#FFXIVHEALERSTRIKE

I didn't even know which spell cooldowns got reduced during my time as WHM for Storm blood. Probably Assize got it the most?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Tigore

I didn't even know which spell cooldowns got reduced during my time as WHM for Storm blood. Probably Assize got it the most?

---

I think you're right. It's been so long ago.

What sucks is, whenever you play FFXIV now, we are playing with the 7.0 versions of our classes/jobs. So, it's impossible to do a direct comparison between how healing was in the prior expansions and in Dawn Trail.

Thus, it's difficult to provide definitive suggestions on how to make healers better again.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by LynxDubh

I’ve gotta ask, how is the PF green river in DT compared to SB for everyone? I mained AST back then, but I don’t recall the healer shortage being this bad back then.

---

I can't speak for the feedback of non-raiders back then, but if we're talking PF, then we're probably talking about savage raiders.

The general sentiment among the savage raiders back then was that SCH was a well-designed job which was also a tad bit overpowered, AST was a good, high ceiling job that can fill for either slot, WHM was a bit on the weaker side and could use some buffs along with a lily system rework.

So we had 2/3 healers that were fun and well-received and 1 healer that was meh and could be better. So knowing SE, instead of taking the more logical step of giving WHM strengths of their own, they instead nuked all 3 healers and forced them into the same box.

Doesn't take a genius to see why ShB upset so many healers.

So far, it sounds like we should examine what worked in Stormblood and build from there for the 3 classes. From my time on the forums, this seems to be the closest collective voices that I am noticing.

WHM: It has too much emphasis on Holy animation magic. I mean, the Holy spell is still awesome from previous single player games. However, Square only got away with it because some of the popular White Mages were Summoners as well. Some big examples are Garnet (FF9), Eiko (FF9), and Yuna (FF10). Since Summoner exists as DPS already, it might be too late to make implementations like it unless the FF14 Summoner changes to something else. Borrowing Rosa's (FF4) Archery with Aim is kind of too late too since Bard took that. We used to have emphasis on Earth, Wind and Water magics too and the players want that back. It's a reason why ForsakenRoe's ideas have some momentum. Since it basically makes an Assize-like cooldown always proc Quake, Tornado and Flood / Tsunami even with the Holy upgrades. Another 15s cooldown with the Water / Banish idea and the Dia / Aero DoT timers dropping to 15s with higher initial burst damage should help to reduce the Glare animation spam too. The DoT being used more often will also have an indirect movement buff with needing to use an instant cast more often.

SCH: It's basically been a DoT Mage from the start. The SGE does step on those toes a bit, nowadays. The DPS spells requested are mostly what we had from the past. Bio, Miasma, Miasma 2 and Shadowflare as candidates. This just leaves the discussion on how the fairy links to our kits. It's hard for me to see a consensus for this part. The one thing agreed on is Dissipation should NOT "kill" the fairy and do something else to work with them.

AST: Believe or not, the RNG of the cards tends to be the defining factor for why healers choose this class. It keeps their mind engaged to pay attention to what cards they drew and decide accordingly. There is no doubt the current AST changes made them the strongest healer. Although it came at the price of removing some card RNG influence always drawing the same Solar and Lunar sets every minute. The solution players wanted was basically make all the cards strong in their own way while still having reliance on giving them to certain roles for slightly better gains. I only remember ForsakenRoe's suggestions again. I think she suggested we do away with the Combust DoT and add another set of 6 GCD minor card draws on a 15 - 30 second cooldown. As with the WHM potency calculations, the potency boost to using them over Malefic is 10 - 20, so the newer players can still spam Malefic with 90% ish DPS efficiency. Some of the cards were best for a tank to be given counter damage with a multi strike working best for the healers themselves.

SGE: This one is the harder one to devise a framework for since they obviously didn't exist for Stormblood. ForsakenRoe also suggested we do away with constraining healers to Being Regen verses Shield healers and plot a spectrum instead with how "pure" the healing is. I suggested we can expand on SCH's Protraction to help more with higher max HP and increased healing received being used instead of shields. This could allow SGE to focus more on the raw healing of Kardia and could potentially have weaker shield emphasis as a result if they can raise max HP and healing received as well as simply reduce damage taken as alternatives. There is also the Brewmaster Monk idea from Warcraft to convert a percentage of the initial damage taken into a DoT and purify some of this DoT damage so regens can manage it more easily. The Haima and Panhaima shields are very interesting for different healing mechanics and I believe some here say we should transfer those to our Diagnosis / Prognosis shields. It differentiates them from how SCH shields work and encourages using DPS moves to proc Kardia while the multi-shields are up. So far, I mostly remember ty_taurus contributing a lot to these ideas.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Tigore

The ping pong debuff losing stacks from each dispel I could have sworn was also in Warcraft at some point. Can't remember which boss. It reminds me of the Lich King fight, but that one might also be more so another strong DoT that drops when the ally is at 100% HP. I remember wipes from the DoT requiring 100% HP if the healers were caught with no initial HoT blanket on anyone. Once that plague DoT set in, the player target was just as good as dead with the ticks getting worse over time very fast.

---

Yup, I think it might have been Heroic Lich King fight, but it's why Disc Priests were incredibly valuable during that expansion. If you could get your shields beefy enough, it could negate a lot of the damage from that plague ability.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Tigore

The one thing agreed on is Dissipation should NOT "kill" the fairy and do something else to work with them.

---

Even this doesn't have full consensus. I know that I and a few others have defended Dissipation because we enjoy the risk/reward opportunities of that ability.

