Below is my idea of a Dancer as a healer. Do note that the potencies, recast, costs and the like are pretty certainly out of whack and would need to be tuned.
I understand that the likelihood of it being used by the developers is slim-to-none, but I still enjoyed creating it, and maybe, someone will enjoy reading it.
What does it revolve around?! Dances, of course. But also inducements. Spells that give targets “buffs” or “debuffs” which trigger off of dancing (or MP regeneration in one case). Unlike other healers, this form of Dancer is a heavy weaponskill user with no spell heals. It also lacks the standard 400 potency heal. It uses both TP and MP, depending on the skill (and both for the final two), but there is a multitude of means of restoring both, for self and party members, built into this class. As a result, despite lacking the healing power of White Mage, the shields, Fairy and Aetherflow heals of Scholar or the all-around power of Astrologian, the Dancer can perform well by strategic use of different effects of Inducement spells and dances, together with high sustainability, to clear content.
As a healer, Dancer focuses on keeping players at high HP, MP and TP throughout the fight, speeding up the fight more through letting DPS's do their jobs to their fullest more so than through their own damage.
Characteristics of Dancers
Weapon: Veils. Not the sort you cover your face with, but the sort you put around your shoulders. This is the same as Dancer in Final Fantasy Tactics.
As enchanted cloth, Veils have a range of 10 yalms for auto-attack, and that's the range of veil-using weaponskills as well. That places Dancers closer to the source of damage than other healers, but at the same time, provides some extra free offense. Whether the auto-attack triggers while dancing or not is up for discussion, as it can go either way just fine.
Veils have lowest damage but high speed and like for all other healers, they use mind for damage.
Armor: Either the same as other healers, or unique, lightweight clothes traditional for the cultures from which they come. Both are fine, as Dancers mostly use the same stats as other healers.
Dances: Every dances description starts with “A dancing step...”. Perpetual dances have the word “Dance” in their name, while one-time effects have “Step” in their name.
Perpetual dances, like all over-time effects, do not do anything until the next “tick” since they were made, meaning that using them requires some forethought. Their speed also is not affected by Spell Speed or Skill Speed, since the “tick” is fixed at 3sec, but their effect is increased instead. Using any weaponskill, spell or ability while using a dance ends it, but a dance can be used while moving, making Dancers the only mobile healers.
The one-time steps have a cast time (and are the only skills in the arsenal of a Dancer with a cast time) and thus require being stationary.
Inducements: Spells without cast times, all inducements have only an effect of giving a unique buff or debuff, depending on the type.
All except one inducement are triggered on dancing that affects the target (if beneficial), the target or someone the target is in combat with (if detrimental) or from any effect that “triggers inducements in range”. A dance that deals damage needs to deal damage (meaning cannot miss and must overcome shields to deal at least 1 point of damage), a dance that debuffs needs to cause that debuff etc.
There is a limit of one positive and one negative inducement per target. This is a global limit, so if one dancer casts Induced Love on a target and another dancer casts Induced Courage on the same target, the Induced Love is replaced. When a stack is replaced, it is lost, but if the same skill is used, the stacks are cumulative up to 20 and the duration resets, regardless of who cast the original and secondary Inducement.
The caster of the inducement doesn't matter, except for the Induce Courage skill. Every other inducement triggers off of any dance, so if there are two dancers, each using a Cheering Dance on a single target with Induced Love stacks, that target will be healed by 150 Cheering Dance twice, and two (or four, with triggered Devoted Lova trait) stacks of Induced Love will be removed to heal him for 100, 200 or 250 per stack removed, depending on the traits active.
Recast: All weaponskills have a recast of 2,5sec, unless noted otherwise. Inducements have 3sec recast while abilities each have their own specified recast noted in their description.
Dances and steps have their recast lowered by skill speed, but that matters only if a dance is interrupted, as they are ongoing skills, therefore lack of skill speed on healer clothes does not matter. Veil skills are normally affected by skill speed.
Skills: There are a total of 31 skills below, putting them at the level of a Monk in the skill amount. Seeing as for majority of the skills there is some sort of synergy, it would be somewhat difficult to remove something. Skills for potential removal are Entangling Veil and Enticing Aura.
Gauge: I guess a simple gauge that shows the kind of dance that is being used right now. If someone have an idea for a different one, by all means, share it.
Skills and Abilities
Lvl 1 Veils Secret Weaponskill
Range 10 yalms, Radius 0 yalms
Attack with 120 potency on enemy.
60 TP
Lvl 2 Cheering Dance Weaponskill
Range 30 yalms, Radius 0 yalms
Dancing step that heals target with a potency of 150 as it continues.
50 TP (every 3sec)
Note: A single-target affecting dance, it triggers inducement effects only on the healed target.
Lvl 5 Vigorous Dance Weaponskill
Range 0 yalms, Radius 15 yalms
Dancing step that increases damage of party members in range by 15% as it continues.
80 TP (every 3sec)
Note: As a perpetual dance, this removes the ability of using any other skills without ending its effect, thus its bonus should be significant to make up for it.
Lvl 10 Prepare Ability
Range 0 yalms, Radius 0 yalms
Restore 200 TP to self.
Additional Effect: Double the amount of stacks on the next inducement.
