First off, let me preface that I can understand where the Dev were heading towards this expansion with healer. While it fell face flat, i can understand the bringing of the 3 healers together to incentivize more diverse groups in raids and *hopefully* expand on the job into their own identities in future expansions.
Now, I know why we’re all here. It’s because healers are insanely boring at end-game content, having nothing to heal and nothing to do during downtime besides spamming that 1 beautiful button. Now contrary to popular opinion, I actually don’t mind the 1 button spam. It’s no different with Bard’s Burst shot or Melee’s 1-2-3 combo which is really just a fancy 1 button combo. But much like these classes, it doesn’t just have to be the 1 button that decides our gameplay. We can be so much more. Thus, I have thought about what I would do to the 3 healers.
I would also like to note that I am a part of the new generation of people. I only recently started playing at the beginning of the Stormblood expansion so I’m unaware of previous changes to healers. If any of the changes I suggested have been mechanics of the past, please help clarify why these mechanics failed.
General:
I am actually not a fan of just how strong a lot of healer’s oGCDs/instant cast heals are. I think it’s counterintuitive to making healers casters. I want the decision to have to actually heal be incentivised and productive. Another thing I want from all healers is added GCD spells that are grounded into the kit. With every expansion, we only get to see newer oGCD/utilities that often outshine the GCDs we already have. Anything not mentioned within the change (cooldown, mp cost, cure potency, etc.) will mean those stat lines will stay the same. And just a heads up, I’m terrible with coming up with new names for abilities.
White Mage:
The classic healer. This class should excel in reactionary healing and having semi-high burst potencies for those clutch saves. I believe White Mage should be a healer that heals on the fly and be rewarded for healing which in turn will lead to offensive opportunities.
Since the release of Afflatus spells, I have found no reason to use Cure, Cure II, and Medica other than the fact that I don’t have the lilies, which is rather rare. And to add on to that, I completely hate the idea of having to wait for resources. Although people praise it for “rewarding” people for healing, I think they could do more with it. For one, let’s remove the timer on obtaining resources, and instead, have these spells generate lilies that will then be expended on offensive spells.
Changes:
Cure I/Cure II (400 MP): Cure I should upgrade to Cure II and have a potency that meets it in the middle, about 550 potency. In addition, have a 40% chance to grant the user a lily. This will keep the short cast time of Cure I at about 1.5s and will serve as your filler heal that while maybe overlooked in the raid scene, will serve its purpose in dungeon runs.
Afflatus Solace (1000 MP): No longer an instant cast and will now cost mana and additionally grant the user a stack of lily.This will be a normal 2.5s GCD because you need time and resources to nourish the lily :D Basically a buffed up Cure II at around 800-900 potency. Much like the current situation, I still want healers to have to decide whether or not they need the quick heals/mp management that comes from Cure I/Cure II or decide whether they have the time to use a beefier heal with Afflatus Solace.
Medica/Afflatus Rapture (1000 MP): Honestly Medica is just so useless. There’s so much downtime in fights that i typically just opt out for Medica II and let the regen do its work. So instead, let’s just combine the two and have medica upgrade to Afflatus Rapture with a small boost to potency to 400 potency and have it grant the user a stack of lily. This will also have a cast time of 2.5s GCD. This way Afflatus Rapture will be the more sought out burst heal over a wider range.
Cure III (1500 MP): This spell is honestly fine the way it is, being a beefier aoe heal while only being cast over a short distance. Instead I would only beef it up some more to about 600 potency to incentivize some use over Medica/Afflatus Rapture.
Afflatus Misery (3 Lilies): Everything about this spell is fine, except that it’s an aoe. I would like to see this spell become a single-target nuke at the same 900 potency. Reason being, 4 glares total to 1200 potency in damage and making Misery stronger than that would incentivize spamming heals over actual dps. This way it maintains its purpose of rewarding players for healing, while not outdoing the intended purpose of actual DPS spells.
Afflatus Bloom (3 Lilies): This will essentially be the Misery we know today. Instead I would like to see the damage not fall off over multiple enemies and instead decrease the potency to about400 potency.700 potency
Divine Benison (400 MP): Instant cast GCD. A 500 potency shield that grants the target an additional 10% damage reductionif the shield breaks.for 10s upon cast.
TL;DR WHM should excel at healing and be rewarded for it. Although this doesn’t really help with WHM’s downtime, it would at least incentivize some healing rather than just waiting for your lilies to come up. WHM should be the superior healer while opting out for more simpler gameplay. This will also serve as a very beginner friendly healer who can help newer players balance between healing and dpsing.
Scholar:
The tactician of healers. Scholars should be rewarded for having knowledge of the fight and preparing beforehand while also maintaining a wide array of tools to DPS with.
For one, I would like to see Scholars have their DOT management backwhile also making some adjustments to their fairy rather than just being an auto-heal turret. In addition, I would like some incentive to shield others. In its current state, you just throw it on and forget about it. There’s no strategy to it. Here are the changes I propose.
General:
For one, I’m kinda torn on the resource gauges scholars have. Aetherflows are typically fine the way it is, only that it’s not a fun resource, and the faerie gauge is utterly useless having only 2 spells to expend it. So instead, let’s make these gauges more interactive. In addition, the heal potencies on Scholar’s abilities are fine in my opinion, instead I would like Scholars to focus on a different sort of gameplay and leave the bursty healing to white mage.
First off, the shields granted by Scholars are now stronger, granting 200% of the heal as an additional shield and having a shield casted by you break (just like The Blackest Night) will now grant you a MAXIMUM of 1 stack of aetherflow. There are some concerns that I will address down below. In addition, shields will also have a shorter lifespan of 15s (possibly lower?), incentivizing a more strategic use and actually needing to break the shields to generate resources. If you don’t already know, one use of Aetherflow will grant 10 faerie gauge, and I will keep that as is.
And secondly, I actually like the idea of weaving Fey abilties in between spells. So some changes to dps spells will just be to accommodate that.In addition, Fairies will no longer be auto-heal turrets and will have to be manually commanded. More in-depth explanations below.
Edit: I have since then reactracted from that idea.
Changes:
Aetherflow: 90s cooldown. Will instead only grant 2 stacks of Aetherflow while also restoring 15% of your MP. In addition, will now restore 500 MP whenever an Aetherflow is expended. I don’t like the current iteration of Aetherflow where you’re just holding on to AF stacks until your next AF comes back up. This instead would only serve as a way to generate some AF in the unfortunate scenario where you are unable to generate any. Of course this will still have the same issue of having to expend AF before using it, but with the excess ways of generating AF and expending it I don’t think this will be too much of an issue.
Adloquium (1500 MP): Now have a cast time of 2.5 GCD while granting 1 stack of Aetherflow if the shield granted breaks before the time limit.. This should not be a spam cure 2, instead should work as a pre-emptive tool for tank busters or high incoming damage. With the boost to shield strength, this would incentivize more strategic uses and discourage shield spamming.
