SCH, Energy Drain, and 6.0

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Originally Posted by Ultimatecalibur

I think Physick healed slightly more than 20% to healers and dps and closer to 10% on tanks but had a 2.0s cast time. Lustrate was more efficient when used on Tanks but was "instant" (1.0s cooldown) so the "decisions on the fly" part might have been more "will that dps survive until Adloquium/Physick finishes casting or will in need to use Lustrate to keep them alive?"

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Okay, that's what I was maybe thinking it was but wasn't quite sure. I spoke about old Lustrate with an FC mate recently too, and we figured out that if Lustrate stayed a percentage heal, the average tank's HP would make it heal for 43k, like jeez. Ultimately though the potency approach is better, but maybe a minor boost is needed. Let's see what the stat squish does first though.

I think a great way to fix SCH (and SMN at the same time) would be the removal of aetherflow and the heals requiring it and give both something completely new instead (or in SCH case, let at the very least the Fairy Gauge be the Main Focus of the Job) so that SMN can finally be cut off from Arcanist and be on its own (and give SMN a new combat stance/job emotes while were at it, i know its a minor thing but it always annoyed me how SCH and SMN look the exact same when having their Books "unsheathed").

Honestly speaking, even with Endwalker coming soon at our doorstep as the climax of the hydaelyn/zodiark arc, the thing i am most hyped about is not the story or any of the sidecontent, but instead the patchnotes which tell us how Healers will turn out, and hopefully for the better for once.

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Originally Posted by Anhra

Honestly speaking, even with Endwalker coming soon at our doorstep as the climax of the hydaelyn/zodiark arc, the thing i am most hyped about is not the story or any of the sidecontent, but instead the patchnotes which tell us how Healers will turn out, and hopefully for the better for once.

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Pretty much the same for me. As important as the story is, it will keep me occupied for maybe 4-5 days. The job design will basically determine if I'll stick around for Endwalker or if it's gonna be another Shadowbringers where I can't even find the motivation to do anything because the jobs, especially tanks and healers, bore me to death.
The story might be amazing but it simply can't carry a whole expansion, we saw that with the current one.

In the same boat here, its been very difficult to find the motivation to do anything in shb because of various factors:

-the destruction and excessive homogenisation and "balancing" of jobs in the name of accessibility, especially tanks and healers, with devs not checking how jobs are played and want to be played
-lack of challenge in any meaningful capacity in most content
-long term problems still not being addressed or announced to be working on bar data centre travel (at last!)
-devs continuously refusing to listen to feedback unless content is physically dead or broken
-general dumbing down of the battle and crafting system with no thought given to encouraging learning/mastering skills for veterans or tutorials for new players
-introduction of larger scale time limited content with no thought given to longevity and higher amounts of grind in order to prolong the shelf life of less and poorly implemented content
-Cash shop getting worse, with proportionally more items ending up there instead of being in game each year

I'm sticking around to see the story off, but after that, unless they make or have made some serious improvements I think I'm going to be done with ff14. Its been a long ride since ARR beta and it will be a good place time to leave.

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Originally Posted by SweetPete

Devs already said they want aetherflow to be used for healing not energy drain which is why they severely nerfed it. My guess is they will remove energy drain again along with aetherflow as it serves little purpose now. The mp gain is negligible at best. Just give lustrate 3 charges and Indomitability 2 charges. Leave sacred soil on a 30 second cooldown and leave excog on its 45 second cooldown and be done with aetherflow. It’s just gotten worst and worst over each expansion. Sick of that ability now. Change dissipation to a recharge of 1 lustrate and 1 indomitability on a 90 second cooldown and call it a day.

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The issue with that is that there's a big difference between having something with a CD and a ressource .
Aetherflow allows you to use 3 of these ogcd per minute, and beside lustrat all have their own CD.
So you have to choose which 3 spells are best suited within that time frame on top of dealing with their CD (which is very small to compensate)

So I don't agree

I'm not saying it would be a bad change this, but it would fundamentally change SCH feels and gameplay.
No decision involved, you can use everything.

