you still have to learn and manage cards just in a different way. If learning what cards do and who should get them was too complex before, it's marginally better now but not by a large degree. I don't buy the "dumbing it down" idea as the main driver or logic behind the changes to healer jobs. They could just give us the current PvP bars for all jobs to do that :p

From a thread almost a year ago:

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Yes but the problem is even now a lot of fights don’t have decent heal checks. Like the only hard ones this expansion are e4s first week and ultimate Alexander 1 and 2 phase. The rest of these fights you as healer do dmg. Even week 1 shiva whas a joke healing wise and you were forced to dps a lot as healer to get through the enrage.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Mortex

Yes but the problem is even now a lot of fights don’t have decent heal checks. Like the only hard ones this expansion are e4s first week and ultimate Alexander 1 and 2 phase. The rest of these fights you as healer do dmg. Even week 1 shiva whas a joke healing wise and you were forced to dps a lot as healer to get through the enrage.

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I was referring to the idea of overall job simplification as the reason for the healer changes, which doesn't line up with what SE and and did, so I was highlighting the relevant portions for that. In fact, after the part where he talked about 5.0 SCH he talked about WHM:

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Yoshida: Almost all healing spells the Whitemage had required you to cast, they had high healing potency, but you always where in a situation where you had to time your heals to the incoming damage and you had to precast your heal in most cases. You couldn’t start moving until you had finished your healing cast which left very little space for DPSing and the feedback we received indicated that this was causing more stress to the Whitemage players compared to players who played Scholar or Astrologian. Because of this our adjustments on Whitemage tried to focus on increasing possibilities for your next action and making it easier to move instead of just buffing DPS potencies. You can choose to use this mobility for DPSing or preparing for the next heal. In any case main focus for Whitemage adjustments were to increase mobility and give the player more freedom of choice for their next action. In addition, we felt like Healing Lilies were difficult to use efficiently, so we changed these to automatically start charging up once you enter battle. When a Lily is charged, you can use it for instant heals and increase mobility.

...[T]here is a thin line between stress and fun while playing.

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The quote I shared above from Yoshi P also talks about healer feedback being all about dps, which he and the team wanted to change, presumably by pruning some things from SCH. There is an older quote, though, that says they don't make content that absolutely requires healer dps (as in it's technically impossible without it), but that doesn't mean they feel all groups can clear content that way or that it would be preferable.

They just seem to want to make dps feel less prominent for healers in their toolkits by having fewer damage buttons. Do damage, yes. But don't focus on it. Sending SE more feedback about doing dps than healing as a healer seems to tell them dps features on healers should be scaled back. That seems to be their perspective. Not attacking or defending their stance, but I strongly suspect this is a big part of the disconnect. The notion that healer dps isn't irrelevant or undesirable, yet should be presented in no uncertain terms as secondary to the design and play of the job.

Viewed that way, it makes sense that WHM increased in complexity (on average) over the last couple of expansions, while SCH gameplay complexity decreased and AST just kind of morphed weirdly but is actually more frustrating now button-pressing wise. If my summary of their perspective and goals is accurate, that is what players might be better off adressing rather than focusing on "SE is dumbing down healers" or "SE doesn't want healers to DPS". Some have and do, which is great. I don't expect every healer to agree with my take, but I feel it is worth sharing for their consideration.

So I suppose I would frame it to them like this:

Dear SE,

1. Healer gameplay cannot only look and feel fun when healing, even though you wish to emphasize healing abilities over damage abilities. While some healers spend a large amount of their time healing, others spend very little time healing due to the basic game design. Yes, some healers obsess about their contribution to DPS, but having boring DPS options - even if they have high DPS numbers - makes that part of being a healer boring both for more casual players and those who have the time and desire to maximize their DPS.

As you know very well as successful developers, there is the basic effect/throughput of a skill, like healing, damage, and CC, and there is how it feels to use based on animations, sound effects, and synergy with other abilities. While trying to standardize aspects of healing to improve balance between the jobs and give a baseline for future development is highly sensible, this must not be neglected for healer damage abilities.

For example, WHM is more complex now than in Heavensward and has some fun synergies with lilies that lead to dps opportunities with Afflatus Misery in addition to Glare and Dia and the occasional Assize. Plus Holy. Lots of Holy. It is simple in DPS terms, yet that has always been the WHM identity. The stereotypical desktop RPG and MMORPG style healer, like a properly geared Templar in Elder Scrolls Online or a Holy Priest in World of Warcraft.

For Shadowbringers, SCH has been brought in line with that WHM standard by having a similar number of dps-related abilities: Broil III, Biolysis, Art of War, and Chain Stratagem. Yet, it seems off to many players. Sure, some want previous abilities back, but it also has to do with job identity and gameplay. WHM incorporates two of its DPS abilities into healing (Afflatus Misery and Assize), which makes sense as it is "the healer's healer". But SCH has always had interaction between its damage abilities and a sense that it was a job for people who liked to strategize, which fits its in-game image.