Succor (2000 MP): Grants ONE stack of aetherflow IF TWO OR MORE shields granted by Succor breaks. The distinction is to prevent Scholars from Succor spamming tanks for Aetherflow generation. Much like Adlo, I don’t want this to be spammable. I want the use for this spell to be strategic yet incentivized. We can even have Adlo and Succor shields have different names to not cause any confusion while not allowing them to stack their shield much like how AST Noct sect and Sch shields already function.
Deployment Tactics (1 Aether): This will still have the 2 minute cooldown it currently has to limit its uses, possibly bring it down to 90s. Will now reset the duration shield of the chosen target while also extending the shield to nearby allies at 75% of the strength. Maybe I’m just bad at English but essentially a 40k shield will grant 30k shields to nearby allies. I can acknowledge that a 40k shield is pretty broken to pass on to the whole party, but since it is also using a resource I would like it to bear some strength. My changes to shield strength is essentially a weaker Adlo and currently at lv80 with semi-okay stats, my Adlo crits for about 20k, providing roughly 50k in shield. My provided changes will only be 40k per Adlo crit and sucor will be roughly 24k if crit. Meeting a middle ground would probably incentivize its usage but maybe we can beef it up a bit.
Embrace: This will now be an oGCD heal that Scholar’s will manually have to command Eos or Selene to do. Increase the heal potency to 350 and will be an instant cast. This will help keep Scholar’s busy while reducing the Faerie clunkiness, in theory.
Fey Blessing (1000 MP): An “instant” cast GCD. Instant being your GCD will go off the way any instant cast GCD will, but will depend on your faerie to actually queue the command up. This spell will essentially serve as the filler aoe heals for Scholar. Instead of using the faerie gauge, this spell will now have the Faerie siphon MP from the Scholar to do an aoe heal. This would be more warranted in 4-man content to give Scholars some tool to do a little burst healing, while not taking away the main identity of shielding that Scholars are known for.
Summon Seraph: Consume 50 Faerie Gauge to Summon Seraph, empowering Fey spells as well as own healing potencies by 20%. Duration 30s.
The reasoning behind the extended duration is because Scholars excel at prepping. Having that extended duration will not only help Scholars prep during transition phases but also last long enough thereafter to help with some healing afterwards and not generalize Seraph into a transition phase only tool. This will also give SCH the tool they need to potentially be the bursty healer in 4-man.
Dissipation: I would like to see this spell removed. Not only does it goes against the general flow of SCH, but in it’s current state, it is only used to either generate AF or used to do one big Recitation/Adlo/Deployment Combo. Not only that, but I would like SCH’s burst healing to actually be cooperative with Seraph. With the buffs to shield strength, the boost to healing potency will not be needed for lower level content.
Fey Illumination/Seraphic Illumination (10 Faerie Gauge): No longer increases healing potency by 10%. Instead, will only grant 10% Magic damage reduction.
Seraphic will increase the magic resistance to 20% instead.
Whispering Dawn/Angel’s Whisper (10 Faerie Gauge):No longer has a cooldown.Will continue to have the cooldown limitation otherwise would be too strong Healing potency will now be decreased to 100 potency,
Angel’s Whisper will increase the HoT potency to 200.
Fey Grace/Seraphic Consolation (10 Faerie Gauge): 60s cooldown I think this is fine the way it is, i just don’t understand why there’s 2 charges to it. Instead, making it use resources to gain that additional shield on top of Succor or Adlo, while remaining weak. Fey Grace will serve as the weaker version of it and being able to be used at base fairy, having a cure potency of 150 granting an additional 100% shield of the amount healed.
Seraphic Consolation will increase the heal potency to 300.
Aetherpact (10 Faerie Gauge): Instant cast GCD. Command Eos or Selene to continuously cast Embrace on a specified target for17s.12s. Aetherpact will cancel upon execution of any other Fey abilities.Interestingly enough, I actually don’t know if Eos and Selene is affected by Sps. In my supposed changes, I would like Eos and Selene to reflect the same Sps as the Scholar so that the continuous cast would end up depending on the Scholar’s stats as well. In theory, the 17s should get about 6 Embraces off accounting for queue lag. This will essentially be a beefier regen while also relieving the Scholar of having to continuously weave Embrace.
Energy Drain (1 Aether): 1.5s GCD. 300 Potency Energy Drain will now serve its purpose as the MP regeneration tool. Instead let’s just remove the HP drain that you get from it, and instead restores1000 MP2000 MP (currently restores 500 MP).
Broil: Reduced cast time to 1.5s to allow the ability to weave more efficiently. Reduce the potency to 200. Now before you come at me, hear me out. This will be your filler tool for dps and weaving Fey abilities
Ruin II: With the changes to Broil we can remove this spell.
Bio and Miasma: Let’s get both spells back and have both deal 30 potency over 30s. This way it’s weaker than summoner’s but strong enough to warrant its use. Will upgrade to spells with unique name to avoid confusion with SMN's DOTs.
Biolysis(1 Aether): Instant cast GCD.I couldn’t come up with a good name but will essentially serve the same purpose as Tri-disaster except it won’t do damage. Instead it will only serve as a DOT reset.
Lustrate (1 Aether): Consume 1 Aether to deal 400 potency. On second cast, restores target’s HP for50% of the damage dealt while transforming the other 50% into a shield.100% of the damage dealt and erect a shield for the same amount. Initial cast will be a 2.5s GCD while the 2nd cast will be an instant cast oGCD. Definition of Lustrate is essentially to purify via sacrifice and I thought this ability fit the description while maintaining aspects of the original spell. This would also have a slight animation delay to fully reflect the animation of siphoning strength from the enemy.
Emergency Tactics: With the changes to shield, this spell would make Scholar a beast at burst healing. Instead, I would make it a 120s cooldown to warrant it actually being an “emergency tactic.” Going against your ideology of shielding to opt for a more potent heal.
Excogitation:Remove the spell completely in favor for changes in AST. More detail in AST spell changes.Scholar's can keep the spell.
TL;DR Scholar should hold the identity of a tactician. Masterfully planning ahead of the battle and incentivizing the breaking of shields to generate resources that can then be used to deal damage. The changes to having to manually control Eos and Selene will fix it’s clunkiness, in theory, and allow for a more intuitive way of co-healing with your fairy.
Astrologian
Astrologians are the psychics of FF14. Much like the Scholar’s Astrologian should act as foreseerers of the future, except Astrologians will focus more on supporting with cards and predicting the future correctly with heals.
Let’s first address one issue. Astro’s MP management is horrendous. But that is because in the current state of the game, it is best to keep casting. And with no real mp regeneration tool other than lightspeed, which is really just a worse version of Thin Air, and no other main GCD, Astro’s are left spamming Maleifc the entire run. To fix this, I propose changing Astro’s core gameplay to purely supporting with the card system, applying DPS as damage boosts to others.
In addition, I think the changes to the cards were heading in the right direction of streamlining it for newer players, but I think there needs to be a slight adjustment. Although I do miss the diverse set of support from previous iterations of cards, I think these cards do just fine on their own. Instead, I would only change the way the cards affect tanks and healers.
