New levels, new possibilities!

So it is already said we will get a new level cap. 80. This means new abilities, spells, and attacks right? If so, anyone got any theories of what classes will get? I’m hoping Redmage will get a few if not one more healing spell. And for Scholar, I’m hoping of course more healing, but also maybe a new fairy? Or a transformation for your fairy like the Summoners have? Oh and another’s healing spell for Paladin would be awesome! What are all of your theories?

Well it's healer thread so I'll keep it to healers. (Although I do NOT want any more healing on RDM)

What is almost sure: an upgrade of Stone / Malefic / Broil plus DoTs.
A lot will depend on the battle system revamp too. Are we to keep gauges? What new tricks will be available?

Assuming we stay around what we already have:
AST will most likely get another card action / gimmick. Otherwise, AST is more than fine as it is now. I would love some better AOE DPS option (but it could be a Gravity rework, not a new spell).
SCH should get more options to use their fairy gauge.
WHM needs a major lily system rework.

I'd like a few more buffing/debuffing abilities in the healer kits like Chain Stratagems or the old AST thingy that reduced some attack potency.

TBH, I don't really want too much change in the available spells and oGCDs and CDs and such. Aside from a few glaring flaws (lillies...), for the most part I feel like the healers have a good range/variety of tools to heal with. And any new things, of course, will come at the price of axing old abilities to help keep button bloat from getting too out of control.

One thing I would kind of like to see, though... a change in WHM's DPS spells. Instead of yet another stone tier, how about changing it up and making a water spell the main nuke?

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Originally Posted by Risvertasashi

TBH, I don't really want too much change in the available spells and oGCDs and CDs and such. Aside from a few glaring flaws (lillies...), for the most part I feel like the healers have a good range/variety of tools to heal with. And any new things, of course, will come at the price of axing old abilities to help keep button bloat from getting too out of control.

One thing I would kind of like to see, though... a change in WHM's DPS spells. Instead of yet another stone tier, how about changing it up and making a water spell the main nuke?

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WHM definitely needs a new water spell instead of the water that just knocks back foes. I mean water can deal damage too.

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Originally Posted by Risvertasashi

One thing I would kind of like to see, though... a change in WHM's DPS spells. Instead of yet another stone tier, how about changing it up and making a water spell the main nuke?

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IMO, I think it would be cool if Healers DPS rotation were more varied as a whole.

Since, if they're going to be DPSing most of the time, something a little more engaging than "Apply DoT(s) > Spam your 1 nuke" would be nice. So instead of just having Stone MMDCL and a bunch of Aero's that merely just add a bit of potency/duration... There was some more dynamic things. Like having a Water nuke for WHM to use with Stones in between. Maybe something that interacts with Aeros on targets (Such as a Tornado spell that can consume them do deal bonus damage). Same with other Healers and their Broil/Malefic spam for days... Opening up some aspects for them to change things up when DPSing.

To minimize button bloat, they could cull some less useful skills. With, honestly, the easiest target being Role Actions.

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Originally Posted by Kalise

IMO, I think it would be cool if Healers DPS rotation were more varied as a whole.

Since, if they're going to be DPSing most of the time, something a little more engaging than "Apply DoT(s) > Spam your 1 nuke" would be nice.

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This is a point I kind of disagree on. I don't really want a complex rotation to manage on some of the harder-to-heal fights, and it would make stopping to heal feel even more punishing. I just wouldn't mind some variety on the VFX, basically.

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Originally Posted by Kalise

To minimize button bloat, they could cull some less useful skills. With, honestly, the easiest target being Role Actions.

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Now this I agree on.

I'd like to see them move away from new hotbar abilities, and focus more on interesting and unique class mechanics.

Fixing the Lily system would be a great start. But then mostly release traits that modify how the job works, adding more complex effects. Like allowing AST card overwrites to detonate for an effect based on what was overwritten by what.