If people think the reward portion is too small and they want a slight buff to it (like making the healing buff affect abilities too and not just spells), then that's completely fine, but I think the risk portion should stay, because one of the roots of the problem with modern healers is that there is no risk in their kit anymore, which makes choices not matter.

Hmm, I think this is the first time I saw a positive vote for Dissipation how it is. It's not the first time I have seen a sacrifice pet build. The Warcraft Warlocks did that to their summoned pets too if they took the talent for it. Although I know some others have said they wanted the fairy to have a bond with us like with the Warcraft Hunter pets instead. It does seem to lead to an idea of perhaps considering talent customization with spells?

If Dissipation does stay, I have made it work within Expert runs. I pair it with Expedient and Recitation for the big spreadlo tactic on one wall to wall pull. Of course, I ended up using the extra 3 aethers on either Lustrate or Energy Drain. It could definitely use the buff to all healing abilities when we need those 3 Lustrates since that is the big prize from using the cooldown.

There are other fairy spells to debate with too. In my opinion, the Whispering Dawn AoE HoT and Fey Illumination are the only ones that really feel impactful to use. The other abilities look fine on paper, but easily get overshadowed by Sacred Soil and Indomitability. Hard to say if these fairy spells are not strong enough since it might be more because every other role doesn't need the extra healing currently. It's why I proposed that the fairy abilities could become combo oGCDs with some SCH spells to consolidate on space.

ForsakenRoe has also dropped some suggestions for SCH too. She suggested that SCH get 3 stances to switch between. Offensive, Defensive and Emergency were the names she gave I believe. Emergency stance seems to function like a perma Emergency Tactics to convert Adloquium and Succor back to a base spell learned at lower levels with higher potencies applied to them. We only have Physick for Adlo to switch to, so she suggested something like Effuse to be the first version of Succor that Emergency stance re-activates. The 3 stances could perhaps grant the chance for Dissipation to either "kill" the pet or keep her out. Offensive stance seems logical to keep the version that "orders the fairy away" to get 3 extra Aethers for Energy Drains. Defensive and Emergency could keep the pet with another new effect considered like a party mitigation or shield.

I’ll put another vote towards dissipation in its current form, I’ll defend dissipation always, it’s SCH’s best designed skill

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Tigore

So far, it sounds like we should examine what worked in Stormblood and build from there for the 3 classes. From my time on the forums, this seems to be the closest collective voices that I am noticing.

WHM: We used to have emphasis on Earth, Wind and Water magics too and the players want that back. It's a reason why ForsakenRoe's ideas have some momentum. Since it basically makes an Assize-like cooldown always proc Quake, Tornado and Flood / Tsunami even with the Holy upgrades. Another 15s cooldown with the Water / Banish idea and the Dia / Aero DoT timers dropping to 15s with higher initial burst damage should help to reduce the Glare animation spam too. The DoT being used more often will also have an indirect movement buff with needing to use an instant cast more often.

SCH: The DPS spells requested are mostly what we had from the past. Bio, Miasma, Miasma 2 and Shadowflare as candidates. This just leaves the discussion on how the fairy links to our kits. It's hard for me to see a consensus for this part. The one thing agreed on is Dissipation should NOT "kill" the fairy and do something else to work with them.

AST: I only remember ForsakenRoe's suggestions again. I think she suggested we do away with the Combust DoT and add another set of 6 GCD minor card draws on a 15 - 30 second cooldown. As with the WHM potency calculations, the potency boost to using them over Malefic is 10 - 20, so the newer players can still spam Malefic with 90% ish DPS efficiency. Some of the cards were best for a tank to be given counter damage with a multi strike working best for the healers themselves.

SGE: I suggested we can expand on SCH's Protraction to help more with higher max HP and increased healing received being used instead of shields. This could allow SGE to focus more on the raw healing of Kardia and could potentially have weaker shield emphasis as a result if they can raise max HP and healing received as well as simply reduce damage taken as alternatives.

---

It's a bit weird seeing people referencing my stuff in a positive way, I guess I got used to how things went on the Healer Forums from.. certain vocal players (that being, some form of 'this is bad stop trying to ruin the game' kind of feedback). But humour me for a moment and let me expound on why I think SB Healer design would be the way to go. The main issue, IMO, is the perception of the 'zero GCD run'. In SB, it was this lofty, unattainable goal, you simply could not get to zero GCDs on certain fights. It was an 'ideal' to strive for, but not something we could ever truly reach. Now, however, we CAN reach it, and once we do, the process of optimization instantly dies. Where previously we had 'OK on that run we had 4 GCDs between us, can we get it to 3?', now we have 'OK we had zero GCDs between us (again), but I didn't crit enough Glares, we go again'. I'd much rather have an unobtainable 'perfect run', than one that we can obtain.

The depressed twitter bird was right.

Let me use and abuse some HB tags to save on screen space

WHM:

To clarify on the 'reduce number of Glares cast', said ideas would bring us from the current 70% (per 2min, to factor in Glare4 and POM), to a more sensible 38% (19 of 50 GCDs, if my maths is right, I just woke up). Also, slight nitpick (but details are important when discussing this kind of stuff IMO), I'd make Dia 12s, such that the timers between Banish and Dia naturally stagger from one another (else we'd just go DBGGGG on loop and that's also quite uninteresting). Since Dia/Banish/the 'Assize' move/Lily Heals/Misery are all instantcast in the idea, that'd mean we'd have only those 38% of GCDs requiring us to stand still, giving WHM unparalleled mobility and negating the need for the silly 'once per 1min' dash that is now taking up my precious hotbar space. On which note, isn't it funny that some people respond to 'can we have more DPS actions' with 'but there's no hotbar space', but somehow we have room for stuff like Aetherial Shift?

