Yoshi-P: "If you want more engaging content, go play Ultimate"

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Originally Posted by AmiableApkallu

lol. I have every action on every job set to my hotbars. My problem as a healer that spends 99% of their time in "casual" content is that I forget that the actions even exist because content is so under-tuned (or jobs so over-tuned) that half the actions are simply never needed to get the job done.

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Expedient is an incredibly powerful ability, but I don't remember it exists in casual content because Soil is basically the only mit you need in 99% of it...

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Originally Posted by Emitans

Expedient is an incredibly powerful ability, but I don't remember it exists in casual content because Soil is basically the only mit you need in 99% of it...

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You may as well just expedient and use soil to energy drain instead since expedient is free

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Originally Posted by Emitans

Expedient is an incredibly powerful ability, but I don't remember it exists in casual content because Soil is basically the only mit you need in 99% of it...

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I'd imagine the bigger reason its easy to forget is because the movement speed buff doesn't really apply outside of savage. Not like any expert roulette is going to have a limit cut mechanic or anything. Maybe Alliance Roulettes given how large the environments are, but it certainly feels less tactical that way. It's really satisfying to see a mechanic that requires the party be in position in different places, and to provide a buff that makes the mechanic inherently easier. Though something like Barb's high octane dodging sequences can also feel really satisfying. But just, everyone needs to walk 15 miles uphill in the snow to reach this alliance roulette safe zone is less exciting imo.

It is rather sad that they don't really design fights nowadays with the healer role in mind. The most responsibility you have in modern fights as a healer is being the target of a light party stack mechanic.

No need to Esuna, no tight heal checks, no pre-cast heals needed. It's sad.

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Originally Posted by currentlemon

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I would take it down ASAP. It can get you in trouble I believe. I would also recommend not talking about anything listed in a datamine unless you specify that it is "your personal theory" or something like that. I recall a leak occured during Endwalker and even people referencing leaked actions were having their posts removed.

If I remember correctly saying “it’s my personal theory” or “I got it 3rd hand” wasnt a defence, they know you got it from the data mine

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Originally Posted by Supersnow845

If I remember correctly saying “it’s my personal theory” or “I got it 3rd hand” wasnt a defence, they know you got it from the data mine

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Sorry, I worded that poorly. What I meant to say is that you can talk about your own theories, and it is possible for your theories to correspond to what might have been leaked in a datamine, but if it's clear you're just regurgitating leaked information, then that's going to be dinged. And I don't mean try and disguise leaked info as your theory. I mean like, I already made theories on certain actions based on the benchmark, and some of those theories might be accurate. I am free to continue talking about that since those are things I already speculate.

I speculated that Sage's new attack is not Toxikon III, and I still don't think that it is. If that does line up with whatever is leaked, then that's a coincidence. At the end of that day, that example is also a simple "yes" or "no." The attack either is Toxikon III or it isn't. I couldn't begin to tell you what it does with the little info we have. My only guess is it's going to be a powerful new attack--possibly a cooldown or extension of something. Maybe it's related to Toxikon II and Addersting, like an "Afflatus Misery" for Toxikon II? Wouldn't that be wild...

"Toxikomania" - Deals (4x Dosis IV) potency damage. Consumes one "Addersting Nu" Partially charge Addersting Nu with each cast of Toxikon II. After 3 charges, generates Addersting Nu.

Literally just AM but after the follow up to your barriers breaking. Honestly, I wouldn't put it past them.

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

I would take it down ASAP. It can get you in trouble I believe. I would also recommend not talking about anything listed in a datamine unless you specify that it is "your personal theory" or something like that. I recall a leak occured during Endwalker and even people referencing leaked actions were having their posts removed.

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Good to know. Deleted the post. Guess we can talk about something else here then.

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Originally Posted by currentlemon

Good to know. Deleted the post. Guess we can talk about something else here then.