In ShB there is no interaction for SCH. Biolysis doesn't affect how Broil III impacts targets (yet it could). Art of War does not affect Biolysis in any way or relate to Broil III (yet it could). Same for Chain Stratagem. And with WHM having more DPS-related buttons than WHM maybe SCH could get one more? Even with only four damage-related button, though, SCH doesn't have to be so flat and sterile when it comes to its DPS gameplay. Please consider how to make these more interactive with each other, and/or, perhaps even the Faerie?

AST has Malefic IV, Combust Three, Gravity, and its Card(s), the latter of which are all DPS buffs in Shadowbringers. Again, similar in number to the other healer jobs. Yet having all cards be DPS cards is something many players find boring, not to mention the number of button presses seems to some players excessive compared to what is accomplished. I won't go to into detailed suggestions as AST main have made many, but with the current card conversion system you could make all of the cards non-damage and nearly always useful but able to be recycled for something else. In a system where, based on player behavior, either card has to be a damage buff or none can, we've tried every card. What else do you have up your sleeve?

2. Per the above, even with fewer DPS buttons it is still really important for the DPS component to feel fun and engaging. Of course, as Yoshi P has stated, "[T]here is a thin line between stress and fun while playing." This is very true. I personally find some situations as a healer to be stressful that others would find fun. Not to mention that some players expect raid-level healer play in basic dungeons, which can add to said stress for new players and those who have limits on their skill progression as healers.

By reducing the prominence of DPS abilities in SCH and trying to solve the "fishing for a Balance card" issue in AST, an idea has arisen that you are trying to make healers extremely easy to play and lessen what other players would expect out of healer DPS contributions. Regardless of whether this was your actual intention, this perception of your motives is popular and comes up again and again.

There is, naturally, a desire to make all jobs accessible. That is only good business sense as well as good game development. Hence the old developer notion of lowering the skill floor so more people can jump into something at a basic level of play. The issue is always what to do with the ceiling. If it is too low, ambitious players with more time on their hands and a desire to improve will become bored and frustrated. This has happened to many healer mains in FFXIV with ShB. On the other hand, if the ceiling is incredibly sky high, newer healers or those with issues such as physical or time limitations may feel they will never be any good. I do not envy any developer who has to set a player skill ceiling.

Still, I feel that looking back to my initial point, there is room to bump the skill ceiling for SCH and AST a little for DPS. WHM to me seems fine given the space it is supposed to occupy, but SCH and AST need work. These considerations are especially important if a fourth healer job is currently in development for 6.0. If a small bump in the skill ceiling works well for SCH and AST, then maybe another small one is in order. In this way, you can arrive at something that still has your goal of healer standardization in mind, while also giving a concession to players who crave that higher skill cap. In any case, I respectfully wish you best of luck working with healer changes.

Lets not forget that this is coming from the same person that complained that SCHs didn't heal and instead mostly just DPSed while off loading the healing on the co-healer..... All this exactly when SCH was the top healer in all content (read the healer that healed the most).
It was a vision of healers that came from a non-healer or very casual healer perspective and was simply incorrect.

The changes were aimed at doing one single thing. Decreasing the gap in DPS between an optimized player and an average player. If you simplify a class a lot you get less opportunity to optimize. That way, in their mind, average healers wouldn't be pressured into DPSing as much because optimizing dps wouldn't lead to as significant a gain as it previously did.
In SB it wasn't uncommon for optimized players to do on average about 50% more dps than average players (raiders). In ShB we're looking at about a 30% difference. But it hasn't really accomplished anything other than bore the optimized players and trample over cognitive flow game designs.

Instead of SE forcing their image of healers onto us, a design that directly contradicts their content design might I add, they should really just learn from this and give us more engaging gameplay and a proper DPS meta.

Pretty much covered this in a different thread months ago when SB released.

https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...11#post5008311

SE has a serious disconnect when it comes to healers. They have no idea what they're doing with them or what they want to do with them and it's clearly showing.

Instead of making healing more fun and engaging they dumbed it down for all three jobs and wonder why no one wants to play them.

IMHO 6.0 will be the make or break expansion for healers. We've been neglected for years now and when they went back to square 1 in SB, 6.0 will show what they can or can't do with a clean slate.

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Originally Posted by Deceptus

Pretty much covered this in a different thread months ago when SB released.

https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...11#post5008311

SE has a serious disconnect when it comes to healers. They have no idea what they're doing with them or what they want to do with them and it's clearly showing.

Instead of making healing more fun and engaging they dumbed it down for all three jobs and wonder why no one wants to play them.

IMHO 6.0 will be the make or break expansion for healers. We've been neglected for years now and when they went back to square 1 in SB, 6.0 will show what they can or can't do with a clean slate.

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And my feeling is they will completely and totally fail. As a person who's been playing since ARR Beta and an Omni Healer, I have absolutely ZERO confidence in them after how bad they burned us in SHB. They clearly dont play healers, or have anyone on the team who heals (as is Sebazzy's opinion, one of which I agree with seeing the writing on the wall) and clearly dont want to f**k with it.

Look at how delicately and finely tuned Black Mage is and what additions were made to the job in SHB, and that's where you'll the see the clear lack of design capabilities between DPS and Healers.