They could look at the LB system and spice it up a bit. Personally, I'd be a fan of a system where we could use portions of the LB bar for various different LBs, instead of having it be all or nothing. The idea of individual LB bars is a good one too. I also saw a suggestion for LBs that react with each other to produce differing effects, which would be super neat.

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Originally Posted by Risvertasashi

This is a point I kind of disagree on. I don't really want a complex rotation to manage on some of the harder-to-heal fights, and it would make stopping to heal feel even more punishing. I just wouldn't mind some variety on the VFX, basically.

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Well there's a difference between varied and complex. I agree with Kalise. More than just managing DoTs and a DPS spam spell, it could make up for healing downtimes. The trick is to keep it straightforward so that it does not feel dissuasive for unexperienced people.

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Originally Posted by Mansion

Well there's a difference between varied and complex. I agree with Kalise. More than just managing DoTs and a DPS spam spell, it could make up for healing downtimes. The trick is to keep it straightforward so that it does not feel dissuasive for unexperienced people.

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Yeah, it's all about getting the right balance.

Varied enough that you won't fall asleep mashing Stone/Broil/Malefic 40000 times during damage lulls but also straightforward enough where weaving it in between healing isn't too taxing.

I.e. It doesn't need to be BRD level of managing songs and oGCD skills along with procs and buffs and DoTs and 400 other things as a DPS rotation.

But something a bit more appealing than 1-2 DoTs and 1 damaging nuke... Heck, even BLM's Astral Fire phases feel more interesting than much of Healers entire DPS combo and they're basically revolving around "Cast Fire IV as many times as you can"...

At lvl 80 we could get some kind of ultima spell on 10 mins CD.

SCH could transform into the fairy queen for a short period of time with a massive shield/regen abilities
WHM could summon an angel to heal 100% and make all the party invincible for like 10s
AST could have a ultima card that put an AOE mark on the floor giving 20% dps + 20% cast/attack speed + infinite Mana for a 20s burst.


Healer need more AOE spell/DOT and they need to make new fight that force Esuna to be more usefull ( + adding AOE Esuna ).

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Originally Posted by Kalise

Yeah, it's all about getting the right balance.

Varied enough that you won't fall asleep mashing Stone/Broil/Malefic 40000 times during damage lulls but also straightforward enough where weaving it in between healing isn't too taxing.

I.e. It doesn't need to be BRD level of managing songs and oGCD skills along with procs and buffs and DoTs and 400 other things as a DPS rotation.

But something a bit more appealing than 1-2 DoTs and 1 damaging nuke... Heck, even BLM's Astral Fire phases feel more interesting than much of Healers entire DPS combo and they're basically revolving around "Cast Fire IV as many times as you can"...

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That could be nice to have a system based on Synastry, allowing you to heal someone based on your damage input. To have spell combos. Have some heal proc on DPS and some DPS proc on heal...
Asylum could DoT on mobs while it regens your party.
A crit tick of Aero / Combust / Miasma could make your next Stone/Malefic/Broil instant...
Each time your dragoon dies you get a DMG up buff.

None of these would make healing harder :)

For WHM I think it would be nice if they added an AoE shield i.e. an AoE version of benison. Also, since shields will now be visible along with hp, WHM shields should change to a potency rather than percentage of target's hp (I think the main reason they do it this way is so that you can know what the amount of the shield is; on adlo/aspected benefic you can tell the size of the shield from the heal amount) so that the shields don't have a diminished effect oh dps healers. For reference, benefic is roughly equivalent to a 350 potency shield on a tank not in defiance.

I want Holy II which deals more damage but doesn't stun.

I would like a way to bank my oGCD skills. Scholar has flexibility in when they want to use their aetherflow skills within the 45s before the cooldown is done, but for White mage all the bits of time spent waiting for the opportunity to use their heals can add up to missed uses. For benefic this is true in a different way because you always get the full effect from it and want to use it even more on cooldown (if that makes sense), but this means that you rarely hold it for tank busters.
I think that this would be a nice way to re-work lillies, e.g. 1 lily would allow you to cast benefic while it's on cooldown, 2 would allow you to cast tetra and 3 would allow you to cast asylum.

