Please Nerf Shield Healer Pure Heals

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Originally Posted by Grimoire-M

As opposed to now where it’s used to blow Earthly Star.

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Earthly Star isn't even needed, you just pop it down up to 20 sec in advance for damage and let your shields + Horoscope handle it.

On topic, I'm curious if we'll see any "pure shields" in 6.0 now they've decided to make a distinction. One of the things I dislike about current Shield healing is unless you get a chain of raidwides, if you're prepping a shield for something that could kill the party you're often wasting the heal factor and spending the GCD just for the noodle 250 potency or such shield because you have to. Whereas if you got a raw 450 aoe shield with no heal (example), it's still weaker potency than a Medica II but you'll usually get full value out of it. The way shields are often split into both a heal and shield component makes them awkward to use pre-emptively.

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Originally Posted by Calysto

[...]
So what do you do then ?
Keep the barrier up full time ? the loss is absurd and nobody want that, i think.
Know all the fights to predict incoming damage ? that's an incredible skill gap needed there (if i consider memory a skill, i know mine is pretty low)

And what about mechanics that down your party (like cid from orbone or doggos from bosja, math robots) : your whole party is down to 1 hp and you have 3 cast max fo fill them back.
As a "pure heal", no problem, even if the second healer is down. In the same position, the devs can't doom your party if you've only got a single barrier healer.
that means a barrier have to be anle to tpe the party in 3 gcd ; tank included.
[...]

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One solution could be a simple oGCD/Faerie Gauge spell to transform current given shields to pure healing, consuming the shield.

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Originally Posted by SoraLuna

One solution could be a simple oGCD/Faerie Gauge spell to transform current given shields to pure healing, consuming the shield.

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I suppose what they could do is make Emergency Tactics work in reverse. Your Adlo and Succor applies Galvanise then you can detonate as needed. It has the double benefit of making it less wasted. I'm sure many have been in the situation they think this is a good time use Emergency Tactics aaand your concealer is on top of it and you've just wasted your Emergency Tactics.

Doing it backwards means if the shield is needed it does its job, if it's not needed and there's still healing to be done, you can make it do it's job.

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Originally Posted by Saefinn

I suppose what they could do is make Emergency Tactics work in reverse. Your Adlo and Succor applies Galvanise then you can detonate as needed. It has the double benefit of making it less wasted. I'm sure many have been in the situation they think this is a good time use Emergency Tactics aaand your concealer is on top of it and you've just wasted your Emergency Tactics.

Doing it backwards means if the shield is needed it does its job, if it's not needed and there's still healing to be done, you can make it do it's job.

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I'd prefer for shields to be pure shields by defaul but a button to detonate them would be nice. With how shields work there is no real reason to have split potency.
If you have a series of raidwides, both pure and split potency will most likely get full value and as long as HP + shield value exceeds incoming damage everyone is safe.
If you need to preshield, the healing is usually wasted.
Even if you definitely need raw healing on top of shields, all healers have plenty of tools and if both healers are completely drained of all resources, they did something seriously wrong. Right now Benison is the only healer skill that purely shields. Splitting the potency seems like a poor way to make using shields less punishing for people who don't get the concept of shields but in reality, it made using them even more punishing.

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Originally Posted by Liam_Harper

Earthly Star isn't even needed, you just pop it down up to 20 sec in advance for damage and let your shields + Horoscope handle it.

On topic, I'm curious if we'll see any "pure shields" in 6.0 now they've decided to make a distinction. One of the things I dislike about current Shield healing is unless you get a chain of raidwides, if you're prepping a shield for something that could kill the party you're often wasting the heal factor and spending the GCD just for the noodle 250 potency or such shield because you have to. Whereas if you got a raw 450 aoe shield with no heal (example), it's still weaker potency than a Medica II but you'll usually get full value out of it. The way shields are often split into both a heal and shield component makes them awkward to use pre-emptively.

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At the same time, you rarely need to use them preemptively. And when you do the 30s shield duration does give you enough room to place them early (when hp bars aren't full).