Quite frankly, when 6.0 comes out and they make it worse, I may just be done with the game all together, as I am a Healer. I found Scholar so absolutley and mind numbingly boring that I did the one thing I said I would never do and become an Astro Main just for things to do during anything.

Tbh, I think what SE needs is some new people on the job design team, ones that actually listen to the playerbase and focus on making jobs fun and engaging. Focusing on adding things to jobs and increasing difficulty of encounters to compensate for the players naturally being more skilled at level 80 rather than running everything into the ground for the sake of people who need to go do hall of the novice and got carried.
The current team's design methods are not fit for purpose. This laziness of scrapping functionally important abilities and fun skills and readding them as capstones is awful. Its fairly obvious that the 4 members of the current team are PLD, DRG, SMN and BLM mains since those jobs seem to be favoured the last 2 expansions. Or perhaps crafter mains.

At least one member of the team should main each role (healer/melee/range/tank/caster)

I've been a SCH main since Heavensward, but Shadowbringers has made me completely give up on playing the job outside of raiding with my static, as well as leading me to severely cut back on my time playing the game in general. If I am playing, I'd rather it be BLM, or WHM if I'm still somehow in the mood to heal or want a quick expert queue.

There's simply no reason to play SCH (or AST) in dungeons when WHM allows you to carry bad tanks with Holy's stun. I'd already started feeling this way in Stormblood, but Shadowbringers has put the final nail in the coffin for SCH. Homogenization and simplification have really killed my enjoyment when it comes to healing in this game.

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Originally Posted by Ayesafaile

There's simply no reason to play SCH (or AST) in dungeons when WHM allows you to carry bad tanks with Holy's stun. I'd already started feeling this way in Stormblood, but Shadowbringers has put the final nail in the coffin for SCH. Homogenization and simplification have really killed my enjoyment when it comes to healing in this game.

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I mained SCH from 2.0 all the way to SB and I've swapped to WHM when I dungeon. I often tell new players that Holy is an on demand Hallowed Ground available for every single pull that has the added effect of damaging mobs.

It is literally the best form of mitigation in the game for any healer not facing a stun immune boss.

As I see it, there are not many reasons not to be a WHM in a dungeon. It's simply better than the other two.

Happy international worker's day everyone, hope you had some good time off. Everyone except the Healer Job designers at SE, as every day is day off for them. Fnar fnar.

Holy shit this thread has reached page 50. That is a lot of feedback and complaints that has gone completely ignored, well done.

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Originally Posted by tinythinker

<Everything Yoshida said>

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Two months of this fucking virus causing so much overtime and instant confused anger flares up again coming back here reading the Director say something that has no grounds in reality. The biggest insult here is that they seem to think I was fretting over how MUCH damage I was doing, which I find laughable since I never bothered with a parsers. Because I was having so much fun with HOW I was dealing damage. And debuffing. And healing. And managing fairies. And on and on...

Can someone please check what version of the game the developers are playing? Because it must be a bugged build where you only have access to the single-digit number of fights in the High-End tab.

So to sum up:
* They wanted to Balance healers, numerically.
* Only place where Balance and party composition matters is in the High-End Duties.
* There are five or six fights being relevant at any time in that tab.
* Not DPSing makes the fights drag on, at times unclearable and not to mention incredibly boring waiting for the next unavoidable damage because it is 100% scripted.
* Means of said DPS is barebones, basic and unsatisfying.
* Because of Balance and how much fighting this game has, playing Scholar is such dull suffering in over a thousand combat scenarios spread base game and three expansions worth of:
Leveling to 80
Doing daily roulettes
Being downsynced
Dungeons
Guildhests
Trials
Coils
Trials called Raids
24-man clusterfucks
Fates
Deep Dungeons
World Quests
Four Eureka zones
+new relic area
Job quests
Role quests
MSQ hyped solo quests
...where party composition and being balanced matters for dick.


Why is the Director going on for Balance so fucking much? Where this balance matters is less than one percent of all the game has to offer of combat and for me even less.

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Originally Posted by FoxCh40s

Look at how delicately and finely tuned Black Mage is and what additions were made to the job in SHB, and that's where you'll the see the clear lack of design capabilities between DPS and Healers.

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That is a very good point and one I took notice of: When leveling in ShB I often talked to some friends who did so with BLM, and every other level they would tell me they got a BIGGER or BETTER explosion with glee in their voice. In comparison I got: A instant healing cooldown, a trait to now an instant healing cooldown, a Bahamut-egi instant healing cooldown that eats other cooldowns and is delayed, a instant cooldown to heal more made flacid with Catalyze and finally a 20 potency buff to Broil. Take a guess how much healing I had to do vs. how many Broil III's have been casted this expansion. This is just not trying to hide the lack of imagination, SE.

