FFXIV Job Design Feedback

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Originally Posted by Renathras

It is one reason I think this survey (or the participants) are somehow particularly tilted against Healers. In most forums where BRD is talked about (both here and elsewhere), it's almost universally being ragged on. Yet here, it's scoring higher than Healers despite people being more negative on it basically everywhere. Which kinda tells me the survey results are being affected by a bit of sample bias or something.

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I mean it couldn't possibly be that healers are just that bad right?

Impossible!

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Originally Posted by Semirhage

I find it fascinating that it *must* be bias. Has to be. Sampling or otherwise. No *true* population canvassing could possibly report dislike or boredom toward job design that involves rotting your brain mashing the Glare key six million times over the course of two expansions. It's such a brilliantly-designed set of jobs. No way people could find them boring or poorly-designed. It's got to be the encounter design fooling them into thinking that Glare Glare Glare Glare Glare Glare Glare Glare is boring. Has to be. It's. So. Fun.

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Surely it must be because healers can’t be bad, right??! /s

L m a o

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Originally Posted by yookilaylee

Very happy and relieved to see a lot of Bard DoT defenders around!!

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Not even a main BRD myself but I do really miss the relevancy of BRD’s DoT ticks. I felt this so much when I got into Paradigm Tower as a BRD couple of weeks ago. Back in ShB, I remember spamming Pitch Perfect like crazy while playing Minuet once I got all DoT ticking on both Hangry bosses. It.was.ecstatic!

Not anymore, no more :( Never experienced pre-ShB BRD but reading old guides/watching old vids makes me think it’ll be my secondary job after my healer main, they looked pretty awesome.

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Originally Posted by Sebazy

I mean it couldn't possibly be that healers are just that bad right?

Impossible!

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It COULD, but unlikely since there are other Jobs that are consistently ragged on as being REALLY bad AND that people who played the older versions hate aside from SMN that are getting oddly high marks.

Another curiosity to me is that WHM is the second lowest healer and under 5.0 now (after it was discussed how they weren't), but is arguably the best shape it's been in for the game's entire history (if you didn't love Cleric), and has either the most engaging, or second most engaging, GCD rotation (vying for the position with SGE), yet is rated so much lower for...reasons?

I dunno, there's some things that don't add up well. /shrug That's all I'm saying.

Also: This isn't the Healer forum, you can save your dogpile for there.

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Originally Posted by Renathras

It COULD, but unlikely since there are other Jobs that are consistently ragged on as being REALLY bad AND that people who played the older versions hate aside from SMN that are getting oddly high marks.

Another curiosity to me is that WHM is the second lowest healer and under 5.0 now (after it was discussed how they weren't), but is arguably the best shape it's been in for the game's entire history (if you didn't love Cleric), and has either the most engaging, or second most engaging, GCD rotation (vying for the position with SGE), yet is rated so much lower for...reasons?

I dunno, there's some things that don't add up well. /shrug That's all I'm saying.

Also: This isn't the Healer forum, you can save your dogpile for there.

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You sound like a main healer that cant accept his role is the worst designed healer role in probably the whole mmo genre

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Originally Posted by Shinkuno

You sound like a main healer that cant accept his role is the worst designed healer role in probably the whole mmo genre

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I'm not interested in getting in a tit for tat, and this is General, not Healer subform, so I'd advise against ad hominems in lieu of arguments.

I'm pointing out issues, that's all. Besides, when we started this (the long form survey first), even Ty noted that the results would be biased, particularly against healers. So I'm not pointing out something we didn't already agree was likely.

In fact, if I recall correctly, HE was the one that pointed it out in the first place...

EDIT: Oh, and don't state subjective opinions as fact. They aren't "worst designed" just because you don't like them. Their design is fine, the encounter designs have issues, though, in breaking down the trinity system as a whole...

WHM, for example, is one of the best designed Healers in MMOs IF you like to heal. The encounter design sucks for it since it doesn't really lean into healing, much, though. Now, if you like to damage? Yeah, FFXIV's Healers are all pretty badly designed for that. But that's why we have DPS Jobs, I guess? But WHM nails the fantasy of having powerful and efficient heals to keep your party alive. Put FFXIV's EW WHM into, for example, WoW's 4.1 Troll dungeons (the ones that caused a lot of healers in WoW to quit), for example, for a pretty solid time. Conclusion is: The Healer design isn't bad, much less "worst". But FFXIV's encounter design is becoming problematic with it breaking down the trinity to the point of obsolescence.

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Originally Posted by RitsukoSonoda

Then again they also used to just call the rest Ranged DPS and separate them into 2 subtypes.

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Until ShB, I think it was, they only called the Jobs Tank, Healer, and DPS. They didn't split the DPS until ShB, seemingly so they could justify adding DNC. When they first said "We need another 'Ranged Physical DPS'", a lot of the community was confused because they had never made that distinction before and it wasn't listed in the game as distinct.

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

It’s true that what constitutes as a minor or major rework may differ depending on who you ask, but in general, a “rework” in games defines a fundamental shift in the play style of a class or character. As Roe stated, that does not mean literally nothing is added or removed, because that is never the case. Every expansion, every job is required to include new abilities because if they don’t, there is a fear of backlash.

No rework was meant to imply a normal amount of new actions, and maybe some subtle cleaning up of existing tools. For example, I do not think the removal of Shadowbringers Fluid Aura constitutes as a rework, and I imagine most people would agree. But I think we’re getting in the weeds over the semantics. The point of that question was to see how people felt about how each job’s gameplay feels.

No rework = this job has good gameplay and nothing specific is needed.

Minor rework = there is some clunkiness that needs to be ironed out, but otherwise the job is good.

Major rework = the job has a good concept, but does not feel fun/satisfying/rewarding to play and/or is not functioning properly.

Overhaul = The job is completely failing to deliver on its design and/or job fantasy and needs to be rebuilt from the ground up.

I wanted to keep each answer short and clear though, which is why I didn’t try to add that much detail to each response option. If it’s too long wordy, it may have gotten ignored.

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I feel like that probably SHOULD have been in the original. I would have said No Rework instead of Minor Rework in several cases.

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Originally Posted by Renathras

It COULD, but unlikely since there are other Jobs that are consistently ragged on as being REALLY bad AND that people who played the older versions hate aside from SMN that are getting oddly high marks.

Another curiosity to me is that WHM is the second lowest healer and under 5.0 now (after it was discussed how they weren't), but is arguably the best shape it's been in for the game's entire history (if you didn't love Cleric), and has either the most engaging, or second most engaging, GCD rotation (vying for the position with SGE), yet is rated so much lower for...reasons?

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WHM is arguably in the best shape it has been in terms of lily usage, but taking away stuff from WHM consistently has already reduced its gameplay over the years. If it was at one point a 4 and then it dropped to a 2, just because it's in its best state as a 5, doesn't mean it's still good when the bar is up to a 10.

Also, What GCD rotation are you talking about? All WHM has is Glare and Dia. Assuming you're including Afflatus spells, you also have to remember that Afflatus spells fall under conditional usage - You use Afflatus spells to access Misery, but Afflatus spells are ultimately healing, and healing is part of a binary condition where you simply use it when people need healing or to avoid overcapping. There's virtually no thought to be had in it in most cases because of how much excessive healing you have in the first place. It doesn't matter if WHM suddenly has "4 GCD spells" in its rotation, if you're healing when you don't need to, it doesn't feel good. The GCD rotation doesn't feel rewarding and lacks engagement.

SGE barely has a different GCD rotation than WHM in all honesty. They have Dosis and Eukrasian Dosis (Glare / Dia equivalent), and Phlegma every 40 seconds. That's it. Toxikon II is so niche in its usage because it doesn't generate normally (limited to 3 at most if you never have to GCD shield) and doesn't have a purpose outside of double weaves/mobility. Double weaves are also because you want to use your healing skills -- which ultimately puts Toxikon II as a skill for your healing rotation -- which again brings up the previous issue. If you don't need healing, it doesn't actually have a place in your GCD rotation. Pneuma is also in its healing rotation and you don't use it under your GCD rotation every 120 seconds. Ultimately, 2 of a SGE's "GCD skills" are relegated to a binary conditional. In terms of diversity, SGE doesn't have it much better because Phlegma is 2 charges -- so there's a point where you just want to hold both charges when possible to dump it in raid buff windows now that all raid buffs are aligned to 120 seconds. The majority of the time is still spent on Dosis.