I don't feel like it's as much of an issue as say... The fact you don't need shields in the first place. Shield healing in ff14 is as much of a developer fantasy gameplay as "healers shouldn't dps". I'm really curious to see what 6.0 is made of but I'm willing to bet it'll be more of the same thing. That is, shield healers actually pure heal 99% of the time, usiung shields effectively 3 times per raid tier.

The difference between shield healing and zero dps is that the devs can feasibly actually make shield healing a real thing, while the latter is quite unpossible.

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Originally Posted by EaMett

At the same time, you rarely need to use them preemptively. And when you do the 30s shield duration does give you enough room to place them early (when hp bars aren't full).

I don't feel like it's as much of an issue as say... The fact you don't need shields in the first place. Shield healing in ff14 is as much of a developer fantasy gameplay as "healers shouldn't dps". I'm really curious to see what 6.0 is made of but I'm willing to bet it'll be more of the same thing. That is, shield healers actually pure heal 99% of the time, usiung shields effectively 3 times per raid tier.

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Part of the reason for that is most mitigation cooldowns already solve the same niche Shields are meant to solve. They’re more efficient on singular hits than shields are (assuming of course that hit would one shot). To me, the conversion to pure shields is simply necessary just to make them viable within their one niche irrespective of item level.

Couldn't they just incentivize shielding by giving them different after effects once they pop? Hell they could even make them deal damage to the enemy at a scale and potency the devs have complete control over, or give buffing capabilities to SCH through such a hypothetical mechanic. They could even make a effect for when two shields hold hands because the party has 2 shield healers, nothing OP but something so that it's not a complete issue to have 2 shield healers. Particularly because they said they will adjust 8 man queues to account for a throughput healer and a shield healer so that 1 of each is present, that makes me think they're trying to say "they're different enough and the differences are impactful enough you want 1 of each" but is that really gonna be the future of queues? waiting for a throughput healer or shield healer? I'm still confused about that bit of info they mentioned in the announcement showcase tbh.

The reason I bring up after effects is because if they want shields to be a thing, with the math the community has done demonstrating that it in fact does not need to be a thing outside of specific instances makes me believe the easiest solution is for the devs to incentivize players in a way that doesn't increase the stress on healers, something the devs have been wanting to avoid as they even brought it up when introducing the Mon Hun savage difficulty boss at the time this is me paraphrasing: "We don't normally have savage level 4 man content till now because once the healer is down there's no way to save the run" which makes sense since the 2 classes with combat rez aren't healers and thus not occupying a required role and fights having to be made with any party loadout in mind rather than specific ones. They further demonstrated wanting to reduce healer stress by reducing the amount of pretty buttons they need to press to pump out damage when they sandpapered them down during ShB launch. if they want to have their cake of not stressing healers or designing content that requires lots of healing to combat boss DPS going out, and eat it and savor the delicious flavor of interesting job mechanics then the path of least resistance is to design incentives or rewards for doing something you should already be doing and they've done this before with BLM and SAM, keep that buff up long enough and you can fire out free nukes, burn those swordskill symbols/medallions to build up this other resource which lets u fire a shoha once you accumulate enough of it.

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Originally Posted by Alpheus

Couldn't they just incentivize shielding by giving them different after effects once they pop?

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My suggestion for SCH is that Aetherflow become a primarily dps resource and that SCH shields would grant Aetherflow stacks when they pop. I posted the following in another thread:

• Max number of Aetherflow stacks increased to about 6
• Aetherflow(ability) would still generate 3 stacks when used.
• Adloquium's Galvanize and Catalyze each give an Aetherflow stack when they break (but not when they fall off).
• Deployment Tactics Galvanize shields maintain the 100% generation chance of Adloquium.
• Succor and Consolidation's shields would have a 20% chance of giving an Aetherflow stack when they break.
• Seraphic Veil shields would have a 50% chance of generating Aetherflow
• Excognition still costs one Aetherflow stack, but gives 2 stacks when it is triggered.
• Fey Union gives an Aetherflow each time it's target takes damage equal to 30% of their max hp.
• Sacred Soil has a chance of giving an Aetherflow when someone under its effect takes damage equal to 30% of their max hp,
• Dissipation would still give 3 stacks at the cost of loosing the fairy for 30s.
• New capstone gcd spell with a 60s or 90s cooldown that consumes all current Aetherflow stacks to deal damage based on Aetherflow spent

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Originally Posted by Grimoire-M

Part of the reason for that is most mitigation cooldowns already solve the same niche Shields are meant to solve. They’re more efficient on singular hits than shields are (assuming of course that hit would one shot). To me, the conversion to pure shields is simply necessary just to make them viable within their one niche irrespective of item level.