SCH:

I'd keep it as 3 DOTs total, Bio, Miasma, Shadowflare. Miasma2 was cool because it had a MP cost element to it, but now that MP is a non-consideration from the devs, it wouldn't hit the same. Additionally, SCH is probably the healer that has the least room for 'this button kinda sucks and can be removed', I think the most 'removable' button is actually Summon Faerie (by making it summon automatically when you swap to the job, ala Sneak on Gatherers). Not to toot my own horn too much (maybe a little as a treat), I'd like to think I did a pretty good job of making the Faerie feel 'linked to our kit', via the stances. If we have the Faerie's actions also be modified by the stances, then I think it'd massively increase the amount of 'SCH identity' exuded via the gameplay. Even something as simple as 'Embrace is a barrier while using Defensive, and a regular heal while using Offensive/Emergency' would serve to make it feel like the Faerie is hearing the SCH's Strategies and acting upon them.

Dissipation's a weird one, because on the one hand, I hate the idea of how it functions: Back when it didn't auto-summon the Faerie back, it make sense that 'you dissolve an aetherial construct, you receive aether(flow) to spend on abilities'. Now, it makes a little less sense lorewise. I'd much prefer to see there be love and respect for the Faerie from the playerbase, as we would give to other NPCs, rather than us seeing it as simply another tool. The fact that so many of us refer to it as 'the Faerie' or 'Eos/Selene' shows that so many of us see it as just 'an ability in the kit'. I still remember the name of my Imp pet from when I played Warlock in Classic WoW: Daglop. I would prefer to see the playerbase have enough of a 'bond' with Lily (yes the Faerie is called Lily) that we at least remember the actual name of the poor thing. As for 'risk/reward', I respect the stance, but I also don't see Dissipation's current form as having that much of a 'risk', now that we resummon automatically. If anything, the 'risk/reward' stems from its mutual exclusivity with other capstones (eg Summon Seraph), not from Dissipation's actual function. And that is where I'd personally draw the line between 'intelligently designed risk/reward' and 'this is just clunk'. So I'd prefer to rework Dissipation, BUT! I'd also try to include some other elements in the kit that give some degree of optimization to play with, to compensate for what Dissipation provided (that being, the Strategies)

AST:

Kinda crazy that they did this massive rework to AST, it's by far the 'strongest' healer in terms of healing (especially compared to WHM), and yet while it has had a boost in popularity, it's still the least played healer in Savage clears. Personally, not sure I'd have completely overhauled the job and alienated those players who liked the 'busy' gameplay of the job, to try and appeal to players who likely already settled on playing another healer (eg WHM), seems a strange business decision to me. With the DT changes to Malefic (making it 270p), my Minor Arcana effects would be a gain of 30p per 15s (since they did 300p), so each GCD you hold onto them for would be an effective potency loss of 5p, which could very easily be worth it, in order to use them as a mobility tool.

Not sure when the last time you (Tigore) read my AST stuff was, but a while back I decided to readd Royal Road, though with 2 main changes, A: You'd burn a Minor Arcana to empower the next Major Arcana you play (and because you can see what Major you're holding, you'd be able to plan the combos out a bit better), and B: Expand (the AOE effect) would be replaced with 'Echo', causing a card to play itself again when you play your next Major Arcana (so you'd want to set up an Echo card 30s before a burst window, such that doing your burst triggers the 'Echo' and you get effectively 2.5 cards in the burst instead of 2). I'm a big advocate of the stance that 'AOE Balance was not the issue in HW/SB, AOE Balance was'. So just keep the cards single target, and suddenly it's way easier to balance their expected potency outputs against one another, not really sure why SE didn't try that one before completely removing all of the RNG (and the RNG isn't even gone, it's just ironically shifted to 'did my Oracle crit?')

SGE:

SGE is, personally, a very weird job. It's 80% SCH reskin, and that makes it equal parts 'meh' to my eyes, but also a bit of a blank canvas to start building off of. Personally, I think the most important thing is to make Kardia SGEs 'thing'. Max HP instead of flat Barriers could be interesting, and a way to give SGE a 'protect allies' aspect without directly being Barriers (giving a bit of a functional difference between it and SCH), and it'd synergize well with some of the other SGE actions we have already eg: the burst healing of Pneuma, the increased HP recovery effect of Physis, or Krasis. However, I'd like to also see a design element in battle content that I'll call 'Barrier Checks' for lack of a better name. That is, a mechanic wherein something about the mechanic is lessened or negated, if you block the damage with a Barrier. The simplest example (which exists ingame, ironically) would be Vulcan Burst from Ifrit (it's also in UWU). It is a raidwide that does very little damage, but also deals a knockback. But, by having a Barrier active and blocking 100% of this raidwide, you also negate the Knockback effect.

I'd like to see more uses of that, alongside giving all healers access to Barriers in some way (eg WHM gets a Lily Spender that applies Barriers, cough Stoneskin). It sounds like 'homogenization' on the surface (giving all 4 healers a way to apply a Barrier), but I think that the extra creative potential it'd open up would outweigh that. For example, say a raidwide deals 2 instances of damage, one hits for a very small amount (but applies a bleed), and the other hits a single frame later for 'the actual damage of the raidwide'. Do you, as the healer, heal through the Bleed? Do you apply Barriers and negate the Bleed entirely? Or, do you Esuna the Bleed to remove it (eg if a healer has an AOE Esuna, maybe this is the better option)?

