Revisiting the physick question

In live letter 37, the director was asked if any adjustments will be made to SMN’s physick to be INT based the same way vercure is on RDM.

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Q: Red mage’s Vercure is affected by the intelligence attribute, but would it be possible to change summoner’s Physick so that the cure potency changes with intelligence?

A: Red mage was born from both white and black magic; however, summoner is different. Each of the jobs have their own roles. If all jobs were made equally, that would basically make every job the same. From a gaming perspective, I believe it would be more fun to have differences, so we carefully made adjustments so that the jobs do not become the same.

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The director’s response seems to have been born from the belief that people only want INT based physick on SMN because RDM has it and he didn’t want to do it because he doesn’t want to give SMN something simply because RDM has it because that would just make the jobs the same. But I believe this is a misunderstanding of what exactly is being asked for.

SMN’s have wanted an INT based physick since before Heavensward. Even in 2.0 it was fairly weak but since our HP pools were fairly small it was still strong enough to not make a fuss over.

But with level 60 our HP pools and the HP of our pets, as well as the damage we were taking grew exponentially. Physick became a drop in the bucket, a monster auto attack was dealing more damage than we were healing with physick which was still healing around the same amount it was at 50. It was at this point that people started asking for an INT based physick.

There were 3 main arguments from the community against an INT based physick at this time.
1. It would be overpowered, a DPS with a potent heal would have an unfair advantage over other DPS especially one that can already raise people. Some... let’s call them radical, people even went so far as to claim SMNs would replace healers in raids with an INT based heal.
2. It would be impossible to make it INT based on SMN and BLM while being MND on SCH, since at the time there were no examples of spells or abilities that worked off different attributes on different jobs.
3. It doesn’t make sense for SMN to be able to use a MND based ability off of INT for no reason other than gameplay. (So basically lore argument).

Enter 4.0, all of these arguments were made invalid.
1. RDM came with the INT based vercure which was not only as powerful as physick, but could be dualcast. It even had veraise which it doesn’t need to swiftcast thanks to dualcast. We have yet to see RDMs replacing any healers in raids so overpowered argument is out.
2. SCH got the ability to use the normally INT based DPS spells on arcanist using MND, showing that it is possible to split the spells to work off different attributes on different jobs, so it is possible for physick to be made INT based when used by arcanist and SMN while still being MND on SCH.
3. Same as above, SCH can use INT based spells using MND, so grimoire, codex, it’s all books. There’s no lore reason why physick should be weaker on SMN than on SCH if bio and miasma are just as strong on SCH as on SMN.

And now since the director mentioned it in his answer, let’s look at it from a “gaming perspective”. Who needs a cure spell more? A nuking based DPS. Or a DPS with a tank pet whose main damage source is damage over time, oGCDs and a pet they need to keep alive? There is nothing fun about having this vestigial lump of a skill on our hotbars when it could be something extremely useful to our kit.

Lore wise, SMN rises from arcanist, a DPS with a cure spell in its basic kit, it’s not a SCH move, it’s arcanist, this is something our base class actively practices, something we’ve had since we started the class, there’s no reason SMN should not be proficient in its use any more than RDM is with vercure.

Historically in the series, there is also no reason for SMN not to be able to heal, SMNs have used both black and white magic in previous titles. Examples such as, child Rydia, Terra, Garnet and Yuna.

TL;DR: I think the director misunderstood the question as SMNs asking for something just because RDM has it, when actually SMN was asking for something they’ve been asking for all along, citing RDM as an example of somewhere showing that it can be done.

He's saying they don't want jobs to be the same.
And here you are asking to same them up.

I think the bigger issue is that SMN has physick and it's useless. Their goal was to remove button bloat, so instead of removing physick from SMN, they removed sustain, the healing skill that ACTUALLY worked.


When they reimplemented it, I was grateful (as were many), but what they should have done is have it be a SMN trait that upgrades Physick to Sustain. Boom, done. SMN doesn't need the ability to heal like RDM, but it DOES need the ability to maintain its own pet (particularly Titan-Egi). Which thankfully it has, but this is just my insight.