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The point is, one-shot mechanics that you can survive through are a dime a dozen. So you don't need shields most of the time. And when you do, like you said, mitigation tools from the party can cover a good amount of those scenarios. Removing party mitigation would be a pretty bad move in my opinion since it's one of the few party coordination skills left, so that leaves very limited options. Could they make more mechanics that require shields? Sure. Will they? I doubt it since even "ultimate" requirements are too low for pure shield healers and people already can't handle those.
Also, with pure shielders the meta gameplay will most likely be "pure healers heal everything, shield healers pitch in only when they run out of ogcds or a one-shot hit is going to happen".

So to recap:
- If they add enough one-shot mechanics to require a pure shielder then the healing gameplay suffers because there's no more nuance in healing. It's all big hits that you need to heal through the same way.
- If they remove party mitigation tools and slightly increase one-shot mechanics then it hurts party coordination and shield healers are relegated to secondary healers (which also hurts healer synergy)
- If they keep things as they are, shield healers will be pretty useless

Not a very interesting dynamic regardless of the scenario. Honestly, it's just lose-lose for the concept of a pure shield healer.

I'll wait and see what 6.0 is but my best guess is that the odds of them significantly changing the healing up are very low.

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Originally Posted by EaMett

The point is, one-shot mechanics that you can survive through are a dime a dozen. So you don't need shields most of the time. And when you do, like you said, mitigation tools from the party can cover a good amount of those scenarios. Removing party mitigation would be a pretty bad move in my opinion since it's one of the few party coordination skills left, so that leaves very limited options. Could they make more mechanics that require shields? Sure. Will they? I doubt it since even "ultimate" requirements are too low for pure shield healers and people already can't handle those.
Also, with pure shielders the meta gameplay will most likely be "pure healers heal everything, shield healers pitch in only when they run out of ogcds or a one-shot hit is going to happen".

So to recap:
- If they add enough one-shot mechanics to require a pure shielder then the healing gameplay suffers because there's no more nuance in healing. It's all big hits that you need to heal through the same way.
- If they remove party mitigation tools and slightly increase one-shot mechanics then it hurts party coordination and shield healers are relegated to secondary healers (which also hurts healer synergy)
- If they keep things as they are, shield healers will be pretty useless

Not a very interesting dynamic regardless of the scenario. Honestly, it's just lose-lose for the concept of a pure shield healer.

I'll wait and see what 6.0 is but my best guess is that the odds of them significantly changing the healing up are very low.

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the only other way is to add mechanics that do something bad like a damage down or a huge bleed unless you take 0 damage, which would necessitate a shield. Sounds kind of forced but yeah

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Originally Posted by QooEr

the only other way is to add mechanics that do something bad like a damage down or a huge bleed unless you take 0 damage, which would necessitate a shield. Sounds kind of forced but yeah

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There are a few other alternatives, the safest option being maximum-HP penalties akin to the vit penalty on Weakness in the past, likely on avoidable sources. That would flip the situation from needing raw heals after the fact to shields beforehand based purely on context during progression. Similarly, you could have mechanics which kill you if you're over a certain HP threshold (similar to Min HP on Gavel, but it applies a doom effect if you screw up the condition during it) and design damage during that phase to require shielding at specific points and regens could also be layered in to handle a sustained darkness damage source (since that bypasses shields and mitigation already), while raw heals are used sparingly to avoid over-healing.