Imo the best compromise would be to make Energy Drain an instant GCD with the same potency as broil.
This way there are no DPS gain from using it (beside a bit more during movement at best), no annoying clipping and newer SCH don't have to wonder whether it's worth it to do it over a heal.
It's an instant broil, it has no extra DPS/MP component attached to it (beside mobility)

That design unfortunately still doesn't fix the issue that you're gonna end up sitting on stacks of aetherflow that are completely useless because there's nothing to heal, the exact reason why ED was reimplemented in ShB in the first place.

The following Skills have been removed:

Energy Drain

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Originally Posted by Sylvain

Imo the best compromise would be to make Energy Drain an instant GCD with the same potency as broil.
This way there are no DPS gain from using it (beside a bit more during movement at best), no annoying clipping and newer SCH don't have to wonder whether it's worth it to do it over a heal.
It's an instant broil, it has no extra DPS/MP component attached to it (beside mobility)

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With the AF stack requirement?
Because if not, it would be Broil but better and we could totally forget it

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Originally Posted by Sylvain

Imo the best compromise would be to make Energy Drain an instant GCD with the same potency as broil.
This way there are no DPS gain from using it (beside a bit more during movement at best), no annoying clipping and newer SCH don't have to wonder whether it's worth it to do it over a heal.
It's an instant broil, it has no extra DPS/MP component attached to it (beside mobility)

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This would actually make Aetherflow healing an even BIGGER DPS loss then it is right now. IMO the "GCD skill that's basically an instant Broil for weaving mobility" should be a second DoT skill and/or a skill that helps you shave off excess Fae Guage, the latter of those two would require a touch of tweaking to prevent SCHs from just dumping all their Fae Guage into it, but a skill like that is sorely needed.

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Originally Posted by Sylvain

Imo the best compromise would be to make Energy Drain an instant GCD with the same potency as broil.
This way there are no DPS gain from using it (beside a bit more during movement at best), no annoying clipping and newer SCH don't have to wonder whether it's worth it to do it over a heal.
It's an instant broil, it has no extra DPS/MP component attached to it (beside mobility)

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Just add miasma 2 back.

I imagine if Aetherflow is still around for SCH in 6.0 that SCH might have a buff of some sort they can put on another (or all) party member(s). That would even up the healers under a possible balance plan:

SCH - Supporting Shield Healer
SGE - "Selfish" Shield Healer
AST - Supporting Pure Healer
WHM - "Selfish" Pure Healer

That would keep them away from Aetherflow stacks being used for (direct) damage, would push up SCH to be similar level of support to its pure healer counterpart (AST), but also give SCH something to use it on when they don't need it for healing.

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Originally Posted by LeonKeyh

SCH - Supporting Shield Healer
SGE - "Selfish" Shield Healer
AST - Supporting Pure Healer
WHM - "Selfish" Pure Healer

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I'm not sure I'm picking up what you're putting down.
How do you envision a selfish healer?
Just one that focuses more on rDPS?

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Originally Posted by ItMe

I'm not sure I'm picking up what you're putting down.
How do you envision a selfish healer?
Just one that focuses more on rDPS?

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selfish classes like whm, sam and blm contribute to the party with their high pdps alone

support classes like ast nin dnc have lower pdps but make up the difference with buffs.

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Originally Posted by QooEr

selfish classes like whm, sam and blm contribute to the party with their high pdps alone

support classes like ast nin dnc have lower pdps but make up the difference with buffs.

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So... yes?
More of a focus on rDPS then?

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Originally Posted by ItMe

So... yes?
More of a focus on rDPS then?

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Support = rDPS
"Selfish" = aDPS

For example, let's say WHM avg aDPS is 11,793 and rDPS is 11,495 signifying little to no "support" for others dealing damage; AST has an aDPS of 10,418 and rDPS of 12,184 from cards/divination; SCH has aDPS of 11,095 and rDPS of 11,764 from chain strategum.

Idea would be that rDPS values would be higher for AST/SCH from buffing other jobs and the 2 values would be similar for WHM/SGE because their damage comes from their own abilities, not from buffing party members.

There's no confirmation at all that is how it will be, it just makes sense from a "least possible reworking" standpoint combined with the comment about SGE "buffing it's own abilities."