Additional Effect Duration: 10sec
Recast: 45sec
Lvl 12 Revitalize Spell
Range 30 yalms, Radius 0 yalms
Resurrects target to a weakened state.
Cast Time: 8sec
MP cost as other revival spells.
Lvl 14 Induce Love Spell
Range 30 yalms, Radius 0 yalms
Give target ten stacks of “Induced Love”, up to a maximum of twenty stacks.
Induced Love: A stack is removed whenever a dance step have an effect on you to heal you with a potency of 100.
Induced Love Duration: 63sec
Recast: 3sec
350 MP at lvl70
Note: All “on you” on inducements speak of the person with the stack, not the dancer that caused them. Whenever a person is affected by a dance, they receive the effect of that dance and the effect of the removed stack on top of that, at the cost of that stack. The duration is 63sec to allow the use of all 20 stacks with a single dancer available.
Lvl 15 Calming Dance Weaponskill
Range 0 yalms, Radius 15 yalms
A dancing step that refreshes your and party members MP with a potency of 40 as it continues.
70 TP (every 3sec)
Lvl 18 Refreshing Dance Weaponskill
Range 0 yalms, Radius 15 yalms
A dancing step that refreshes your and party members TP with a potency of 40 as it continues.
700 MP at lvl70 (every 3sec)
Lvl 21 Induce Pain Spell
Range 30 yalms, Radius 0 yalms
Give target ten stacks of “Induced Pain”, up to a maximum of twenty stacks.
Induced Pain: A stack is removed whenever a dance step have an effect on you or someone you are in combat with to deal damage with a potency of 60 to you.
Induced Pain Duration: 63sec
Recast: 3sec
600 MP at lvl70
Note: Again, the “you” speaks of the person with the stacks, in this case, a mob. A stack is removed whenever that mob is affected by a dance (like Sunlight Dance), or whenever any player that is in combat with that mob is under the effect of a dance. It is not removed if other mobs find themselves under the effect of a dance.
Lvl 25 Induce Courage Spell
Range 30 yalms, Radius 0 yalms
Give target ten stacks of “Induced Courage”, up to a maximum of twenty stacks.
Induced Courage: A stack is removed whenever the stacks caster refreshes MP to heal you by an amount equal to the MP restored by the caster. Induced Courage is not removed by dancing as normal.
Induced Courage Duration: 63sec
Recast: 3sec
450 MP at lvl70
Note: No effect that says “triggers inducements” affects Induce Courage stacks. These stacks are removed only if another inducement is cast on the target, if the duration ends or if the dancers MP is restored, thus healing the target by the same amount worth of HP. The source of MP regeneration doesn't matter, but it needs to be from an ability. The natural regeneration does not remove the stacks nor does it heal.
Lvl 30 Echoes Ability
Range 0 yalms, Radius 0 yalms
Next inducement or dance have its radius increased by 5 for 15sec.
Duration: 10sec
Recast: 45sec
80 TP
Note: The 15sec duration of increase doesn't matter for inducements, but it matters for dances. The 10sec duration is the time in which you must use inducement or a dance to apply it to, or it is wasted.
Lvl 33 Shock Veil Weaponskill
Range 10 yalms, Radius 3 yalms
Thunder attack with 180 potency on enemy and enemies near it.
100 TP
Lvl 37 Meditative Dance Weaponskill
Range 0 yalms, Radius 30 yalms
A dancing step that refreshes your MP with a potency of 100 and triggers inducements of targets in range as it continues.
Additional Effect: Double the effect of inducements triggered by Meditative Dance and gain Interrupted Meditation stack.
Additional Effect: If you have three Interrupted Meditation stacks, the dance ends.
Recast: 30sec
Note: This triggers Induced Courage and doubles its healing effect in the process. Due to the built-in ending mechanism, it refreshes total of 300 potency worth of MP.
Lvl 41 Purging Step Weaponskill
Range 0 yalms, Radius 30 yalms
A dancing step that heals one detrimental effect from self and party members, then ends.
Cast Time: 2sec
Recast: 20sec
1200 MP at lvl70
Note: Yes, this is an AoE Esuna. It also ends instantly but it still triggers inducements once.
Lvl 43 Induce Calmness Spell
Range 30 yalms, Radius 0 yalms
Give target ten stacks of “Induced Calmness”, up to a maximum of twenty stacks.
Induced Calmness: A stack is removed whenever a dance step have an effect on you to heal you with a potency of 60 and refresh you mana with a potency of 40.
Induced Calmness Duration: 63sec
Recast: 3sec
600 MP at lvl70
Lvl 45 Thundering Veil Weaponskill
Range 10 yalms, Radius 5 yalms
Attack with 200 potency on enemy and enemies near him. Potency is decreased by 25% for third enemy and by 50% for fourth and further enemies.
Additional Effect: Silence
Additional Effect Duration: 3sec
150 TP
Lvl 48 Contagious Inducement Ability
Range 15 yalms, Radius 0 yalms
Spread positive inducements on target party member to all party members in 15 yalm radius or spread the negative inducement on target enemy to all enemies in 15 yalm radius.
Recast: 60sec
Note: The amount of stacks on the target is copied as well, so using it on a target with ten stacks will spread 10 stacks, while using it on someone with 20 or 5 stacks will spread 20 or 5 stacks respectively. It does not spread positive inducements of enemies or negative inducements on allies (in PvP).