Two things that could help from a scaling perspective would be to give Piety a boost to healing action potency at a rate that's notably stronger than Det or Crit, and squishing down the vertical progression a bit by making best-in-slot Savage gear equal to the next tier's Normal and Crafted sets, with Tome, Extreme, Alliance, and Savage gear being the only item level bumps till the patch cycle comes to another tier. Between all of those sources it is gradually used to fill out gearsets across the board for any player's needs, but the item level squish itself has the knock-on effect of reducing the effect of mitigation from gear. Those in tandem can then be tuned so that a minimum Piety threshold actually matters for min-ilvl situations in Savage, and therefore makes picking up Piety gear more attractive. I doubt it would actually affect the first two fights in a tier but the goal would be to lower the gap between min-ilvl and Best in Slot enough to make it affect the third and fourth fights in a tier consistently till you're comfortable with the content, and as a secondary benefit it would give Savage players their reward of having BiS for world first prog without needing to craft up a storm (though crafting would remain extremely helpful for filling in gaps or getting a new player or alt-class up to speed quickly).

you also reminded me, that there could also be bleeds combined with 1HP mechanics. that also necessitates a shield

I am really concerned about the need for a shield healer at all...

While they are super useful for progression, once you have things on farm, people know what to do and you get better gear, what would be the point of bringing a shield healer? Hope they have more DPS than the pure healer then... otherwise I think you are wasting a team slot...

That will really boil down to DPS I guess...

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Originally Posted by Hysterior

I am really concerned about the need for a shield healer at all...

While they are super useful for progression, once you have things on farm, people know what to do and you get better gear, what would be the point of bringing a shield healer? Hope they have more DPS than the pure healer then... otherwise I think you are wasting a team slot...

That will really boil down to DPS I guess...

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It is capable of existing as a healing style, just like Disc Priest in WoW is (from what I hear). But I'd argue it hasn't existed as one in FFXIV since ARR but instead in the form you describe. Hence my request to nerf heals (and boost shields if needed). With its current use I don't think it'll be fit for purpose. I think they're trying to recreate that 2.0 dichotomy that WHM and SCH had, which worked really well. but the jobs have evolved and changed since then and if the jobs don't get adjusted to accommodate this approach then it's going to be redundant.

And I fear they won't make the adjustments needed because it will create this perception that the jobs will no longer be as approachable (although I disagree - and I think if anything, better teaching tools mitigate that)

Too many of you are thinking about this from "Shields are only good for one-shots". This is because your shield options are weaker than your heal options.

When your shield options are stronger than your heal options, this is the reverse. This is why Saefinn specifically is requesting a nerf to raw healing on the Shield specialization jobs.

Ultimately though, there is also a need to reduce / shift the potency of on demand burst healing into Shielding, Regen, and other non-permanent HP restoration. High Burst HP healing should not only be expensive, but not nearly as readily available as it is.

One could argue we should also remove in-combat natural regeneration, as though it is minor, is still upwards of 10-15% of HP restored in a given fight.

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Originally Posted by Kabooa

Too many of you are thinking about this from "Shields are only good for one-shots". This is because your shield options are weaker than your heal options.

When your shield options are stronger than your heal options, this is the reverse. This is why Saefinn specifically is requesting a nerf to raw healing on the Shield specialization jobs.

Ultimately though, there is also a need to reduce / shift the potency of on demand burst healing into Shielding, Regen, and other non-permanent HP restoration. High Burst HP healing should not only be expensive, but not nearly as readily available as it is.

One could argue we should also remove in-combat natural regeneration, as though it is minor, is still upwards of 10-15% of HP restored in a given fight.

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To me it’s not about making shields stronger than raw heals, it’s about making shields able to replace multiple mitigation sources with a singular fallback button. Mitigation already has its place as a tool to deal with heavy sustained damage. And Regens and Raw heals can compliment mitigation in that scenario through higher potency or better MP economy. I do agree that Raw healing and shielding should go down overall, but then we run into the issue of mitigation being the only thing that matters for burst as it is now, which necessitates nerfing it as well, which detracts from the overall goal of making it so some combination of GCD shields and mitigation, and follow up heals are required for burst scenarios. The overall tuning goal is to make shields the go-to option for preventing one shots, Mitigation and regens for sustained damage, and raw heals as supplementary burst when necessary to conserve resources. GCD Shields in particular need to go up relative to where they are now. Raw heals need to be more efficient in other ways, but ideally they are better on WHM/AST’s toolkits than on SCH/SAG.