When I saw that they removed Sustain but KEPT Physick in the preliminary 4.0 patch notes, I thought to myself "there's just no way... they must have increased Physick's healing on the SMN's own Egi... or something", but sure enough, SE never fails to disappoint.

Imho they should find a way to separate the jobs since any changes made to base arcanist abilities will have repercussion to the other job and it has been a problem since release.
I know it's hard but if they have scrapped the idea of branching jobs they should address this problem especially since from their words they are starting to not beign bogged down by the remnant of 1.0 anymore

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Originally Posted by Canadane

He's saying they don't want jobs to be the same.
And here you are asking to same them up.

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I only read the TLDR and can already tell that's the exact opposite of what they're saying. physick should always have been INT based from release, it's not about making it the same as RDM it's about making it the way it should always have been before RDM even existed. RDM only gets brought up because it shows that all the excuses people think of as to why physick isn't INT based, like balance, are BS because RDM can do it and there's no issue.

In the context of SMN, if Physick is the question, the answer is no.

Balance and bloat issues aside, should any source of SMN healing be INT-based? Yes.

Should SMN have a fully functional single-target heal that isn't specifically pet-oriented? I believe not.

I'd rather that Physick be removed from ACN and be coded as a SCH Job action, then replaced for SMN with a different pet or party defensive support action. Given how important it is in this game for DPS Jobs to maximize DPS uptime (and how little benefit there is in the idea of them doing anything else since tanks primarily manage enmity and healers are extremely powerful), I dislike that SE creates a sort of noobtrap by filling DPS action slots with targetable GCD heals. Even RDM's Vercure, being fully functional, is of extremely marginal use at best and creates aggravation and wastes time at worst.

Further, when RDM uses Vercure while enemies are targetable, they sacrifice a decent chunk of offensive potency; SMN, while unable to use Physick for "free," is less punished since much of their damage is sourced from ticking DoTs and from their pet.

As far as lore goes, I don't understand why it comes up so frequently as a point of contention. There's nothing about FFXIV that says that it needs to follow the precedent set by any or all previous FF games (ironically in this case, FFXIV SMN is a fairly unique creation that flies in the face of most every other incarnation of FF Summoner), and the setting is such an outrageous mix of high fantasy and science-fantasy that anything can be explained. It's not difficult at all to imagine dark, neutral, or otherwise non-holy/white magic healing in a setting where white magic can be used a tool of mass destruction and void/black magic is the favored tool of characters who prefer not to stay dead when you kill them.

SMN doesn’t need the heal, lol RDM doesn’t even need it but it does follow the lore of the class which was being a hybrid of both WHM and BLM...

Stop asking for these jobs to be identical lol

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Originally Posted by Cabalabob

Who needs a cure spell more? A nuking based DPS. Or a DPS with a tank pet whose main damage source is damage over time, oGCDs and a pet they need to keep alive? There is nothing fun about having this vestigial lump of a skill on our hotbars when it could be something extremely useful to our kit.

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RDM should absolutely have Vercure because RDM is RDM. However, in a party, RDM should only ever need to cast Vercure as a Dualcast trigger, never as a heal. Neither job should ever have to heal anyone in group content, and if they do, it means something has gone horribly, horribly wrong, and the situation is outside the realm of intended play and balance considerations. So my argument will consider this from a solo perspective.

SMN's low powered Physick is not a problem, because they got Sustain back. But Sustain isn't that great because the pets themselves are so muted and useless. If you "need" more than Sustain to keep a tank pet alive, the tank pet isn't tanky enough. If you need Physick to keep yourself alive, the tank pet isn't tanky enough.

In a perfect world, a DD pet would be squishier but deal enough damage to kill a level-appropriate enemy before either the pet or master died; and a tank pet would be able to survive against level-appropriate enemies and generate enough enmity to keep level-appropriate enemies off the master.