What puts SCH arguably above WHM is not due to its GCD rotation, but it's due to its engagement with Energy Drain optimization, as well as a more well-designed toolkit for encounters (mitigation checks only make SCH and SGE feel better). GCD Rotation only matters if there's enough to create a diverse and satisfying gameplay. SCH doesn't have a GCD rotation outside of Broil / Biolysis (Glare / Dia equivalents), but can be rated similarly to the both of the healers above exactly because WHM and SGE's "GCD rotations" doesn't feel as meaningful to its engagement. SCH instead excels at micromanaging excess healing resources they don't need through Energy Drain -- which provides a more meaningful engagement to its gameplay. It's still rated as a 5 out of 10 on average though, and that's no surprise because there's nothing else that's engaging outside of healing (which, again, is not always applicable).

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Originally Posted by Renathras

Another curiosity to me is that WHM is the second lowest healer and under 5.0 now (after it was discussed how they weren't), but is arguably the best shape it's been in for the game's entire history (if you didn't love Cleric), and has either the most engaging, or second most engaging, GCD rotation (vying for the position with SGE), yet is rated so much lower for...reasons?

I dunno, there's some things that don't add up well. /shrug That's all I'm saying.

Also: This isn't the Healer forum, you can save your dogpile for there.

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Key point here, it's the best it's been in terms of balance. Balance and engagement are two very different things.

Two big details that you're ignoring here:

Healer engagement is arguably at the lowest it's ever been in mainstream content. You yourself keep saying that FFXIV's healers can be fixed entirely with changes to content and whilst I don't agree with that (More in a moment), you are at least partially right in that content design is a part of the problem here. Let's lay down some cold numbers here: You keep saying that BarbEX is a good fight that deals loads of damage. I've already clearly demonstrated that it actually deals substantially less damage than RubiEX (Even with the puzzle phases included), but here's what will make your head really spin. BarbEX has roughly the same HPS requirements as Emerald WeaponEX. A trial from last expansion. Go think about that for a second.

Secondly. Hand waving away anyone who so much dares as to claim that FFXIV's healers are poorly designed as subjective is comical. Did you ever touch healing in Swotor? Did you ever touch healing in Warhammer online? Both MMOs had healers who's kits had serious depth, broad utility and massively diverse styles of play with a ton of inter-kit interactions.

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WHM, for example, is one of the best designed Healers in MMOs IF you like to heal.

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Really? I'd legit expect this comment from Titanmen. A bloated kit full of overpowered abilities that trivialise anything the game is capable of throwing at you short of just oneshotting people doesn't equate to a well designed kit. Go look at E12S part 1. That boss literally throws AoEs every time it so much as sneazes, it takes a spreadsheet masterclass to minimise GCD heal usage on that fight but yet even with all the AoEs, you can just /shrug your shoulders and deal with it with Medica IIs. Thus we've ended up at the point where the only challenge to healing that matters isn't even really a healer check (If you're a WHM at least), it's a mitigation check.

Best designed healers don't make me laugh. You don't know what the F you are talking about.

To expand and clarify some of my points above (Sorry, had to head out and missed important details in the process)

Regarding BarbEX. The thing that makes BarbEX a fun fight isn't the incoming damage because it's mathematically demonstrable that it's not actually that high in the grand scheme of things, it just felt that way after ZodiEX which did a lot of nothing, HydaEX which was a soft touch and EndsingerEX being a slowly paced puzzle. Where BarbEX shines is the pacing of the fight. She's winding up her next mechanic whilst the previous one is still resolving. There's relatively little downtime, if you take your eye off the ball for a few GCDs after resolving one mechanic, you've likely missed the start of the next one. It was that pacing and pressure that made mechanics like Knuckledrum feel good.

So yes, content design definitely has a lot of room to improve and even as someone who's been around and on the edge of world prog since ARR, SE's current 'esports friendly' design approach to high end content just feels super strange and at odds with the rest of the game to me. Sudo's designs were so much more organic and less 'by the numbers'. By comparison today's bosses feel like a box ticking exercise. AoE 5 seconds into the fight to remind healers that we care about them? Check.

Next up, expanding on healer kit design:

Look at it this way, take 2 BLMs in a soft 24 man like Aglaia. #1 is an absolute try hard with the talent, experience and knowledge to back it up. #2 has read the tooltips and knows to keep their GCD rolling but doesn't have anything like the same experience or knowledge. The #1 will decisively beat #2 even in this face roll content. This is a big part in why so many think so fondly of the job. You put the effort in, you get a reward out.

Now apply the same to 2 WHMs. #1 is my usual co-healer Fretty, quite literally a top 10 ranked SCH worldwide at his peak, #2 is me, a meme at best, a HPS monster at worst. In casual content like Aglaia I can match him or at the very least run him damn close. This isn't because I'm good and it's not entirely the fault of the content because after all, there's a clear gap between the BLMs. The problem is that as long as I'm mashing keys, it's very hard to press the wrong one without doing something REALLY stupid as a healer. The only reason why Fretty and myself are likely to gap other healers in the raid is because they are mindlessly overhealing or simply don't care.

And that right there makes up the bulk of the skill curve for a healer in your average 24 man raid (or other mid tier content) right now. Do you actually care? Can you watch your screen? Can you read a tooltip? If so, congrats you can likely keep up with some of the most talented healers this game has.

That is NOT good design by any stretch of the imagination.

Again, I wasn't the one who said it:

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

Something you've brought up before which is true is that there are many more players who have little issues with healers, or any job really, out playing the game, and getting their input is something that would be difficult to collect since they are part of the largest group of players that are basically "go-with-the-flow" type players who tend to be fairly content with most things as long as they don't find changes to be a chore or frustrating to deal with.

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Originally Posted by AnotherPerson

WHM is arguably in the best shape it has been in terms of lily usage, but taking away stuff from WHM consistently has already reduced its gameplay over the years. If it was at one point a 4 and then it dropped to a 2, just because it's in its best state as a 5, doesn't mean it's still good when the bar is up to a 10.

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A fair point, but what I'm getting at is that the negative bias is likely rating them lower HERE than the community as a whole (if we were able to poll the entire playerbase) would. Meaning it wasn't 4 -> 2 -> 5. It was probably 7/6 -> 5/4 -> 7/8

Solace/Rapture (particularly Rapture) is part of your GCD rotation and healing plan. Where other Healers would use oGCDs, WHM uses Lilies (particularly Rapture, occasionally Solace) for. Even when using some oGCDs (like Plenary Indulgence), Rapture is the go-to AOE heal to proc its additional effect. Lilies are GCD heals that are part of your mapped out healing plan for encounters. Further, Misery is a damage gain over Glare if used in burst windows, even if there's no healing, using Solace/Rapture is a DPS gain (if you put the resulting Misery in a buff window) or DPS neutral (if you do not), meaning AT WORST, Solace/Rapture can be used as part of your GCD rotation for movement even if the entire party is at 100% health (which is almost never true anyway; at the least, the main Tank will almost always be at least some amount below 100% health)

If you're engaging in high end optimization, then the GCD rotation is rewarding and engaging because it's actually part of your healing strategy/plan. That is, if you're playing it right. If you're not optimizing, then it doesn't matter either way. So there's almost no time that the healing IS completely wasted, and it's always a damage gain if played correctly, and not a damage loss in either case.

Contrast AST, which has a 2 button DPS GCD rotation (Combust and Malific), or SCH which has a 3 button DPS GCD rotation, which is effectively two buttons, Biolysis and Broil, since Ruin 2's use is almost nonexistent now that Broil has a 1.5 sec cast time making it highly useful for movement and weaving. See this thread - https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...s-then-and-now - where I laid out the case for why Broil IV's cast time reduction really took a hammer to SCH's "rotation".

SGE has one Plegma per 40 sec (that can stack to 2 charges), and damage neutral Toxicon (3 at the start of a fight, can gain more but it's a DPS loss unless the shields are put up during downtime) and Pneuma (also DPS neutral GCD heal but on a 2 min CD so not really part of anything resembling a rotation). This provides more direct damage options, but with a slower cadence.