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Sorry, I just think it's better to be safe than sorry in those types of cases, you know? We'll get more info soon enough, and I can only imagine healer discussion will catch fire then for better or worse.

I do wonder what's next.

There is no indication that Square Enix is going to take this feedback into account and do something.

If Dawntrailer changes are in the vein of Medica 2 -> Super Medica 2 that will have no effect on the healer gameplay at all, because if they are buffing heals but also buffing mitigations the end result will still be the same.

Even if the encounter design changes for new content, if you ever do old content or ultimate it will always remain as is (but easier, due to how sync works).

However even changes to encounters are unlikely. To me it seems Square Enix are treating FFXIV as something they lucked out with accidentally and are deadly afraid to make any changes to "break it". Which means they will always play it extremely safe.

The healer hopium will run out soon, and if you are left with the same situation then what, hope they will for some reason fix the problems for next expansion?

Only way this happens if there is major drop in player engagement.

Just had a random thought:

What if nothing in the benchmark is actually new? What if they baited us by showcasing a total remake of old animations that they worked on alongside the graphical update and were hiding it from us? What if everything we see in the benchmark are just things we already have but visually updated?

Perhaps too much of a tinfoil hat theory.

It is possible that the old animations did not translate beautifully with the new engine

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Originally Posted by Aravell

Just had a random thought:

What if nothing in the benchmark is actually new? What if they baited us by showcasing a total remake of old animations that they worked on alongside the graphical update and were hiding it from us? What if everything we see in the benchmark are just things we already have but visually updated?

Perhaps too much of a tinfoil hat theory.

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Pass me some of that super copium please.

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Originally Posted by rawker

It is possible that the old animations did not translate beautifully with the new engine

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I have yet to hear that it's actually a "new" engine, unless you mean the Bethesda definition of "new" which is just stapling modern features onto an engine from 2002.

What I meant to say when I coined engine was the graphics update. Sorry if it caused confusion.

The benchmark has not impressed me in the slightest when it comes to healers. SGE and SCH just look like animation updates on toxicon and broil. Medica 2.5 looks kinda depressing. AST was doing something, not sure what.

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Originally Posted by Saraide

The benchmark has not impressed me in the slightest when it comes to healers. SGE and SCH just look like animation updates on toxicon and broil. Medica 2.5 looks kinda depressing. AST was doing something, not sure what.

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The benchmark hasn't impressed me for any of the jobs, we're gonna have to wait until the media tour.
But let's be honest we're already at the point again where if the job preview during the media tour looks awful there isn't enough time to change anything anymore, so our only option is to wait for 3 years or quit.

It's why I hate that we never hear about upcoming gameplay changes until the media tour, because by the time that happens it is already to late for our feedback to change anything.

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Originally Posted by Absurdity

[…]It's why I hate that we never hear about upcoming gameplay changes until the media tour, because by the time that happens it is already to late for our feedback to change anything.

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Isn’t this the stance that they’ve adapted since IIRC late post HW when they first teased about StB Lilies, got clowned, then respond with something along the line of “Just shut up & give it a try gdi” (paraphrase) only to concede indirectly by reworking them to what we all known as ShB Lilies and onward? Lmao.

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Originally Posted by Rein_eon_Osborne

Isn’t this the stance that they’ve adapted since IIRC late post HW when they first teased about StB Lilies, got clowned, then respond with something along the line of “Just shut up & give it a try gdi” (paraphrase) only to concede indirectly by reworking them to what we all known as ShB Lilies and onward? Lmao.

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Pretty much, and it has never been a good stance. It always leads to the same outcome, on release the players always find issues that could've been fixed pre-release and the devs have to spend the entire rest of the expansion putting band-aids on those jobs.

And if your jobs needs major changes? Good luck, try again in 2-3 years and hope they made those changes by the time the next media tour comes around, but you won't know until then anyway.