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Originally Posted by LeonKeyh

Support = rDPS
"Selfish" = aDPS

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So yes then.
Ok, I was picking up what was being thrown down.

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Originally Posted by LeonKeyh

I imagine if Aetherflow is still around for SCH in 6.0 that SCH might have a buff of some sort they can put on another (or all) party member(s). That would even up the healers under a possible balance plan:

SCH - Supporting Shield Healer
SGE - "Selfish" Shield Healer
AST - Supporting Pure Healer
WHM - "Selfish" Pure Healer

That would keep them away from Aetherflow stacks being used for (direct) damage, would push up SCH to be similar level of support to its pure healer counterpart (AST), but also give SCH something to use it on when they don't need it for healing.

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There is no such thing as a selfish healer. Only selfish People, which in turn is just human nature.

The whole concept of a healer is to support others trough healing and backline support, hence the Name, if anything, its a role for selfless people.

What's far more important than any dps numbers on healers, is the fact that those Jobs (and tanks too) are way more desperate on having their own identity, since there is too much focus being paid of them being healers first, and WHM/SCH/AST and probably sage too, instead of the other way arround

I feel the word "selfish" is a red herring, but is a word applied to the DPS role equivalent of the concept suggested. So I think the implication is that one would be focused on Healing + Big DPS, the other would be focused on Healer + DPS + DPS support. Kind of like how SAM has no abilities to boost party DPS, whereas DNC does.

But dare I say, I feel like they wouldn't do this with SCH. They're already stripped SCH of its utility and have only left in Chain Stratagem. Possibly they'll do it to Sage, it sounds like it'll be able to enhance its own abilities so it might offer other benefits too.

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Originally Posted by Anhra

There is no such thing as a selfish healer. Only selfish People, which in turn is just human nature.

The whole concept of a healer is to support others trough healing and backline support, hence the Name, if anything, its a role for selfless people.

What's far more important than any dps numbers on healers, is the fact that those Jobs (and tanks too) are way more desperate on having their own identity, since there is too much focus being paid of them being healers first, and WHM/SCH/AST and probably sage too, instead of the other way arround

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You're misunderstanding what I'm talking about. WHM currently is a selfish healer in that they don't provide any DPS support abilities outside of the damage that it does. SCH and AST are already support healers (more AST than SCH) due to AST's cards/divinity and SCH's Chain Strategum.

WHM doesn't have any abilities that raise the DPS of other party members, that's why they're "Selfish";AST and SCH have abilities that raise the DPS of other party members (Cards, Divinity, Chain Strategum) and therefore are "Supporting." The little talk of SGE design mentions that they'll have "abiltiies that buff their own spells" leaning towards it being a "selfish" healer.

The naming scheme is:

How they DPS/How they heal

"Selfish" Pure healer - Most/All of the damage that they deal is directly from abilities that they use and they have regens and pure heals
Supporting Shield Healer - A significant part of the damage they provide are buffs that cause other party members to deal more damage and they use shields to heal people.

I'm still surprised that they just re-added Energy Drain rather than making a new Aetherflow Dump. Something as simple as "Spend one Aetherflow Stack, Gain 20 Fae Gauge" would be relatively simple, a (partially) viable choice to make, and not be a DPS skill that they apparently don't want us to have. Granted, with the limited uses of our Fae Gauge skills, it's not really a lot (In before every skill involving Lily costs Gauge, including Summon Seraph. That'd be an issue), but it's something back for the unspent Aetherflow when we to use the skill for other things (MP recharge, just getting back to full stacks.)

I still don’t get it why we even need aether dump. I hardly use drain at all or feel the need to dump my ather. The sch mechanic is the easiest ever, cast excog on tank and then dps all the way. Simple as that.

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Originally Posted by ksuyen

I still don’t get it why we even need aether dump. I hardly use drain at all or feel the need to dump my ather. The sch mechanic is the easiest ever, cast excog on tank and then dps all the way. Simple as that.

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People use it to restore mp every 60 seconds. If you still have stacks that’s why people use energy drain. It restores a little mp, does damage and increases fey gauge. I usually am usually out of aether stacks before it’s up anyway and sometimes I’ll have one left I’ll just use ED to get back some mp then use AF.