That is, WHM casts fewer Glares than SGE does Dosis, and AST and SCH are actually the ones that cast their basic nuke the most. WHM's Glarespam is broken up by Afflatus abilities, 4 per minute (consider you have 24 GCDs per minute, and that makes up 1/6th of them), and SGE's Plegma breaks up its Dosisspam ~1.5 times per minute (3 per 2 minutes). SCH and AST do not have any GCD damage ability that breaks up their nukespam unless you count Macrocosmos, which is a once per 3 min CD so not part of the standard rotation.

I'm not saying it's god tier, but WHM has the most GCDs devoted to damage (either directly or through Misery) of any Healer, and because of the way Misery works, its Afflatus GCD heals can be part of its healing plan, something no other Healer allows for (all the others use exclusively oGCDs for their healing plan outside of the rare SCH ultrashield type shenanegans)

In that thread, I compared WHM to SB WHM. I did this with all the healers, but WHM was the only one that came out of the changes better off than it was before in terms of "breaking up the nukespam":

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Originally Posted by Renathras

In practice, SB WHM cast Aero 2 3.333... times per minute and Aero 3 2.5 times per minute. This is a total of 5.833... GCD casts per minute that weren't Stone IV.

In practice, EW WHM casts Dia 2 times per minute, 3 Afflatus (Solace/Rapture) per minute, and 1 Afflatus Misery per minute. This is a total of 6 GCD casts per minute that aren't Glare III.

On balance, EW WHM is casting non-Glare damage (or damage-adjacent Solace/Rapture) spells on roughly the same average frequency as SB era WHM did.

The real difference, honestly, is on the HEALING side, where a proliferation of oGCD heals (even on WHM) and the healing done by Afflatus heals can largely push non-Afflatus GCD heals off of average use, resulting in more Glare casts. Afflatus spells are, of course, being cast, but as noted, these can be thought of as part of the DPS rotation equivalent to the lost Aero 2 and 3 casts, so the foregone casts are Medica, Medica 2, Cure 2, Cure 3, and Regens, resulting in more "dead" GCDs that are filled with Glare.

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As for SCH:

That's highly subjective. If you look at the long form answers to the Healer survey posted to Reddit both linked here: https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...-Healer-Survey

Main page: https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...healer_survey/

Discussion page: https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxivdiscus...healer_survey/

...the number one COMPLAINT about SCH was Energy Drain. It seems a large portion of the community doesn't find it engaging, they find it punitive. SCH has some interesting (at least to a lot of people) Aetherflow spenders. Excogitation and Sacred Soil are both abilities many players like to use. But they feel their hands are tied because of Energy Drain. One of the most cited requests was removing Energy Drain or making it not spend Aetherflow, and SGE was routinely praised by the respondents for NOT having that handicap.

Even in this survey, it was a common complaint:

"...and Energy Drain using Aetherflow stacks needs to be reworked to be more like SGE where you aren't penalized for using them for healing."

"Energy drain should give aether stacks and disspation dump them if you have an excess ( ideally it should have a situational reward for it ), make the CD for getting aetherflow shorter for compensate the lack of old dissipation."

"Attacking actions, I hate Energy Drain. It need to be removed or have the Aetherflow cost removed"

"I love using Aetherflow abilities, but Energy Drain means I can't use them without being a bad player, and that just sucks. I hate that feeling so much."

"Delete Energy Drain" (like, that was someone's whole comment on it, lol)

"Change Energy Drain from costing Aetherflow to just being an oGCD attack"

"Detach healing ogcds from energy drain. "

"Energy drain is a unique idea, using extra aetherflow not used for mit to boost your damage, but unfortunately it results in the average wanna-be rank 1 spamming all their aetherflow on ED and letting the party die. Remove it and use lustrate to burn excess gauge, like how sage does or rework energy drain. More DoTs would be cool."

...clearly, there's no consensus, but the idea that Energy Drain is good or that people overall like it is dubious. Indeed, the most requested thing for SCH was adding more (GCD, presumably) DoTs, not making more of its kit work like Energy Drain, where there were a lot of requests to change it or outright remove it.

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When people talk about Healers being boring, one thing often cited IS the GCD nukespam. Pointing out that WHM has the LEAST OF IT is valid.

WHM's bigger problem is that it has so much redundancy in its healing kit. It's the worst example, but WHM effectively has 3 versions of Cure 2. Cure 2, Tetra, and Solace all do essentially the same thing. The other main complaint is that healing (encounter design problem) is needed so little, that the toolkit seems overly healing bloated/powerful for the actual tasks it is required to do.

The thing about the Healing Jobs is they are well designed to have specialties, but then the game's encounter design no longer uses them - it once did, mind you, in SB, HW, and ARR. SCH was designed to work really well as an oGCD based Job that spent most of its GCD time upkeeping DoTs. WHM was designed originally as a GCD healer which spent much of its time upkeeping HoTs and spot healing (once upon a time, Freecure made sense as that was how the Job was actually played when MP was an issue and the focus was on spot healing). AST was based on having a Pure and Barrier stance, so it having all these mitigations on top of its powerful (clone of WHM) healing toolkit made sense, and it also had an entire side-game of something like 12 Arcana related abilities (between Draw, Play, Stock, Royal Road, and the various undraw/redraw mechanics that several of those had), so it having a super slim DPS kit made sense as the engagement was from the expansive oGCD toolkit, both for healing but moreso for managing its buff stack.

The problem is, encounter design changed, so that even the Healer that got better (WHM) is seen as worse despite objectively working better than it did then.

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That is:

From a design perspective, WHM is better now than it was in ShB or in SB, and depending on how you view Cleric (a lot of people hated it), better than HW or ARR.

This is what I mean by looking at Job/class design as separate from encounter design. Designs can absolutely not match encounters. That doesn't make them bad design. Especially when the encounter design used to more fit them.

That said:

SCH and AST were objectively better off in SB.

So take that as you will.

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Originally Posted by Sebazy

Key point here, it's the best it's been in terms of balance. Balance and engagement are two very different things.

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No, it's ALSO the best it's been in terms of balance. I've played WHM since ARR, the engagement is the same as it was. I've even shown you that before... The only issue there is, as I said above, needing fewer GCDs for healing. On average, you cast an Afflatus ability more or less as often as you would have cast an Aero 1 (HW) or Aero 3 (SB), so it has parity in that sense, and unlike ShB, doing so is always damage neutral (or a damage gain if Misery is used during burst windows).

SCH? AST? Oh yes, they DEFINITELY were different back then. WHM? Not so much other than you don't have to deal with Cleric like HW, but that was also true in SB.

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Originally Posted by Sebazy

BarbEX has roughly the same HPS requirements as Emerald WeaponEX. A trial from last expansion. Go think about that for a second.

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Mhm. Again, encounter design. I'm not sure what the Devs are thinking at this point.

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Originally Posted by Sebazy

Secondly. Hand waving away anyone who so much dares as to claim that FFXIV's healers are poorly designed as subjective is comical.

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Good thing I'm not doing that, then. I'm noting someone stating as undisputable fact FFXIV's healers are THE WORST DESIGNED is subjective and not likely true.

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Originally Posted by Sebazy

Did you ever touch healing in Swotor?

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I did, but didn't enjoy it and didn't play it much. I kinda liked what the Agent/Smuggler looked like they might do (sustain healing using Combo Points like if a WoW Rogue had a healing skill tree) something interesting, but I never could get into that game for some reason.

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Originally Posted by Sebazy

Did you ever touch healing in Warhammer online?

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Nope. And that game seemed so much a failure that...well, it's not around anymore, is it?

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Originally Posted by Sebazy

Both MMOs had healers who's kits had serious depth, broad utility and massively diverse styles of play with a ton of inter-kit interactions.

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...because both games had combat systems that were not as rigid as FFXIV's, agreed? Nor is WoW's. Nor was RIFT's (a game I did play some of). The issue here comes less down to Healer design and more a combination of FFXIV's encounter design (which you seem to at least acknowledge) and that FFXIV's combat system is very rigid. For example, a sustain Healer wouldn't work in FFXIV's combat design because of the damage spikes being something it wouldn't have an answer to. We're seeing this in FFXIV's DPS/Tank design as well, just with the 2 min meta likewise making sustain damage Jobs (pre-6.3 PLD) unviable. The healing check spikes are a healer version of the 2 min meta...

...and honestly, I'm surprised I've never put that together before now. Huh.