The issue with 'Max HP increased' is that it wouldn't work with such an idea, without some kind of rework to how the game detects if your 'Real HP' has been hit or not, at which point it becomes 'Barrier, but you can refill it'

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Tigore

The 3 stances could perhaps grant the chance for Dissipation to either "kill" the pet or keep her out. Offensive stance seems logical to keep the version that "orders the fairy away" to get 3 extra Aethers for Energy Drains. Defensive and Emergency could keep the pet with another new effect considered like a party mitigation or shield.

---

Hmm, I had originally had the Faerie's actions as 'current healing in Offensive/Emergency, applies a Barrier in Defensive'. But this idea is interesting to think about, at least. If we rewrite it such that:

Emergency Embrace: 150p Healing
Defensive Embrace: 120p Barrier (can stack with Galvanize, can't be Deployed)
Offensive: Doesn't actually cast Embrace at all (Lily channels an empowering effect on the SCH)

Then it gives a reason why Offensive would boost the 'on cast' potency of your DOTs (Lily is busy empowering the SCH), and a reason to not just stay in Offensive until a heal is required (instead, you'd stay in... probably Defensive, until a DOT needs refreshing). Such an idea would keep part of Dissipation's risk/reward (losing out on Embraces for 30s, here you'd lose out on Embraces 'until you swap off of Offensive', which for some players might as well read as 'permanently'), while also minimizing the annoyance caused by Dissipation's 'risk/reward' (that being, can't use Faerie actions, can't use Union, can't use Seraph, can't use Seraphism, for 30s). I wouldn't be opposed to that. I think the main issue with Dissipation is the 30s lockout, it's so damn long that for a lot of players, they'd rather just not bother with calculating if the risk/reward is worth it. They see 'there is an element of risk to using this action' and immediately say 'well screw that then I'll just use something else', and that leaves Dissipation in this design quagmire. I wouldn't be surprised if it's the 'least used combat action in the game', even Synastry probably sees more use

I'm of the mind that 'Dissipation, as it stands, kinda sucks/isn't thematic/is a bit clunky, and should be replaced/reworked. But, if the cost of that is a net loss of 'complexity' for SCH, then Dissipation as it stands should remain'. Priority one is to have SCH's 'decision-making' aspect of it's identity shine through. At the moment, that's embodied by the fact that several of its capstone abilities are mutually exclusive. Ideally, I'd like said identity to come from a different place in the kit that is actually built for said decision-making. For example, with what I wrote, the Strategies and their effects on various SCH/Faerie abilities, even I struggle to answer the question 'how many ways can you solve 'protect the team from a raidwide'', there's so many options.

For example, say you need 10% mit, and some Barrier (let's just say that 'any amount' is enough). We have choices for 10% already, with Soil and Expedient. But what about if Protraction is Deployable? Then that becomes an option too. Barriers currently come from Adlo/Succor, or Consolation, but via Defensive, I'd have Indom swap to applying a Barrier, and Excog applying a Barrier on cast. But wait, Excog would also be Deployable. So what to use? We could Expedient and Defensive-Indom. We could go Defensive, Protraction, Excog, Deploy (and spread Protraction, Excog's heal AND the Barrier it applied, all at once). We could use Sacred Soil, and Defensive Fey Blessing. Maybe we don't need to use any Barriers at all, because we were in Defensive and Lily coated the raid in Defensive-Embrace barriers (weak as they are, it might be enough). We could mix and match all of this stuff with each other, creating a lot more combinations than I care to write out

I don't think that 'choosing one option locks you out from any of the others' is necessarily a good idea, at least, not the way that the current SCH does it. I'd prefer it be more logical 'lockouts', like 'Using Protraction-Deploy, then an Adlo, means you can't Deploy the Adlo, because Deploy is on cooldown. But, doing Protraction, Adlo (boosted by Protraction), Deploy, allows you to spread both Protraction and Adlo together'

My stand on Dissipation is: if you can't improve it just yet, then keep it the way it is.

I know it's not entirely a positive vote toward current Dissipation, but knowing SE and their preferred ways of doing things, it's 99% going to be remove the button without compensating said gameplay nuance elsewhere. They've done this too many times already.

I like the idea of Dissipation, it just needs to be implemented a bit better.
The fact that it doesn't even boost the oGCD heals that it gives you more uses of is just kind of confusing.
At this point, I'd just have the skill upgrade entirely to Seraphism. In fact, that's what I assumed was happening before Dawntrail's launch. (kind of glad it's not, now that I think about it. I don't like the way it makes my character look. I'd much prefer some kind of green fiery aura.)
It would at least drive home the point that this is something you should do when in an emergency, and you need the fast yet limited heals from your own healing rather than the slower sustained heals from the faerie's.
I love the idea of making Scholar have different phases to change between. I even had a similar idea a while ago, but never wrote it down anywhere. Having Dissipation, Seraph, and Seraphism almost feels like they're gearing up toward a rework where they actually turn this into a proper feature of the class.
We can only hope though. Their silence on fixing healers is deafening, and my optimistic side is saying that they're keeping quiet because they're planning a new design philosophy internally, and want to test it out a lot before pushing it through, just in case they make the problem worse somehow. And to not make promises they're not entirely committed to.

Seraphism Just has a completely different skill niche to dissipation to the point you almost never use them for the same situation

Dissipation is for buffing spreadlo and gaining back aetherflow right now if you don’t have aetherflow off CD

seraphism is primarily a pure healing tool

It just doesn’t make sense to upgrade dissipation into seraphism because they arent for the same thing

With current potencies and cast times, if the fairy has to be resummoned after using dissipation, costing a GCD, that would make dissipation a dps loss at levels you have Broil IV unless you resummon during downtime, right? Would that be a good or bad thing? I do think that'd discourage players from using it entirely for energy drain at least

So what changed to get all of you back into healing? It's always instant tank queue now.

