Chemist Kit theorycraft

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Originally Posted by Lyth

If you want a 'Mix' to be the job's main theme, then just have the potions combo off each other when you use them. We've done combo-based jobs before, right?

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So because I want a central Mix feature, but more than a single layer of complexity is "unnecessarily clunky", I'm forced to literally reduce the potions to combos, i.e. Sack of Wind->Jar of Lightning->Bomb Fragment; repeat?

God forbid I want it to be as least as involved as Mudras and not merely carry a healer-equivalent of 10 other jobs' primary system?

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Originally Posted by Lyth

I don't personally care about MP. You can have a combo-based potion healer where each potion has an MP cost, but that's a marginal step away from WHM.

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That one step would be the fact it has combos, not the MP, unless the MP ends up an actual gameplay-affecting concern. But again, you're the one pushing for combos, not me. Why are you strawmanning?

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Originally Posted by Lyth

Just make sure that the bulk of the job plays differently from WHM, please.

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It's literally not a compromise between the two; MP does not necessitate a WHM-like kit.

That NIN used TP did not make it more like Monk or Dragoon; its range of combo-lengths and attack speed did.
That DRK, like PLD before it, used MP for AoE did not make it a PLD-copy; its mostly carbon-copied bank of defensives CDs did, while MP was its largest diversifier.
That PLD later came to use TP for AoE like WAR before it, or MP for ST like DRK before it, did not make it a WAR-copy or DRK-copy respectively; it leveraged its differences from WAR and DRK each through balancing Flash and Total Eclipse and creating alternate burst periods via FoF and Requiescat.

It's merely an available axis of design that allows for further, granular means of internal balance or gameplay periods, not a WHM-ifier.

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Originally Posted by Urianger

Soliloquy.

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You manage to make pretty much everything, including your posts, unnecessarily complicated. Let's not introduce two steps for what can be easily implemented in one.

MP is not mandatory to create a healer job. Most important healing happens on oGCDs, which surprise! don't use MP. Why not just build around this for once? The instant you find yourself saying: Potion = Cure, Hi-Potion = Cure 2, you've already failed completely and utterly from a game design standpoint. Please for the love of Thal do something original.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

The instant you find yourself saying: Potion = Cure, Hi-Potion = Cure 2

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Cool. 'Cept here's the thing. I've never said that. Nor anything remotely like that. You're strawmanning yet again.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

Please for the love of Thal do something original.

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So if you want a Mix system that amounts to cycling combos as per MCH, DRG, NIN, SAM, DRK, PLD, WAR, GNB, DNC, and largely MNK and RDM, that's "original", but if I ask for anything more then than that it's "unnecessarily complicated" and thereby unoriginal just because it does not preemptively remove mana from the equation?

That makes about as much sense as potency variance among a job's GCDs being an unnecessary and creativity-squashing convolution. Yes, some way to avoid the need for potency variance while building a halfway functional kit would theoretically exist, but insisting on that gimmick for its own sake isn't going to make the resultant job more unique in its actual gameplay, let alone fleshed out.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Excessive verbiage.

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Notice how none of the jobs that you've mentioned are healers.

Let's have a healer that does damage to do more healing.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

Let's have a healer that does damage to do more healing.

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Sure, but why insist on ABDABCABCABCABCABC spam for it?

You are the one who connected "potions combo off each other" to previously done "combo-based jobs".

As a healer, it's Mix feature should be based on heals, not dps. We all know they want to minimise the focus on dps healers have.
And in case anyone missed my link on the previous page: https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...threads/416487

You keep linking the General Discussion forums.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

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Healing is different. You don't always want a healing effect active. Deciding when you want to proc a combination effect (i.e. AoE, etc.) in relation to fight mechanics results in interesting decisions. We also don't have any actions in game that replenish charges yet.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

You keep linking the General Discussion forums.

Healing is different. You don't always want a healing effect active. Deciding when you want to proc a combination effect (i.e. AoE, etc.) in relation to fight mechanics results in interesting decisions. We also don't have any actions in game that replenish charges yet.

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That's not particularly similar to what is implied by

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Originally Posted by Lyth

have the potions combo off each other when you use them. We've done combo-based jobs before, right?

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but okay, again, that sounds good. As I said within 5 minutes of my first post on this thread.