More than job toolkits themselves, where for some it can definitely be argued that a lot has been lost (healers especially), while we have also gained some more complex systems for a few others (DRG, NIN), I do feel that jobs today are a lot less engaging for the simple reason that they engage with a lot less to begin with: there is so little left of the battle system that even if they made toolkits more intricate, we'd still be left unsatisfied for the simple reason that we'd be playing that intricacy into nothing.

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Originally Posted by Rein_eon_Osborne

Isn’t this the stance that they’ve adapted since IIRC late post HW when they first teased about StB Lilies, got clowned, then respond with something along the line of “Just shut up & give it a try gdi” (paraphrase) only to concede indirectly by reworking them to what we all known as ShB Lilies and onward? Lmao.

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I think they probably got annoyed when there were major complaints about AST all throughout HW, then people alternatingly complained about BRD and MCH, which led to the historic physical ranged arms race. Also people complained about PLD all throughout HW.

Mind you, most of those complaints were justified because HW balance was really not that great. AST was a dumpster fire on release, MCH was also pretty bad if I recall correctly, and PLD basically didn't exist because of DRK. Then the pre-release complaints about SB WHM lilies was probably what caused them to snap and tell us that we get no more info.

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Originally Posted by Absurdity

It's why I hate that we never hear about upcoming gameplay changes until the media tour, because by the time that happens it is already to late for our feedback to change anything.

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https://media4.giphy.com/media/v1.Y2...aFNa/giphy.gif

But all joking aside it's pretty much true.

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Originally Posted by Rein_eon_Osborne

Isn’t this the stance that they’ve adapted since IIRC late post HW when they first teased about StB Lilies, got clowned, then respond with something along the line of “Just shut up & give it a try gdi” (paraphrase) only to concede indirectly by reworking them to what we all known as ShB Lilies and onward? Lmao.

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The script is:

Don't judge it by the live letter, wait until the final patch notes come out!
Don't judge it by the patch notes, wait until you actually play it!
Don't judge it by playing it, wait until you're max level!
Don't judge it at max level, you're not in the harder content!
YOU'RE PLAYING IT WRONG!!

Meanwhile, the feedback we gave in the live letter was generally true and now we have to wait until X.3 or X.4 for a fix tht should have been identified and changed in X.0

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Originally Posted by Absurdity

Pretty much, and it has never been a good stance. It always leads to the same outcome, on release the players always find issues that could've been fixed pre-release and the devs have to spend the entire rest of the expansion putting band-aids on those jobs.

And if your jobs needs major changes? Good luck, try again in 2-3 years and hope they made those changes by the time the next media tour comes around, but you won't know until then anyway.

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Originally Posted by Aravell

[...]Mind you, most of those complaints were justified because HW balance was really not that great. AST was a dumpster fire on release, MCH was also pretty bad if I recall correctly, and PLD basically didn't exist because of DRK. Then the pre-release complaints about SB WHM lilies was probably what caused them to snap and tell us that we get no more info.

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The more I read into this, the more it sounding like a modus operandi to sell the 'fixes/revamp' of the issues they created themselves as 'new plaything' next patch/expac lmao.

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Originally Posted by Rein_eon_Osborne

The more I read into this, the more it sounding like a modus operandi to sell the 'fixes/revamp' of the issues they created themselves as 'new plaything' next patch/expac lmao.

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Because nothing sells an expansion like "Hey guys, we fixed your job, it actually functions now! OMG!"

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Originally Posted by Aravell

Because nothing sells an expansion like "Hey guys, we fixed your job, it actually functions now! OMG!"

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New jobs do, which is why we get them every expansion even if their gameplay turns out to be the same bland mush.

All it takes to get the expansion hype rolling all over again is a new job with flashy particles.

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Originally Posted by Absurdity

The benchmark hasn't impressed me for any of the jobs, we're gonna have to wait until the media tour.
But let's be honest we're already at the point again where if the job preview during the media tour looks awful there isn't enough time to change anything anymore, so our only option is to wait for 3 years or quit.

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The only thing that stood out for me is DRK. The job maybe getting some new GCD abilities in DT, which is big.