Lvl 50 Deathly Dance Weaponskill
Range 0 yalms, Radius 15 yalms
A dancing step that attacks enemies with a potency of 100 and triggers inducements in targets in range as it continues.
Additional Effect: Add +1% vulnerability debuff that stacks up to ten times.
Additional Effect Duration: 60sec
Recast: 10sec
120 TP (every 3sec)
Note: The “triggers inducements” means that it triggers positive effects in allies even if they are not otherwise affected by this skill. It also means that enemies will have their inducement trigger even if they weren't affected by the damage (dodged or mitigated it). Doesn't affect Induced Courage. Recast starts counting down when the dance begins. There is no limit to how long one can dance, so it is possible to restart it right after ending if the dancing took more than 10sec.
Lvl 50 Finishing Step Weaponskill
Range 0 yalms, Radius 30 yalms
A dancing step that removes all inducements on all targets instantly burning them down, then ends. Their effect triggers for half of the stacks removed this way. Does not affect Induced Courage.
Recast: 60sec
200 TP
Note: Affects enemies and allies alike. Affects both negative and positive inducements, regardless of who cast them or whether its on allies or enemies. The amount of stacks removed that triggers is rounded up, so removing 19 stacks will trigger their effect 10 times. Doesn't remove Induced Courage at all. It is considered a dance for effects like Echoes.
Lvl 52 Veil of Sapping Weaponskill
Range 10 yalms, Radius 0 yalms
Attack with 150 potency on enemy.
Additional Effect: Restores partial MP.
120 TP
Note: The MP restored is less than that of Energy Drain of Arcanist/Scholar/Summoner, since it can be reused more freely.
Lvl 54 Entangling Veils Weaponskill
Range 10 yalms, Radius 5 yalms
Binds and slows targets. Bind is not removed on being hit.
Additional Effect: 5% slow
Additional Effect Duration: 4sec (for both)
Recast: 20sec
80 TP
Note: The binding and slowing effects continue for the full duration of 4sec regardless of whether the targets are hit or damaged in any way, shape or form.
Lvl 56 Moonlight Dance Weaponskill
Range 0 yalms, Radius 15 yalms
A dancing step that slows enemies and hastens allies in range as it continues.
Additional Effect: Slow 10%.
Additional Effect: Reduces Weaponskill cast time and recast time, Spell cast time and recast time, and auto-attack delay of all party members by 10%.
Recast: 30sec
100 TP (every 3sec)
Note: Like for Deathly Dance, the recast starts when the skill is triggered and thus its cooldown can end before the dance is interrupted, making it reusable again. It, too, doesn't have time limit for dancing (other than TP).
Lvl 58 Sunlight Dance Weaponskill
Range 15 yalms, Radius 5 yalms
A dancing step that deals fire damage with a potency of 140 to target and enemies near him as it continues.
Additional Effect: Blind
Additional Effect Duration: 3sec
Recast: 30sec
120 TP (every 3sec)
Note: The blind effect is applied whenever the damage is dealt, thus unlike in the case of dances like Moonlight Dance where their effect ends instantly upon interrupting the dance, the Blindness sticks for 3sec after the last damage was dealt.
Lvl 60 Mirage Tempo Ability
Range 0 yalms, Radius 0 yalms
Creates a double of self allowing the use of two dances at the same time. If another dance is used, the older one stops. When the effect ends, the older dance stops.
Additional Effect Duration: 30sec
Recast: 90sec
Note: Each dance removes inducement stacks, so it doubles their trigger rate. If Meditative Dance is used, then two stacks are removed and one of them is doubled in effect. Instant dance steps like Finishing Dance also count towards the limit of two, removing the older dance if two are active. It is also possible to start another dance during the cast time of Finishing Step or Purging Step. It's also possible to use second dance instantly, ignoring weaponskills global cooldown, since the clone basically have its own cooldown. The clone will continue dancing even if a non-dance is used by the dancer, at which point, its dance is the “older one”.
Lvl 60 Induce Excitement Spell
Range 30 yalms, Radius 0 yalms
Give target ten stacks of “Induced Excitement”, up to a maximum of twenty stacks.
Induced Excitement: A stack is removed whenever a dance step have an effect on you to heal you with a potency of 60 and refresh you TP with a potency of 40.
Induced Calmness Duration: 63sec
Recast: 3sec
600 MP at lvl70
Lvl 62 Veil of Destruction Weaponskill
Range 10 yalms, Radius 0 yalms
Attack with 100 potency on enemy.
Additional Effect: Apply a “Destruction” stack on enemy up to a limit of 5. When a Veil of Destruction is used on a target with Destruction stack on him, its potency is increased by 50 for every stack.
Additional Effect Duration: 6sec
Additional Effect: When a Veil of Destruction is used on a target with 5 Destruction stacks, remove all of destruction stacks and put Veil of Destruction on 30sec recast. Deal damage with a potency of 300 to target and all enemies in a 5yalm radius around the target.