The answer should be obvious: Do a Black Mage: Give Scholar it's dps base class, cleric stance and pet hotbar again, and I'll never be bored. But we live in modern time where a developer somehow still clings to the notion that a RPG JOB is to be defined by it's Role, and not it's name, theme, lore and, most of all, fun. What has befallen SE to be so archaic. It's not even anachronoxic, the first clerics in DnD could fuck up undeads in variety of ways and smash skulls with their hammers while also healing minor to major wounds. So what has gotten into SE that Savage Balance, that I don't even consider a selling point of the game, should take master, front and center stage to everything including to the detriment of enjoying the story.


What does Balance mean in Satasha? When the world quest asks you to go and collect five bear asses? When doing your daily grind for token tokens? When doing one of the million trivial encounters in the game? What the fuck does Balance mean when SE hypes up a story villian to the fucking moon and when you finally get to smack him they have the time of their life jumping around shouting exposition while awesome music plays and I can do nothing more than press ONE. SINGLE. SAME. BUTTON. endlessly, occasionally move, until he falls over? Because anything else would be unBalanced? Is that why Aetherflow and ED are at 45? Because pet Hotbar and Arcanist skills and debuffs would send the whole game careening into the ditch, catch fire and become 1.0 v5.0? Then this game needs a long sought after and much better foundation at it's core.

Since ARR, there have been a ton of fighting you just couldn't heal through, and nothing has changed since then except the murder of Arcanist skills. In ARR I had more buffs and offense than I had restorative skills. Yet I still kept every single party alive and the world didn't fall apart. What has gotten into SE? Have all their Healer Job Designers been replaced with calculators to whom the concept of fun is a logarithm function?

Did anyone catch the Shadowbringers Documentary? Wonder if we'll get a scene where they say "we had no clue about healers so we just deleted a bunch of random stuff and made them all white mage. It was hard work copy pasting so I took an early lunch that day."

I actually picked up healing this expansion. I was sporadically leveling healers in StB. in ShB, I decided to go ahead and level them to cap and make one of the healers my backup job for DR queues.

WHM is slowly becoming my main. I have been playing the healer role more than tanking... which is what was my main role since ARR.

I am enjoying WHM. I have enough oGCDs and powerful regens that allow me to spend almost all of my time DPSing. I find myself getting annoyed when I cannot DPS because I have to spend GCDs healing. Granite... that is my advertised role. Though I am the type of player who considers using that the whole kit applies to the advertised role.

Talk about whole kit: this gets me to SCH and AST. I know SE nerfed those jobs for people like me: non-healer mains. To be honest, I am a little insulted by these nerfs. WHM already fills the spot for the casual healer; plenty of easy to apply heals with a simple damage rotation. SCH and AST didn't need to be simplified.

SCH should have kept its dots and AST should have kept the cards. If they didn't nerf those two jobs, and if I wanted to play them, I would have to learn and get better over time. That means learning to spread dots properly on SCH, that also means not fishing for Balance on AST. Now I am just spamming AoW on SCH and fishing for each Lucky Charm marshmallow on AST. Those who have mastered the jobs should have been able to keep playing the jobs they have mastered as is (or improved).

Even though I never got to experience full SCH and AST, I understand the potential lost.

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Originally Posted by Sloprano

*absolutely glorious real words*

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*slow standing ovation*

I never posted on the forums ever, I just purchased the complete pack haven't been playing since heavensward. I always mained healers in all mmos.

I am here to say I kinda regret my purchase...my bad I guess I got too hyped seeing the job trailer and didn't research.

Scholar was my favourite healer but I loved them all...playing this expac for a few days I regret every single penny I spent. To see the fantasy of "disease" removed entirely - I am spamming broil??? uh uh. Art of war??? uh uh. Embrace is a joke?? uh uh.

I was like ok calm down I loved astro too I'll just go back to that. All cards are what now???? Like nothing turns me off a game faster than unflavourful straight up it's all the same choices.

Ffxiv already was a disappointment to me compared to what ff franchise is "flavour" wise (reason I unsubscribed for a while), I swear if this game didn't dupe me with its nostalgic ff factor I would not touch it. I am a weak idiot.

Anyways I investigated what the whole butchering of flavour was about...to find it's about healers focusing on heals?

Ok when I first started ffxiv I though healing was pretty easy compared to other mmos, so I figured ok that's cool cause it makes people less likely to not pick the job. But imo if you are going to focus on healers healing...then you need something more interesting than pressing 60s buttons with two gcds to fill the gaps. Period. Just like dpsers have procs randomness and rotations and not just one button to do everything??? like for real.

The way this feels like is we need healers to not be Gods so that the game is not easy mode but how the healer feels while playing? who cares they are idiots who just enjoy filling greenbars, they obviously don't care about "fun" or they wouldn't be healers.

Ugh whatever I am just salty I paid 50$ for this - lesson "hopefully" learned. Hopefully leveling ninja/gnb will lick some if that salt off.

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Originally Posted by Sloprano

What does Balance mean in Satasha? "

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Fun story, I distinctly remember my first job in 2.0, Thaumaturge. The baby black mage. For Satasha, it was me a tank and 2 other dps. I slotted Physic in an action bar and proceeded to heal the place because Umbral Ice meant unlimited MP.