Changes:
Draw: Instant cast GCD. 20s cooldown. (Can possible go lower, up for discussion)
Undraw: WIth no downside of just playing a card, there’s essential no use for this skill. However, If RNG is not on your side, this skill can effectively help with that. Let’s give it an additional effect of reducing Draw’s cooldown by 10s.
Play:Instant castGCDoGCD
Melee cards will grant melee dps a 6% damage dealt for 15s or 10% reduced damaged if the target is a tank. 3% damage dealt for all other roles
Melee cards will grant melee dps a 10% damage dealt for 15s or 15% reduced damaged if the target is a tank. 5% damage dealt for all other roles
Ranged cards will grant ranged dps a 6% damage dealt for 15s or 10% increase to healing potency if the target is a healer. 3% damage dealt for all other roles
Ranged cards will grant ranged dps a 10% damage dealt for 15s or 15% increase to healing potency if the target is a healer. 5% damage dealt for all other roles
In addition to both cards, playing a card will now restore 500 MP.
Minor Arcana: Instant castGCDoGCD
Will remain the same as simply a better “Play” after acquiring 3 seals. Increase both proposed changes totanks and healers to 15%.15%, 20% and 10% respectivey. Will also restore 500 MP when used.
Earthly Star: The way it is right now, it serves as a DPS tool rather than a healing tool. I would like the focus of it to remain as the latter. As stated before, Astros should be forseerers of the future and as such should be the theme of the class. I propose lowering the power of the initial cast to 300 potency. Then, after 15s, Earthly star will upgrade to GIant Dominance, healing all nearby allies within the area to full health.
Benefic: Buff the cure potency to 450. Remove the additional effect. This was essentially a cure 1 and cure 2 copy… Let’s make these skills a little unique.
Benefic II: Base cure potency 200. Potency increases to a maximum of 1200 as the target’s HP decreases. Yes this is basically ED, it's explained why right after this. I like this effect enough that I would like to see it stay in Astro's kit somehow.
Essential Dignity: No longer has 2 charges,1.5s GCDoGCD. 60s cooldown. Grants a party member the effect of Essential Dignity, restoring HP when member’s HP falls below 40%. Cure potency 800. Duration 30s. Basically the replacement of Excog from Scholar’s. Reason being, the skill is more suited thematically with Astro. Astros see into the future, seeing the target drop below 40% hp, and hence prepared accordingly.
Horoscope (900 MP): 1.5s GCD.Currently just acts as a Plenary Indulgence with extra steps. This new spell will no longer require the casting of Helios/Aspected Helios to power it up. Instead, let’s make the initial cast of Horoscope erect a barrier equal to a 200 potency heal to all players for 15s. If TWO OR MORE shields break within 15s, then heal all targets affected by Horoscope for 600 potency. Again, the distinction is to avoid shield spamming on tanks. This change will also thematically fit Astros since they are predicting the future.
Sleeve Draw: Queue 3 cards. Unable to use the Draw ability until all 3 cards have been used. Honestly just a quality of life change. Too many times my idiot brain used Draw mid Sleeve draw. Just to clarify as well, if you used Draw before Sleeve Draw u would then have 4 cards at your disposal: the initial card from Draw, and the next 3 cards queued.
Honestly, I kinda like the way Astros feel now. There isn’t much I would change with their sects and the spells associated with them, although I do find Neutral Sect a little useless. Thought I would just make thematic changes to better suit the class. I wouldn’t mind the Malefic spam if I had more to do with the card system and more buffing. I thought about adding more support to the card class but honestly I’m content with the way it is right now.
TL;DR Astrologians should remain as the support healer who dish out DPS through buffs. The 1 button Malefic spam is honestly fine since your main focus should be dealing out cards to the appropriate people, and your healing should be more focused on predictive/riskier healing, allowing your targets to drop below 50%, in contrast to WHM’s reactionary healing.
However, I will admit that I’m newest to AST and will have the least amount of knowledge of how to go about changes to AST. But the changes proposed to SCH and WHM i feel pretty confident about. In the end, I am open to discussion on what wouldn’t work and maybe just outright scrap everything proposed. My ultimate goal is to give the 3 current healers an identity that can be used interchangeably in all content. If you made it this far, thanks for reading and let me know what you think.
Edit: Any crossed out text no longer reflect my idea of changes for the class and everything provided is subject to change.
My Take on Healers and what I would like done to them
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06-20-2020, 01:34 AMRegularEggsMy Take on Healers and what I would like done to them
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06-20-2020, 01:47 AMCanubirt
I understand what you want from the different classes, But god no for those scholar changes. You would be basically destroying what little is left of scholar. I wouldnt mind miasma back but id rather get shadowflare back. I wouldnt mind seeing more tactical choices as that was basically destroyed with this expansion. But none of those changes benefit scholar and all they do is turn scholar into another boring healing class. Dissipation is actually useful now (instead of when it first came out) and i believe that is a Tactical choice have to weigh the pros and cons. The base loadout doesnt need to be changed that much. we need abilities that are affected for deployment. As it stands right now, deployment is essentially useless (if not useless its definitely not as fun as it used to be, i miss you eye for an eye). I do appreciate your thought on what should change with scholar. They do need to be made more into a tactical healer which is currently gone. I will not comment on whm and ast as i dont play those classes that often.
Finally, i do agree that all the healers need something, hell i think we would all be find with a healer class overhaul at this point for all three classes but we are afraid of what the development team would do to them since this last expansion. This is the worst healers have ever played. -
06-20-2020, 02:31 AMAnotherPersonYou mean to tell me a card requires 2 GCDs to be used? So during the point where there is no incoming damage, you basically are stuck doing nothing for 5 seconds to get a card and play it? The whole purpose of Malefic being reduced to 1.5 seconds is to weave cards and oGCD heals in between. This is counter-intuitive to gameplay. It'll make downtime even more noticeable during the GCD periods where you don't need to heal and change the "busy healer" gameplay overall. This also means by the time you reach divination, you have to spend ~15 seconds at minimum unless you used sleeve draw, assuming sleeve draw queues and draws the card for you. Even then, that would be ~7.5 seconds. During this period of time, there would be no malefics or combusts coming out from the AST. That's potentially 3 to 6 DPS potency lost. This number will only get higher the more cards you draw since the Draw cooldown went down from 30 seconds to 20 seconds.Quote:
Draw: Instant cast GCD.