120 TP
Note: The way destruction stacks count, you deal damage to one enemy with a potency of 100, 150, 200, 250 and 300. When you use another Veil of Destruction, you deal 350 potency damage to the target, and additional 300 potency damage to the target and all targets around him, then put the skill on cooldown. If there is only one target, it may be more effective to avoid triggering the nuke to avoid the recast. Stacks are not per dancer. Two dancers using their Veil's of Destruction do speed up the stack generation. Only the dancer that triggers the explosion have its Veil on Cooldown.
Lvl 64 Panicked Dance Ability
Range 30 yalms, Radius 0 yalms
A dancing step that heals target with 800 potency then ends.
Additional Effect: Pacification on you.
Additional Effect Duration: 6sec
Recast: 45sec
Note: The pacification cannot be removed, therefore this stops the dancer from using dances and veils for 6sec, meaning majority of the toolkit. It stops second dance as well, when used during Mirage Tempo.
Lvl 66 Enticing Aura Ability
Range 15 yalms, Radius 0 yalms
Increase targets enmity generation.
Duration: 30sec
Additional Effect: Reduce damage received by target by 5%.
Additional Effect Duration: 30sec
Recast: 90sec
Lvl68 Underworlds Dance Weaponskill
Range 15 yalms, Radius 0 yalms
A dancing step that attacks enemy with a potency of 250 and triggers inducements in targets in a 15 yalms radius as it continues.
Additional Effect: Heals party members in a 5 yalm radius around the target by an amount equal to half the damage dealt.
1000 MP and 80 TP at lvl70 (every 3sec)
Note: The inducement triggering is 15 yalms around the target, not around the dancer. Every player receives the full amount of healing, it is not divided by the number of players, so dealing 4000 damage to the enemy means healing the allies for 2000HP.
Lvl 70 Angelic Dance Weaponskill
Range 0 yalms, Radius 30 yalms
A dancing step that instantly restores health of you and party members in range by 600. As it continues, it heals party members with a potency of 300.
Additional Effect: Remove one detrimental effect on use on yourself and all party members.
Recast: 45sec
1200 MP and 100 TP at lvl70 (every 3sec)
Note: The “esuna” effect and the 600 healing potency are instant, as in, they take effect on the press of the button. They are also “free”. The MP and TP cost start after 3 seconds like for all over-time effects (including all other dances). Using an ability to cancel dancing right after using it will make it an instant, MP/TP free, 600 potency heal with party-wide Esuna. Angelic Dance instant effect does not trigger for the clone made with Mirage Tempo, when it starts using it.
Traits: In addition to Enhanced Mind and Maim and Mend traits, Dancers have these unique traits.
Cheering with Love (Lvl15)
When a Cheering Dance triggers an Induced Love, increase the Induced Love potency by 100.
Revitalizing Dancing (Lvl23)
Allows casting of Revitalize while dancing without interrupting the dance. Also, allows movement without interrupting Revitalize while dancing. The spell is interrupted if a non-dance skill is used or if it is used again.
Note: This trait allows the use of other skills or spells during the cast time of Revitalize. If that skill is not a dance skill however, the cast will be interrupted. Changing dance will not interrupt the skill. Steps however will stop Revitalize, and using Revitalize while it's being cast will cancel it without expending any mana.
Devoted Love (Lvl30)
When using a Cheering Dance on a target with Induced Love stacks that is below half HP, double the amount of Induced Love stacks that are triggered and add 50 potency to each of them.
Note: There is no doubling if there is only one Induced Love stack, but it still gets additional potency. This trait stacks with Cheering with Love trait, making the every tick below 50% of targets HP heal with a total potency of 650 at the cost of 50 TP and two Induced Love stacks.
If two or more Dancers use Cheering Dance on the same target while having this trait, it will trigger for both even if just one of them would be enough to put the target above 50% HP, as both would trigger at the same time before it is still healed.
A possible balancing factors that can be added is making the trait have a short “refresh”, like 9sec.
Spellcrafting Adaptation (Lvl44)
Swiftcast gains “Double the amount of stacks triggered by your next dance or double the amount of stacks added by next Inducement spell you cast.”
Surecast gains “Cast a single Inducement spell without interrupting a dance.”
Note: These are added to the normal effects of Surecast and Swiftcast. Revitalize can still be instantly cast with Swiftcast and it can be made uninterruptible with Surecast, for example.
Veils Greater Secret (Lvl48)
Veils Secret gets a 30 potency increase. Additionally, it adds a 20% Heavy effect for 3sec.
Entertainment Dancing (Lvl50)
Remove all MP and TP costs from steps and dances outside of combat. Recast of all dances out of combat becomes 0. If a combat starts while dancing, consider the dance used at that moment.
Note: Basically, a cheap way to speed up regeneration between pulls, but also to simply...well...dance in place of normal emotes.
Veils Greatest Secret (Lvl68)
Veils Secret gets further 50 potency increase. In addition, it grants a reduction of 0.1 to all veils skills recast, if it is 2.5 or less, that stacks up to five times with a duration of 10sec.
Note: Stacks with Veils Greater Secret, for a total of 200 potency Veils Secret that induces heavy and reduces recast of most veils. It does not affect Entangling Veil or triggered Veil of Destruction.