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Originally Posted by Sebazy

Really? I'd legit expect this comment from Titanmen.

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Who?

I feel this is an attempt at an ad hominem or insult...

Did you play WoW in 4.1 as a Healer, by chance? I was the only Healer I knew that didn't boycott doing dungeons that patch. Cataclysm saw so many Healer players retire because their healing kits WEREN'T powerful enough for the content. FFXIV's Healers now would work in that kind of content just fine.

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The one really big issue right now is that encounter design isn't actually flexing Healer toolkits AND/OR the Healers have WAY too many and too powerful oGCD heals. Fix either of those issues and the entire landsape would change.

Though personally, I'm also a fan of giving SGE it's SB rotation back and AST its SB incarnation as well (which also seem to be popular overall)

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Originally Posted by Sebazy

Best designed

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I didn't say they were the best designed, now did I?

Worst designed healers don't make me laugh. You don't know what the F you are talking about.

Again:

From a design perspective, WHM is better now than it was in ShB or in SB, and depending on how you view Cleric (a lot of people hated it), better than HW or ARR.

This is what I mean by looking at Job/class design as separate from encounter design. Designs can absolutely not match encounters. That doesn't make them bad design. Especially when the encounter design used to more fit them.

That said:

SCH and AST were objectively better off in SB.

So take that as you will.

EDIT2:

This I agree with, though:

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Originally Posted by Sebazy

So yes, content design definitely has a lot of room to improve and even as someone who's been around and on the edge of world prog since ARR, SE's current 'esports friendly' design approach to high end content just feels super strange and at odds with the rest of the game to me. Sudo's designs were so much more organic and less 'by the numbers'. By comparison today's bosses feel like a box ticking exercise. AoE 5 seconds into the fight to remind healers that we care about them? Check.

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One thing I'm not certain of, though - I've seen it said the Devs (or Yoshi P) have said they'll never go back to HW designs. I'm guessing that means Cleric, but not sure since I've never seen the exact quote. Or even if there is a quote and it wasn't just made up... I'm curious if it was real/legitimate or not. And I don't think they ever want a repeat of Midas/Gordias.

There are a few things to note about forum engagement vs playerbase that's worth mentioning. The amount of players active on either here or reddit is small in comparison to the total population, and I think it's safe to assume that those outspoken in these spaces are likely more impassioned about job design issues overall than the population of players that are not active in thread discussions. Having said that, there's a fatal flaw in using the broader audience as a weapon against the criticisms that the healers, or any job generally faces: we have no way to actually quantify that difference in player opinion.

How many players that do not visit reddit or the forums actively think positively of the healers? How many of them feel more neutral about the healers, but are content playing as one? How many of them are not active healer mains and merely flex into the healing role as needed? How many of them would feel unhappy with the types of changes regularly proposed on the healer forums? How many of them aren't bothered by healers currently, but would enjoy the types of changes proposed on the healer forums? How many of them would feel indifferent and wouldn't change their opinion either way?

Unless you have a way to identify those percentages, you also cannot say that the harsher criticism of healer design found on the healer forums is not reflective of the community's general perception, just more intense or cutthroat. Note that these surveys were shared over on the healer forums earlier than this thread was posted, and it was the healers that started out with a higher vote count of somewhere in the 20s where many of the healers active on the healer forums input their feedback first, resulting in very low averages of around 2.5 - 3.5 for all healers. Now that many more players who do not frequent the healer corner, reddit players, and lurkers have input their feedback, the vote count is significantly higher, and the averages now sit around the 4.5 - 5.5 range. So we've already seen how the perspective has shifted, and I would argue that's is far closer to what the general perception is probably like: the healers aren't hated as much, but aren't really seen as good either--inoffensive.

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Originally Posted by Renathras

No, it's ALSO the best it's been in terms of balance. I've played WHM since ARR, the engagement is the same as it was. I've even shown you that before... The only issue there is, as I said above, needing fewer GCDs for healing. On average, you cast an Afflatus ability more or less as often as you would have cast an Aero 1 (HW) or Aero 3 (SB), so it has parity in that sense, and unlike ShB, doing so is always damage neutral (or a damage gain if Misery is used during burst windows).

SCH? AST? Oh yes, they DEFINITELY were different back then. WHM? Not so much other than you don't have to deal with Cleric like HW, but that was also true in SB.

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But it's not that simple. Resource limitation was a real concern pretty much from Titan Hard Mode onwards. MP was a valuable resource and perhaps even more starkly compared to today, Time was also highly precious and multiple factors all compounded to steal it away from you whilst your tank's HP was dwindling. Hit Cleric at a bad moment? Cool that's 2 GCDs spent in limbo unless you want to blow Bene, if bene is down that's potentially as much as 8 seconds before you're able to get more healing on the Tank. Having to think, plan ahead and assess risks just isn't something we have to do anymore despite that being a fundamental part of healer gameplay in most other MMOs. Our kits allow us to just delete problems, repeatedly. That's an issue.

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Originally Posted by Renathras

Nope. And that game seemed so much a failure that...well, it's not around anymore, is it?

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It failed because it was a vertical progression MMO and EA refused to invest sufficiently in keeping the content treadmill going. And yet despite it's commercial failure, it's well loved enough that the community reverse engineered the game and had their own private servers up and running well within a year of the game shutting down, one of which is celebrating it's 9th birthday this year. If you think Warhammer Online was another Wildstar, you are sorely mistaken. Was it perfect? No, far from it. But it still remains a benchmark of excellent class design to this day.

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The issue here comes less down to Healer design and more a combination of FFXIV's encounter design (which you seem to at least acknowledge) and that FFXIV's combat system is very rigid.

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Of course I acknowledge it, didn't I say as much in my last post? ;)

The problem is, how do you propose that SE change encounter design to keep someone like me satiated without also pounding a fresh spout back into the dirt in the process? How do you stretch a healer that can full heal an 8 man party repeatedly and in very short order with very little planning, pre casting or wind up time required and all of that on stack of short cooldowns? I've been saying it for years that SE have designed themselves into a corner they're at the stage where they've dug a pit in it as well now. Healer design is every bit as big a part to play as content design is, arguably more so at this stage IMO.

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Did you play WoW in 4.1 as a Healer, by chance? I was the only Healer I knew that didn't boycott doing dungeons that patch. Cataclysm saw so many Healer players retire because their healing kits WEREN'T powerful enough for the content. FFXIV's Healers now would work in that kind of content just fine.

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If that was the raid on the fire island with a load of mini bosses dotted around, then yes? Ironically that was the only time I actually healed PvE with any degree of consistency. Some old friends I raided in EQ with needed a healer so I rolled up a Worgen Priest and off I went. It was pretty good fun and I remember it being hard work. Prior to that I was a Tauren Shaman and was primarily a PvP healer for the most part. The only PvE I did was tagging along as a guest by invite due to being very well known on my server.

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The one really big issue right now is that encounter design isn't actually flexing Healer toolkits AND/OR the Healers have WAY too many and too powerful oGCD heals. Fix either of those issues and the entire landsape would change.

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Agreed, the thing is, I think you're underestimating just how much incoming damage it will take to actually stretch our current kits thin to the point where MP and cooldowns will become a precious resource to the same sort of level that we had in ARR Coil Prog. Not only are our oGCD kits overblown, our GCDs are mighty enough that it's irrelevant anyway. To point back at Warhammer Online, a Warrior Priest that wasn't utilising their kit correctly couldn't just stand back and yolo out Medica IIs to deal with it. Both issues need to be addressed to solve this.

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I didn't say they were the best designed, now did I

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Oh I could have sworn you said something like:

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Originally Posted by Renathras

WHM, for example, is one of the best designed Healers in MMOs IF you like to heal.

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I love to heal, enough so that I was ranked #4th worldwide on HPS for WHM in Gordias, arguably the hardest Savage raid tier this game will ever have (as well as #2 worldwide as AST on Creator, I only managed #24th on Midas thanks to a house fire forcing me to play on a 13" Thinkpad for what time I did manage to raid). I've said it before and I'll say it again, I'd love for every fight to be as hectic as the likes of Godka or BarbEX but that's Wildstar levels of hardcore and isn't sustainable. Thus the kits need to be re-evaluated and addressed as well.

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SCH and AST were objectively better off in SB.

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Why is that when you post your opinion, it's objective, yet when someone else tries to counter, you try to dismiss it as subjective? Give it a rest or back it up with actual figures and facts.