I'm merely noting that

1. that combo system (not at all like combo-based jobs we've ever done) takes the same number of sub-mechanics as what you called needlessly complicated (restock + field-combo effects),
2. making it impossible to deal damage without, in your above sample, at least half of casts (depending on how X-potion works in regard to restocking per potion that "activates twice") spent on healing of healing casts over time would stunt the job in virtually all current content, and
3. WHM already has a cross-purpose spell-stocking mechanic via Afflatus Misery and the (Blood) Lily system -- if even just having MP would make Chemist "too WHM", why reiterate on a WHM mechanic specifically?

That inflexibility seems an issue. The rest comes down to preference. I love field-combo effects. Personally, I'd just also like to have a customizable burst CD of some sort and Mix itself (similarly to Mudras) seemed a good place for that. If somehow having a second mechanic is too complicated, though...

I find the Mudra system irritating on the best of days. I don't think that Mixing should involve pressing multiple buttons to perform one action.

I'm looking for something that is both intuitive but also has some room for strategic thinking. Throw a potion on someone, give them a HoT effect. Throw a second potion with it active to turn it into some burst healing or an AoE. The 'Mix' involves building off of the buffs/debuffs that you've already placed on players or mobs. With correct planning, you should be able to setup an effect that you can take advantage 10 or 20 seconds down the line.

Remember that the charge system applies to cooldown-based abilities, not GCD spells. Most of the interesting action on healers happens in-between GCDs. I'd like to see a system which acknowledges that fact. So you weave in a healing potion in between whatever filler GCD set you use at baseline. Great. Now you have an extra charge of a damage ability that you can weave in later on as well.

By 'WHM-like', I don't want to see a 2s cast "Potion" which costs 1000 MP. You could expand the existing Lily system into something similar to what I was suggesting, but it would require rebuilding WHM from the ground up.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

I find the Mudra system irritating on the best of days. I don't think that Mixing should involve pressing multiple buttons to perform one action.

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That's fair. Ever since the servers moved nearer to me I've found it smooth as butter (especially before moving onto the GCD), but experiences and preferences will obviously vary.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

I'm looking for something that is both intuitive but also has some room for strategic thinking. Throw a potion on someone, give them a HoT effect. Throw a second potion with it active to turn it into some burst healing or an AoE.

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That's an awesome system. I just got confused by your mention of other combo-based classes. Arguably, they should all act more like that, but since they don't I worried it would just turn into ABCABC spam. Your system easily could end up that way as well if it has too few paths to optimize, but I'd rather not assume the worst. Solid concept.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

Remember that the charge system applies to cooldown-based abilities, not GCD spells.

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I never assumed otherwise. I'm just worried by how the damage<->healing recharge system would work in typical content.

I feel like there are obvious reasons why WHM's load-up system (be it StB's GCD->oGCD version or the current GCD->Misery version) basically just reduce the cost of healing rather than limiting damage abilities by healing abilities cast or vice versa.

Depending on the details not listed in your sample (e.g. how many seconds of recharge are skipped per "restock"), it feels like in content that requires low healing you're either going to be (1) limited to spamming Gil Toss (and oGCDs used only on their regular CDs), as per a Glare/Malefic/Broil spam healer already, or (2) obliged to just throw out oGCD heals every other GCD regardless of any healing actually required so you can go Healing-Damage-Healing-Damage-Healing-Damage in an apm-bloated cycle (e.g. Bomb-Potion-Bomb-Potion or HWrath-XPot-HWrath-XPot once you've spread vulnerability and DoTs). The latter would have to feel very lackluster per throw not to be ridiculously overpowered over time.

That's largely why MP initially came to mind, as it'd at least apply some limitation to ability cycling or provide a more granular means of allowing for that cycling. Remember, abilities can have MP costs too. That, not any GCD based "Spells" or weaponskills, is where I'd figure CHM would use MP.

Of course, MP doesn't have to be the solution; it could be anything, but right now your sample seems like it has a glaring hole that, frankly, MP could have easily solved (even if not necessarily in the coolest or most unique manner). At present, the restocking feature seems like it's halfway to something great, but is at present a convolution that doesn't seem to meet the intentions you've stated. Given that you've already added that much complexity, I don't see why you'd be unwilling to tap into a further system to make it actually work, or, if such truly would be overcomplicated, reconsider the restocking system entirely.