My vision of a Healer Dancer
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07-29-2017, 09:44 PMkikix12My vision of a Healer Dancer
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07-29-2017, 09:52 PMIlyrian
Sounds good - I would love to see it from an aesthetic point of view but the problem with support classes/abilities:
Is that they are either OP and/or completely unbalanced - and become mandatory, making all the other healers a statistical worse choice: Hello AST.Quote:
As a healer, Dancer focuses on keeping players at high HP, MP and stamina throughout the fight, speeding up the fight more through letting DPS's do their jobs to their fullest more so than through their own damage.
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07-29-2017, 10:15 PMTeranuh
This is just my opinion, but I'd much prefer a healer that deals damage to heal in place of another support healer a la AST. Something similar to Chloromancer from Rift, mechanically speaking.
Basically, it would have lower maximum damage potential than other healers but higher up-time to balance it out. Think something like Synastry on AST but instead of healing another person to proc the heal, you damage an enemy instead. Such that it could ST heal while DPSing but have to stop and cast to output AOE healing. It could be broken in all kinds of ways, but properly tuned it would bring something fresh to healing that might actually get some DPS to switch over and increase our ranks. -
07-29-2017, 11:35 PMkikix12I admit that they are harder to balance, but Astrologist is unbalanced not because it's a support healer, but because developers gave him White Mage level of healing while adding support on top of that. And Balance was overpowered before Stormblood because it was basically "free" on top of everything else.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ilyrian
In this case, for example, using the attack-boosting dance you lose out on a different effect and damage.
Dancer as I made it have multiple blocks that can be utilized to balance it. Of course, it would require balancing. Heck, Finishing Step, which could be used in a combo with Prepare, Induce Love and Contagious Inducement for instant party heal of 1000 potency is rather...eh...yeah. Though it would require three abilities AND a spell cast, it would still need some sort of decrease in power or frequency of usability. Then again, it wouldn't need to be that much weaker considering Earthly Star exists...
I'm afraid that the developers really have three choices.
1) Make hybrid healers/DPS that can compete with DPS's on almost equal footing while healing, having a somewhat even distribution between healing and damage skills/spells. Something that they are pretty strongly against.
2) Make a "reskin" of one of the current healers (even more than Astrologist did) adding more or less irrelevant set of skills that are meant to be their flavor, but that would do little to actually make them unique.
3) Tread the risky grounds of making healers unlike the ones that are now. Including an actually support healer. Astrologian is a healer with extra support, but not much of a support healer. It's got cards, and that's all. A completely random mechanic that is basically one skill +RNG with means of skewering that RNG portion slightly. When it is both RNG based and limited to only one aspect, and that is supposed to make the entire theme of the class, it's little wonder it is so easily over or underpowered.
I think that a "fixed" job, that would have no random element to it, would be easier to balance. And if it would be slightly weaker, taking the wary road?! Sorry, but Scholars are considerably weaker now (though better than at beginning of Stormblood...in high level content anyway), and if you had any more basic healer, you would end up with a White Mage...So yes, the whole aspect of being a healer is already prone for unbalanced situations, along with tanks.
Astrologian is hardly any more of a support healer than White Mage or Scholar. It have a whooping one skill that generates a random buff and one skill that changes that buffs effect. That's literally all. Everything else is related to healing or damage mitigation that is part of every healer since their respective day 1. So yes, Astrologian is a healer with support abilities, but so are technically White Mage (Fluid Aura and Repose) and Scholar (Chain Stratagem, Fey Covenant of Eos, Silent Dusk and Fey Wind of Selene).Quote:
Originally Posted by Teranuh
I would also like a DPS that "drains" health from enemies, but that just doesn't seem to fit a dancer in my opinion, and I wanted to specifically make a Dancer. I did give one ability like that to it though. -
07-30-2017, 12:42 AMAlestorm
I remember the devs talking about a class called "Oracle" before Red Mage was decided on, I could see that being a healer with a crystal ball for the weapon.
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07-30-2017, 02:21 AMVanitas
Inb4 dancer is a dps.
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07-30-2017, 02:27 AMADVSS
The only thing that might make the job confusing are the many different types of buff stacks, etc. Though maybe im reading it all wrong. I think this is a cool idea and can tell you put alot of thought and work into this. I like this concept. As Ive been saying since HW the problem with the new tank and healer, wasnt just that they were a new tank and healer, but they were designed to compete and or eventually replace one or both of the other tanks and healers. Designing something fresh, in the realms outside of having to compete, and just being straight up different, yet achieving the same result, is a much better approach in my book.
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07-30-2017, 03:40 AMkikix12Yes, there are a total of five unique buffs. However, one of them is a debuff on enemy, and only one of the four remaining can be at any one person at any one time. And all of them heal HP in one way or another. Seeing as only one of them is not triggered by dancing, it's really just down to knowing two of them and just dancing as normal at other times. When you think like that, it's no different than other classes where you just have to know your skills when you cast them, and once you use them, it's not hard to manage.Quote:
Originally Posted by ADVSS
And yes, doing the same thing in a similar way will not bring people to play the class if it didn't bring the people to play whatever it is similar to, so "more of the same" is not worth it in my opinion. -
07-30-2017, 03:49 AMeschaton
Love this idea.