And just to clarify my point here, look at two of the very best SCHs worldwide, Ayessa Faile and Fretty Pupi, both mained SCH and were extremely highly ranked, come 4.0 and Deltascape, did either of them prog as SCH? Heck no. Both SCH and AST suffered strangely unnecessary quality of life hits with Stormblood.

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Originally Posted by Renathras

One thing I'm not certain of, though - I've seen it said the Devs (or Yoshi P) have said they'll never go back to HW designs. I'm guessing that means Cleric, but not sure since I've never seen the exact quote. Or even if there is a quote and it wasn't just made up... I'm curious if it was real/legitimate or not. And I don't think they ever want a repeat of Midas/Gordias.

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Direct from YoshiP (wezll, his translator)
Live letter 66 : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SXLmXt5lZk
at around 17mn

TLDR, Yoshi cites 5.0 as being the design choice that fits as many people as possible, not 3.0 or 4.0.

Basically, make it as friendly and accessible for sprouts as possible. This shows in healer design where for mainstream content, it really doesn't matter outside of logs if you go full try hard and min max everything into oGCDs or if you just roll Medica IIs and do the /manderville, resources are plenty and our kit is mighty, either way works just fine until you start progging Savage.

As a quick aside, I did go through each sheet to adjust the answers tabs to be more readable in places, mainly increasing the cell size for fill-in answer columns and reduced the text size on specific answers that where quite long and thus impossible to read because they filled up more than a screen's worth of column space. Some of them had to have pretty small text, so you may need to zoom in to read them.

I just want to get a clarification/enlightening out there because of:

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Originally Posted by Renathras

WHM, for example, is one of the best designed Healers in MMOs IF you like to heal. The encounter design sucks for it since it doesn't really lean into healing, much, though. Now, if you like to damage? Yeah, FFXIV's Healers are all pretty badly designed for that. But that's why we have DPS Jobs, I guess? But WHM nails the fantasy of having powerful and efficient heals to keep your party alive. Put FFXIV's EW WHM into, for example, WoW's 4.1 Troll dungeons (the ones that caused a lot of healers in WoW to quit), for example, for a pretty solid time. Conclusion is: The Healer design isn't bad, much less "worst". But FFXIV's encounter design is becoming problematic with it breaking down the trinity to the point of obsolescence

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Specifically the part in bold. See, Lilies heal for 400p, or 800 if singletarget. You get three per minute. But AST has CO (200, 500 over 15sec), CU (100 instant tick, 500 over 15sec), and Star (540p, 720 if charged). None cost you damage as they're all oGCD, and the three of them have 60s CDs, so you get 'three in a minute'. So WHM's 'powerful efficient heals' are... actually weaker than AST's tools, only able to beat out uncharged Star if you boost Rapture using PI. So while there's definitely an argument to be made about WHM 'feeling' good in terms of access to powerful heals, the objective maths says that it's not as strong a healer as AST. And we cannot consider Cure3 because you said 'efficient' and I'd consider both the GCD lost to it AND it's ridiculous MP cost to be 'inefficient' in most senses of the word. Add to that the frankly ridiculous MP pool AST has access to. Yeh WHM has Asylum, but it's a 90s instead, and Assize but you cannot hold that for a single second because 'you lose damage if you do that'. WHM is definitely not as 'efficient' or 'powerful' as one might think, it just 'feels' that way because the heal is delivered as one burst, rather than overtime

edit: oh and it has Horoscope, even if it's not charged it's 200p to 'top up' any of the other 3 tools, and it's a 60s CD too

edit2: and it has Lady of Crowns, RNG permitting, as a 'free Helios cast'

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Originally Posted by Sebazy

TLDR, Yoshi cites 5.0 as being the design choice that fits as many people as possible, not 3.0 or 4.0.

Basically, make it as friendly and accessible for sprouts as possible.

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Imagine a jigsaw puzzle, and you've got a gap like this.

https://i.gyazo.com/0558ce9f36954c60...8f83d17492.png

A piece that shape fits in the hole. But so does a regular square. It'd have gaps in the picture, sure, but the point is it'd fit into the space. SE decided that people didn't want to bother figuring out what 'sticky-out-bits' fit into what 'sticky-in-bits' to solve the jigsaw, so they just made all the pieces regular squares

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Originally Posted by Renathras

(THE WALL OF TEXT)

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Me attempting to Quote your comment -> " The text that you have entered is too long (12247 characters). Please shorten it to 3000 characters long. "

https://i.ibb.co/NjrWjJb/what-the-hell-steven-he.gif

Your posts are literally " Four " times bigger then the limitation... you do this in the healer section, the DPS section and now in the General section of the forums... and you're still not proving a good point... Like just Stop =u=;

So I thought of an interesting question that could be fun to discuss. There's no need to get very specific with these ideas, but start by picking a job. What are 1-5 actions you want to see added to that job in the next expansion (regardless of whether or not you believe they're realistic), and what are 1-5 actions you expect to see of that same job?

I'll start with Sage.

What I want to see
- [Attack Spell] - Replaces Soteria, has the same potency as Dosis (AoE with falloff), and has a higher MP cost. It applies 4 stacks of Soteria's effect to your Kardia target when cast normally, or when cast under Eukrasia, applies 2 stacks of a buff to your Kardia target that applies Kardia healing to all party members around them.
- [Proto-Pneuma] - A stronger version of Pneuma that is strictly a DPS tool with no healing attached. After it's used, it can be recast as regular Pneuma once per cooldown.

What I expect
- [Defensive Cooldown] - The large wall cast by Alphinaud during the cutscene fight with the EW final boss, or by Fourchenault during the conjoined role quest that is basically a wider Passage of Arms. It requires you channel to keep it up.
- [Healing Cooldown] - Another OGCD recovery tool that applies a barrier to the party initially, and when the barrier breaks on someone, heals that party member.

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

So I thought of an interesting question that could be fun to discuss. There's no need to get very specific with these ideas, but start by picking a job. What are 1-5 actions you want to see added to that job in the next expansion (regardless of whether or not you believe they're realistic), and what are 1-5 actions you expect to see of that same job?

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White Mage

My answers might change if you ask me this again another day, but today, my mood is...

What I want to see

• Protect: Delete Collective Unconscious from AST and give it to CNJ/WHM. If Y'shtola (1.0 Limsa Intro) and Kan-E-Senna (Ghimlyt Dark) can use it, then so can we.
• Afflatus Something: AoE shield/barrier.
• Seraph Strike: From PvP.
• Afflatus Purgation: From PvP. If it keeps the stun (unlike below), then it ignores stun immunity.

What I expect

• At Lv.94, SGE's Rhizomata, except it grants a lily.
• At Lv.98, additional charges for exactly two of the following: Thin Air, Tetragrammaton, Aquaveil, Temperance.
• At Lv.100, Afflatus Purgation: SGE's Pneuma, except it grants a regen effect to the party instead of triggering Kardion. Uses the same animation as the PvP skill.

"added" to your job , not "stolen" from a job. if you want CU for WHM, no problem, I'll take "Coma"- for AST- CU but with 20% damage reduction as one of the 5 skills.

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Originally Posted by Calysto

Direct from YoshiP (wezll, his translator)
Live letter 66 : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SXLmXt5lZk
at around 17mn

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Cool, appreciate that. I always like to see sources of quotes that people pass around to make sure they're saying what they seem to be saying and what context (if any) they're said under.

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

...

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In terms of making changes that affect people, it's important to consider their feelings in the matter, even if you cannot poll them directly. It's why sweeping changes to policy and law are often only done after extensive studies (not always polls) that try to determine how people think about them and what the effects would be on the people who dislike them, even if that number isn't known or known precisely. Any viewpoints (via poll) used to suggest policy change must at least acknowledge these effects and what the perception would be by those people in doing it, and good studies would also indicate a confidence level as to how well they think they are representing the people as a whole.

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Originally Posted by Sebazy

Why is that when you post your opinion, it's objective, yet when someone else tries to counter, you try to dismiss it as subjective?

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Oh, my apologize.

Let me correct that:

SCH and AST might not be better off in SB. SCH and AST might be better off in ShB and EW. They could be the best they've ever been right now.

Better?