That the tank pet isn't so great at either of those things is a side effect of how non-petcentric SMN is. 99% of SMN button presses make the SMN do something. I won't argue that they should have to push any fewer buttons than other jobs, but more of those button presses need to make the pet do something instead. The SMN himself should be generating much less enmity and damage, while the pet is a whirlwind of force. If 75-85% of the SMNs actions commanded the pet to do something; and if the SMN himself mostly stood back and supported the pet; and if the pets' stats were rebalanced for the appropriate level of survivability; then we'd be addressing the real problems with SMN as SMN.

Unfortunately, this late in the development/life cycle of the game, SE committing the resources to a fix of this magnitude seems unlikely.


tl;dr: SMN doesn't need a better Physick; they just need to be real SMNs.

Although I do miss the usefulness Physick had back in ARR content, it did practically become unnecessary in the expansions that followed. I'd be lying if I said I didn't want Physick to now be based on INT instead of MND, but going forward it might be in better interests to just have a trait to evolve it in to something more useful whether it be a pet enhancing action or some kind of ally/party utility.

We also do need to consider that if Physick was updated to effect INT, we'll have people complaining that BLM has no healing/rezzing actions whilst the other two casters do, and then it'll just be whiny threads of wanting to them to have fair access.

As long as no one bullies me in raid for not using it and prefering my primary role, you can base Physick on whatever stat you deem relevant.

"Meh, should have physick the tank after that TB" - Not my job (and yes it's different than healers heal/DPS strawman, cause it means not only lost GCDs but also lost focus on a rotation more complex to keep up than healers' DPS)

I personally think you shouldn't though, and Vercure, to me, is a mistake the way it is (not in solo where it's nice, but out of place in a raid environment with a role trinity)

Vercure isn't really there to be a decent heal anyways. So even if they make Physick heal for the same on SMN, why would it be good even?

I don't think Vercure is a mistake though, people just randomly do the weak heals of it thinking they're helping when in fact they're not and just wasting time not dpsing. Vercure is neat to get a Dualcast proc on downtimes though, and its a fun mechanic to work around.

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Originally Posted by Kurando

Although I do miss the usefulness Physick had back in ARR content, it did practically become unnecessary in the expansions that followed. I'd be lying if I said I didn't want Physick to now be based on INT instead of MND, but going forward it might be in better interests to just have a trait to evolve it in to something more useful whether it be a pet enhancing action or some kind of ally/party utility.

We also do need to consider that if Physick was updated to effect INT, we'll have people complaining that BLM has no healing/rezzing actions whilst the other two casters do, and then it'll just be whiny threads of wanting to them to have fair access.

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Those threads already exist haha

In solo content incoming damage should be going into the pet and is handled by Sustain, in party content there should already be at least one healer. It's hard to imagine a situation that calls for Physick on SMN at all. The real problem is that an ability that hasn't survived the game's scaling remains untouched. I can only guess they have internal reasons for keeping it around but IMO if it scales off MND it should be found on, and only on, a job that has some way of using MND.

Also will get hate for saying so, but that interview answer is a cop-out. SMN + Cure != RDM, and suddenly jumping to "We don't want to make all the jobs the same" is one hell of a leap. No one is asking for all the jobs to be the same, and even if they copypasted Vercure directly into SMN, the job would still be as different from RDM as MNK is from DRG is from NIN is from SAM. They're just asking why SMN has a spell it doesn't ever need to cast.

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Originally Posted by Llugen

When they reimplemented it, I was grateful (as were many), but what they should have done is have it be a SMN trait that upgrades Physick to Sustain.

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This was my thought too. When you pick the SMN path at level 30 Physick is replaced with Sustain.

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Originally Posted by Claviusnex

This was my thought too. When you pick the SMN path at level 30 Physick is replaced with Sustain.

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I think they need to have/keep Sustain as an Arcanist rather than waiting to unlock Summoner. Because although there might be rare occasions that ACN would need to heal their pet, the micro management is still there and the whole point of returning Sustain was for pet use and ACN is no different.

Keep Sustain as a separate action (for ACN/SMN/SCH) but evolve Physick in to maybe an anti-heal (reduces or prevent HP recovery). Yes it would be niche use but fits with the debuffs of SMN.