Play:Instant cast GCD
This still destroys the purpose of changing the old cards to prevent fishing for balance by making a system for fishing for damage up. Essentially, this is still useless because all the cards are going to the DPS for the damage boost, but it becomes even worse because it takes 2 GCDs to give a damage boost. At that point, you might as well be using malefic twice for the DPS potency. In fact, it's even worse for healers because you have to spend 2 GCDs to get a 10% healing boost. I might as well just use 1 GCD to use a Benefic II or a Helios than take 3 GCDs to get a 10% healing bonus or 2 GCDs for a 10% defense up buff.Quote:
Melee cards will grant melee dps a 6% damage dealt for 15s or 10% reduced damaged if the target is a tank. 3% damage dealt for all other roles
Ranged cards will grant ranged dps a 6% damage dealt for 15s or 10% increase to healing potency if the target is a healer. 3% damage dealt for all other roles
This is untrue, the way Earthly Star works is currently a very powerful healing tool, a 540 at base, or a 720 potency AoE heal. That's essentially a better Cure III with a larger range. The main purpose of Earthly Star is supposed to be used as a oGCD healing tool to heal raidwide damage. Unlike Assize, the DPS potency of Earthly Star is too low to actually make a large difference for using it as pure DPS and is best used for healing due to the delay it takes to reach its max potential. It's considered as one of AST's strongest healing tools.Quote:
Earthly Star: The way it is right now, it serves as a DPS tool rather than a healing tool.
You just deleted ED, renamed it Benefic II. Will Synastry have any purpose in an AST's toolkit at this point?Quote:
Benefic II: Base cure potency 200. Potency increases to a maximum of 1200 as the target’s HP decreases.
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06-20-2020, 02:41 AMJirah
no offense but i hope yoshiP doesn't see this and think "what a great idea lets Destroy SCH" cuz those SCH changes sound dreadful on paper
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06-20-2020, 02:45 AMRegularEggsAll good points to make, and I agree maybe we can kep Draw and Play as oGCD. However, I wanted AST to have to make a decision to play the card or dps. Is the DPS outputting enough DPS to warrant me losing personal dps for his own gain? Though I guess you're right about the use of 2 GCDs just for a 10% boost in mitagation/healing. Perhaps keep Draw as a GCD while letting Draw/Minor Arcana stay as oGCD to help balance it a bit. About ED, yes I did just move the names around because Benefic 1 and Benefic 2 were essentially cure 1 and cure 2 with different names. I decided ED was the perfect name for an ability like Excog and changed it accordinly so. As for Synastry, I would very much rather it turn into a straight healing potency increases. I was going to decided to remove it entirely because it sees no play in the raid scene but have seen its fair uses in 4-man content. In that sense, I think the straight up healing potency would benefit both scenes, though it would lose its uniqueness. And lastly, Earthly Star is very much a DPS tool now. The 700 potency you get from it is, imo, irrelevant much like the full heal i proposed. You have better burst healing via horoscope/aspected helios and Celestial opposition, tools that have no other use but to heal. So Earthly Star is then used as a oGCD damage tool every single time its off cooldown. I just thought the full heal would give it the uniqueness and utility warranted for having the patience and pre-planning.Quote:
Originally Posted by AnotherPerson
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06-20-2020, 02:48 AMRegularEggsQuote:
Originally Posted by Canubirt
I would honestly appreciate feedback more than just "this is a bad take." I felt like the incentive for the shield to break to generate resources was much like the lily system for white mage but with a twist. Granted White mage's lilly does not require as complex of a solution to generate resources, hence why I think scholar would make the the excellent tactician. Just simply throwing out shields and heals like right now is not a mastermind in my book. But I'm open to see why I'm wrong and how this is inherently bad for gameplay.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jirah
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06-20-2020, 02:50 AMDBriggs304
I thoroughly enjoy my Ast. Its good.
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06-20-2020, 03:08 AMJirahthe aetherflow bit sounds ridiculous restoring only 2, its just bizzare to think you cant replenish completely and have to puzzle it inQuote:
Originally Posted by RegularEggs
Embrace being manual is what SCH complains about with their faires being useless, this would make thins worse at this rate just remove the fairy
removing ED damage and removing Ruin II also goes against what SCH want, removing its dps
Bio and miasma were removed due to sharing skills with summoner and being a nightmare to balance properly. they need to be made into new skills to not be apart of summoners old skills. also having two identical dots and not flow with the jobs tools like Bards shots and Summoners dots for songs and festers respectfully just means they're a waste of space
emergency tactics having 120 CD deletes the purpose of it being a emergency tactic, 'Oh time to ..oh wait its on CD..."
excog being removed becuase astro exists is hilarious , like removing physick cuz cure exists
lastly, Art of war being unchanged?....thats a no for me -
06-20-2020, 03:23 AMRegularEggsAF restoring 2 was a methodical effort to discourage AF spam every 90s. It was a way to give incentive to some interaction with the kit i provided.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jirah
Edit: Sorry, what i meant was it was to discourage you ONLY waiting for AF to come back up to generate AF stacks. Much like how the current AF is. Since there's no AF generating source for AF, you're left keeping 1 stack of AF for "what ifs' until its back then u just ED into AF. Its not a fun mechanic.
I can agree with the Embrace idea scrapped. I figured having manual control of the fairy would reduce the clunkiness of having to wait for it to finish whatever it's currently casting to then cast the spell you pressed 3 GCDs ago. But I was unaware that it was a complaint in the past.
I wasn't removing ED damage, just the health drain effect you get from it. It's pretty pointless. But also Ruin 2 won't be needed since u will effectively get a weave tool much like AST's malefic.
I can see that being a huge issue. I would then suggest Bio and Miasma have the Aero treatment and just upgrade into a completely different spell but hold the same effects.
Well yeah... that's the point of an emergency? If you're having an emergency every 15s, something's clear wrong with the run.
Edit: Not to mention, the proposed changes will increase the shield size, therefore increasing the heal. It's just a way to balance it's potential abuse.
Thematically yes. But sure, I'm not opposed to keeping Excog in the name of just keeping it. I guess both classes can just have that "emergency" skill.