Of all the things to call me on for being subjective, something you agree with and that an absolute majority of people in both Ty's survey and my own agree with seems to be an odd choice. But have your gotcha, I suppose? /shrug

What else...

"(which you seem to at least acknowledge)" does mean you acknowledged it. Yes. So...why are you trying to correct something that's right? I said "seem" because I didn't want to put words in your mouth if you did not. There was no hidden meaning to the word.

"Was that the one with the Fire island?" I think that was 4.2. 4.1 was then they re-released two prior Troll themed raids, the Vanilla WoW 20 man one in Stranglethorn Vale and the 10 man one near the Blood Elf starting area from Burning Crusade, as 5 man dungeons that were extra hard. Those were the two you had to do for the badges or whatever (Tomestones, let's call them Tomestones) for the 4.1 patch. They were beastly hard, and Cataclysm had the stupid "triage healing model" where they tuned encounters to hit like FFXIV but gave you healing tools like a level 15 WHM in power that all cost as much as Cure 3. Needless to say, it was bad. So many healers quit that patch, they finally toned it down in the following patches. By 4.3 or so (I think that was the one with the 3 Bronze Dragonflight dungeons), they had relaxed the healing and people's gear was high enough healers were able to actually work again, and those were SO much better. But in 4.1, healing in WoW was absolute hell.

"Agreed, the thing is" - honestly, I think oGCDs are way too powerful. I feel like healing should be far more GCD based. GCD heals should be the strong ones with oGCD heals being agumenting them. So skilled healers in good parties can shift more to the oGCD side, but people using GCD heals should be able to get through the healing requirements, and the shift should be from GCD to oGCD as encounter teams get better. Right now, it's not that way. The oGCDs are the first line heals rather than the last line or secondary help. Instead of "Use Asylum if Medica 2 isn't quite enough healing", it's "Use Medica 2 if Asylum isn't enough healing".

"Oh, I could have sworn you said" - "one of the". Those are important words. I do agree the kits need to be re-evaluated, but I suspect we think different parts of the kits are in need of reevaluation.

Oh, and I don't mind MP being a more needed/managed resource at all. If we toned down the oGCDs, that might actually be relevant.

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Originally Posted by ForsakenRoe

So while there's definitely an argument to be made about WHM 'feeling' good in terms of access to powerful heals,

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I think this is, in fact, what people mean.

Also AST robbing WHM of its kit, getting lower MP costs for the same potency abilities (the GCDs), and then getting better MP regeneration skills (and robbing WHM of Lucid Dreaming/Shroud of Saints back in SB as well when it became a Role action) is, in fact, something I've spoken out against before.

WHM has this feeling/history because it was compared to SCH (whose GCD heals have always been weaker in potency) and Cure 3 initially, and then ShB Thin Air. Though it should be noted WHM's Lily heals are 100% MP free to use and also have no cast time requirement. I should also note ShB Thin Air was ALSO robbed from us... <_<

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Originally Posted by CelestiCer

Me attempting to Quote your comment ->

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I'm hardly the only one with long posts. In fact, other people have me beat in length sometimes. I just tend to be replying to several people instead of making several smaller posts in a row. I don't see you complaining about anyone else doing it, so no, I don't think I will.

Also: Edit button, that's how. There's a kind of stupidly small character limit, but if you make a post less than that, then hit edit...apparently you can post as long as you want after that. I'm sure there's SOME upper limit, but I have no idea what it may be.

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

So I thought of an interesting question that could be fun to discuss. There's no need to get very specific with these ideas, but start by picking a job. What are 1-5 actions you want to see added to that job in the next expansion (regardless of whether or not you believe they're realistic), and what are 1-5 actions you expect to see of that same job?

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I think this isn't the best way to frame the question - button bloat is real and many people would like to REMOVE (or combine) some actions. For example, I think most everyone thinks that Cure 1/Benefic 1 should be merged with Cure 2/Benefic 2, and probably Medica/Helios with Medica 2/Aspected Helios. Also, a lot of "actions added" might not be "ACTIONS added" so much as "EFFECTS added". For example, I think WHM should get the Protect effect added (same as PvP, though it comes from Seraph Strike; reduces damage taken by 10% for 10 seconds) to Plenary Indulgence. PI already puts a buff on party members (which is what the AOE heals proc off of), so having that buff also reduce damage taken would be an easy addition.

That said...sure, I'll do mine:

White Mage

What I want to see

- Protect effect added to Plenary Indulgence
- Thin Air reverted to ShB's duration based instead of charge based
- Another charge on Tetra (if we aren't removing/toning down oGCDs)
- The mythical Cure IV (and it should have the floaty animation that Holy/Glare do)
- A Lily spender either barrier or HoT. Something that can be used on someone (at least the Tank) even if everyone's at 100% without it being a waste.

What I expect

- An upgrade to Glare
- An upgrade to Dia (it was missed this expansion vs Glare and Holy and just had a potency boost)
- An upgrade to Holy
- Some new capstone - ARR was arguably Benediction, HW Tetra, SB Plenary, ShB Temperance, EW Lilybell. Maybe a Collective Unconscious-like bubble like Y'Shtola and Kan-E-Senna use?
- Some ability or upgrade of an ability around level 96, maybe Asylum finally gets a mitigation, who knows - call this the mystery bucket. If a new ability, might be another Lily spender (Regen maybe?)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

So I thought of an interesting question that could be fun to discuss. There's no need to get very specific with these ideas, but start by picking a job. What are 1-5 actions you want to see added to that job in the next expansion (regardless of whether or not you believe they're realistic), and what are 1-5 actions you expect to see of that same job?

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Oh boy an excuse to talk about Monk! Monk to me is an interesting job to discuss when it comes to new actions because a lot of its problems can't really be solved with more additions to its rotation. Adding one thing (assuming it isn't just a flat potency oGCD) could potentially effect other systems without even being directly tied to it, such as was the case of ShB Anatman or SB's 60s Perfect Balance and Wind Tackle. But I'll answer this question strictly under the context of "new actions only" rather than what systems I want to see reworked.

What I want:
- Pressure Point (trait) - Using skills like Forbidden Chakra/Enlightenment, Six Sided Star, Form Shift or Riddle of Wind gives the Pressure Point buff, increasing the next (non-Blitz) GCD skill's damage by 50%.
- Chi Blast (GCD) - Additional follow up attack to Six Sided Star, gives one Chakra upon use. Added potency if used under Pressure Point.
- Internal Release (returning oGCD) - 15 second buff on a 45s cooldown, all GCDs under this buff open a Chakra.
- A visual upgrade to Elixir Field, preferably named Aura Bolt.

What I expect (and hope doesn't happen):
- An oGCD that can only be used under Riddle of Fire or Brotherhood.
- A 2 minute cooldown that just gives us both Nadis so Phantom Rush can be used in the opener.

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Originally Posted by Renathras

"Agreed, the thing is" - honestly, I think oGCDs are way too powerful. I feel like healing should be far more GCD based. GCD heals should be the strong ones with oGCD heals being agumenting them. So skilled healers in good parties can shift more to the oGCD side, but people using GCD heals should be able to get through the healing requirements, and the shift should be from GCD to oGCD as encounter teams get better. Right now, it's not that way. The oGCDs are the first line heals rather than the last line or secondary help. Instead of "Use Asylum if Medica 2 isn't quite enough healing", it's "Use Medica 2 if Asylum isn't enough healing".

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So... Heavensward?

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Originally Posted by VentVanitas

What I expect (and hope doesn't happen):
- An oGCD that can only be used under Riddle of Fire or Brotherhood.
- A 2 minute cooldown that just gives us both Nadis so Phantom Rush can be used in the opener.