All they had to do was have SMN change Physic to Sustain via a trait in 4.0 and there wouldn't have been an issue.

Personally, I'd be against any of these changes to reduce/remove Physick. I understand the reasoning and all, but, having healed a low level dungeon on ACN (FC-mate was on wrong job when registered), I enjoy the option of having it in case of emergency. It'd be nice to have in less challenging content, just in case the healer DCs or poorly geared/skilled, etc.

It's kinda fun to be a back-up tank/healer when situations arise and you don't want stand around doing nothing waiting for a refill.

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Originally Posted by Hasrat

Personally, I'd be against any of these changes to reduce/remove Physick. I understand the reasoning and all, but, having healed a low level dungeon on ACN (FC-mate was on wrong job when registered), I enjoy the option of having it in case of emergency. It'd be nice to have in less challenging content, just in case the healer DCs or poorly geared/skilled, etc.

It's kinda fun to be a back-up tank/healer when situations arise and you don't want stand around doing nothing waiting for a refill.

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I definitely understand where you're coming from, and I've had those moments myself in the past.

I suppose my issue is that I don't see that sort of gameplay being a persistent sort of fun except possibly for the player who deliberately runs very low-level dungeons constantly and frequently runs into major group problems (in other words, for very, very few people). Once the leveling phase is over and the expectations of lvl 50-70 gameplay set in, Physick becomes a truly vestigial spell for the SMN. Considering that most players seem to level at a fairly rapid pace and settle into running mostly higher level content on a regular basis, it doesn't make a great deal of sense to have Physick taking up a slot.

Does it have to be removed? No. However, I think that replacing it with something that adds value past fixing derps in Sastasha NM might offer more enjoyment and practicality in the long run.

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Originally Posted by Cabalabob

Historically in the series, there is also no reason for SMN not to be able to heal, SMNs have used both black and white magic in previous titles. Examples such as, child Rydia, Terra, Garnet and Yuna.

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FF6 and FF10 did not have magic limitations. Any character in those games if done right can have both black and white magic regardless of their inherent class and are therefore bad examples for this. Rydia is also a bad example since when she grew up she lost all her White Magic which would in this case imply SMN should too, which is basically saying drop Physick and Resurrection. As for Garnet: She never learned Black Magic, all White and Summon.

They only have physic because of the dumb smn/sch split from arcanist which they regretted. I think and hope that its removed come 5.0 and that they differentiate sch and smn more from eachother.

you keep refering to lore when it comes to RDM being a hybrid mage, but reality states that he actually isn't. after all, RDM is a DPS job and there is no way he can replace a healer in any encounter just with his verraise and vercure. if they could have made something like stance switching (b\w DPS and Heal), that changes skillsets before pull and such, then you could've said it is a hybrid. but FF14 isn't designed for hybrids like these, best it can do is somehing like it was for AST (main heal\off heal), not complete role changer
More on the topic, while having Physic INT based on SMN could greatly help practice\certain kill groups, we know our community and emergency healing to save the day may become expected from SMN and could be a trigger to rage.

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Originally Posted by SilentVoice

and there is no way [RDM] can replace a healer in any encounter just with his verraise and vercure.

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This is patently false. In most content outside savage content and 24-man, a RDM is more than capable at healing. To the point that if you have a preformed, it's actually a viable strategy to do dungeons as Tank, RDM, DPS DPS. It'll be a lot busier than as a healer, but it's more than possible to do. E.g. I've healed the vault's final boss as a RDM when the newbie WHM fell apart the first two attempts. After they died yet again before the boss's ultimate, I just switched over to main heal and finished up the fight for them. It was full of clutch moments, for sure, but it's definitely doable and there isn't really any other fight that requires as much healing as that one in normal content.

That said, I don't advocate being a RDM that heals on the side to 'help' the healer. If a healer is there let them do their job and focus on what you're there for which is dps. If the healer dies, or your preformed chose to not bring one along then go ahead and heal away.