Damn, give me those queue then. When leveling my War I always have to wait at least 3-5m even if we have almost a light party formed before queueing

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by dwodmots

So what changed to get all of you back into healing? It's always instant tank queue now.

---

If you're talking roulettes or the Arcadion series on Normal, I've been seeing instant tank queues the entire expansion so far compared to brief queues on healers. I doubt the people "on strike" went back to healing; they've just been insignificant in # from the start to actually have any effect on things.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by dwodmots

So what changed to get all of you back into healing? It's always instant tank queue now.

---

Idk mate. Mine tank queues are always at least 3m wait whereas healer queues are instants.

Sometimes I even bring my dps friendo with me to roulo with my tank and we still wait. Even worse look at all those blue icons in need but we still get the wait time...

How mysterious indeed :rolleyes: What could this be?!

Remembered I still haven't capped tomes, logged in to do an EX Roulette, saw the AIN bonus for it was DPS of all things

Very strange

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Azurarok

With current potencies and cast times, if the fairy has to be resummoned after using dissipation, costing a GCD, that would make dissipation a dps loss at levels you have Broil IV unless you resummon during downtime, right? Would that be a good or bad thing? I do think that'd discourage players from using it entirely for energy drain at least

---

For a long time upon release, that is exactly how it functioned. It got changed because people would sometimes not notice that Dissipation's lockout had expired, and just forget to resummon the faerie, leading to a big loss of healing potential, because back then we had less non-faerie tools, plus we had the ability to boost the faerie's power with Rouse

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ForsakenRoe

However, I'd like to also see a design element in battle content that I'll call 'Barrier Checks' for lack of a better name. That is, a mechanic wherein something about the mechanic is lessened or negated, if you block the damage with a Barrier. The simplest example (which exists ingame, ironically) would be Vulcan Burst from Ifrit (it's also in UWU). It is a raidwide that does very little damage, but also deals a knockback. But, by having a Barrier active and blocking 100% of this raidwide, you also negate the Knockback effect.

I'd like to see more uses of that, alongside giving all healers access to Barriers in some way (eg WHM gets a Lily Spender that applies Barriers, cough Stoneskin). It sounds like 'homogenization' on the surface (giving all 4 healers a way to apply a Barrier), but I think that the extra creative potential it'd open up would outweigh that. For example, say a raidwide deals 2 instances of damage, one hits for a very small amount (but applies a bleed), and the other hits a single frame later for 'the actual damage of the raidwide'. Do you, as the healer, heal through the Bleed? Do you apply Barriers and negate the Bleed entirely? Or, do you Esuna the Bleed to remove it (eg if a healer has an AOE Esuna, maybe this is the better option)?

---

Just did the last boss of Strayborough, turns out that it does exactly what I said in this 'example'. I blocked his bleed raidwide, because of a combo of mitigation, Shake it Off, and Bloodwhetting's initial barrier. But only I had the mitigation and barriers to block it, the rest of the party got the bleed. Nevertheless, it shows that it's definitely possible to use such a concept as a design element so, thumbs up SE do it more often please and thank

@ Azurarok

Dissipation used to have the risk of needing to resummon the fairy and sacrifice a GCD or 2 to do so. Nowadays, the debuff expiry script resummons the fairy instantly for us. The risk / reward is more so talking about other skills getting locked out for those 30 seconds instead. Seraphism (100), Summon Seraph, Whispering Dawn, Fey Illumination, Aetherpact and Fey Blessing are the locked out spells.

With the spell lockouts in mind, I pretty much devised a rotation of 2 sets of cooldowns I use for wall to wall pulls. One will rely on my own SCH spells and the second one relies on the fairy-based cooldowns. The self based one is Dissipation, Expedient and Recitation with the extra 3 Aether possibly going into Lustrate or Energy Drain. The fairy based one leaves Fey Illumination, Whispering Dawn and Summon Seraph / Consolation AoE shields. Both strategies will use Sacred Soil and Excogitation. Even Excog is mostly not needed and I saw the 45s buff expiry auto heal proc maybe 50 - 70% of the time.

@dwodmots

I do notice that DPS queues are still decent on the time of 5 - 20 minutes, but the Levelling queue is definitely choosing Dzemael Darkhold more often. It used to have the level 95 dungeon quite often with the first few weeks of Dawntrail when I was on the 4 healers. Now, I got maybe one level 91 dungeon in a couple weeks with a notably lower level on average as DPS. That probably means the healers you are seeing are probably newcomers or veterans of tank / DPS trying out the role.

I mean, it makes sense for the other role players to try it out to see why we are raising such a big deal about the healing sucking. The best opinion to consider would be your own first, then compare with other people's experiences. Some other Warcraft players have considered me an odd case though, since I have adapted to all 3 roles. I may not use all the advanced tech like a dedicated Savage role player would, but I can still do the basics and most of the intermediate stuff for all the roles.

eg 1: Incorporating the DPS potion into the opener. Mostly not needed on casual content with 90% of the stuff not having enrage timers. When one player accidentally did it on a map trash group, I joked by hoping the 4K gil pop was worth it, lol.

eg 2: Melding Materia to the gear. This part, I do try my best to fulfill on gear that won't get replaced immediately. I don't have a plentiful supply of grade 12 materia, but I will still reuse the grade 10 stuff if I have to. I have a ton of grade 10 materia due to the Endwalker end of expansion runs. This would probably be considered one of the intermediate stuff to do.