SCH and SGE possibly getting new attack actions is a small bright spot, but we don’t know what those actions are. They could be just upgrades for all we know.

Can't judge based on benchmark, doesn't have info about CDs/MP costs/conditionals to activate/use
Can't judge based on Media Tour, because the build is a couple months out of date (SHB media tour had Sonic Break at a 'never use this ever' 300p, but in the 'up to date version' for dev, it was 900 as it was at release)

The joys of the expansion cycle, we can't ever judge the skills and their usecases based on actual data/numbers, we can only say 'oh it has a cool animation', and by the time it's apparent that the design won't work/feels bad (cough cough 6 Raiju spam NIN), the expansion's already released and it has to be changed in the X.1 patch. If you're a DPS, maybe you get lucky and it gets looked at in the X.05, in time for Savage. Meanwhile, AST has been told 'you play so weirdly that you need to have a rework', and at the same time, 'when we say rework, it has to be at the expansion because its such a big thing', and also 'no changes until the rework happens, not even stopgaps like 'here's a second charge of Lightspeed to alleviate mobility issues', like come on SE I get that changing all the cards and whatnot would take too much for a minor patch, but even something as small as 'Lightspeed now has 2 charges' couldn't be snuck in at like, 6.2?

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Originally Posted by Absurdity

All it takes to get the expansion hype rolling all over again is a new job with flashy particles.

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'Wow look how many different attacks SGE has! SCH is DOA omegalul!'

Cut to present day, where we realize that, of the 6 or 7 attacks shown in the Job Action Trailer, one is a 2min CD used for healing, one is a damage loss to build the resource for (outside of downtime), One has a 40s CD, And then we have the standard issue 'AOE around self', 'filler', and 'DOT which absolutely has to be 30s just like every other healer's DOT'

It was downright embarrassing that in the EW job trailer for SGE I could read out the skills as they were happening and they were like 99% right

There is the spam spell, there’s the dot, the weak single target heal, the strong single heal, the AOE heal, the AOE nuke, the one random damage oGCD we get, the oGCD shield the AOE oGCD shield, the emergency single target heal, the bubble

My excitement for SGE died with the job action trailer, I shouldn’t be able to figure out 99% of the skills being use and realise it will play extremely similar to the existing healers when the job action trailer purposefully puts the actions in a random order you’d never actually press to show them all off

Anyone who was genuinely excited for SGE after the job action trailer was either a desperate shield healer main that hates SCH, a sylphie or someone who didn’t understand healers

But..lazers, right? Everyone likes lazers. That's all I could think when I saw that. Swish..

Hmm.. my 37 y/o brain is already failing.. care to explain what a sylphie is?

NGL I will probably die of laughter if instead of giving us a "Glare/Broil/DoT/AoE etc" animation update and potency bump, they had the genius idea to start doing that to the GCD heals instead and we get "Medica III/Succor II/Aspected Helios II" etc

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Originally Posted by rawker

Hmm.. my 37 y/o brain is already failing.. care to explain what a sylphie is?

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It's that one girl from the conjurer questline who only wants to heal and never anything else. Now adopted as a term for a certain kind of healer player.

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Originally Posted by Absurdity

It's that one girl from the conjurer questline who only wants to heal and never anything else. Now adopted as a term for a certain kind of healer player.

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Oh, I see. I totally forgot that character. Thanks

And it's so easy to come up with 'something' for a job like SGE, because of how 'nothing' it currently has over other healers (that is, they all use the same baseline and don't really grow from said baseline)