I'm going to preface this with the fact that I only dabble in healing with SCH. I've leveled everything to 80, but definitely don't know anything about healing high level content. I do love theory crafting and crunching numbers though.

I'm trying to figure out what the ultimate goal of nerfing pure heals is. I'm assuming that we want to push SCH/SAG to actually use their shields instead of how right now SCH mainly uses oGCD aetherflow pure heals? If that's the goal, with how the game works right now, those shields would need to be oGCD heals. That's basically it. I feel like people use Illustrate and Indom because they can continue to DPS not because they're necessarily "better."

I also thing that the "Pure Healer" vs "Shield Healer" are somewhat misnomers. It's more like "Shield Healer" vs "Regen Healer" as it is balanced currently (and as they seem to want to do).

As for differentiation on how shield heals work, there are a few options, but I'm not sure that they would make for fun game play for the shield healers:

1. Implement shield degradation - Shields tick down as they sit on people, losing efficacy the further from the point between putting the shield on someone and them getting hit. With this setup, SCH's Emergency Tactics could maybe consume the shield to go a full heal to that point instead, as was discussed by a few others.

2. Shield Specific Mitigation - Shields have their own armor value, so damage dealt to shields may be higher/lower than the damage that would be dealt to straight up health. This would make shields stronger on low armor classes.

3. More effects for broken shields (a la TBN) - Have different shields which, when broken, give different effects to the person the shield was put on (or the caster who put the shield on them). Shield that, when broken does a small AE heal to everyone around the person, one that gives the person a X% mitigation boost for X seconds, restores X MP to the caster, gives the caster a buff that allows them to use another ability, etc.

4. Lower duration on shields (plus maybe "bonuses" for shields 'running out') - Have shields be 8-12s long or something, if the buff runs out while some shield is left then there's a bonus (e.g. shield's duration runs out it does a normal heal on the target, gives the caster MP back, basically the stuff above), also, make them stronger to specifically deal with burst damage. Then you have regen being strong for sustained damage and shields available for burst damage (as long as you can preemptively shield).

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Originally Posted by Kabooa

When your shield options are stronger than your heal options, this is the reverse. This is why Saefinn specifically is requesting a nerf to raw healing on the Shield specialization jobs.

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Your shield options will never be stronger than your heal options because your heal options will be your co-healer. It'll just be meta to only pitch in when they're out of ogcds.
Not that we don't already do this to some degree. ASTs get heal priorities etc.. But it'll just be flat out pure healer vs shield healer.

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Originally Posted by EaMett

Your shield options will never be stronger than your heal options because your heal options will be your co-healer. It'll just be meta to only pitch in when they're out of ogcds.
Not that we don't already do this to some degree. ASTs get heal priorities etc.. But it'll just be flat out pure healer vs shield healer.

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This is why I also said there needs to be a shift / reduction of free on demand burst healing.

For single healers, it should be minimizing GCDs to healing by properly using your tools.

For double healers, it should be minimizing GCDs to healing by properly using both of your tools.

Everyone needs some form of burst healing. Imagine trying to cleanse Living Dead style mechanics without burst.

Solo Shield Healer: I could spend four GCDs trying desperately to keep you alive. But I only need to spend one oGCD to raise you. *Casts Broil*

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Originally Posted by Lyth

Everyone needs some form of burst healing. Imagine trying to cleanse Living Dead style mechanics without burst.

Solo Shield Healer: I could spend four GCDs trying desperately to keep you alive. But I only need to spend one oGCD to raise you. *Casts Broil*

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Lustrate I'd say is suitable for that. We still had Lustrate back when this shield healer approach worked.

However, I have addressed it my original post:

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Originally Posted by Saefinn

For sake of clarity. I am not saying we nerf it into the ground, I've used 2.0 SCH as a point of references where Lustrate was useful for getting health up quickly, but of course was a limited resource that wasn't frequent or strong enough to compete with SCH's shield healing aspect. So I am of the view we need an evolution of this approach/philosophy that's relevant to current content. And by comparison, although WHM and AST are pure healers, they still have shields and they're frequent enough to be useful in situations they're needed but aren't at a level where it becomes their healing style. It's more about nerfing them (and buffing shields) to a level that shifts the focus from pure healing to shield healing, rather than removing any potential of pure healing. In short, I don't think their goal is achievable without shifting the balance of their existing shield healer and using it as a point of reference for balancing the new one. Simply because as it stands SCH is only a shield healer by name and not in how it's played and in how it's balanced.