And imagine DPS / Tanks / Healers all having a dancer class! Omg :3 Omg! :D -
07-30-2017, 04:09 AMKazrahThing about AST is that their support elements are substantially more consistent when compared to lengthier cooldowns such as those from SCH and more valuable than the crowd controlling abilities from WHM that haven't seen much use in major content. Sure, it's just a couple of buttons, but in the right hands, those buttons can prove to be close to gamebreaking.Quote:
Originally Posted by kikix12
Two things to point out. The first is the ongoing reference to "stamina", and unless that is referring to TP, that might need its own gauge as well and means of restoring it (unless there's something there I missed).
The second thing is kinda big not just for FFXIV healers, but for healers in any MMORPG that uses a role trinity. Although it might look like a reskin, every healer typically has a rudimentary toolkit to adequately function in all content. The basic heal, the big heal, the instant heal, the AoE heal, the big AoE heal and some sort of panic button when things are really going south....all of these need to be present in some form or another to operate as a basic healer, and after that usually comes the unique healing gimmick and then the damage toys and the flavor stuff. The reason why it looks like reskinning for healers in FFXIV is because it makes them easier to balance....at least in theory anyway. It's not really a "set in stone" thing, but it's still something worth bearing in mind whenever making a healer concept.
Always interesting seeing any concept for Dancer given Yoshi's response of wanting to get it "just right" given that was his response to why we didn't get Dancer for Stormblood. Like you said, it could definitely use some tuning, especially with traits. Maybe some lore elements wouldn't hurt either. Despite that and some of the text being a bit hard to follow at times, it's definitely a more interesting approach to Dancer, at least as a healer. -
07-30-2017, 05:05 AMkikix12I'm not arguing that support is more important in Astrologists than it is in Scholar and White Mage. But they are healers with more support, not support classes, per see. In other games, healers themselves are considered support characters by the lone fact of healing. So it depends on the point of view. In mine, the amount of variety and control of different support abilities matters primarily, the up-time secondarily. Astrologians, wanting specific combinations of cards or setting up Royal Road, do not have as much up-time as I would expect from a true support class, and they certainly have no selection of variety. It's just RNG, where trying to "select" something is just going to make it further and further away in the up-time.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kazrah
So yes, support is important for the class. It is the little "theme" around them. But it makes them better at support, not support classes. At least in my eyes.
Yes, my bad. I tend to refer to TP as Stamina due to more games I did play in my life having secondary resource use that term. I'm not used to tactical points. I'll edit it properly to avoid confusion.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kazrah
This is already tweaked a lot, main offender being Scholar. Their "big heal" heals less than the normal heal unless Emergency Tactics is used. The AoE big heal is tied to a resource that you very well may not have available for it. And most of all, neither their AoE big heal nor their instant heal are even available until later parts of the game (now, less "late", but they still are not available for a good chunk of content).Quote:
Originally Posted by Kazrah
Also, these things are actually present in the dancer I made. Though due to the design, they are actually "kinda different".
Standard Heal: Induce Love + Cheering Dance for 350 potency heal. Slightly less than other healers, but it is far easier to sustain with low MP cost of Induce abilities (for their effect, due to distributing it over ten stacks) and low TP cost of Cheering Dance.
Big Heal: Available since lvl30, just like Cure II. Cheering Dance + Induce Love automatically turns into it on targets with less than 50% health. Its potency is 650, so same as Benefic II. Its unavailability outside of lower HP is made up for with its low cost, "automatic" trigger and mobility of healing dancer (so no interruption to avoid AoE).
Instant Heal: Finishing Step with Induce Love is 500 potency instant heal. Two Induce Love or Prepare/Swiftcast and Induce Love give 1000 potency heal (and prepare guarantees you will have TP for it). The single-target "panic" button. A bit more complicated, but hey. The benefit is bigger too. Available when Lustrate, at lvl50. At higher level, an emergency "panic button" in the form of Panicked Dance...The name couldn't be any more obvious. It's got a drawback, but it's going to be up, no questions asked (it's pointless to use it to get more up-time for DPS after all).
The AoE: Induce Love can be cast on multiple targets and a dance can be used. Any dance other than Cheering (which is single target). Echoes turns Cheering Dance into a Cure III for 15 seconds at lvl30 that heals with either 350 potency, or 650 potency for targets with less than 50% HP. Contagious Inducement (lvl48) spreads Induce Love in a radius of 15 yalms. Then you can use most dances (Meditative Dance for 200 potency heal three times, or for double the amount of MP it will heal to you if you spread Induce Courage instead) for 100 potency AoE heal over time. Or you can blow em up with Finishing Step for 500 or 1000 potency heal (again, 10 or 20 stacks). There's your serious panic button.
Big AoE: See above. At lvl70, another big heal, Angelic Dance, for instant big heal, and high AoE heal that with Induce Love will be 400 potency every 3 seconds.
If anything, there may be too much variety. Seeing as the skills are working in combinations, it's not a matter of "31 skills". There are far more. The result depends on what you use it with. As a cave-eat, most requires some foresight since there's some preparation time for most of it. But that shouldn't be a problem with people saying left and right how scripted the battles are...right?!...