Man I miss those days where you could customise your class/job. It was beneficial to do multiple classes as you got more options. My first sastacha win was one I will never forget- sprinting around the arena after the healer as a lancer using piercing talon on repeat on the boss because the tank was down and the archer was down (I didn't have skull sunder at the time unfortunately)

Balance on subsequent playthroughs was what fun things can I use on my hotbar? Fracture, inner release and uh...its been a while but I think it was miserable end or something? 3 cross class skills that made my job as a lancer in sastacha much more fun and faster. A dot to juggle, a mob executer and a crit booster for boss fights

The balance was the best kind- what can I add to my hotbar that's both fun and not going to impede my regular fighting?


Hell my conjurer in 2.0 at level 15 had more to do than my WHM/AST does these days. Protect (rip) Stoneskin (rip), Fluid aura that did something and if my hazy memory serves me rightly at least 1 buff for myself
Nevermind the 3 skills from other classes I could bring with me for fun.

My gripe is that healing dps was dumbed down so much and incoming damage was not increased. If it was then it was not increased enough, which translates to a very boring healing experience in all content outside of ultimates and savage.

Adding a new healer next expansion is wanted. But if all they have is 3 dps moves and a decent healing kit and they dont increase incoming damage then we will be no better than we are now.

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Originally Posted by Derio

My gripe is that healing dps was dumbed down so much and incoming damage was not increased. If it was then it was not increased enough, which translates to a very boring healing experience in all content outside of ultimates and savage.

Adding a new healer next expansion is wanted. But if all they have is 3 dps moves and a decent healing kit and they dont increase incoming damage then we will be no better than we are now.

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They backed themselves into a corner with that one, they put off a new healer for so long they pretty much have to do one but at the same time a lot of people who play healers do not want a new healer because the 3 we have need major works done on them and do not want to see a 4th whm with a new coat of paint.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by EaMett

Lets not forget that this is coming from the same person that complained that SCHs didn't heal and instead mostly just DPSed while off loading the healing on the co-healer..... All this exactly when SCH was the top healer in all content (read the healer that healed the most).
It was a vision of healers that came from a non-healer or very casual healer perspective and was simply incorrect.

The changes were aimed at doing one single thing. Decreasing the gap in DPS between an optimized player and an average player. If you simplify a class a lot you get less opportunity to optimize. That way, in their mind, average healers wouldn't be pressured into DPSing as much because optimizing dps wouldn't lead to as significant a gain as it previously did.
In SB it wasn't uncommon for optimized players to do on average about 50% more dps than average players (raiders). In ShB we're looking at about a 30% difference. But it hasn't really accomplished anything other than bore the optimized players and trample over cognitive flow game designs.

Instead of SE forcing their image of healers onto us, a design that directly contradicts their content design might I add, they should really just learn from this and give us more engaging gameplay and a proper DPS meta.

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But isn't this the point of being a shield/pet healer? To create more openings where you can attack instead of focusing on healing? Y'know. Be a tactician?

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Originally Posted by Dragonexx

But isn't this the point of being a shield/pet healer? To create more openings where you can attack instead of focusing on healing? Y'know. Be a tactician?

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That was infact, Scholars ENTIRE Lore. Preparing for every situation to gain every little edge on enemies and give advantages to your allies. Until 4.0, that's EXACTLY what it was, every little skill (not you Dissipation, should have been a Summoner ability) worked in tandem and created a wonderful symphony of pure mitigation and preparatory bliss, allowing you to feel like you truly decimated an encounter and won because of your skillfull planning and usage of abilities.

and with Foxch40s that is this threads 500th reply of healers downing tools and discussing why they downed tools or probably will

I would disagree with dissipation being a summoner ability- it should not be an ability at all. An ability that works by removing the pet from the pet jobs is pure idiocy and it should never have left the concept stage in the same vein as scrapping Energy Drain (crucial mechanic to Sch/Smn), Luminerferous Aether (thereby crippling Ast's mp recovery for 2 expansions now without lucid) and all of healer dps

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Recon1o6

and with Foxch40s that is this threads 500th reply of healers downing tools and discussing why they downed tools or probably will

I would disagree with dissipation being a summoner ability- it should not be an ability at all. An ability that works by removing the pet from the pet jobs is pure idiocy and it should never have left the concept stage in the same vein as scrapping Energy Drain (crucial mechanic to Sch/Smn), Luminerferous Aether (thereby crippling Ast's mp recovery for 2 expansions now without lucid) and all of healer dps

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I could see the argument for keeping Dissipation on SCH as a rotational tool. Using the SMN’s trance as an example, gate Seraph behind Dissipation much like SMN’s Bahamut is gated behind Trance. Have it so Dissipation has 2 charges on a 60-90s cooldown, boosts SCH’s DPS and all healing for its duration in addition to the Aetherflow refresh, then grants Seraph Aether to allow the use of Seraph instead every other time you activate that ability. The charges give enough flexibility to place both as needed for healing, and allows you to use the ‘worse’ half as a damage cooldown.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Recon1o6

and with Foxch40s that is this threads 500th reply of healers downing tools and discussing why they downed tools or probably will

I would disagree with dissipation being a summoner ability- it should not be an ability at all. An ability that works by removing the pet from the pet jobs is pure idiocy and it should never have left the concept stage in the same vein as scrapping Energy Drain (crucial mechanic to Sch/Smn), Luminerferous Aether (thereby crippling Ast's mp recovery for 2 expansions now without lucid) and all of healer dps

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The main enemy of the original Summoner questline ate his summon to gain more power, it was literally in the damn questline.