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I can see the latter being added as a side effect like 'press Anatman outside of combat and it instantly gives you 5 chakra and 2 nadi'. Spirit Bomb followup to brotherhood would be funny for the meme but it wouldn't feel right unless it took 4 episodes to charge and cast

edit: wait let me do one too

WHM: What I want:
- Dia rescaled to be 12s
- Water/Banish as a 15s CD GCD, slightly stronger than Glare equivalent, instantcast
- New gauge, 0-100, fills 1 per Glare, 1 per Dia tick (and 1 on cast), 5 per Banish (roughly 60 gauge per min in dummy scenario)
- New AOE GCD heal that costs 50 of this new gauge, which also turns GlareDiaBanish for one cast into...
- Quake (100p more than Glare), Tornado (30p more than Dia, 20p per tick more than Dia's tick, total boost of 110), Flood (100 more than Banish). These three boosts combined make the heal damage neutral
- 2 Charges on Assize/Tetra
- Rapture moved to 70
- Plenary moved to 76
- Protect as low level mit tool, upgrades to Plenary at 76 (keeps the mit effect so WHM has a 60s answer to AST's CU)
- Divine Seal back as 'Temperance without the mit', upgrades to Temp at 80
- Lily spender Stoneskin, applies a shield, at 70 it upgrades to Afflatus Bastion/Sanctuary (AOE version is learned at 70 too), shields are weaker than SGE/SCH GCD shields but damage neutral so there's maybe interesting 'can we get away with it' moments
- Cleric Stance (or Seraph Strike) as a 60s CD, 10s duration selfbuff, as a 'Trick attack' to POM's 'Mug'. Lean into WHM being the BLM of healers, it has no utility but it pumps
- Merge Cure and Cure2 (MP cost reduced to Cure1's level), merge Medica and Medica2 (just add the Med2 HOT to Med1's base heal)
- If there's any room left for another thing before the 'i play healer to heal' complaints get too much to handle, return Aero 3 as a 24s DOT (or Phlegma-like 24s CD if you really have to), generate 10 gauge over it's duration/at once if it's a burst damage

What I expect:
- Probably the AOE heal, without the gauge cost, or the Quake etc side effect, just a standalone GCD aoe heal
- Regen 2

And for SGE, what I want: this, I am not writing it all again

what I expect:

- Holos 2

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

So I thought of an interesting question that could be fun to discuss. There's no need to get very specific with these ideas, but start by picking a job. What are 1-5 actions you want to see added to that job in the next expansion (regardless of whether or not you believe they're realistic), and what are 1-5 actions you expect to see of that same job?

---

Dark Knight.

What I want to see:

• Shadowskin to come back as a low level TBN, to then evolve into TBN, then for TBN to evolve into Oblation which adds the 10% damage mit and adds a small regen upon fading or breaking. The mana cost on this to be removed and thus increasing its cooldown.
• Dark Arts to return on a 3k mana cost, granting nothing to the Darkside Timer. This would effect and/or grant various GCD's. (given that the mana cost on the short CD is removed, this irons out to 1-2 uses per minute)
• Darkside timer more involved. If it isn't, just make it a passive.
• Scourge and Power Slash to come back in some form as GCD's, Through Dark Arts or otherwise.
• Shadowbringer to be a single charge
• Revamp Living Shadow into something that merges with you, similar to Reaper's enshroud in animation but works like Bunshin.
• Something more interesting done with Salted Earth similar to its pvp counterpart.
• Either make Delirium something that isn't worse Inner Release or remove it entirely and move the potency elsewhere

What I expect:

• Upgrades to Flood/Edge
• TBN merged with oblation, or oblation with Dark Mind
• Upgraded 1-2-3 combo or just the combo ender
• Delirium granting or starting a combo like Paladin's Confiteor combo
• If nothing is done with Salted Earth, for it to be removed from the pve scene.

I suppose I could ask this over on the tank forums, but it popped into my mind here. Now, I'm not really a tank player; I've only just leveled the tanks. I understand some of the complaints and issues surrounding tanks on a surface level, but not on an intimate level, so forgive me if this is not an effective solution to Living Shadow, but I'd like to ask for anyone with more intimate knowledge of the job.

Would Living Shadow feel better and function well if Frey was designed to imitate the GCDs you use, perhaps up to 5 hits or so? I know a big complaint with Living Shadow as well as the Automaton Queen is that they feel like glorified DoTs, so I am curious if making Frey's action usage dependent on your own would resolve that.

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

I suppose I could ask this over on the tank forums, but it popped into my mind here. Now, I'm not really a tank player; I've only just leveled the tanks. I understand some of the complaints and issues surrounding tanks on a surface level, but not on an intimate level, so forgive me if this is not an effective solution to Living Shadow, but I'd like to ask for anyone with more intimate knowledge of the job.

Would Living Shadow feel better and function well if Frey was designed to imitate the GCDs you use, perhaps up to 5 hits or so? I know a big complaint with Living Shadow as well as the Automaton Queen is that they feel like glorified DoTs, so I am curious if making Frey's action usage dependent on your own would resolve that.

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It undeniably would feel better, and more impactful at the least. Living Shadow as it is is just press and forget, and the 50 gauge cost doesn't amount to much. While the idea of summoning him is cool on paper, it feels ultimately hollow because there's no interaction with Living Shadow and the rest of the kit.

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Originally Posted by Zairava

It undeniably would feel better, and more impactful at the least. Living Shadow as it is is just press and forget, and the 50 gauge cost doesn't amount to much. While the idea of summoning him is cool on paper, it feels ultimately hollow because there's no interaction with Living Shadow and the rest of the kit.

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It's the same reason why Shadowbringer is a pretty bad capstone ability. Yes, it does a lot of damage, but it isn't linked to anything else in the kit. It doesn't cost Darkside, MP, or Blood, and there's no special requirement for being able to access it, it's just there to press.

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

Would Living Shadow feel better and function well if Frey was designed to imitate the GCDs you use, perhaps up to 5 hits or so? I know a big complaint with Living Shadow as well as the Automaton Queen is that they feel like glorified DoTs, so I am curious if making Frey's action usage dependent on your own would resolve that.

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I guess then the issue is that it's possible to 'do it wrong' and we know how that's anathema to the design they're going for. Look at WOW for a similar thing, Blood DK has 'Dancing Rune Weapon', summons a floating sword that copies your abilities. Any modifier that applies to your abilities, applies to the sword too. If you Death Strike to heal yourself, it Death Strikes and heals ITself. If you Heartstrike, it Heartstrikes. If you're stood in your Death and Decay (Salted Earth), both your and the DRW's Heartstrikes cleave. If you use Marrowrend to generate 3 Boneshield charges, it does too, giving you a total of 6. And I'm pretty sure that if you have any talent that says 'autoattacks have a chance to...' then it considers the DRW's autos as separate rolls at that chance, such as the 'instantly resets Death and Decay's CD and removes it's rune cost' proc

So the way I'd implement it as a 'best of both' compromise, is that if you use an attack GCD or OGCD, it copies it animationwise. Have the first thing it does be Plunge to get into range still, but after that, it copies you directly. You Abyssal Drain, it does too. You spam Stalwart Soul 6 times in a row like a bot, it does too. If any move you use has a secondary effect, it triggers twice. Souleater's heal, Syphonstrike's MP restore, the tiny MP restore caused by Delirium, AD's heal, all twice. HOWEVER, the base potency of the skill that is being copied is instead locked to a flat value. It doesn't matter if your GCDs under Living Shadow are 8 Hard Slashes or the full optimized rotation with resource pooling etc, the damage from LS will be the same. Damage from YOU might be different, but from LS it's the same. If that's too much skill-based variance still, have it only count GCDs

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Originally Posted by RyuDragnier

It's the same reason why Shadowbringer ... there's no special requirement for being able to access it, it's just there to press.

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Technically, you need to be under Darkside to use it, so technically, there is a special requirement. However, I know this is being pedantic and in theory you will have Darkside up 100% of the time anyway, making this requirement a null point.

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Originally Posted by Mikey_R

Technically, you need to be under Darkside to use it, so technically, there is a special requirement. However, I know this is being pedantic and in theory you will have Darkside up 100% of the time anyway, making this requirement a null point.

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Which is the exact reason, I feel, it should cost Darkside rather than just merely requiring Darkside to be active

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Originally Posted by ForsakenRoe

So... Heavensward?

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More like SB. No Cleric Stance. HW having Cleric Stance makes it a different animal.

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Originally Posted by RyuDragnier

It's the same reason why Shadowbringer is a pretty bad capstone ability. Yes, it does a lot of damage, but it isn't linked to anything else in the kit. It doesn't cost Darkside, MP, or Blood, and there's no special requirement for being able to access it, it's just there to press.

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It's like that one NIN ability where your shadow attacks (based on if you use a single target ability, ranged ability, or AOE ability), but it's really just a "press and then do what you'd be doing anyway" button.