While Art of War is pitiful in it's design, its serves its purpose of giving every healer 1 aoe dps spell. Unfortunately I don't see Bane coming back to Scholars, so that isn't something I personally care for. -
06-20-2020, 03:37 AMAnotherPersonI assume you meant making Draw a GCD and letting Play & Minor Arcana stay as oGCD. This is still terrible in design because it forces the AST to lose out on Divination by trading their DPS because Divination (which is the DPS buff on the entire party) is locked behind 3 Draws. At every scenario, an AST will lose DPS to give rDPS and that's not a risk-reward play, but a punishment to ASTs in general due to the way the buffs currently work. There is also the matter with SCH's aetherflow & WHM's Thin air being a oGCD. In both instances, SCH and WHM do not have to pay a cost to get mana back. That is not the case for ASTs at all.Quote:
Originally Posted by RegularEggs
You seem to be misunderstanding how GCD and oGCD tradeoffs work. Earthly star being a 150 DPS potency (100 potency base) vs a GCD malefic IV being a 250 DPS potency. It's better to continue to GCD DPS than to use Earthly Star as an oGCD DPS as oGCDs are free (manaless) and doesn't consume a GCD (in this case trading a 150 DPS potency for a 250 DPS potency if you use GCD healing). Earthly Star having such a high Healing potency is exactly why an AST shouldn't be using it to substitute for a DPS GCD since it can make up for more than a GCD heal. It doesn't matter if ASTs have better burst healing consuming with GCDs - when optimizing and getting better at healing, healers should be minimizing the usage of GCDs to heal while minimizing overhealing as much as possible and they manage this by using oGCDs to both reduce the amount of healing required and reduce the amount of mana spent with healing GCDs. In the proposed example, ASTs have to consume 2 GCDs (Horoscope being a GCD in your example with a 900 MP cost) and Aspected Helios (900 to 1000 MP) to bring everyone to full. Besides the ridiculous amount of overhealing those potencies have on paper and how an AST just spent ~1800 MP over 5 seconds, you can get something that can push everyone's HP to near full with just one oGCD. That means a healer can free 2 GCDs for DPSing (400 MP total). This number only increases with every usage of Earthly Star during the encounter. Not to mention, if for every Earthly Star, the AST has to trade 1800 MP to bring everyone to full HP, then it doesn't matter if the DPS is doing terribly that AST shouldn't be drawing a DPS card. It forces the AST to pull another GCD card to manage their MP, and that's another GCD DPS potency lost. The purpose of Earthly Star having increased potency is exactly because ASTs are supposed to read in the future and plan ahead - they planned ahead by 20 seconds minimum and can change plans on the fly if they choose to detonate it early.Quote:
Originally Posted by RegularEggs
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06-20-2020, 03:52 AMRegularEggsis that inherently bad for gameplay though? I don't like the idea that all healers are turning into green dps and would like some unique gameplay that may at times sacrifice personal dps in favor for the classes that are meant to dps. Not only that i lower the Draw recast cooldown, i made it more frequent within the Divination window. Allowing for even more minor arcana plays in essence boosting more rDPS. In it's current iteration you only get 3 Plays, and 1 minor Arcana in a divination window vs what would amount to 3 Plays and 3 minor arcana. I'm no math expert, but having more buffs out and more frequently would amount to more DPS.Quote:
Originally Posted by AnotherPerson
In my proposed changes I guess i did forget to mention that Horoscope would no longer require the Aspecte helios to gain its powered effect. Instead, the shield breaking would act as that catalyst. Essentialy Horoscope would move from being Plenary Indulgence to being a unique 800 potency spell. I was just stating that in it's current iteration you get more from that single GCD combo. But also the changes I suggest would also only support what you are trying to combat. It would be a more potent heal, thus require it to be used as such.Quote:
Originally Posted by AnotherPerson
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06-20-2020, 05:03 AMAnotherPersonA healer that focuses on giving buffs is actually a good idea. However, the way the idea was implemented is bad. Healers are not 'turning into green dps', they were always green dps. That's due to the way encounter design works for every expansion. A good healer that is effective at their job will be able to both balance healing and DPSing. That's how optimized healer gameplay and how healers improve their gameplay works up to current content. A healer that isn't DPSing is not using their toolkit fully and is thus seen as under performing. Healers who choose not to DPS and stand there doing nothing are also not following the basics of good healer gameplay of ABC - Always Be Casting. Since Savage and Ultimate exists as endgame content, it can be seen that good healers gameplay revolves on DPSing and minimizing overhealing for maximum contribution in a battle. Sure, for majority of the game's content, healers don't need to DPS, but that also applies to DPS and tanks who don't need use their full DPS rotations in order to get through the fight. However, is it heavily frowned upon? Yeah, because it's basically people trying to justify less work on their job. FFXIV healers aren't traditional healers from other MMOs that only heal and that's not going to be easily changed unless SE wants to rework encounter design starting from ARR. What you're suggesting simply just doesn't work with the current game from both a balance standpoint and from a gameplay standpoint. Rather than say the changes are something I'm trying to combat your plans, it's better to say you're trying to go against how healer gameplay was designed for multiple expansions, and it should come as no surprise such changes would be met with much opposition.Quote:
Originally Posted by RegularEggs
More cards doesn't mean more overall DPS if the cards are tied to the GCD. Card rDPS is heavily reliant on the ones putting the numbers and how their rotation is doing. If a DPS is doing terribly, a 6% DPS increase will not amount to much and can be even less than the healer's GCD. Making more cards but also reliant on the GCD just means more GCDs on a lower DPS potency scale because the AST is trading off a Malefic for a 6% DPS increase rather than getting a Malefic DPS + a 6% card buff in a GCD window. In fact, that's no longer a buff. That's a significant nerf in comparison to what the current AST gameplay is like.Quote:
Originally Posted by RegularEggs
tl;dr :
Current AST on the GCD: Malefic 250 potency + 6% DPS buff (of variable efficiency)
Proposed AST gameplay on the GCD: 6% DPS buff (of variable efficiency)
Current AST on the GCD with Divination: 3 * (Malefic 250 potency + 6% DPS buff ) + Divination = 750 Potency + 18% DPS buff + [Divination]
Proposed AST gameplay on the GCD with Divination: 3 * (6% DPS buff) + Divination = 18% DPS buff + [Divination]
So instead of Cure / Cure II clones from WHM, ASTs have ... planetary Indulgence clone on the GCD? I thought ASTs were avoiding being a WHM clone, not turn a WHM's skills into AST's GCD. If that passes, I'm sure some WHMs out there would complain.Quote:
Originally Posted by RegularEggs
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06-20-2020, 10:54 AMJaelommiss
Optimal play for every single one of these proposals would involve ignoring a significant portion of the toolkit. Every single class you proposed would change useful abilities to "take this off my hotbar and pretend it doesn't exist" trash.
WHM
WHM's weaving and mobility spells are sparse enough. Anything that decreases that exacerbates the problem. Making Afflatus spells have a cast time eliminates one of their biggest benefits.
Cure I/II serve no function with Afflatus Solace being higher potency and generating a Lily 100% of the time. Throwing these in the trash as soon as possible. Toss Regen in there while we're at it, because it costs four times as much damage to use Regen as it does to use Solace.
Medica/Afflatus Rapture generating a Lily makes Medica II 100% obsolete. Each cast costs 75 Potency compared to 300 potency for Medica II. They have higher burst healing, too.
Increasing Cure III's potency by 50 for no reason is making a change for its own sake. Waste of design space and developer resources.
Splitting Misery into single target and aoe versions achieves nothing apart from button bloat.
Your changes to Divine Benison turn it from a bit of free healing to a near-worthless waste of a button. Making it instant would make it helpful for weaving or movement, but costing a full GCD (300 potency) makes it far more costly that clipping or dropping casts to move (unless the movement is longer than 2.5 secs).
Additional note: the current Lily system (ie. placing them on a CD) gives skilled healers a strong tool if they can manage the resource properly. Lilies provide movement, weaving, and incredibly cheap healing at the cost of a finite resource. Other healing spells hold their value for when Lilies run out. The more efficiently a WHM heals, the less they need to pay full cost to heal. Your implementation would cut out the mobility and weaving rewards that Lilies provide, introduce unlimited "participation award" damage refunds, and render several defining WHM abilities obsolete.