White Mage's reliance on GCD skills needs to be reduced. If you have a look at the skills added in the two expansions so far, none of the healing classes has added any GCD heals, instead they have all been oGCDs that make it more possible to heal without actually having to cast a healing spell. However, in contrast to this, WHM got the lily trait as well as plendary indulgence which are both reliant on first casting GCD heals to be effective. This needs to be fixed: lilies need to be activated in a different way and plenary indulgence needs to be changed.

Remove repose and fluid aura.

WHM: Lilies needs a complete overhaul. It's a failed concept that was tacked on because they felt they absolutely had to give WHM a unique job guage, but the problem is WHM has no unique identifiable traits so we ended up with this.
I seriously hope they thought of something better in the past couple years. They also need to address the massive clipping issues on this job.

SCH: It's about time Eos and Selene were merged I think.

AST: I'd say AST could use a overhaul as well. They were built from the ground up to basically be a fill in for WHM or SCH at any given time. Now that Dancer is the next potential healer, I feel like AST needs to go in one direction and stick with it.

I want to be able to drop an entire moon on any ninja (yes its mostly ninjas) that are actively making things harder for the rest of the party. done playing. time to get rid of the expendables.

I would really love if the boring nuke spells didn't simply upgrade from Stone 1 into Stone 2 but instead combo into each other on a single button. So for WHM if you used Stone it would change into Stone 2 for the next 10 seconds allowing you to heal or move and then use the Stone 2 proc which would in turn trigger Stone 3 for the next 10 seconds, and so on and so fourth. This would make spamming the same button visually impressive without any real impact on the difficulty of Healing. Ideally the Stone Mastery Trait would shorten the cast time of each lower tier Stone Spell by .5 seconds. So basic Stone would take 2 seconds to cast and recast when you learn Stone II. When you learn Stone III the basic Stone would take 1.5 seconds to cast and recast, Stone II would now take 2 seconds for cast and recast, and Stone III would take the normal 2.5 seconds. Your "mastery" of the Stone spells would be evident by how much faster you can cast them as you learn new ones making the stronger spells feel more potent as you put the extra time into crafting them and also giving the mage a subtle dps boost as well. Stone could eventually have a .5 second cast and recast if WHM learned Stoned 5 which would essentially make it instant with spell speed reductions added in. While all the Healers could benefit from this treatment it makes most since on WHM to me especially considering how fun this would make Presence of Mind. Healer DPS balance could also be managed a lot better by adjusting the potency of their single Target combos.

The build-up on Stone in the post above is actually a pretty neat idea, thematically. Would also fit in with somethint I suggested in another thread based off another suggestion for a "Quake" spell. They suggested Quake as a Holy upgrade, but I'd like to see it as tied into Stone somehow. One way today do this would be to use the ratcheting system of Stones mentioned above, then if you land the final Stone, you detonate an earthquake for burst damage. This would keep things simple, rotation-wise, but playera who took the time to map things out could really make a difference. It also fits in beautifully with WHM's current kit, which is based around regens and compiled healing. Generally, we apply regens, then ignore any top ups until right before damage goes out. This allows us to add the top up heal's confession to the post-damage heal confession, maximizing PI output. The recent PI changes made this even easier to do, but at it's core it's still a spell made for heal compiling. By delaying our heals until right before damage goes out, we buy time to finish building into an earthquake proc, then we can land our top-up, then Medica II after the damage, 2-3 stack PI, and build to our next Quake.

Oh, it also fits with the lore, as I recall. I've been redoing the WHM/CNJ quests on my JP character, and supposedly when you overuse your magic drawing from nature, nature gets angry. So basically by ratcheting Stone to become stronger and stronger, we overuse nature's power and she retaliates by creating a localized quake in our general area.