Everywhere in the Scholar questline it was, "Work with Lily, plan with Lily, rely on Lily" not eat the fairy.

I'm not arguing on lore grounds, I'm arguing on mechanic and design grounds. What sort of class would want to benefit from throwing away a chunk of its buttons and mechanics for a temporary stat boost when it doesnt have the tools to make up for it?
We have seen this expansion what happens when removing the pets- the jobs don't function mearly as smoothly if at all and its a sharp unwanted playstyle change

I will admit to forgetting about the story part- I haven't done it since 2.1 on my alt.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Recon1o6

I'm not arguing on lore grounds, I'm arguing on mechanic and design grounds. What sort of class would want to benefit from throwing away a chunk of its buttons and mechanics for a temporary stat boost when it doesnt have the tools to make up for it?
We have seen this expansion what happens when removing the pets- the jobs don't function mearly as smoothly if at all and its a sharp unwanted playstyle change

I will admit to forgetting about the story part- I haven't done it since 2.1 on my alt.

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Oh I'm not arguing that Dissipation is a shit skill, it's probably the worst designed skill in the game, it was only made useful back in Stormblood with Quickened Aetherflow, which in Shadowbringers they promptly destroyed and usefulness, but gave it the quality of life change that it needed by having it summon back the fairy.

The single most frustrating thing about all of the Healer changes and abilities added, is that they would have spectacularly fit with the previous abilities of expansions.

The Healers are so absolutely frustrating in every single way for people who have played them since the beginning.

Honestly, I argue dissipation is a good skill now, I use it more than I ever did back in SB, but the main reason for that is because the fairy is so clunky and unreliable that I don't lose anything by not having her out. The 3 stacks of aetherflow she gives me is way more useful than a heal that takes 10 seconds to go out and barely does anything.

Never had a problem with Dissipation. I like that it's there and have used it lots. Really good for if I need to heal right now and have no other resources to do healing other than GCDs (maybe also don't even really have MP to). Also as an MP generation source if I'm in a bad MP situation. Excluding the sound and look of a few new action upgrades/replacement (art of war, broil III, biolysis), the only actions I've really not liked the addition of are excogitation and recitation. I mean in the way of play/fun/feel

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Originally Posted by FoxCh40s

Oh I'm not arguing that Dissipation is a shit skill, it's probably the worst designed skill in the game

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Its the worst designed healer skill, I won't argue there. I think the worst one though goes to Anatman or Tornado kick which flat out break how monk functions when they already have buttons dedicated to their function that are better.

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Originally Posted by Billythepancake

Honestly, I argue dissipation is a good skill now, I use it more than I ever did back in SB, but the main reason for that is because the fairy is so clunky and unreliable that I don't lose anything by not having her out. The 3 stacks of aetherflow she gives me is way more useful than a heal that takes 10 seconds to go out and barely does anything.

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This right here is proof why this skill and why the pet changes to Sch/Smn need scrapping. If the fairy is so useless that killing it is good, then it shows how poor the entire kit is

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Originally Posted by Recon1o6

This right here is proof why this skill and why the pet changes to Sch/Smn need scrapping. If the fairy is so useless that killing it is good, then it shows how poor the entire kit is

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I won't deny that it's useful for the wrong reasons. I do also like it in general though, even if the fairy were useful, if anything, just for down time things. Like in o11s I would use it during the add phase since there was 0 healing to do there, and the fact that the fairy comes back on its own instead of having to waste a GCD on it is a nice quality of life change.

That's like 1 of the 2 things that I can say was a positive for SCH this expac. The only other thing I liked was recitation. Everything else was a negative and I can't wait to clear TEA so I can unsub and play games that don't just frustrate me every time I log on.

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Originally Posted by Lethros

Never had a problem with Dissipation. I like that it's there and have used it lots. Really good for if I need to heal right now and have no other resources to do healing other than GCDs (maybe also don't even really have MP to). Also as an MP generation source if I'm in a bad MP situation. Excluding the sound and look of a few new action upgrades/replacement (art of war, broil III, biolysis), the only actions I've really not liked the addition of are excogitation and recitation. I mean in the way of play/fun/feel

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The problem with Dissipation is and always has been this:

1) The list of scholar abilities it affects is minimal.

Scholar is all about using abilities, not necessarily spells and Dissipate doesn't affect them.

2) The healing power and utility lost by losing the fairy isn't made up by the + healing bonus on the player.