What if they brought TP back but instead of linking every physical skill to it like they did before they use it like they did in FFXI where it accumulated from attacking and then could be spent on skills that would be usable when TP hit 100% but offer additional scaling or bonus effects based on how far past 100% TP was at when used to a cap of 300% TP? Could add a bit to those solo button skills that get pressed every time they're off cooldown.

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Originally Posted by RitsukoSonoda

What if they brought TP back but instead of linking every physical skill to it like they did before they use it like they did in FFXI where it accumulated from attacking and then could be spent on skills that would be usable when TP hit 100% but offer additional scaling or bonus effects based on how far past 100% TP was at when used to a cap of 300% TP?

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I love FF11 but I'd rather keep the TP system they have there as it works with everything they have built on in their combat system. You can look at our version of FF11 TP as the limit break bar...

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Originally Posted by Amenara

I love FF11 but I'd rather keep the TP system they have there as it works with everything they have built on in their combat system. You can look at our version of FF11 TP as the limit break bar...

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Not really. You didn't constantly lose your TP in FFXI to a random nub with an obsession to mash every button they can find.

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Originally Posted by RitsukoSonoda

Not really. You didn't constantly lose your TP in FFXI to a random nub with an obsession to mash every button they can find.

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Sure it's a shared resource but it is something that you build up while attacking (and other things) that you can use at different tiers to get a stronger effect. If it were individually spent it would be pretty much the same thing.

the problem is... there are players who play 18 jobs... it doesnt make sense for these players to voice changes for the 19. job since they dont play it anyway. not all jobs have to be for all people

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

Would Living Shadow feel better and function well if Frey was designed to imitate the GCDs you use, perhaps up to 5 hits or so? I know a big complaint with Living Shadow as well as the Automaton Queen is that they feel like glorified DoTs, so I am curious if making Frey's action usage dependent on your own would resolve that.

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It wouldn't really change much. There isn't really a meaningful difference between Living Shadow attacking on its own every x seconds and attacking when you use a GCD, which is something that also happens every x seconds.
The problem with Living Shadow is that the properties that make it feel bad to use are the exact same properties that make it such an effective and (within the context of the overall FFXIV 5.0+ combat system) well-designed.

The main reason that it feels bad is because of the summoning delay when the skill is used. The 7-8 seconds between pressing the Living Shadow button and Esteem making its first attack makes the effect of the skill feel completely disconnected from the player's actions. But, at the same time, the ability to precast the skill is a part of why DRK is so good at dealing damage during a burst. As it stands, you typically have between 10 and 12 oGCD "slots" under buffs: 4-5 of which are taken up by Edge of Shadow, 2 are taken by Shadowbringer, 2 are taken by Plunge, 1 is used by Carve and Spit, sometimes you need to fit Salt and Darkness (and even Salted Earth) in there, and frequently you also need to fit some mitigation. If Living Shadow were made into an immediate buff, in the service of making the skill feel more impactful, the actual quality and design of the class would suffer, because one of those oGCD slots would be permanently occupied.

The busyness of DRK's burst is good - being an oGCD-heavy class is a vital part of DRK's mechanical identity and has been an important part of the class in every iteration of it (save maybe Shadowbringers) - so trying to remove oGCDs to make room for other oGCDs would be a bad idea. The pre-casted nature of Living Shadow should therefore stay, even if it makes the skill feel bad to use.


The second-biggest reason that it feels bad to use is that despite Living Shadow's exceptionally high overall potency, its damage is split up into six mid-sized damage instances. The actual power of the skill is basically on par with a Gunbreaker being able to use Double Down twice, at the same time, as an oGCD that still allows them to spend their GCD on Gnashing Fang or Burst Strike - but because it's comprised of five 350 potency attacks and one 500 potency attack, there's no "Wow, look how big that number is!" effect that you get with Double Down, Inner Chaos, Primal Rend, etc.

But again, that's a key element of why the skill is as effective and well-designed as it is. When your 2250 potency attack is split up into six different hits, each of those hits rolls for Critical and Direct Hits independently, which tends to normalize the skill's damage to your actual CH/DH stats (and doesn't require any auto-Crit/DH effects, which also generally feel bad). The consistency that DRK achieves by landing many medium-potency hits instead of a small number of high-potency hits stands out in stark contrast to something like Gunbreaker's effectiveness varying wildly depending on whether Double Down lands DCH or not, which is very important when you start dealing with short DPS phases like the ones you see in Ultimates. (For the same reason, it is hugely important that Shadowbringer is 2 charges of a 600 potency oGCD, instead of a single charge of a 1200 potency oGCD or two 1000 potency GCDs or whatever.)

Things that are well-designed feel bad to use.
Things that feel good to use are poorly-designed.

This is just an unavoidable consequence of the current state of FFXIV's combat system. At least in this case, I don't think the problem can be tackled by making changes to a single skill, or even overhauling an entire job, in a vacuum. Fixing these sorts of things would require a pretty significant overhaul to the entire design of FFXIV combat, at least on the scale of how the game changed between Stormblood and Shadowbringers.

It feels bad because you press the button to make some npc show up and beyond dying you can’t affect it after that. For all its faults, primal rend at least allows the player some agency, which given the dark knight story quests is rather ironic.

1. -> Compared to past expansions mostly every job can fit into the 2 minute meta at the expanse of diversity and uniqueness. Short term it is a strategy that can be used for 1 expansion since it was never done before, but long term jobs should get abilities and burst windows that can align with the 2 minute meta while making jobs feel unique. An example of this would be to make jobs work around 30 , 40 or 60 second burst windows. Not only either 60 seconds or 2 minutes for a simpler alignment - most fights are heavily in favor of 100% up time so there's no need to worry about drifting cooldowns, and even so, designing the encounters around this is possible.

2. -> Stormblood.


3.-> FF XIV should be doing this as it allows for a more direct feedback channel between balance and job design teams and the community. Rewards could vary from mounts, free game time, gil, titles, glamours, dyes.


I will leave a few ideas for DRK that I have seen as it seems to be the most controversial tank by a large margin ( the problem child of tanks ):

-> Delirium allows a special combo to be executed off of Bloodspiller, with 2 new actions. Quietus removed, Bloodspiller has AoE damage.
-> Delirium and Blood weapon are on a 40 second CD.
-> Scourge is a new GCD action that does high AoE damage with fall off after the first enemy hit. 20 sec CD. If Darkside is active, heals you for 400 potency for the first enemy hit, and 100 potency for all remaining enemies.
-> Living Shadow increases the potency of all GCDs by 150 potency and of all oGCDs by 50 potency. Esteem is not summoned, instead you get a RPR like effect ( a combination between Esteem's aura and darkside / grit effects ). You also gain 15% skill and spell speed.
-> TBN lasts 8 seconds. Dark Arts effect gained by breaking TBN now also make the next Edge/Flood of Shadow heal for potency equal to damage dealt.
-> Dark Mind's damage reduction put into Oblation at lvl 82. Oblation lasts 12 seconds.
-> Salted Earth reduces damage dealt by enemies standing inside it by 10%, if 3 or more enemies are inside it.

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Originally Posted by Renathras

More like SB. No Cleric Stance. HW having Cleric Stance makes it a different animal.

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SB added Earthly Star, I think that's the point where 'you can erase so many GCDs from your healing' got really out of control. Before that, your OGCD suite was very limited, WHM had Asylum and Assize (but Assize only did the damage half cos haha cleric), SCH had Soil (with no regen), Indom, Whispering Dawn (which could be roused). AST had what, bubble that you had to channel for the full duration? CU didn't heal it extended buffs, Star Horoscope etc didn't exist yet, if anything it was about reducing GCDs by 'using some, and extending their effects to prevent needing to cast another to reapply'

The best comparison would be 'HW, if damage skills scaled from mind as in SB', but that didn't exist

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Originally Posted by Crater

GNB stuff

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They really ought to change DoubleDown to 2 hits of 600p instead of one of 1200p, shouldn't they

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Originally Posted by ForsakenRoe

They really ought to change DoubleDown to 2 hits of 600p instead of one of 1200p, shouldn't they

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A lot of crit variance issues could be more effectively resolved through making attacks multi-hit rather than just making them auto crit/direct hit. It's another thing that just makes me anxious to see if they'll return to more dramatic combat changes in the next expansion rather than just doing shadowbringers 3.0. I am sincerely worried that if they don't do something to shake up the gameplay, it will have damaging repercussions on the game's longevity.