Savage players use it more offensively to get more dps out of it since ED does damage they use it in their opener to get more damage out if healing isn’t needed during the opener, which usually it doesn’t.

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Originally Posted by ksuyen

I still don’t get it why we even need aether dump. I hardly use drain at all or feel the need to dump my ather. The sch mechanic is the easiest ever, cast excog on tank and then dps all the way. Simple as that.

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It's mostly an optimization tool (and I use "optimization" lightly here. It's a tool for anyone who doesn't want to waste resources). If you have stacks left by the time aetherflow comes back up (and if you're good you'll always have some left) then energy drain allows you to not waste those resources. In addition to that, it allows you to maintain a good dps baseline when you need to move around.
It's not uncommon to use over 90% of your stacks on Energy Drain (the most demanding fights will have you at around 80%). So in that sense, we REALLY need it.

More importantly. There's already nothing to do on sch. At least this gives us one measily option.

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Originally Posted by EaMett

It's mostly an optimization tool (and I use "optimization" lightly here. It's a tool for anyone who doesn't want to waste resources). If you have stacks left by the time aetherflow comes back up (and if you're good you'll always have some left) then energy drain allows you to not waste those resources. In addition to that, it allows you to maintain a good dps baseline when you need to move around.
It's not uncommon to use over 90% of your stacks on Energy Drain (the most demanding fights will have you at around 80%). So in that sense, we REALLY need it.

More importantly. There's already nothing to do on SCH. At least this gives us one measily option.

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SCH's Aetherflow is more a hindrance than useful ressource. The damage healers do is so bad, that the ONLY way to progress trough the later floors of PotD (140+) is by having to step on landmines in order to get anything killed, or else you spent spammimg that joke of a dpskit for over 2 Minutes on a single enemy, let that sink in for a moment here (also spare me with those Raid shadow legends excuses. Raiding isn't everything about the endgame).

And it is even worse in PvP. PvP should be designed arround 1on1 combat in order to function properly, not on teamfights. Healers are just a annoyance there that can neither kill or be killed (unless you face a first timer who ends up panicing), they just exist to make combat last longer than it should.

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Originally Posted by Anhra

And it is even worse in PvP. PvP should be designed arround 1on1 combat in order to function properly, not on teamfights. Healers are just a annoyance there that can neither kill or be killed (unless you face a first timer who ends up panicing), they just exist to make combat last longer than it should.

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This is literally the point of being a healer in pvp, to slow down the incoming damage and force the opposing team to change their priorities to remove that roadblock. I fail to understand how this is bad when this is literally the point of being a healer in a pvp setting.

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Originally Posted by Brandedblade

This is literally the point of being a healer in pvp, to slow down the incoming damage and force the opposing team to change their priorities to remove that roadblock. I fail to understand how this is bad when this is literally the point of being a healer in a pvp setting.

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No, it is not. Only someone who never played PvP outside of FFXIV can answer with nonsense like this (I am not blaming you for that, mind you.)
The Skillkits of each Job in FFXIV when it comes to PvP, is waaaay too small in oder to function properly for duels, there is no depth, multiple versions of raw dps Skills with different potencies, almost no additional effects that influence other Players in one way or another in a serious matter, No Status ailments aside the most basic one's such as a insignificant stun/sleep for each Job and the worst of all, rechargeable Potions which only serve to stall for time.
The lone fact that we have to endure a seperate Skillkit for PvP, only proves how inexperienced and naive Squeenix is when it comes to balancing Jobs. FFXIV is the only MMORPG i know that has this feature, and to noone's suprise, it only works in Group Fights, because when it comes to group battles, anything works as long as the damage numbers are acceptable since those indicate how long you spent inside content and be done with it.

In order for PvP to work properly, you need a foundation of Skills that is capable of responding to any situation to a certain degree that includes fighting back, or else you cant even have properly functioning duels. Take a look at Summoner for example, if you look at him, do you think he is summong anything? to me, its just a ordinary caster who just has alot of oGCD skills to faceroll on and nothing else.

I recomment that you take a look at youtube and watch from any MMO of your choice, be it WoW or any other MMO one or two PvP videos, and see how Healers can still be Healers, WHILE having at least the chance of killing other Classes, you'd be suprised how fun those look compared to FFXIV's version of "PvP".