I personally don't agree with the removal of Physick or turning it into Sustain via a trait for SMN.
Instead, I would like for Sustain and Physick to be combined into a single skill that heals both the pet and SMN at the same time, applying a HoT to both of them and giving a small upfront heal (Similar to Diurnal Aspected Benefic). It would be have the same overall healing potency that Sustain currently has on the pet, just more moved to the upfront aspect of the skill, while doubling as a nice self heal for the SMN in case something does slip past the pet (which WILL happen from time to time). The downside to the skill would be that it would no longer be able to be applied to other party members but the time of SMN needing Physick to heal a group have long sense died off that it would hardly matter.

To prevent all the BLM's from losing their collective minds, maybe give BLM's a nice heal off of using Manawall/Blizzard 2 so they have a means of self healing that isn't that Drain Crap. Or even a Cauterize ability to go with all that Fire they spew that heals them so long as they chuck out Fire spells.

Frankly they should separate SMN and SCH to fix some problems and let their balance effort not be a real nightmare

Personally I think they should change the effect of drain to be like the heal is 3x the dmg done.
In general I'd say caster role action should get a new balance pass

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Originally Posted by Cynfael

In the context of SMN, if Physick is the question, the answer is no.

Balance and bloat issues aside, should any source of SMN healing be INT-based? Yes.

Should SMN have a fully functional single-target heal that isn't specifically pet-oriented? I believe not.

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So basically in SB SMN should have gotten a trait that changed physic to sustain, and make Drain worth a damn and we wouldn't be having this issue.

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Originally Posted by Remedi

Frankly they should separate SMN and SCH to fix some problems and let their balance effort not be a real nightmare

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There's no point in doing that anymore. SB pretty much separated the jobs by giving both jobs an upgrade to their class skills into being job skills.

The only skills they share now is the Summon spells, Ruin II, Energy Drain, Physick, Bane, Rouse and Shadowflare.
There's no balance issues for all of these skills.

No problems at all idd execpt making SMN raise crazy strong with their new MP pool and unintendef effects that the new summons spells had for SCH

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Originally Posted by Remedi

No problems at all idd execpt making SMN raise crazy strong with their new MP pool and unintendef effects that the new summons spells had for SCH

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Hmm the MP pool hasn't really changed that much for SMN though. Yes Ruin III is no longer an MP dump but even back then effective SMNs could DPS and rez without being picked punished too much because they had Aetherflow and Energy Drain as additional MP recovery. These days even Lucid Dreaming isn't always necessary, same goes with SCH, they both can have very effective MP management in the right hands.

SCH had recent unintended effects from summon spells?

I think SCH having the new Summon adjustments are fine. While it's not as bad as SMN, they can still suffer losing all their MP, summoned pet, Aetherflow stacks and Job Gauge progress from death all at the same time.

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Originally Posted by Kurando

Hmm the MP pool hasn't really changed that much for SMN though. Yes Ruin III is no longer an MP dump but even back then effective SMNs could DPS and rez without being picked punished too much because they had Aetherflow and Energy Drain as additional MP recovery. These days even Lucid Dreaming isn't always necessary, same goes with SCH, they both can have very effective MP management in the right hands.

SCH had recent unintended effects from summon spells?

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Before patch 4.1 SMN and SCH were MP pits, SMN for example relied on massive Ruin III spam (10% of your MP each spell back then) to do decent DPS. Even the best complained about that. Managed, but complained.
So if you had no MP issues back then without lucid, while raising and everything, sorry to break it to you but you weren't doing very well DPS wise...

Having to raise someone WAS a pain, lucid was like a messiah.

Nowadays I agree you barely even see MPs go down, and don't even need lucid except if you have to mass raise RDM style (well, slower of course)

Back to physick : with BLM actual condition, I don't think further utility to SMN would help in anyway, nor is it needed or even wanted. And before anyone mentions solo content : ffs it's a MMO not a regular FF.

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Originally Posted by Kurando

Hmm the MP pool hasn't really changed that much for SMN though. Yes Ruin III is no longer an MP dump but even back then effective SMNs could DPS and rez without being picked punished too much because they had Aetherflow and Energy Drain as additional MP recovery. These days even Lucid Dreaming isn't always necessary, same goes with SCH, they both can have very effective MP management in the right hands.