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With regards to letting people die for DPS, this would inefficient. But the premise misses on a point, which is that they would be shielded in one GCD (or if taking somebody else's suggestion in the thread, one oGCD).

Whilst in this hypothetical scenario it takes 4 GCD's to get them to full health, if balanced right and if, say, 1 heal got them from 2,000hp to 27,000hp then they'd have a 25,000hp shield (or a lot more if it crits) if we're basing it on Galvanise logic. During that time they're shielded your faerie is helping with Embrace. If that's not enough, she has Whispering Dawn. You also have Lustrate if you're free to spend it. Or you can use another shield heal if their shield is depleted or near depletion for a more efficient use (if efficiency is what you're going for, as those who are pushing max deeps will).

In short, a 25,000 heal with a 25,000 shield would be as efficient as a 50,000 heal in this scenario. The efficiency loss is if they don't take damage, which suggestions have been given for such as a longer (or even infinite) timer. And the other loss is if you spam said shield heal, but anybody who optimises their healing would unlikely do that.

I welcome the shield buff but sch's pure healing spells have lower potency than WHM already, there is no need to further nerf them.

I'm not sure if to say directly to nerf the raw heals but maybe give more priority to shields/damage prevention spells? One would consider SCH a "shield healer" only during ARR levels and that's because they don't have most of their ogcd yet, mid HW and onwards it becomes more and more about pet management to the point the barriers are kind of just... there until the boss does their big bad aoe of doooooom ability

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Originally Posted by ksuyen

I welcome the shield buff but sch's pure healing spells have lower potency than WHM already, there is no need to further nerf them.

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I think for balance's sake I'd expect they would need to nerf pure heals to make way for better shields in shifting that balance. Plus there becomes an upper limit where it doesn't matter if WHM's potency is greater than SCH's, especially given SCH's pure heal potential is at a point where it makes WHM's identity as a pure healer redundant. Else we run into the HW problem of where SCH was OP, despite the fact WHM had better pure heals back then too.

Lustrate is a waste of Aetherflow charges, when it comes to healing a Tank. You have to burn through all of them, and most likely smoke your fairy for more, just to pull even. Also, it doesn't even benefit from the Fairy's buff to healing, since it is an ability, not a spell.

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Originally Posted by Lesan

Lustrate is a waste of Aetherflow charges, when it comes to healing a Tank. You have to burn through all of them, and most likely smoke your fairy for more, just to pull even. Also, it doesn't even benefit from the Fairy's buff to healing, since it is an ability, not a spell.

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In most cases you would not have to use Lustrate so extensively, because in most cases the damage isn't coming quick enough. If we're talking Savage level content, then the devs are emphasizing on this dichotomy of shield healer and pure healer, so for example you wouldn't have a SCH/SCH set up so if it was really needed your co-healer would close the gap. With that said, if you're nerfing pure heals & buffing shields, the trade-off ends up in the shield itself. Whether a tank has 70k HP or 40k hp + a 30k shield would mean the tank has just as much survivability in both scenarios. But ultimately it's about shifting the focus to rely more on shields and less on pure heals, because if they want to achieve a shield healer...then it needs a shield focus, which in its current balance does not have. Otherwise it's a pure healer with shields on top.

Lustrate works for now, but the entire point of differentiating healers into 'pure' vs. 'shield' is to encourage you to diversify. If your shield healers have access to burst healing options like Lustrate, then pure healers are going to want having a few shield abilities too. Eventually you're back to four healers with the same toolkit. But if pure healers are the only ones bringing high output burst heals to the table, then heal or die mechanics simply don't work in single healer content.

Which is fine. Living Dead was a terrible ability to begin with.