I'm sorry, but that's exactly why so few people play healers. If you're going to be using mostly the same skills, with different names, then you have only one healer in game, with slight variations depending on few additional skills. Yes, that's how it looks to people not interested in healers in greater detail. As barely more than one class...Quote:
Originally Posted by Kazrah
If our goal is to make more players play healers or tanks, it's important to make them look as more than reskins. Completely new playstyle. Achieving the same result in multiple different ways is not easy, but why healers should get the short end of the stick?! DPS have variety galore. And DPS are the role that needs it the LEAST, since people since the beginning of MMO's were swarming to the high-offense classes.
Healers are often bleak and unoriginal. That's why they are not liked nearly as much. And following the "easy" path, is not going to change anything. So yes, I did stray from that on purpose. -
07-30-2017, 06:44 AMAverax
The concept of dancer has always been hilarious to me. Like i always imagine 7 people fighting their hearts out while one dude is doing the chimichanga in the background.
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07-30-2017, 07:17 AMJhett_Magnum
I laughed way harder than I should.
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07-30-2017, 09:04 AMJhett_Magnum
I think you went a lil too complex with the stacks. You're on the right track though.
Main problems I have is it overlaps AST utility and missing a lot of potential because of BRDs utility. Moving and dancing would look weird, It should be stationary.
There should be some kinda Rythem type mechanic for dances other than holding the button. (I.e. Blitz, FFX overdrive, etc) -
07-30-2017, 10:56 AMbasketofsealsI'm not trying to make any commentary on healer balance, but are you really comparing cards to repose and fluid aura?Quote:
Originally Posted by kikix12
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07-30-2017, 11:23 AMBrightshadowI agree with this statement 100%, while I don't like how similar your job idea is to ast with the support dances, I think they should have a unique/interactive job gauge that will pull players. Something that recently came to mind is an April fools joke blizzard released about a bard class for world of Warcraft a decade ago. I think a job gauge like this picture attached would be a great way to pull players to a healer dancer, perhaps they can use a dance like "cheering dance" thus popping an active time maneuver where when the buttons prompted are pushed correctly the stronger your heals/support are, And it can simply be cancelled by moving.Quote:
Originally Posted by kikix12
So for ps4 you would use cheering dance then the job gauge will start popping right side buttons prompts to press (circle/square/etc).
For PC maybe the 1,2,3,4 keys ?
http://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/...20100417170700 -
07-30-2017, 01:51 PMTankHunter678I would rather not have to do a rhythm game minigame at the same time as needing to dodge a constant stream of aoes, while needing to heal people through those aoes who get clipped by them.Quote:
Originally Posted by Brightshadow
Its fine to go dream big and make the class complex in concept, but you then need to tone it down so that its not too hard to play in the technical content we are getting and will be expected to play through. A dancer healer should probably be the most mobile of healers, rather then constantly bound more so then the other healers by minigames. -
07-30-2017, 03:12 PMkikix12I'm sorry but...what?! Bards main utilities are critical increase, damage dealt to enemies increase and movement speed buff, none of which were suggested on my dancer.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jhett_Magnum
They have MP and TP regeneration, yes, but in their own way, every class does. Melee DPS have Goad to recover TP, magical DPS can share their MP with others.
And besides, MP and TP regeneration are one of those utilities that stack very well, especially since Bards/Machinists have 3min cooldown on theirs.
I disagree. By its nature, dancing is a method of movement. Especially some dances involve going all around the place.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jhett_Magnum
Yes, it would require a decent choreographer. Yes, that's entirely managable.
I know that kind of elements from other games...mostly single player. They just don't work in anything that's regular. In Final Fantasy X they were overdrives of SOME characters (others had plain and simple ones). And overdrives were used somewhat rarely. Interrupting the gameplay for a mini-game like that every two or three seconds is just annoying.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jhett_Magnum
The most "rhythm" complicacy you can expect is to have skills that can be used together for different effects and to know how they combine. But that's more for a songstress/bard...which clearly is not the case.
Yes and no. Crowd control is part of support classes. It was meant to show that White Mages do have support elements besides healing as well, and ones that they can use frequently (and besides, Repose would be actually a lot better than it really is if you could expect the tank and DPS to not wake up the sleeping monster a second later). It was in no way a comparison of power. There is no doubt that over time, Astrologians support brings by far the biggest effect on party performance out of the three healers.Quote:
Originally Posted by basketofseals
I'm sorry, but I cannot see the similarity. If we went with a "similarity" by having thematical focus on buffs, we have only three classes. A tank, a healer and a DPS. Cause all tanks are thematically most focused on taking and mitigating damage to themselves, all healers are first and foremost healing and all DPS are just doing variety of variously named stuff to damage the enemies. But if you look at HOW they do it, that's when the differences start popping out.Quote:
Originally Posted by Brightshadow
The Dancer as described here is completely different from Astrologian. There is zero randomness. It is all entirely under control. Heck, it have more planning ahead than most other classes.
Also, most of the support comes from healing HP, MP, TP or debuffing enemies (slow, vulnerability, silence, bind, blind. In comparison, there is a total of two buff effects on party, haste and attack up. Others are just triggered heal or damage over time.
It really could not be any further from Astrologist, except by not being a healer.
