Fix scholar and sage shields

When planned, SGE/SCH is the single strongest combination based purely on how much more valuable mitigation is than literally anything else healers bring to the table. Outside of organised situations it can be an exercise in frustration.

Last expansion I think AST shields overwrote SCH, but it's been a while so may be misremembering

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Originally Posted by fulminating

Last expansion I think AST shields overwrote SCH, but it's been a while so may be misremembering

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They did, yes. Given that fact I assume that it's spaghetti code rather than any intentional design decision.

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Originally Posted by fulminating

When planned, SGE/SCH is the single strongest combination based purely on how much more valuable mitigation is than literally anything else healers bring to the table. Outside of organised situations it can be an exercise in frustration.

Last expansion I think AST shields overwrote SCH, but it's been a while so may be misremembering

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Noct AST shields did, Neutral did not (and still does not). In fact, you can put Veil, Shake, TBN, Adlo, Consolation, Seraphic Veil, Divine Benison, Holosakos, Haima, Panhaima, Neutral Sect'd Aspected Benefic, Celestial Intersection, all onto a BLM that uses Manaward on themselves (or a NIN that Shade Shifts. But god forbid you try to put E.Diagnosis in there, it has to replace Adlo, they can't stack or that'd be going too far, think of how imbalanced that'd be /s

On the one hand, it's really stupid that the shields don't stack. There's no point in it. On the other, oh no. The already most powerful healer combo is suffering, we need to make them even more powerful, the horror, such injustice.

At the very least I think any shields that get replaced by an opposing shield healer should be converted into actual healing. Even if it's a minimum amount like 100 potency of healing in the event the barrier is replaced. This way in a panic scenario where two shield healers are struggling to heal the MP used isn't just tossed into oblivion but it still keeps Sage and Scholar from being able to stack ridiculous shields on a party with full HP. Imagine the outrage if Medica 2 removed Aspected Helios or vice versa. I think shield healers have only persisted in this state because most people play WHM anyway so it wasn't seen as problem worth addressing.

Its only gcd shields though which never seem to stack succor/e prog alco/e dia, yet everything else can pile on each other.... so I really dont get it. Then a sage can get a crit diag yet a sch could overwrite the main e diag shield but not differential diagosis one, same ofc where a sage would cancel out a alco with e dia but not the cata part of a sch shield. on the single shield aspect a e crit diag + zoe is actually stronger than a E crit alco since fey illum and dis(which can only be use in battle) is only 30% where as zoe is 50%.

However now sad thing is E diag cant be spread and you gotta pray you get a crit heal with while using zoe, cause if zoe had an additional effect that the next heal a sage do is a crit one 100% and e diag could be spread oh boy rip sch lol. Other than the ability to spread crit alco I barely see any difference of either shield healer or if so on single shield e diag wins for sage since zoe is stronger by 20% which i hope they buff zoe to have a additional effect that the next heal of a sage will be a critical one and rework garbage pepsis to allow sage to spread big e diags. Sage edge over sch which is the best is the fact its way more mobile and is not punish to use up its addergall, if the sage dies its still charging unlike whm/sch that they die and they lose their stuff worst if aether flow was just use + also having to waste time to summon back their pixies. Sage mp recovery is insane even after death am clocking back up to 6k to full in 1 min. Anyone who complains about mp management(not saying anyone here does) shame on you. Also someone did post ultimates showing whm+sage right now is the top healer combos being the famous ast/sch one in them ultimates.

Square has intentionally kept the GCD shield this way. It could be improved on by simply examining which shield value is higher, but they probably won't implement that. It seems as though they don't necessarily factor in SCH/SGE comps as a possibility, and don't put much thought towards their interaction. GCD Shield Stacking is clearly something Square wishes to avoid however. Week 1 Savage Progression and Ultimate Mitigation Checks would be trivialized even harder than they currently are with a SCH/SGE comp. I find it a bit surprising actually that so many of the other shield and mitigation options stack between the two of them. TOP Phase 6 is probably among the hardest mitigation checks to date, and SCH/SGE comps make it look easy. DSR and TOP are also examples of poorly designed instances for healers. The actual raw healing requirements for these encounters is incredibly low, yet they have repeated lethal mitigation checks in quick succession that quickly exhaust AST and especially WHM.

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Originally Posted by IllyaPrisma

It seems as though they don't necessarily factor in SCH/SGE comps as a possibility, and don't put much thought towards their interaction.

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Pretty much this, I imagine that the dev team, upon deciding that they'd split the healers into 'pure' and 'barrier', from that point stopped considering the possibility that people would just use two of the same type, instead of one of each. If world firsts start getting taken by a double shield comp, maybe they'd start paying attention. Though I imagine that'd just result in a hamfisted 'oh shit we didn't factor this in, quick nerf it' and the throughput of the shielders will get hobbled. Remember when people discovered that going Fuma Katon Doton with your TCJ was a gain in ST back in SB? Dev response was 'oh we didn't consider that oops, uhhh Gust Slash potency reduced by 20'

But besides the fact it'd probably screw all the mitigation check balancing up, I'd say that speaks to the flaws of the healer vs battle design at the moment. The only way to truly test if a healer is 'good' is to have a mitigation check. Anyone can press Medica over and over, rationing out your CDs for an extended mit check takes a bit of thought. Now, if they had made the two roles be synergistic, by making Barrier healers have 'enough healing to get through casual content, enough to clear EX trials by mitigating the damage down to more manageable levels, and unable to keep up with the healing required, even with good mit rotation, in Savage', and Pures the opposite, able to pump the big healing Savage asks for, but unable to do much about mitigation, then we'd see one of each, as two Barrier healers would not have the HPS required to keep up in Savage.

Instead, we get 'oh yeh lets slap a regen effect on Soil and Kera', and 'yeh I think the capstone 90 skill for SGE should give them the potential to pump 900p of healing in one GCD', and they see no issues with this re: the split. At this point, why not give WHM a Lily spender that puts up a shield on the party equal to, say, 200p of healing? It's not like there's any defense anyone can throw out of 'but but WHM is a pure healer! it cant have barriers that's the barrier healers job', because the split exists in name only. AST's got Neutral Sect still too!

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Originally Posted by Deceptus

I don't know where else they can go but it does pit two healers against each other and the Regen healers don't have to deal with this.

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Shields prevent damage, which means effective higher HP, and less risks of death. Which healing cant. Stacking shields would otherwise be too strong. Idealy you want the shields to be stacking, but at the same time, you want to make sure SGE can get the stack. Idealy i would have it track 2 values on the background: total shield and sge shield. Where if SCH overwrites the shield, it only adds the SCH value on top of the sge shield. Giving the full potential, not disrupting SGE, and allow refreshing the shield. Sge on that can also still apply the shield by simply marking a portion as a part of his (even if it effectively added 0).

But that probably requires a big code change.

One way to allow shield stacking would be for the first shield to apply a debuff that reduces the power of any other shield applied after. This debuff would fall away when the shield is no longer on the target(s) whether through expiration or damage.