SCH had recent unintended effects from summon spells?

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The change to summon spells made dissipation much stronger than it was.
The problem is that while they don't have much spells in common anymore, some of those spells still bog them down from a design decision that is no longer supported as such It would be better to remove it altogether

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Originally Posted by Remedi

Frankly they should separate SMN and SCH to fix some problems and let their balance effort not be a real nightmare

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Originally Posted by dinnertime

There's no point in doing that anymore. SB pretty much separated the jobs by giving both jobs an upgrade to their class skills into being job skills.

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They should separate them anyway. Make ACN upgrade specifically to SMN, and make SCH require ACN30 to unlock but be its own job that starts at Lv30, even if for now all they do is copy the current ACN-SCH actions and traits over to the new job. Besides safeguarding against future balance side-effects, it would be good for basic role competency.

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Originally Posted by Remedi

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Dissipation is more useless in SB than it was in HW and finds really niche usage at all, and that's not because it's "much stronger than it was" but it has more cons than pros.
Not sure how the shared actions bog down either of the SMN or SCH in all honesty. Lore wise they both have the same beginnings and won't change, even if the jobs seperate they will still share certain actions. Although this type of system won't ever be repeated by SE, they have finally balanced them out now and no point in trying to fix something that isn't broken.

Because now summoning the fearie doesn't take up too much time or mp dissipation is much more useful, in fact I've seen it beign used on ultimate, let' say now it's an help when you need that extra healing and shield power and/or extra stacks.
You are free to disagree with this, but frankly this discussion is born because of the reason I said and since SE had no intention of support that idea anymore they should simply remove it altogether
Though I do realize they probably won't do it because there might be problems data wise.
True they can fix it with tons of upgraded spells, but the problem is at the root and should be solved there

For SMN it seems odd to still have Physick when it is so weak. I even forget it is on my bars most of the time, keep forgetting to remove it. I am all for each ability a job has being useful depending on the situation, but SMN really doesn't need a heal on top of all the dps. For right now I think I will just remove it from my bars and only look at when I need the nostalgia of when I was an Arcanist.

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Originally Posted by Remedi

Because now summoning the fearie doesn't take up too much time or mp dissipation is much more useful, in fact I've seen it beign used on ultimate, let' say now it's an help when you need that extra healing and shield power and/or extra stacks.

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but it remains that dissapation is still a niche ability. as a scholar I rarely need to use it.

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The classes don't need to be split anymore, they did a good job mostly separating the two while keeping a few common acn abilities. As for physick, it should be removed and replaced with something both classes would find useful. I'm not sure what that could be, but you could have some fun making a new arcanist ability either class could use.

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Originally Posted by Draxxion

For SMN it seems odd to still have Physick when it is so weak. I even forget it is on my bars most of the time, keep forgetting to remove it. I am all for each ability a job has being useful depending on the situation, but SMN really doesn't need a heal on top of all the dps. For right now I think I will just remove it from my bars and only look at when I need the nostalgia of when I was an Arcanist.

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The only time I find it coming in handy is running synched low level content where it has enough juice to be a decent heal. After 30 I'd like to see it turn into Sustain for Summoners.

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Originally Posted by silverlunarfox

but it remains that dissapation is still a niche ability. as a scholar I rarely need to use it.

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The classes don't need to be split anymore, they did a good job mostly separating the two while keeping a few common acn abilities. As for physick, it should be removed and replaced with something both classes would find useful. I'm not sure what that could be, but you could have some fun making a new arcanist ability either class could use.

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I Haven't said that is a must use ability I did said it was idd niche, however now it doesn't really screws you over and is actually usable.

That said I can't really consider them having done a good job at separating the job when we are having this discussion because SMN has a leftover spell that was ONLY added to it because SCH had to have acces to a cure (and a raise).
If you think that they should cover up this dead concept with upgrading trait then by all means, still I believe that since the system is no more they should just remove it and not keep it as a corpse.
UNLESS that is they want to try it again eventually in the future