And before anyone says it, balance has no place in PvP. The key to a good PvP experience is to break the "balance" while maintaining a equilibrium on all Jobs to a point, where any Class can say "Class X is better than Class Y in doing Z"

Hope that helps in any way.

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Originally Posted by Anhra

And before anyone says it, balance has no place in PvP. The key to a good PvP experience is to break the "balance" while maintaining a equilibrium on all Jobs to a point, where any Class can say "Class X is better than Class Y in doing Z".

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So, keep it balanced.

FF14 isn't a duel game. The PVP is designed around 4v4 for competitive play. Everything else that scales up from that is effectively no different than duel systems in zerg combat.

Even for a 4v4 game the pvp design is at best uninspired because neither does the engine allow for fast, reflex-based gameplay nor do the incredibly basic and extremely limited job designs allow for elaborate strategies.

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Originally Posted by Kabooa

So, keep it balanced.

FF14 isn't a duel game. The PVP is designed around 4v4 for competitive play. Everything else that scales up from that is effectively no different than duel systems in zerg combat.

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You mean that terrible Goose-chase they call Feast? That Mode is a shining example on how bad things really are for PvP. If it weren't for the unique rewards for the top 100 Players (of which almost all of them are part of the PvPaissa comnunity btw, which literally monopolizes on said gamemode), noone outside of JP Servers would even dare touching Feast even with a stick.

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Originally Posted by Anhra

You mean that terrible Goose-chase they call Feast? That Mode is a shining example on how bad things really are for PvP. If it weren't for the unique rewards for the top 100 Players (of which almost all of them are part of the PvPaissa comnunity btw, which literally monopolizes on said gamemode), noone outside of JP Servers would even dare touching Feast even with a stick.

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Have you ever done arena PVP?

Goose chasing is all it is.

Non-Melee (and even melee) don't just stand there trading blows. From WoW, to Aion, to Warhammer, to Guild Wars.

Standing still is death.

There is a noteable difference between a regular goose chase, and a terrible one.

FFXIV's goose chase is clearly the latter alone for the fact that that everyone not only has infinitely self restoring combat potions, but are also backed up by a Healing battery until either the ranged dps or the healer drops the soap from all the stale combat.

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Originally Posted by Anhra

SCH's Aetherflow is more a hindrance than useful ressource. The damage healers do is so bad, that the ONLY way to progress trough the later floors of PotD (140+) is by having to step on landmines in order to get anything killed, or else you spent spammimg that joke of a dpskit for over 2 Minutes on a single enemy, let that sink in for a moment here (also spare me with those Raid shadow legends excuses. Raiding isn't everything about the endgame).

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"Aetherflow is more of a hindrance", then a rant on how low healer dps is. I fail to see the relationship between the two, or your comment as a response to mine? Or your point? I also never mentioned raiding. ?_? I'm so confused.

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Originally Posted by Anhra

And it is even worse in PvP. PvP should be designed arround 1on1 combat in order to function properly, not on teamfights. Healers are just a annoyance there that can neither kill or be killed (unless you face a first timer who ends up panicing), they just exist to make combat last longer than it should.

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PvP absolutely does not need to be balanced around 1v1. Rock-Paper-scissors balance is a very common practice in game design and one you see in PvP quite frequently (and is just one of many examples that contradict your statement). That said, SE can definitly improve on their PvP, it just plain sucks.

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Originally Posted by SweetPete

Devs already said they want aetherflow to be used for healing not energy drain which is why they severely nerfed it. My guess is they will remove energy drain again along with aetherflow as it serves little purpose now. The mp gain is negligible at best. Just give lustrate 3 charges and Indomitability 2 charges. Leave sacred soil on a 30 second cooldown and leave excog on its 45 second cooldown and be done with aetherflow. It’s just gotten worst and worst over each expansion. Sick of that ability now. Change dissipation to a recharge of 1 lustrate and 1 indomitability on a 90 second cooldown and call it a day.

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Exactly, plus if they remove Energy Drain altogether, they should either add a Shielding aetherflow spender, or else you'll end up just overhealing with spare charges.