Quick example, imagine SGE has two new abilities on the GCD, Neuralgia and Myasthenia (nerve pain and muscle weakness, apparently). Make both be 15s CD GCDs, with 2 charges (or 3), and deal 330p damage just like Dosis. But each cast of Dosis reduces one of the two at random, by 2.5s CD. Make Neuralgia a Conal AOE, and Myasthenia a line AOE in front of the SGE, give one of the two the effect 'the next autoattack dealt by enemies is reduced by 50% of the damage dealt to them by this attack', the other 'reduces enemy's STR and DEX by 3% for 10s', and a RPR-esque thing where alternating between the two gives you, idk, 20 bonus potency on the cast (so they're 350p instead of 330, since the base cast is 330p you could theoretically overcap on purpose to keep the chain going for the sake of your barse I guess). Now SGE has a pseudo 1-2-1-3 thing going on, but also has to react to the possibility that one of the two just Rambo procs CD reduction over and over and so you have to press that one more often

Then give SCH Miasmalysis and Shadowflare, and attach 'enemy inflicted by this DOT has their STR and DEX reduced by 2% for each SCH DOT they are afflicted by', for a total of 6%. Add Bane back as an AOE upgrade to Energy Drain, make it so that it deals 100p, but to be quirky and different, have it jump from one enemy to the next in a sequence when hitting multiple in an AOE, and each jump INcreases the potency of the Bane cast (not the DOTs it's spreading) by 10p per jump (the pathogen evolves as it spreads, making it more lethal, some lore thing like that)

I've always suffered from 'lack of creativity', being more of a logic-minded person. If I can come up with stuff for these jobs, because of their sheer 'barebones'-ness, SE should be able to. And that shows the real problem, it's not that they cannot, its that they do not want to, as it conflicts with their design goal: Healers should heal, dealing damage is for the damage dealing classes (and tanks)

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Originally Posted by Nizzi

NGL I will probably die of laughter if instead of giving us a "Glare/Broil/DoT/AoE etc" animation update and potency bump, they had the genius idea to start doing that to the GCD heals instead and we get "Medica III/Succor II/Aspected Helios II" etc

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The best part of a 'Medica 3' is that it would make Medica 1 and/or Cure3 more redundant, but having redundancies in the kit is kind of WHM's identity at this point, what with 3 copies of Cure2 (Cure2/Solace/Tetra) and 2 of Medica (Medica/Rapture). At this point, wouldn't be surprised if we got a Lily spender that was 'Cure 3 potency and range, but it's damage neutral!'

It is a shame we can't really talk about that recent thread there because it did kind of lined up with what I was thinking they would do but can't really say anything since it would the whole TOS stuff.

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Originally Posted by rawker

Oh, I see. I totally forgot that character. Thanks

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What's ironic is by the end of that questline, she stops being a "sylphie" by the time the player reaches level 30. Meanwhile, there's a small but loud handful of players at level 90 that hear people asking for a few more attack spells and go:

https://i.imgur.com/HiOMxx4.gif

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Originally Posted by ForsakenRoe

If I can come up with stuff for these jobs, because of their sheer 'barebones'-ness, SE should be able to. And that shows the real problem, it's not that they cannot, its that they do not want to, as it conflicts with their design goal: Healers should heal, dealing damage is for the damage dealing classes (and tanks)

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This is, in my opinion, the crux of healing design and why I think it's really a waste of time to invest emotions into healing or wanting it to get better in this game at this point in time. SE doesn't want to design them well because to SE - they are exactly where they want them design wise, and SE is happy with that. You're right, it's entirely that they do not want to design them any better damage wise. They could give a varied DPS rotation to each of the healers without consuming too many more buttons. Hell, I can come up with an easy one (that I've likely posted before) off the top of my head, now.

Return Miasma to SCH, shorten Bio's timer down to like 12/15/18s and then copy BRD's old DoT proc mechanic. From there, give the DoTs a % based chance to grant a stack of Ruin IV each tick (or name it whatever you want, Kaustra etc) and have the potency of that Ruin IV stack be slightly above Broil IV, lets say 25 potency above, so 320. Make it where SCH can only stack 2 so you want to go into a 2m burst with both stacks of Ruin IV to use in burst but you also want to not stay capped if possible to maximize the amount of gains you get from Ruin IV. The reduction in Bio's timer along with adding the procs and Miasma back would reduce "Broil spam" a ton and give Scholar more things to manage again, reducing complains of "just spamming one button" because there's now a reactive element in SCH's kit along with different timers to manage that aren't on a boring 30/60/120 cycle. Maybe even re-add Quickened Aetherflow as a trait since that requires no buttons?