Optimal play: Dia, then Glare Spam. Use Afflatus Solace for single target healing. Use Afflatus Rapture for aoe healing. Hold Afflatus Misery and Bloom for movement and weaving or to prevent overcapping. Lucid Dreaming, Thin Air, Assize, Asylum, Tetra, Benediction all used as current.
I didn't think WHM gameplay could be made any more mind-shatteringly boring, but you managed it. Well done.
SCH
Before anything else, doubling shield potency is going to seriously alter how mitigation and surviving lethal damage mechanics will need to be designed. Either SCH is going to be able to solo mitigate everything, or AST will be incapable of providing sufficient shields.
Gaining aetherflow from shields breaking isn't a terrible idea, though the system as a whole is a mess. Optimal play will involve using Adlo or Succor once every 90 secs to be able to use Biolysis every time dots need refreshing. That frees up one Broil II per 30 secs. Placing every aetherflow ability on the GCD means that every one of them will be avoided as much as possible. Energy Drain doesn't restore the MP it takes to create a single aetherflow stack. Lustrate heals less than Adlo (400 vs 300+750 shield). Deployment Tactics takes two GCDs to spread a 562.5 potency shield compared to Succor's 450 potency in one GCD. Overcapping on aetherflow doesn't matter at all because spending it is a mistake in almost all cases.
Fey Blessing uses the same GCD as Succor for a weaker heal. Only use case will be for intense healing checks where the SCH needs Succor > Fey Blessing > Succor because of the delay on shields becoming active after being applied.
Your changes to faerie gauge will lead to it only ever being used for two things: Whispering Dawn and Aetherpact. Using it for Aetherpact is horribly suboptimal, but will save a lot of hassle.
Summon Seraph will take 150 secs worth of aetherflow generation to use. Not worth anywhere near five Whispering Dawns.
Fey Illumination's damage mitigation is worth far less than Whispering Dawn.
Consolation is in the same boat as Fey Illumination. Simply not worth passing up a 700 potency hot.
Embrace is where we see just how poorly thought out this system is. If we assume it'll be weaved 20 times per minute then the SCH needs to devote 60 APM to target their ally, hit Embrace, then retarget the boss. AST needs to do this three times during Sleeve Draw and people hate it. I guarantee that almost every SCH will stop using their faerie or change to a new class if this is implemented. This is the worst instance of UX design I have seen in my life. Aetherpact gains value solely because Embrace is so terrible.
Optimal Play: Miasma > Bio > Aetherpact > Broil + Embrace spam > Biolysis at 30 secs. Repeat, replacing one Broil with an Adlo or Succor every 90 secs. Set up a keyboard macro for Broil > Target of Target > Embrace > Target of Target. Whispering Dawn for everything else. Lustrate self during downtime to build Faerie Gauge if excess aetherflow has been generated.
Riveting. I really love how you made almost every tool compete for either GCDs or faerie gauge so we can find the optimal action in 30 secs of reading and thoroughly ignore everything else.
AST
Draw is GCD. Using that card must provide at least as much rdps as is lost from not casting Malefic. Play is also GCD. Cards need to be worth two Malefics just to break even. Cards must never be played on a tank or healer because they won't give any damage. RNG damage mitigation and healing boosts are worthless. A 6% damage bonus for 15 secs is worth 18k damage if applied to someone dealing 20k dps. In other words, less damage than a malefic when put on a high performing dps. Even in the spikiest of cases it'll never be worth giving up two malefics. Minor Arcana is equally useless. So AST doesn't want to play cards at all. Off to a great start.
Earthly Star loses damage for no reason and becomes aoe Benediction. Current Earthly Star is great because optimal use involves figuring out how to get the maximum healing from it when using it as close to on CD a possible. Now it's just a delayed heal with an insane buff. For reference, fully healing a healer requires around 2200 Potency of healing. Tanks are closer to 3600 potency. At least WHM won't be the only healer to cheese Living Dead now.
Changes to Benefic and Benefic II are fine, I guess. Benefic I will be ignored entirely, but that's nothing new.
Turning Essential Dignity into a GCD and giving it less potency than Benefic II makes it entirely obsolete.
Horoscope's change is interesting, but there's no need to make it GCD. 800 Potency is enormous. Helios and Aspected Helios are obsolete and can be removed.
Sleeve Draw helps reduce Draw's GCD impact. It may be worth using cards on some classes during their burst windows, but if they're not dramatically better geared or at the top of their field it's still a dps loss compared to Malefic spam. Would need to review logs extensively to determine when it's worth using.
Cards might pay back their Malefic cost if they are only used to prepare the next Divination, but it would require significantly above average players in the party.
Optimal Play: Combust > Malefic spam. Celestial Intersection for single target healing. Benefic II after that. Earthly Star + Celestial Opposition + Collective Unconscious for aoe healing. Horoscope if that's not enough. Play cards during down time unless you've reviewed logs and found times that Sleeve Draw aligns with other players' burst windows but not party buffs. Ignore cards in 4-man content unless they can be used between pulls.
Conclusion
With respect, have you ever actually played a healer? Your changes do nothing to fix any of the problems that healer jobs currently suffer from, fly in the face of encounter design, and introduce optimal gameplay that involves ignoring up to half of a job's abilities. I'm not one to praise how the devs handled healers in ShB, but that looks like the product of a Mensa think tank compared to your suggestions. I sincerely hope these changes never get implemented.
In case this is anything other than a high-effort troll attempt (you got me if it is), the problems with healers isn't their GCD healing and they don't need more of it. GCD healing is somewhat bland and isn't interconnected at all, but that's largely made up for with the vast array of oGCD healing that's available. The root of the problem is the lack of meaningful downtime activities. Moving oGCDs to the GCD can partially help overcome that if all of the GCDs are unique and fill their own niche, but your implementation has far too many trap abilities for it to work. The fundamental flaw in your suggestions is ignoring the opportunity cost the the GCD presents. I'd like to see meaningful GCD healing. I'd like to see Play put on the GCD. But if the lost Glare/Broil/Malefic isn't considered when making that change then it cannot be implemented well. -
06-20-2020, 05:26 PMRegularEggsA lot of great flaws to point out in my design. Though nothing I think tweaking numbers to can't fix. I do appreciate the effort of thinking in line of my design and throwing out optimal play. It really helps with pointing out some design flaws. Of course I wasn't suggesting these changes would fix the issue at hand of having nothing to do during downtime, but rather branch out the healers to have their own identity. And if SE is to continue their ideology of "healer's don't need to DPS," then at least provide some incentive or reward for actually healing. Is the inherent mechanic of damage refund that looked down upon? Because all of my proposed changes follow that similar guideline and if it's that bad for gameplay, why?Quote:
Originally Posted by Jaelommiss
I know that I maybe in the minority of this, but I actually don't mind the idea of healers having to heal. I know that in the current state of the game, healer's having to dps is a widely debated topic, and losing DPS seems to be the main issue of the changes I proposed. I am not asking to completely overhaul the idea of DPSing, but rather reward us for healing or doing our job effectively.