@ForsakenRoe

It's probably been a few months to a year ago since I got to read some of your suggestions. I didn't mean to make some mistakes on what you suggested. Just raising awareness that we do have detailed suggestions for the healer class. I did read the links from the very first post on this thread, but they don't go into the details you have done for the 4 classes. For the most part, the suggestions there were mostly to bring back the old stuff we remember from Heavensward and Stormblood. I have made similar suggestions, but some also said that it didn't make the healers different enough from each other. Aero 3 could be viewed as just the WHM version of the SGE Eukrasian Dyskrasia. A bit of a consequence from thinking about quick changes that might be able to make it into a major patch rather than an expansion release. Maybe the quick changes will have a place to tide us over so Square can buy some time to do the major changes.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Tigore

It's probably been a few months to a year ago since I got to read some of your suggestions. I didn't mean to make some mistakes on what you suggested. Just raising awareness that we do have detailed suggestions for the healer class. I did read the links from the very first post on this thread, but they don't go into the details you have done for the 4 classes. For the most part, the suggestions there were mostly to bring back the old stuff we remember from Heavensward and Stormblood. I have made similar suggestions, but some also said that it didn't make the healers different enough from each other. Aero 3 could be viewed as just the WHM version of the SGE Eukrasian Dyskrasia. A bit of a consequence from thinking about quick changes that might be able to make it into a major patch rather than an expansion release. Maybe the quick changes will have a place to tide us over so Square can buy some time to do the major changes.

---

Yeh no worries, can't expect everyone to remember all of what I wrote with photographic memory after all. It'd be nice if my suggestions could be added to the OP of this thread, as a sort of 'see it IS possible to rework the healers, keep them relatively simple to get into while also expanding their skill ceiling potential', but it is what it is.

With what I wrote, I think that each of the healers could have their changes broken up into... 'phases', for lack of a better term. EG for WHM, it has the damage action changes (Dia to 12s, Banish added) as Phase 1. This could be done in a random patch, eg 7.2, if the devs wanted. Then, the addition of the new gauge, the healing action it is spent on, and Quake/Flood/Tornado as the 'refund mechanic' for the gauge, would be Phase 2. Finally, the addition of the 'extra, but not super necessary' stuff like the Stoneskin series of Lily spenders, and the addition of lower level versions of actions (eg Divine Seal>Temperance, Protect>PI, Afflatus Tragedy>Misery) to make the early game feel more active, that'd be Phase 3. Each 'Phase' would build off of what is added by the previous Phases, but the devs would be free to choose which Phase to stop at. For example, say they just really... REALLY, don't want WHM to have any Barrier capability. They could implement Phase 1 in one patch, Phase 2 in the next, and then only part of Phase 3 (ignoring the Stoneskin stuff, but adding the lower-level actions) in the next.

By breaking up the changes to each healer thus, it reduces the strain on the devs to do 'all the changes all at once' at an expansion launch. It also gives us players a chance to say 'hey this is really cool'/'uhh this change is kinda weird I don't really vibe with the direction', and potentially give SE some direction/reinforcement that they're on the right/wrong track. EG, if they do Phase1 and give WHM a shorter Dia and the new Banish, we'd then be able to respond on the forums with threads like 'Thank you SE for these WHM changes', which gives the devs both feedback (that the changes are well received) and a morale boost (because the changes were well received)

As for Aero3 vs Eukrasian Dyskrasia, we already were comparing E.Dys to Miasma 2. If people want to say 'oh X is like Y', I say let them. We have Lance Charge/Riddle of Fire/No Mercy/Fight or Flight, all of them functionally identical (60s CD, raise own damage dealt by X% for 20s), we don't see anyone comparing those to one another (well, maybe NM gets a bit of comparison to FOF), but then we do also have eg Inner Release compared to Delirium, which are both similar in function to Requiescat, and now Bloodfest has joined the fray (with Lionheart combo), as all being 'press this button, then 'big hit' 3 times' (except Req, where you press the big hit 4 times, very unique)

The 3 phase plan does look good. Possibly a similar plan could happen for slightly bumping up the healing encounters need too.

I can imagine some more simpler ones like the standard AoE pulses and that bleed you were talking being inserted on the first phase. The healing absorb (Aetherblight) could be the 2nd step. We'll probably have to keep the aetherblight pretty low to ease the other players in if they like it. The numbers we discussed for a full 1 -4 health bars worth of stopping the healing will probably end up being Savage mode testing. I am trying to predict how many would try to instinctively use Esuna on it, but I may or may not be underestimating what would happen. If it's like the other debuffs with that underline on it or so, it might be a good enough indicator they can dispel it. Phase 3 would probably be fine tuning some numbers for the encounter damage, aetherblight levels and the self heal levels of the tanks and DPS.

I can see your point for the abilities inevitably having some form of similarities no matter how we approach the spell / skill changes. With 21 classes, it's probably impossible to make everything 100% different without vastly breaking the balancing of the damage and healing dealt. The cooldowns you compared definitely cement the 2 minute meta to how it is with Critical Strike / Direct Hit usually being a top stat all the time. It does spark a question if a class meant to do just filler DPS could work. It would likely need multiple traits to fine tune the filler to be a higher average than others at end game and similar to others at 50.

I've not got my ear to the ground with XIV social media and the community, so although I've not heard the following mentioned, I expect it has been.