None of that is what I'm saying they "should do" but just saying that there are significant things they can do to make Broil/Glare etc spam less apparent, diversify how each job plays damage kit wise all while not introducing a huge amount of buttons into the kit that exist only for damage. They just don't want to; it wasn't a coincidence that every DoT became 30s and every healer has the same 'spam spell refresh DoT twice a minute'; the developers already hate variance in fights because of jobs and they especially hate variance because of player skill level. To be honest, I'm still genuinely surprised Energy Drain exists in SCH's kit at all because total Energy Drain optimization is a party effort, not a SCH skill effort (mostly) and the need to coordinate and communicate as a party to increase your overall damage is something they've broadly been shaving out of the game for years.

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Originally Posted by ForsakenRoe

The best part of a 'Medica 3' is that it would make Medica 1 and/or Cure3 more redundant, but having redundancies in the kit is kind of WHM's identity at this point, what with 3 copies of Cure2 (Cure2/Solace/Tetra) and 2 of Medica (Medica/Rapture). At this point, wouldn't be surprised if we got a Lily spender that was 'Cure 3 potency and range, but it's damage neutral!'

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Getting a Medica II and Cure 3 lily spender sounds like exactly the type of thing they would do to pad out buttons in an expansion, lol
The design for this role is so grim, and the thing we can't discuss out of fear of being struck down made me laugh really hard ngl

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Originally Posted by Nizzi

To be honest, I'm still genuinely surprised Energy Drain exists in SCH's kit at all because total Energy Drain optimization is a party effort, not a SCH skill effort (mostly) and the need to coordinate and communicate as a party to increase your overall damage is something they've broadly been shaving out of the game for years.

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Honestly, in modern healer design, you don't even need to actually communicate with your party anymore to burn all your stacks on Energy Drain. The other 3 healers have so much totally free healing that they can basically soloheal most fights with minimal help from the SCH, mostly supplementing with the fairy abilities, Expedient and Consolation is enough.

That's why I find it strange when people complain about the SCH not healing, it's not like the other healer loses anything when they heal. It's really funny that people want totally free healing but also complain that they have to heal more than the one remaining healer that doesn't have totally free healing.

not much for me to heal when every co-healer I get in duty finder reacts to any and all form of damage in the most paranoid way possible, typically by spamming Medica 2 or other similar crutch spells (on top of tanks having things like Divine Veil/Shake it Off). at that point the only thing I can use Aetherflow on is Energy Drain and sometimes press mit.

truly, healing is a thankless job. not because charity goes unrewarded, but because there wasn't anything to thank me for in the first place.

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Originally Posted by VentVanitas

not much for me to heal when every co-healer I get in duty finder reacts to any and all form of damage in the most paranoid way possible, typically by spamming Medica 2 or other similar crutch spells (on top of tanks having things like Divine Veil/Shake it Off). at that point the only thing I can use Aetherflow on is Energy Drain and sometimes press mit.

truly, healing is a thankless job. not because charity goes unrewarded, but because there wasn't anything to thank me for in the first place.

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It does hurt my soul a little each time I run into a scholar or sage that just relies on succor and eukrasian prognosis after every instance of damage.

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

It does hurt my soul a little each time I run into a scholar or sage that just relies on succor and eukrasian prognosis after every instance of damage.

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At least you get SGE’s that actually press eukrasia

Usually I get SGE’s who when the boss does a raidwide that hits us for 30 of our health they will drop holos, panhaima and kerechole then when we still lose 4% of our HP they will spam prognosis 4 times while I’m over there watching my whispering dawn get totally wasted