WHM
I still stand by my opinion that casters should remain as a caster. But let's think about it from the other perspective. If more spells became streamlined to instant cast GCDs, then you simply become a bard with healing spells. You lose your identity as a caster. You're not supposed to be mobile.
I did note that Cure 1/Cure 2 would see no play in high-end content. Much like every other tier 1 basic healing spell (Physick and Benefic). It was more of a revamp while still accommodating for lower level content where MP management is much more demanding.
Much like how Medica 2 is in it's current state vs Medica? This change will give incentive to use Afflatus: Rapture over Medica 2 while still having warranting situational uses of Medica 2 for multiple incoming damage sources, e.g Tumult.
Of course this was a minor buff, but imo can definitely be beefed up some more. It just becomes a question of whether the situation at hand warrants it. But in nearly all savage raids, most groups stay nearly within breathing distance of each other and at that point Cure 3 has always outshined Medica. With the proposed changes, it becomes a question of do I need the beefier heal that comes with Cure 3, or can greed the incoming damage and slide by with a Rapture that will in turn give me resources. But then maybe with a beefier Cure 3, it would then in turn have healers play riskier to get the most usage of the healing potency. It's a slippery slope.
Your opinion on splitting Misery is right. If Bloom was buffed up to say 750 potency to give a nice finisher for dungeon pulls, it would probably warrant some use. But I'm not opposed to just scrapping the idea altogether and keeping it the way it is.
Honestly, I almost didn't even want to include the Divine Benison changes because I too thought it would result in a pointless change. But maybe we can make it more appealing by tacking the damage mitigation on it for 10s instead of the situation where the shield breaks. This would help in mitigating tank busters but at the same time serves as a useful filler tool to just throw on the tank for mobility, much like how Regen works now if you don't have a lily, misery, or need to refresh Dia. Though that will make Regen a tad useless which in it's current state already is outside of pulls.
Your optimal play is literally the exact same optimal play of the current WHM rotation. All my changes proposed was to reward the players for having to spend that time healing with those damage refunds. Yes, losing the mobility to fit the aesthetic of a caster is inherently clunky in the state of the game but I like the idea that WHM are the heavier casters of the group, and if BLM can do it, im sure WHM should be no different. I guess I wouldn't mind if all healers had a "Ruin II" to help with mobility but that only serves to homogenize all the healers even more. Not to mention, I don't think WHM needs to have a complex toolkit to handle every situation or have a high skill ceiling. As i stated before, WHM should be the gateway to into the role, opting out for simpler gameplay while teaching the fundamentals of managing offensive with defense.
SCH
Now i figured my proposed changes for SCH would probably cause the most uproar since it's a complete overhaul of the way current Scholars work. Yes, i get it. You scholars love your damage spells and don't want anything to do with changes unless it's more dps. Instead I wanted to allow Scholars to continue to DPS while giving incentive to shield as well and rewarding them for it when done properly, much like the damage refund system provided with lilies. The changes to shield strength WOULD change some encounter designs, which as i understand is why Catalyze was nerfed. But my iteration of the shield strength with the increase to MP cost was to account for that. In it's current state, a crit Adlo of 20k heal at 250% shield would effectively be worth around 50k in shield vs my proposal of 200% shield resulting in only 40k single target shield. The way shields operate (at 125% strength non-adlo crit) now would effectively be too weak for the proposal of "breaking shields to gain resource."
I also figured as much that Broil would be the main issue at hand. Comparing GCD usage and gain from other GCD would have to ultimately outweigh Broil, hence why I nerfed it to only 200.
I did not take into consideration the cost of gaining an Aether vs expending one so, yes that was a huge flaw design on my behalf. So instead, I would also apply the affect of generating an additional 500 MP from expending Aethers to accomodate the high MP costs.
I would then buff ED's damage to 300 to warrant it's usage over Broil and increase the MP return to 2000.
For Lustrate, the proposed changes would actually have Adlo do 300 + 600 Shield with the nerf to shield strength which is still stronger than the proposed changes to lustrate. I think the 2nd effect would just be too weak so we can make it a potent heal and instead have it heal and erect a shield at 100% of the damage dealt. Essentially 800 vs 900 adlo but you get the added affect of dealing 400 potency. This shield will NOT genereate AF stacks to avoid infinite farming.
Edit: And also, Deployment Tactic can revert to the 120s oGCD it currently is. Just with the iteration of the proposed changes, the Adlo crit shields would still be too pwoerful so I would suggest a slight shield reduction to not break the game.
Fey Blessing was intended to remain weak for more optimal uses in low-level content/4-man. While Succor on paper is better in potency with it's shield, the shield also does not last as long and in theory should be prepped before an aoe to get the most out of it. A shield that expires is as worthless as a regen overhealing. Did you just succor after an aoe and now there's so much downtime that the shield wore off that warrants another use of Succor to just regain HP? Thats why Fey Blessing serves as the filler heal only spell in Scholar's kit to help in those situations.
Notably, I did retract my statement on making Eos and Selene being manually controlled. I've since learned that the APM would just cause more headache and have been informed that it was an issue of the past. It can remain the auto-heal turret it currently is. I would still keep Aetherpact's new skill since it essentially functions the same way that it does right now serving as a regen effect but would cost way less resource. I would also reduce the duration to just around 12s.
As for having only two useful spells is rather to the eye of the beholder, but arguably I would say it's even worse in it's current state having no uses of the faerie gauge. Of course to the people who only care about DPS, the dmg mitgation that comes with illumination is not important. It's a defensive mitagation tool for a reason.
As for whispering dawn, I can agree that is a tad bit powerful for a cost that is essentially free, so we can keep it's 60s cooldown. With ways to generate AF that would in turn generate Faerie gauge, there's not a lot ways to expend your Faerie gauge. Of course I can come sit here and come up with new spells, but I'm not going to try to come up with unique new spells and focus on melding the kit we already have into it's own identity.
Since the Fey spells will continue to keep their cooldown, we can have Seraph refresh those abilities upon summoning but the affects will not stack but rather overwrite them. Much like higanabana and Kaeshi: Higanabana.
So here's the current optimal play for Scholar: Broil > Bioloysis > AF > ED > Broil > Broil > Ruin 2 > ED > Broil > Broil > Ruin 2 > ED > Broil spam > reset bioloysis at 30s > Repeat
See how that's worse gameplay then the gameplay you provided with my changes. Ofc that is with the removal of Embrace spam and not taking into account for healing. Instead your gameplan is changed from waiting from AF to come off cooldown to finding ways to generate AF stacks to then unleash more powerful attacks at your disposal whether thats ED for a slightly weaker potency but provides the MP management tool you need or Lustrate, the higher potency spell that will in turn grant you one free oGCD "Adlo" cast."