Healing magic up is only one part of the ability. You don't have to use it for that. Accept it for what it is (/was) and work with it in what ever way you can if it's helpful in a moment. It's not a boring high power upfront ability like some others. You redirect power from elsewhere. There are various reasons you could use it. I normally use it for extra aetherflow healing, or MP, in times when things have really gone wrong and it's needed, or at the end of a battle. It lets me use abilities I would otherwise have to wait for because aetherflow is on cooldown, which would be too late. Could save a party and I think probably has lots of times. How's that a bad ability? Of course it could be a rare use if you're always in safe parties with perfect execution in all duties, nothing ever went wrong, and are never in reset danger

If you don't play scholar much then sure you might not ever use Dissipation, and might forget it's there. But when there is an opportunity to make great use of it, I think it's one of the great high points of points where scholar shines and excels--in it's functionality and the experience of being a scholar. I think it would be a terrible loss if it were to go

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Originally Posted by Lethros

If you don't play scholar much then sure you might not ever use Dissipation, and might forget it's there. But when there is an opportunity to make great use of it, I think it's one of the great high points of points where scholar shines and excels--in it's functionality and the experience of being a scholar. I think it would be a terrible loss if it were to go

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Have to disagree with you here. A capstone ability that literally removes the core aspect of the job is a terrible ability.

I don't main Healer anymore but I still end up playing it for a quick EX roulette queue.
At this point, I play it more then my main, DNC. :B

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Originally Posted by Deceptus

Have to disagree with you here. A capstone ability that literally removes the core aspect of the job is a terrible ability.

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Dissipation is not a terrible ability. Not by any measure. If you don't find yourself constantly using it in anything from dungeons to ultimate then you aren't doing it right.
It's a great optimization tool with a decent amount of opportunities for good use. It would be a travesty to dumb the class down even more by removing one of the few skills we have left that require us to think.

Now you can debate all you want about whether or not it's "good enough" for a Lvl 60 cap skill. That's your prerogative and I have no opinion on that matter, but the skill itself is good and should be used on or close to cooldown.

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Originally Posted by EaMett

Now you can debate all you want about whether or not it's "good enough" for a Lvl 60 cap skill. That's your prerogative and I have no opinion on that matter, but the skill itself is good and should be used on or close to cooldown.

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The mark of a good healer in FFXIV is literally healing as little as possible and Dissipate does nothing to help that. IF anything it makes you heal more or make your partner heal more.

So either your being selfish for your own personal DPS and making your co-healer heal more, or you're playing sub-optimally by losing your free healing.

But seriously, please enlighten me when a good time to Dissipate is because I don't see it. The fairy CD's are spaced in a way that they can be rotated through. Using Dissipate locks you out of using Fey Union and Seraph for 30 seconds. Is 450 potency via 3 Energy Drains really worth losing all of that utility? Because if you're in a situation where you need the 3 extra Aetherflow for healing, you screwed up or your tanks did.

The simple fact is that Dissipate conflicts with everything the Scholar is about. But to make matters worse, in 90% of content it's just simply not needed.

Edit: Woohoo! 2,000th post!

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Originally Posted by Deceptus

The mark of a good healer in FFXIV is literally healing as little as possible and Dissipate does nothing to help that. IF anything it makes you heal more or make your partner heal more.

So either your being selfish for your own personal DPS and making your co-healer heal more, or you're playing sub-optimally by losing your free healing.

But seriously, please enlighten me when a good time to Dissipate is because I don't see it. The fairy CD's are spaced in a way that they can be rotated through. Using Dissipate locks you out of using Fey Union and Seraph for 30 seconds. Is 450 potency via 3 Energy Drains really worth losing all of that utility? Because if you're in a situation where you need the 3 extra Aetherflow for healing, you screwed up or your tanks did.

The simple fact is that Dissipate conflicts with everything the Scholar is about.

Edit: Woohoo! 2,000th post!

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I dunno man. I use it on CD and my co-healer never complains about my lack of healing, in fact you can look me up on the site that will not be named, (Evelynn Outreguerlain on Diabolos)9/10 times I've healed more than my co-healer and still out DPSed the tanks. Thats not bragging. Dissipation isn't a bad skill to use, mostly because A) your cohealer has a ton of free healing they can use too, especially if you're paired with AST. B) Your main free heal you should be using first 9/10 times is recitation + indom/excog. It is better than any fairy heal, and costs just as much to use, namely nothing. C) fairy doesn't heal for shit and it comes back automatically when time is up now. Honestly, there isn't a huge difference between when I have the fairy out and when I don't. Embrace does almost nothing, the delays make the fairy unreliable, and outside of whispering dawn and maybe seraph, none of the heals the fairy has leave a major impact. For all intents and purposes, dissipation is just a second aetherflow button.

Is it useful for the wrong reasons? Sure, I wish not having the fairy out actually impacted me more than just missing out on 3 extra energy drains, but, it is useful, and something that should be used as often as you can. The only fight I don't use it on CD is TEA.

That's not to say I enjoy SCH this expac, I think it's garbage and SE ruined it, but the change to dissipation makes it a much better skill this go around.