I'm not a 'healer' so I can't say I have much of a stake in the #HEALERSTRIKE , but I was just in a dungeon where I the healer and the the 2 DPS all single hit KO'd together to the same mechanic... ('which I love!' More of that just occasionally please!) , but.... the boss still had 60% to go, yes the tank was a WAR (didn't say hi at the beginning, sprinted right from the start even when everyone else was not sprinting with them, one of those tanks.) You know whats coming, and yes they were determined to take the boss on for themselves, and have us just watch.
Now while this is not very sociable (they'd be better suited to running Duty support, they are clearly not interested in cooperating but just want to play the game uncompromisingly their way), they are entitled to do it. If the game lets you do it, its 100% legitimate, you certainly can't complain. (Can criticize though, or just have an opinion/preference)

• The problem of course is that the tanks HP without a healer or potions should be on an inevitable countdown to zero. If that were the case the tank certainly would not have continued from 60%. They'd have reset, and we could have got to play the game too.

It really is a bit broken this and it impacts more than healers.

I fear they are not going to fix is because of how stupidly tightly the high end game is tuned. They'd now have to adjust so many other things

(Luckily this happens very rarely, and it is as much about the tank, but like I say they can certainly do what they want as long as I'm allowed to as well.)

(It's my free time, I certainly didn't logon to watch someone else's gaming stream, as spectator, a tedious one at that as its just a dungeon, there is no tension as they can easily make it to the end, and its not a sprout so I've got no 'hero' to root for ['Expert' roulette]. Thankfully no one can force me to play so its not the end of the world. So I just powered off to do something better with my own free time. Healers can do what they want too not just WARs.)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Gurgeh

The problem of course is that the tanks HP without a healer or potions should be on an inevitable countdown to zero. If that were the case the tank certainly would not have continued from 60%. They'd have reset, and we could have got to play the game too.

---

Once again, I feel compelled to mention that the 'solution' to this problem already exists in the game, were SE able to realize it: Swap all Tank HOTs to Self-Barriers. WAR can selfheal itself into the stratosphere at the moment, thanks to Equil/Bloodhwetting/Shake it Off. But, if Equilibrium was changed from 'heal 1200p, plus 300p 5 times' to 'apply a barrier to self for 1200p, plus 5 layers of 300p barrier', it's giving the same amount of EHP yes, but any HP that the WAR loses, they've lost until the Healer heals it back. Same for Bloodwhetting, if the crazy healing is swapped to give a crazy shield (with a 6s ish duration), then they still remain 'invincible' in dungeon pulls, but as soon as that shield wears off, they will need a healer to address the HP they're missing (instead of the current 'drop low, Holmgang, BW as it runs out and restore to full again'). Or for PLD, Holy Sheltron could swap from 1000p total regen, to 4 layers of 250p shield, which ironically would make them MORE tanky (due to having extra up-front mitigation vs a hit, due to that first shield layer)

There's more ways to make a Tank feel like it has good 'self-sustain', than giving them so much healing capability that they take over the Healer's job

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Gurgeh

I fear they are not going to fix is because of how stupidly tightly the high end game is tuned. They'd now have to adjust so many other things

---

As a tank main for most of EW and likely all of DT, other than Ults (which I haven't tanked yet). It doesn't even seem like this is the case. The lvl 94 traits for tanks 2m CDs are just straight up busted OP, PLD in particular. Even at the start of the tier with just crafted gear, I could kitchen sink TBs and take next to zero damage, and then have every single CD up before the next TB. The only thing that has been even remotely dangerous this tier is the latter Knuckle Sandwiches in M3S. Boss autos seem to be a bit higher this expansion, but as long as I don't completely zone out and remember to toss the occasional Intervention at my MT, the healers don't even have to heal the MT for most of the fights this tier.

Tanks OPness doesn't seem to be an side effect of how "tightly tuned" endgame is but rather simply a design decision to make tank roles and other roles having a bigger place in supporting healers and mitigation. Because the fights this tier don't feel "tightly tuned", I feel OP as fuck as a tank. Which yea, completely kills healers IMO. If healers don't need to heal anymore, they gotta give players more to do than 1 button spam.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Gurgeh

• The problem of course is that the tanks HP without a healer or potions should be on an inevitable countdown to zero. If that were the case the tank certainly would not have continued from 60%. They'd have reset, and we could have got to play the game too.

It really is a bit broken this and it impacts more than healers.

I fear they are not going to fix is because of how stupidly tightly the high end game is tuned. They'd now have to adjust so many other things

---

I agree with you, however, I think you are mixing up "tightly tuned end game" with "incompetent role designing in a vacuum". basically the roles seem to have been designed with zero communication with other role design teams. "oh hey, lets give War an AOE regen heal.. any complaints from my cubicle? no? good.. done..."

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Kes13a

I agree with you, however, I think you are mixing up "tightly tuned end game" with "incompetent role designing in a vacuum". basically the roles seem to have been designed with zero communication with other role design teams. "oh hey, lets give War an AOE regen heal.. any complaints from my cubicle? no? good.. done..."

---

Good point, I agree that if all of these job changes were discussed in a meeting, most of the issues we face could have been addressed.

That is, as long as the Japanese tradition of junior devs always agreeing with senior devs doesn’t happen.

Besides financial and political issues, Japan has cultural issues at play as well.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ryaze

As a tank main for most of EW and likely all of DT, other than Ults (which I haven't tanked yet). It doesn't even seem like this is the case. The lvl 94 traits for tanks 2m CDs are just straight up busted OP, PLD in particular. Even at the start of the tier with just crafted gear, I could kitchen sink TBs and take next to zero damage, and then have every single CD up before the next TB. The only thing that has been even remotely dangerous this tier is the latter Knuckle Sandwiches in M3S. Boss autos seem to be a bit higher this expansion, but as long as I don't completely zone out and remember to toss the occasional Intervention at my MT, the healers don't even have to heal the MT for most of the fights this tier.

