How would you feel if shields had no upfront healing?

In compensation, the shields are much beefier, Like, a 1000/750 potency heal-sized shield for single-target and AoE, respectively, along with having a .5s cast time. If the shield breaks, the target receives a 450/300 potency heal respectively. If the duration of the shield runs out, they instead receive a 300/200 potency heal instead.

The idea would be to make it so that shield healers should more rely on preventing the damage, rather than reacting to damage. The quick cast time allows for reactionary shielding, so that you can get the shield up before the buster/raidwide goes off. The Excog-like effect is to allow for healing if damage is not fully prevented from the attack, or to patch people up if damage was not blocked to begin with. A breaking shield healing more is to patch up those that took damage beyond the shield, while the duration running out heals less since the healing may not have been necessary.

I imagine such a change would require a change to Emergency Tactics for Scholar, along with a similar ability for Sage. Likely make it so that, for 10 seconds, all shields instead provide their broken shield potency heal, to allow parties running Sage and Scholar to handle heal-to-full mechanics.

I would really appreciate a change like this.
On one hand, it feels nice that I can use a shield (with an up front heal) to either heal or shield as needed.
On the other hand... it almost always feels like a waste of half of the abilities effect since you don't offen need a shield AND a heal. Having some abilities with both is fine, but man the way things are really gas me scratching my head.

This seems to be the ideal function of a Shield CD. The Basic shield should probably not have this property, though other cooldowns interacting with shields would aid here, such as Emergency Tactics turning all current shields into health at reduced value - good for getting value out of a misplaced shield about to expire.

I do really like the idea of shields without heals. It's one of the reasons why I think WHM is the current best shield healer instead of the normally vaunted SCH.

That said, the other part is the instant cast. .5s is nice and all, but you might as well make it instant if you're going below 1s. It'll also add quite a lot of versatility to a spell that doesn't actually heal.

In addition, adding a shield broken triggered heal is a bad idea. The point of the shield is to prevent the damage, and if you add a shield buff on top of that, then most of the time that nice sized heal will almost all go to overhealing. Completely seperating heals from shields is a better idea I think.

For that matter, there's not really any need to increase the power of the shield as long as the MP cost is brought down a bit. Though making it an oGCD for SCH would be especially nice. Maybe Lustrate could shield instead of heal?

1000/750 is a bit much, but yes adjustments aside pure shields and a few shields that trigger additional heals after the shield breaks would be great. Shield healers should be about predicting and preparing for damage and rewarding you for it, not Pure Healing 99% of the time and occasionally preventing a raidwide from killing the party in Savage.

It would require minor chances to how debuffs like vuln and damage down apply when taking 0 damage, but that should be doable.

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Originally Posted by Dearche

In addition, adding a shield broken triggered heal is a bad idea. The point of the shield is to prevent the damage, and if you add a shield buff on top of that, then most of the time that nice sized heal will almost all go to overhealing. Completely seperating heals from shields is a better idea I think.

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It depends on how hard the damage hits. Chances are a raidwide pure shield isn't going to completely nullify hard hitting mechanics. Having the heal after the shield breaks makes a lot more sense that the current system of the heal applying before, which often wastes it when pre-shielding.

The increased eHP provided (i.e., the actual shield portion) has been the reason for pretty much shields' every nerf, limitation, or lowered relative throughput.

We'd then be doubling down on their reasons to be nerfed... while likely reducing their actual available throughput. That doesn't sound great.

For my part, I just want to see more than the absolute most basic design for shields. Have the shield absorb a portion of damage based on the %HP you'd otherwise be reduced to, for instance, so that it's less countered by auto-attacks. Have it outright increase (Magic) Defense, but have that bonus deteriorate over effective damage absorbed. Whatever. Just more than solely the most basic concept possible. I'd happily accept my shield value on targets decaying over time if I could have some smarter or otherwise more deliberate/manipulable shields.

While we're at it, I'd love to see some alternate modes of application. Maybe have up to X value apply instantly and up to 50% or 100% more apply over a channel, up to a GCD long. Maybe apply a shield (per the above Defense-additive-version) via oGCD but be able to recharge it via a dynamic cast (e.g., Broil when cast on enemies, Infuse when cast on allies).

The trouble with such high-potency shields is that they would enable parties to cheese mechanics. Think of the "merry-go-round doggos" in e10s. A lot of parties just stack shields and mitigation so they can ignore the mechanics and maintain uptime. With higher potency shields, this sort of thing would become more common. (I think this may be the reason why they don't allow Noct AST shields and SCH shields to stack.)

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Originally Posted by BungleBear

The trouble with such high-potency shields is that they would enable parties to cheese mechanics. Think of the "merry-go-round doggos" in e10s. A lot of parties just stack shields and mitigation so they can ignore the mechanics and maintain uptime. With higher potency shields, this sort of thing would become more common. (I think this may be the reason why they don't allow Noct AST shields and SCH shields to stack.)

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Funny thing is though is they make di ast shield all stack with all noct ast shields so its still broken if not even more broken because your getting regens as well from both ast via netrual sect at this point. Also the only shields that dont agree with noct ast and sch is noct field and galvaine, a noct field wont cancel a catalyse if a sch get one via a crit adlo and noct opposition will not cancel galavine ,so it seem in a tiny way a noct+sch can be possible now and heck sounds to me of a nice challenge.

As much as I like the idea, it would make shield either OP or just plain useless. To flat out stop damage cool now any debuff the devs make will be denied and their efforts to bring spice to raiding or dungeons will be wasted. Also there are mechs that drop your health to 1 and having a shield that only heals when you break it will not be the best option for your party making the window. God forbid we talk about LD coming into play, also if this was to pass you cant really have a solid heal ability or then there wouldnt be a point in even having the other healers other then ast for dmg increase. Just my opinion that shield are better then heals but heals is your final verdict in whether your alive or not. though giving this to blackest night or brutal wouldnt be a bad idea.

I dont like the idea as stated vatom it will make shields feel even more pointless, I like shields healing not only for party situation but for solo stuff like if am doing a B or A hunt , slinging shields for extra hp on my self makes me dps a good min or 2 as opposed to the slow tick and duration of regens, also again it helps to save poor equip team mates or even one self in situations, like incase my tank topple over and the dps is then target am able to swift cast and up that tank dps may be dead by then but i just spam shields on myself while tank gets up and pulls mobs off me. Even though I know i can bene them or something else yet once i throw the shield on i can focus on a bit more dps.

Shielding to me provides more up time rather than then stopping to throw some a regen after damage occur but that is just me. I feel I worry less on healing and people being alive when I do shields over regen, regens dont give me that feel of comfort when I feel as if they just dont tick fast enough and that mere 15 seconds aint cutting it, the game lies about spell speed increasing hots and dots ticks but I really dont see a dif when I tried like a 2k+ spell speed before, all I notice for sure was my shorter gcds , anyways I just hard core do crit and det(i dont do dh which i never know why healers do dh over det) det increase heal +dps , dh only does dps and thats not even that high. Think the chart I found was 1.4 to heals and dps of det and dh is just 1.8 increase to dps only.