I love Dissipation and the more comfortable you get with SCH the more that particular skill gets used. Both Dissipation and Deployment require thought and I love those components of Scholar. The fact that Seraph, Dissipation, Fey Union and to a minor extent Fey Blessing all conflict with each other is refreshing to me. AST and WHM have so many heals that stack and overlap for massive burst healing that it's like being at an endless buffet with no appetite every time damage goes out. You don't need all those options most of the time and it can be tough to decide just what you want to use. SCH has limited choices and it forces you to consider when each tool is optimal. It's the same reason I like that Adlo and Succor have prohibitive MP cost too. SCH is still capable of incredible burst healing if you plan for it but it's really satisfying to pull a Tank through a wall to wall pull or heal both stack markers in Memoria Extreme when a cohealer dies because you know your tool kit well. Plus, Seraph is out every two minutes. Whispering Dawn and Fey Illumination are 60 seconds and 2 minutes respectively. I always have time to Dismiss my fairy between those cool downs for maximum benefit. I don't get locked out of any of my other skills by using Dissipation. I get more aetherflow stacks and increased healing while I'm WAITING for those skills to come off cool down instead. It can be a panick button sure, but it's not really meant for that or even all that effective as such. Scholar is my favorite healer because the healing aspect is more fun trying to get the best synergy out of all the skills and I guarantee if you try to use it more effectively you'll enjoy Dissipation a lot too. It was mind-blowing when I realized that heavy Raid Wide Damage is better suited to Dissipation. Whispering Dawn isn't going to give you a burst heal and Fey Illumination only mildly reduce damage and increases spell based healing which tells me I should use Fey Illumination long before damage goes out and eat my fairy for the strongest shields I can manage next under the healing buff from both skills. Dissipation allows for stronger shielding and it's a very beautiful thing to take under your control. If you need to do a heal check Dissipation is the next step after you blow your fairy cool downs because Embrace is not saving anyone in this expansion.

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Originally Posted by Deceptus

But seriously, please enlighten me when a good time to Dissipate is because I don't see it.

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1) Right before a boss/pull is about to die and Aetherflow isn't going to be off cooldown immediately.
2) In the opener on any boss. SE almost always opens with a Raidwide AoE and Tank Buster in some order for the first minute before getting to real mechanics.
3) Any time a boss jumps away/goes immune for a phase transition.
4) Any time you're AoEing a single mob pull (tanks will NOT take enough damage to warrant keeping the fairy around the entire time).
5) Any time you're died right after using Aetherflow/Lucid and need to recover MP or to spot-heal asap after resummoning your fairy.
6) Any time your co-healer isn't taking your kit into account and spamming Aetherflow actions alongside them would be overhealing.
7) Any time you only need to use Excogitation + any other aetherflow healing ability or less for a single aetherflow cycle and can double-weave Energy Drains alongside Fairy cooldowns to cover what you need before you use Dissipation.

There are plenty of use cases for Dissipation. You need to look for them, but there are more of them than you realize.

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Originally Posted by Deceptus

The mark of a good healer in FFXIV is literally healing as little as possible and Dissipate does nothing to help that. IF anything it makes you heal more or make your partner heal more.

So either your being selfish for your own personal DPS and making your co-healer heal more, or you're playing sub-optimally by losing your free healing.

But seriously, please enlighten me when a good time to Dissipate is because I don't see it. The fairy CD's are spaced in a way that they can be rotated through. Using Dissipate locks you out of using Fey Union and Seraph for 30 seconds. Is 450 potency via 3 Energy Drains really worth losing all of that utility? Because if you're in a situation where you need the 3 extra Aetherflow for healing, you screwed up or your tanks did.

The simple fact is that Dissipate conflicts with everything the Scholar is about. But to make matters worse, in 90% of content it's just simply not needed.

Edit: Woohoo! 2,000th post!

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There are many cases that have been mentioned here. The core of it is this:

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Originally Posted by NobleWinter

Plus, Seraph is out every two minutes. Whispering Dawn and Fey Illumination are 60 seconds and 2 minutes respectively. I always have time to Dismiss my fairy between those cool downs for maximum benefit.

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To which you can add all and any 30s period where your fairy healing isn't required. Many reasons why you wouldn't need your fairy from boss downtime to your co-healer having a weave window they can use to cover the healing. In dungeons it would typically be at the end of the first pull (in wall to wall scenarios) where your dissipate will give you stacks and your 30s are spent following your tank shepherding the second pull of mobs (ie no healing required).
All the cases posted here follow this core concept and it's not even a thorough representation.

Dissipation is a useful recovery tool in progression raiding, but outside of that environment it's just 3 extra Energy Drains.
Embrace doesn't really do anything these days, and Rouse is gone, so you're not really limited by when you can dissipate unless Seraph timings line up with 3 minute buffs. Realistically you should be able to shuffle cooldowns around to avoid that, however.
It's mostly frustrating that consuming Aetherflow during Dissipation doesn't build Fey Gauge. It makes Fey Union feel equally underwhelming this expansion since you're so rarely able to use it.

I have such mixed feelings about Dissipation. It's very underwhelming under most circumstances, but if you happen to die at an inopportune moment (and get raised), it's one of the only ways you can recover. Equally, it can save runs in which your cohealer dies.