I think players need to embrace the fact that they can't have an answer to every situation, and have to be reliant on others to contribute. So what if you can no longer toss out a lifesaving Lustrate and have to rely on your co-healer to do it for you? You're the only one who can shield the team from the upcoming raidwide. In the end it makes you individually each more valuable as healers, because you don't have the luxury of having a backup healer who can carry you through content. It also probably means that you don't have to compete to feel like you're contributing to the survival/healing side of things.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

I think players need to embrace the fact that they can't have an answer to every situation, and have to be reliant on others to contribute. So what if you can no longer toss out a lifesaving Lustrate and have to rely on your co-healer to do it for you? You're the only one who can shield the team from the upcoming raidwide. In the end it makes you individually each more valuable as healers, because you don't have the luxury of having a backup healer who can carry you through content. It also probably means that you don't have to compete to feel like you're contributing to the survival/healing side of things.

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I mean, I'm not against it, why not, but shielder healer gameplay should then offer more than what we have currently. Being able to stack multiple layer of shield or damage mitigation (% based) if their raw healing is nerfed (like removing indom or lustrate).
Because whenever the pure healer dies in the worst situation, it means it'll always be harder for a shielder to keep the party alive.
Cause brainlessly spamming succor and hoping it'll be enough won't feel really great.

That's of course an example if shielder lose their raw healing/regen capacity.

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Originally Posted by KDSilver

I mean, I'm not against it, why not, but shielder healer gameplay should then offer more than what we have currently. Being able to stack multiple layer of shield or damage mitigation (% based) if their raw healing is nerfed (like removing indom or lustrate).
Because whenever the pure healer dies in the worst situation, it means it'll always be harder for a shielder to keep the party alive.
Cause brainlessly spamming succor and hoping it'll be enough won't feel really great.

That's of course an example if shielder lose their raw healing/regen capacity.

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For sure the tool kit should be more diverse than spamming Succor/Adlo. We have some tools already that could have their use improved, like Seraph, Sacred Soil and of course we've got Recitation. We used to have other types of mitigation that could have been improved upon like Supervirus (which has been split into Feint and Addle at a lower potency) and Eye for an Eye. And some of our DPS moves would apply blind, disease (which had a slow moving effect - so a use with big pulls) and slow, albeit they were really only used for on trash mobs, but they still could have been improved upon.

The more you look at it, the more flawed the idea of "Shield healer" as an identity in ff14 is. The game design just doesn't really support it in a way that can be balanced.

-Between 1hp tank immunes, Doom mechanics and Savage fights where you have lulls then several hard hitting mechanics in a row, burst healing is needed. Since shields need to be weaker than pure heals, this ends up with shield healers getting strong pure heal burst too.
-Shields can cheese key debuffs like Vulnerability and Damage Down, pushing them into a corner where they can't make multiple shields stack or give them too much potency.
-Shields need to be weaker than regens to avoid making them obsolete. Thus shields lose their use and endgame bosses need raidwides that can outright kill a group on prog to make them useful. But this in turn makes shield healers mandatory on that content.
-"Pure healer with shields" are hard to balance against plain Pure healers, because one simply has more utility. WHM is straight up inferior to the other healers at endgame. But if you give the pure healer good free heals, it ends up like Diurnal vs Noct, where Diurnal is miles better.
-Because shields can't be too good due to cheese or pushing regen aside, raid heals like Succor, Celestial Opposition, Consolation or Asp Helios can only be part shield/part heal. But shields by nature are pre-emptive while heals aren't unless the group is already damaged, which results in some awkward situations where you waste the heal component to prep the noodle shield.

What I'm most interested in is how they've thought all this through and plan to address it. If they have no plan and they're taking SCH and WHM as a core to design around, it's going to end up worse.

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Originally Posted by Liam_Harper

-Shields need to be weaker than regens to avoid making them obsolete. Thus shields lose their use and endgame bosses need raidwides that can outright kill a group on prog to make them useful. But this in turn makes shield healers mandatory on that content.

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The fact that Regens stack and Shields don't will always make Regens better than shields in any content you won't be one shot. Read: Non-Prog fights.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Liam_Harper

What I'm most interested in is how they've thought all this through and plan to address it. If they have no plan and they're taking SCH and WHM as a core to design around, it's going to end up worse.

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AST is already literally WHM but with cards, specially now that noct will be gone entirely, I'd be sorely disappointed if Sage is just SCH but with guns