How do you define (meaningful) choice?

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Originally Posted by Post

I'd say WHM's gameplay has been bollocks since StB, frankly. The reason it improved going into ShB is they basically didn't touch it aside from their dumb lillies in StB, except that they drastically changed Cleric Stance. Most people probably don't agree that it was fun to play around, but the old stance-swapping Cleric Stance certainly added a lot of 'execution complexity' to healer gameplay. WHM most especially was affected by this considering the rest of their toolkit has always been "press button, directly heal targets" where SCH and AST have always been at least a little more involved to do their role itself.

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That change to Cleric Stance had already occurred (turning it into a bloat CD of just 5% more damage for... 10 seconds?) by Stormblood. The last time old Cleric Stance existed was Heavensward.

And it did not add 'execution complexity' to healer gameplay except to the most panicky of healers -- the ones we'd least want to affect. It was just floor, no ceiling -- iconically bad design.

Casting an attack, unless you're going to waste that time spent through a cancel, already locks you into attacking for that GCD. Cleric Stance just locked you in for... a single GCD more.

That is, assuming it didn't bug/lag out, fail to turn off, only to be automatically turned on again once you finally gave up on it deactivating and hit it again, causing it to double, and you made sure not to take any Spell Speed as to have to wait a portion of a GCD more just to begin your next, none of which should be the reasons for a given action adding "difficulty".

I disagree about it being only floor and not ceiling, because that single GCD more is something you had to be aware of, and it made actions like Regen more useful. Yes, it affected healers that were afraid to dps more, but WHM literally gained nothing in its loss, and lost more stuff, sorta like how DRK lost most of its kit to all tanks going into StB with the advent of Role Actions.

Also, I know. I specifically started that post with "been bollocks since StB" because that's when the change to Cleric Stance happened. StB means Stormblood.

WHM didn't gain any complexity in StB, it just lost. The other healers were brought down to its level in ShB.

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Originally Posted by Post

but WHM literally gained nothing in its loss, and lost more stuff, sorta like how DRK lost most of its kit to all tanks going into StB with the advent of Role Actions.

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Which has nothing to do with old Cleric Stance being shit design. As you just pointed out, every role was affected that way, not just healers and certainly not just Cleric Stance. Its removal was largely unnoticeable to anyone who wasn't bad at handling Cleric Stance. Even the addition of Lilies and Benison being locked behind having at least one Lily was more impactful to our decision-making than was CS.

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Also, I know. I specifically started that post with "been bollocks since StB" because that's when the change to Cleric Stance happened. StB means Stormblood.

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Mate, I only have what you wrote to determine whether by "since" you mean "since Stormblood began" (i.e., when leaving Heavensward) or "since Stormblood ended" (i.e., when going into Shadowbringer):

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Originally Posted by Post

The reason it improved going into ShB is they basically didn't touch it aside from their dumb lillies in StB, except that they drastically changed Cleric Stance.

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Given that sentence, one would have to assume the latter.

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Tl;dr:

No, old Cleric Stance was not a good mechanic -- fundamentally, or certainly in execution.

If added back, it would almost certainly do more harm than good, whether it just become two additional weave spaces required per oGCD cast in the present context or if we actually had our way in terms of increased relative healing requirements, etc.

Yes, WHM should have had better additions in Stormblood than <literally the most iconic example across any expansion of a poorly executed addition to ever be added to any job>, but that is not relevant to its quality as a mechanic, nor was its removal significantly more felt on WHM than on other healers.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

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I know it's not often, but I extremely agree with you on this one.

Cleric Stance was SUCH a bad ability, and it's removal made the Jobs better. Either they were hamstrung by it and it was just all floor (WHM mostly, also AST), or it didn't matter because they did their healing through mitigation and other things instead that at least partially bypassed the negatives (SCH); and it was also janky as heck.

I do agree that cleric stance was a pain in the butt but you can’t deny that it was “the” skill expression for any good healer worth his salt. I think it felt better then use a empty lily when the party is full because I want my blood lily ever minute. I argue I had more decision making with cleric then I do have now, with my 100 ogcd buttons.

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Originally Posted by Mortex

I do agree that cleric stance was a pain in the butt but you can’t deny that it was “the” skill expression for any good healer worth his salt. I think it felt better then use a empty lily when the party is full because I want my blood lily ever minute. I argue I had more decision making with cleric then I do have now, with my 100 ogcd buttons.

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You had more button presses, because it added a button-press before and after any moment of healing, but it did not add decision-making. After the stat split after Stone Vigil gear, potency of anything using INT instead of MND was so low that it was basically just a waste of MP.

Luckily, its cooldown locked us into CS, not locked out of it, but even that meant you'd stay out of CS only for a single GCD of healing (preferably a Regen or AspBen), and only so long as that because of the limited weave space at the time.

To say CS caused "decision-making" is like insisting that a half-broken clutch complete with a jank gearbox provides more "decision-making" than flipper shifters and perfect gear box operation. There was a clear best answer for when to change gears (which you could have done without CS by just... casting an attack/heal) and the lock-in was virtually irrelevant unless the shifter jammed. And if it jamming is all that forms that "decision-making", yeah, that's a shit mechanic.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

To say CS caused "decision-making" is like insisting that a half-broken crutch provides more "decision-making" than flipper shifters. There was a clear best answer for when to change gears and the lock-in was virtually irrelevant unless it jammed.

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I assume you meant clutch, rather than crutch, but you also make me realize that I'm like those people who insist that manual is better than automatic when it comes to gearboxes on cars

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Originally Posted by ForsakenRoe

I assume you meant clutch, rather than crutch, but you also make me realize that I'm like those people who insist that manual is better than automatic when it comes to gearboxes on cars

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It is, though. Having a little lever to ka-chunk around is cool.

The choice to use Cleric Stance was the exact same choice you’d make when using any of your DPS actions, and inversely, the choice to end Cleric Stance was the same choice you’d make when stopping DPS.

Unless there was any circumstance in which you would use one without the other, old Cleric Stance was arbitrary when it came to gameplay decision-making, and at worst punished the entire party any time the healer had so much as a minor technical error or lag spike at the wrong picosecond.

Even the reworked Cleric Stande was silly. A 5% DPS increase on healers who already have extremely low DPS output amounts to almost nothing. You ask the server for more bread for your tomato soup, and they sprinkle a pinch of crouton crumbs on top of your soup. That’s what Stormblood Cleric Stance was.

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Originally Posted by ForsakenRoe

I assume you meant clutch, rather than crutch, but you also make me realize that I'm like those people who insist that manual is better than automatic when it comes to gearboxes on cars

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I did. I'm not sure why my phone auto-corrected that.

Note also, though, that the contrast was still between two forms of manual -- just one being jankier than the other. The same not-quite-controllable/predictable delay and unresponsiveness that tends to make an automatic gearbox feel inferior... is nearly the whole of what CS "added" to the equation.