This could potentially damage us as well as the boss, which would be an interesting twist... Though perhaps a bit agitating while you're trying to heal.

AST : Rework of the Tower Card (Since TP will disappear)
SCH : I don't really know...
WHM : Utility tool that are balanced with SCH/AST. Why not Attack Speed for everyone, because of the Wind element ? Seems pretty legit.

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Originally Posted by LeonTrifang

I’m hoping Redmage will get a few if not one more healing spell.

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RDM does not need any more healing spells. Vercure is a downtime Dualcast trigger and nothing more--it's not our job to sacrifice a 270-310 potency attack to cast a healing spell when an actual healer can heal for twice as much and only sacrifice a 220-250 potency attack.

More white magics: yes. More healing spells: no.

WHM needs either a ton more damage, or some utility - or ideally both. Being the best at healing doesn't matter when the other healers can function in all content perfectly fine. Which means white mages need something else to compete with.

I hope WHM gets Quake and Tornado this expansion. Perhaps it use half or all the lillies to cast. A strong AOE damage spell that doesnt stun like the dreaded Holy spam.

The sentiment I've run into a few times lately in discords and the like is that doing damage as a healer is bland. I would really like to see interactivity between spells and complexity in healer damage. I like those ideas for white mage, but I think honestly it could be taken up a notch, if every healer got some new traits/abilities.

The tricky party that I think holds developers back is the wide spectrum of play this game offers, and how healing specifically changes in feel and rotation based on not just the content, but how other people play. I can definitely see how raiders want something more than stone spam. I also can see why giving healers a rotation (and punishment of losing dps when it's broken) would be daunting, and possibly breed resentment when other people "ruin my burst window."

With that in mind, I'd like to see additions to the nuke toolkit for healers--some things that won't break the job in less than optimal settings, but ways to squeeze out a little more interactivity for end content. Inspired by other classes, here are some of my ideas:

AST - Lunar/solar cycle. Like PLD's FoF/Req windows, an AST's cycle could have 25-50% uptime between the two, and the cycle changes how spells work. Solar cycle could add a stackable burn effect to Malefic, while Lunar cycle increases speed/efficiency. AST already juggles a lot of RNG via cards, so a fixed, predictable cycle provides grounding and a mana tool.

SCH - Procs on Broil and Ruin II. Inspired by BRD's Straighter Shot mechanic, a SCH gets a trait where casting Ruin II places a damage up/similar buff on the SCH for 30 seconds. Casting Broil has a chance to proc a special effect on Miasma (front loaded damage) or Ruin II (increased potency). Since SCH does not need any more buttons and already has a cooldown for everything, adding procs to spells they already cast would not contribute to button bloat.

WHM - WHM needs all the work and all the love. Water spells, please. Please. And while we're at it, nix lilies altogether and give WHM an elemental gauge. Like others above suggested, Stone to Quake, similar to a SMN's trance cycle, but I also really like taking a page from RDM's playbook--balancing water and earth for a buildup to something cool (and this ultimate could have a cooldown too, so that the WHM doesn't feel pressured to focus on the gauge above all else, they will have time to build it up while the ability comes off CD). Maybe even a couple of ways to use their earth/water gauge, too, depending on what other changes WHM gets. This gives a WHM something to manipulate and build while still being the straightforward, powerhouse class it has been.

I am reluctant about the idea of combos for healers, because of how frustrating it is to have to break combos constantly. So that's why I focused on gauges, cycles, and procs, because healers at all tiers of content can get some value from using them, while not being punished too severely for 'having to heal.'

I always look foreward to what skills i'll get next, though not when its one where i look at it and go "yeah but how the fuck do i use this?".

Though class story wise i always worry they'll kill off the charactors i actually like... wich is so far, 3 people...