Tanks OPness doesn't seem to be an side effect of how "tightly tuned" endgame is but rather simply a design decision to make tank roles and other roles having a bigger place in supporting healers and mitigation. Because the fights this tier don't feel "tightly tuned", I feel OP as fuck as a tank. Which yea, completely kills healers IMO. If healers don't need to heal anymore, they gotta give players more to do than 1 button spam.

---

I thought BW was bad but honestly guardian is worse for balance in anything above dungeons because it’s straight up basically a second invuln

Even savage TB’s can barely do anything to guardian. What the hell were they thinking

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Supersnow845

I thought BW was bad but honestly guardian is worse for balance in anything above dungeons because it’s straight up basically a second invuln

Even savage TB’s can barely do anything to guardian. What the hell were they thinking

---

It’s starting to look like more and more of their development is being done in silos that rarely interact with each other. I will also speculate that the QA department is either on life support or outright gone except for checking for game crashes.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Hyperia

It’s starting to look like more and more of their development is being done in silos that rarely interact with each other. I will also speculate that the QA department is either on life support or outright gone except for checking for game crashes.

---

I was gonna be snarky and say QA has gone towards glam or something. But that would be disingenuous to say given some of the hroth gear texture issues.

Yeah. The level 92 tank trait upgrades are really loaded. Not only do they get an upgrade from 30 to 40% damage reduction, they also get an additional effect that is arguably as good as the 40% reduction stacked with it. 300 potency regen over 15s for WAR. 1000 potency barrier for PLD. 1200 potency Excog for DRK. Max HP up and heal by 20% for GNB. The other lvl 94 trait Enhanced Rampart also increases healing from healing actions by 15%.

With all of this in mind, it's definitely why we are discussing about increasing encounter damage as well. If we don't, we would have to drop mega nerf hammers on all except the DRKs to get the healers healing again. DRKs would probably just get a slap on the wrist compared to the other 3 since their 1200 pot Excog effect is still pretty strong >.> The increased encounter damage would also allow some of the solo content to remain easy for lower risk hunt marks and FATE runs too. We will still kind of run into the "Glare spam" problem once everyone gets geared, so we can't forget about making the filler DPS more engaging for those times.

I came back for my house ; not sure it's worth it.
No news about healers, but hey, a new pink donut earing ; maybe it's a metaphor for "we're listening to A.holes"

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Calysto

I came back for my house ; not sure it's worth it.
No news about healers, but hey, a new pink donut earing ; maybe it's a metaphor for "we're listening to A.holes"

---

Maybe it's a metaphor for the devs being fried and SE only interested in the dough?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Supersnow845

I thought BW was bad but honestly guardian is worse for balance in anything above dungeons because it’s straight up basically a second invuln

Even savage TB’s can barely do anything to guardian. What the hell were they thinking

---

My tank IL's not particularly high and I've only been OT in M1S and M2S so far, but I've been using Rampart + Bulwark + Sheltron against TBs just kinda out of habit. I guess I should be using Guardian + Sheltron (or maybe even just Guardian?)

That said, nothing in normal content or extremes hit hard enough to make me really think much about what mit I'm using as long as they're actually being used. Mitigation's everyone's responsibility now but it just makes things harder on the healer when someone slips up. And yet the blame still tends to end up on them anyways so I'm not surprised it doesn't seem like it's done much for the healer population

It still sounds like you are using your cooldowns decently, Azurarok. The Guardian + Holy Sheltron would probably just be an alternate combo to use for the next TB / Wall to Wall pull... If it happens often enough within a minute. If you are taunt swapping to only take a TB once every 2 ish minutes, it probably wouldn't hurt to try the Guardian combo first. Since it should be your best mitigation combo now.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Supersnow845

I thought BW was bad but honestly guardian is worse for balance in anything above dungeons because it’s straight up basically a second invuln

Even savage TB’s can barely do anything to guardian. What the hell were they thinking

---

In the one buster that's shared in M3S for a WAR/PLD comp, the WAR starts melting on the 3rd hit while the PLD just barely gets tickled between Guardian and Bulwark, it's pretty ridiculous.

Also, this isn't even factoring other comp factors like whm aquaveil and benesion or astro's exaltation, bole, spire and celestial intersection. Which is actually another point of contention is still to this day, the defensive assets can be skewed between classes.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Aravell

In the one buster that's shared in M3S for a WAR/PLD comp, the WAR starts melting on the 3rd hit while the PLD just barely gets tickled between Guardian and Bulwark, it's pretty ridiculous.

---

It's funny, some of us asked for SB design back and with M3S we got one aspect of it: Warrior being able to Invuln 3 out of the 5 Tankbusters in the fight (leaving one to be invulned by the other tank, and one to be shared)

Not exactly the aspect of SB design I was hoping for, but still funny to note

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Aravell

In the one buster that's shared in M3S for a WAR/PLD comp, the WAR starts melting on the 3rd hit while the PLD just barely gets tickled between Guardian and Bulwark, it's pretty ridiculous.

---

In my group I just solo soak the entire M3S tankbuster on PLD. Our Drk is a glorified dps on M3S. We can run 5 dps if role targeting wasn't an issue.

The sad thing too is that of all the fights, M3S is still the hardest hitting out of all of them. All the other fights have stupidly long sections where there is little to no heavy out going party damage going out.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ForsakenRoe

It's funny, some of us asked for SB design back and with M3S we got one aspect of it: Warrior being able to Invuln 3 out of the 5 Tankbusters in the fight (leaving one to be invulned by the other tank, and one to be shared)

Not exactly the aspect of SB design I was hoping for, but still funny to note

---

Hopefully, it's not a case of Square's seeming inability to understand what their English-speaking customers want. We say, "we want healers to contribute to the party's success." and Square responds with "We hear your complaints that healing is too complex..."