Furthermore, due to the ranges and radius aspects of the abilities, dancers are most likely going to be within 5 to 15 yalms away from the bosses and mobs at all times (outside of running for their life from AoE's). The results of that alone makes them play differently. At 10 yalms, some enemies may be very, very painful, not giving you the opportunity to move out of their cone attacks in either direction, so you have to plan it out properly. If you move closer in to be able to run past them, you'll have to dodge like a melee class, without as much survivability. You move further away?! You lock yourself out of a fair chunk of your arsenal, including nearly all means of attacking. -
07-30-2017, 04:40 PMKazrahSo major misconception as damage absorption effects are in fact heals. Just because they're preventative heals doesn't mean they're not treated as effective healing, which is what devs actually look at when making healing skills. This would also explain the other misconception that their basic AoE heal isn't Indomitability, but rather Succor, which has the effective potency equivalent to Medica or Helios. Also, the only reason why Scholar gets those bigger heals so late is because the class system starts it off almost 30 levels behind the other healers in terms of toolkit (hence the fairy, which is another element added to effective healing).Quote:
Originally Posted by kikix12
You'd be surprised at how different you can make a healer look while still keeping to the basic toolkit. Even tweaking the parts of that toolkit while retaining its effective healing can make a generic healer seem far from it.Quote:
Originally Posted by kikix12
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07-30-2017, 05:32 PMkikix12I assure you, I know that. But there are certain reasons why in practice, it just doesn't work the same, hence why in this discussion in particular, their "big heal" heals less is valid.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kazrah
Adloquium heals less and puts on a shield. It also costs you an arm and a leg in MP. If the one you heal is not the tank, chances are that the shield will never be used up and it will just fall off. Hence to heal non-tanks, you have to use Emergency Tactics or hope the DPS will get hit...something that you never should want. This is the "quirk" of a Scholar, a change of the basic toolkit. That's what we are talking about here, right?!
As I said above, Dancer have "big heal" as well, just with a quirk. No different than Scholar.
I know that Succor is the basic AoE heal...Indomitability is the "big AoE heal"...I did main Scholar to lvl70, you know. However in practice, Succor suffers far more from the shields falling off than Adloquium. In practice, at least half of the shield is wasted in majority of the encounters. It is NOT as good a heal as Medica, unless you use Emergency Tactics. It IS however useful in that you can prepare the party for AoE you know is coming in advance to lessen the HP drop in the first place though.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kazrah
This "shields dropping off" and the fact that as heals neither of these two can compete with Cure II or Medica respectively, is exactly why Emergency Tactics had the cooldown reduced from 30 to 20 in the last patch. Developers realized that the true healing output of Scholars is just barely doing it for the content. I cannot say now, since I stopped playing Scholar after reaching lvl70 to wait for it being fixed (and I don't think this patch did it fully, though it certainly helped and solved the issue of no AoE).
Irrelevant. We're not talking about why its like that or is it good or bad. We're talking about whether the game is true to the scheme you spoke of...and it's not true at all. It never was, seeing as Scholar is the second healing class that came out, not the third. The reason why Astrologian is almost identical to White Mage in that respect stems from the fact that its a hybrid between Scholar and White Mage. Otherwise, it would have its own tweaks as well.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kazrah
That's what I did. Make it look different while still leaving it with the basic toolkit. It's all there. A basic heal, a big heal, an instant heal, an AoE heal, a big AoE heal, a panic button. It's just not dumbed down to a copy-paste heal.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kazrah
And I wouldn't be surprised. But many would. The very same people that everyone wants to try healers, but that won't. They would be surprised, but they won't even try. And that's the problem. Unless there will be a healer that is already different at first glance, they will never start playing a healer, even if they would enjoy it.
Being conservative keeps the status quo. You claim that you want unique classes to bring more players to tanking and healing, but at the same time, you seem to be in favor of keeping the status quo. I prefer to be realistic rather than optimistic. If I want something to change, I don't do the same things the same way, hoping that the randomness of life will this time be in favor. -
07-31-2017, 06:03 AMKazrahI'm not saying make a generic healer. I'm saying even the smallest change, especially in this game, can mean the world of difference and how important it is to take note of that. Even my Sorcerer concept, for how different it looked on the surface compared to other tanks, still followed the same skill template as every other tank. This healer concept that I posted before Stormblood, despite being fairly different compared to what healers we have, still follows the same healing toolkit as every other healer.Quote:
Originally Posted by kikix12
Melee healers, caster tanks, multi-weapon users; all possible as long as you follow the templates. For me, it's not "status quo" when it comes to making concepts, it's sticking to boundaries to show that they can be done. If I really wanted the kind of change like you suggest, then you may as well be making something for a different game since that sort of change hasn't really existed in FFXIV. Even with the mechanics reworks, there's still not really any change outside of correcting a change that shouldn't have happened in the first place. -
07-31-2017, 06:37 AMRuinfeild
I like the concept. I know dancer has been something that has been wanted for a while now.
This can also be merged I suppose with an idea me and my friends were joking around with in terms of a healer that used their own HP to heal others while dealing damage to restore their own (think of it as the way warriors and dark knights were supposed to be with self healing). Meaning no mana bar and having to work around that.
OH! Like a passive of theirs to get their HP back is whenever their party deals damage, they get a portion of it back. -
07-31-2017, 11:24 PMCelef
Still going for a tank Dancer ^^"
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06-18-2019, 03:12 AMgman1311
Yup, you were right.