AST
Again, I've since rectrated from the idea of having both be GCDs. I would instead like Draw to be a GCD and keep Play as an oGCD. This balances things out and would mean you're only spending 1 GCD to boost mitigation and or healing potency.
Instead I am going to tweak the numbers to better benefit sub-par players as well.
The damage buff increase from DPS would then be buffed to 10% and mitagation/healing to 15%.
Minor arcana would increase the numbers to 15% and 20% respectively.
In addition, Divination would be a raid buff of vary strength from 3%, 5%, 10%, to put more emphasis of finding the 3 seals.
Of course, I'm no math genius but that would equate to about 75% dmg boost + 10% Divination (3 plays and 3 minor arcana) vs the current 26% dmg boost + 6% divination (3 play + 1 minor arcana). If that's correct that would be a 53% increase in dmg output. And again, these numbers can always be tweaked, the important thing is to grasp the general idea of having to deal damage by instead buffing others. A more support oriented role.
Edit: I can understand the argument that anything but DPS is irrelevant and worthless in the grand scheme of things, but if DPS is so sought out, why give cards to tanks and healers in the first place. At least in these situational scenarios it would warrant some utility.
You're right the changes to Essential Diginity will make it obsolete. We can keep it as an oGCD.
I didn't lower the damage of Earthly star, just the initial heal. It shouldn't act as a last second heal, it should be preemptive and well placed, however arbitrary that may sound, thus should be rewarding to use. A 700 potency heal is honestly fine, I personally would just like it to do more.
While much like WHM, the Malefic one button spam is unavoidable here. However, the main goal is to give AST the identity of playing around their cards and constantly buffing their allies. Step away from the DPS light and focus on a more support oriented role. And if that means lower the potency of Malefic to let the cards shine a bit, then that's probably a path worth looking at.
TL;DR
Overall, really good feedback. I can see a lot of frustration with most of my proposed changes since nearly none of it really alleviates the issue of too much downtime. Instead my issue with healers really stemmed from the lack of identity. Sure all the healers perform fine the way they are, but they're homogenized.
With the proposed changes, I am not ignoring the tools provided to them. Sure the numbers need some tinkering but the general idea is there of working around your main specialty whether that shielding or cards. If you just want more oGCDs to spam while you hit your 1 button, then you might as well go play Bard. I would like healers to maintain their identity and be given some incentive and reward for using the healing kit provided to them. Would it be that detrimental to the game to lose a couple Glare/Broil/Malefic casts to give a more intuitive way of playing? -
06-20-2020, 05:52 PMYusiKhaJust wanted to highlight this - BLM is exceedingly mobile as a caster. Every 60s it has:Quote:
Originally Posted by RegularEggs
Triplecast, Swiftcast, 2 Sharpcasts, 2 Xenoglossy Stacks, Thundercloud Procs, Firestarter Procs.
That's a minimum of 8 instant GCDs per 60s. And current WHM only gets
Swiftcast, 2 Dia + 2 lilies + 0.666 Misery.
If you want WHM movement to be more like BLM, then you gotta add more movement, not remove it. -
06-22-2020, 01:59 AMLiam_HarperYou do not become a Bard because lily heals are instant cast.Quote:
Originally Posted by RegularEggs
As pointed out above, BLM has a wide variety of mobility tools and instant casts to create weave windows. WhM has Dia, Lilies and Misery (I'd argue we don't have Swiftcast because we hold it for Raise on anything but log runs) and you're proposing to take lilies away, significantly reducing our weave windows down to just over 2 per minute compared to BLM's 8+.Quote:
Originally Posted by RegularEggs
If BLM is allowed to weave and instant cast and still be considered a caster, so should we. Being forced to clip oGcd's is horribly clunky gameplay, if anything we should have a few more weave windows and movement tools. It makes for smoother gameplay.
Benison on GcD is 100% a dead button.
I get the feeling you've never really played WhM (or Bard or BLM for that matter) at endgame and are throwing out theoretical ideas based on your impression of the class. Just my opinion, but hard no from me on your WhM changes. -
07-12-2020, 07:45 PMMorganG
I appreciate the time you've taken to think over and write down your ideas! While I may not agree with all of them, I think the ideas behind them are pretty solid and you've done a good job considering these spells from a design/thematic perspective.
For me, personally, I think rewarding healers for healing is the best way to move forward. If the current design of healers in the game is to DPS as much as possible, and weave oGCD heals in between (except in emergencies), then using your healing tools should be rewarded with DPS tools.
But, that's neither here nor there. Thank you for taking the time to write down your thoughts, and I'm sorry some people are being a bit more defensive than is necessary. Healers, especially longtime healers, haven't been in the best place over the last year and some are starting to fray. -
07-12-2020, 10:54 PMAbsurdity
I do like the idea of the SCH getting control over their fairy back, this doesn't work with the current fairy AI however.
The reason it worked in SB was because the fairy was independent of you. You could press any fairy ability in the middle of a cast (let's take Broil or Adlo for example) and it would execute said ability often before your cast was finished. They completely butchered it with their fairy rework where the thing will wait until you finish the cast and then use it's ability while also putting you into a small animation lock, causing you to clip your GCD if you didn't use an instant cast. So they essentially made the fairy an oGCD which is absolutely terrible for controlling it manually.
I really liked being able to control Embrace at all times or have it cast Fey Illumination in the middle of my Succor cast so it would get the 10% buff when it finished, the current Fairy can't do that. I would even argue that manual control over Embrace is even more useful now with Seraph's Seraphic Veil applying a shield on it's single target heal. What should however not happen is that you're FORCED to use Embrace manually, that's just unnecessary micro management. -
07-13-2020, 01:58 AMelioaiko
While I respect your thoughts and opinions on what you'd like to change, I don't agree with much of what you're saying on these changes.
I agree that WHM should be the heavy hitter healer/caster of the group, they should hit hard both healing and damage. However, the lillies right now only serve as a means of movement and weaving and rewarding you with Misery. Medica 2 still has its purposes and Cure 3 in certain situations.
Overall, WHM would be more of a turret than it is now. Movement and weaving is painful and punishing on WHM. Personally WHM would benefit from a Triplecast-like skill or make Misery equal to 4 Glares.
No comment on SCH since I don't play it too much anymore.
AST's cards being on the GCD would have to be really powerful to account for losing a Malefic, not to mention several. Also Star is not used for DPS purposes. Optimally, it is very much used for healing as its 60s CD makes it very versatile. The DPS part of it is so little that the healing aspect outweighs it.
I understand the desire for healers to use GCD healing more and more support added onto it, but the design of the game prevents it from such. Healers are green dps as much as tanks are blue dps. Most of SE's battle content circles around DPS and by enforcing healing and buffs through the GCD would only cripple healers further and create an even further divide in what's really wrong with them.
The problem is that there isn't enough healing to justify more GCD healing so having more of that would only serve to be untouched or really niche like Cure 3. -
07-13-2020, 03:20 PMAceofRains
I really like the current iteration of Scholar. I would hate OP’s suggested changes at this point. I think that it’s in place where it more can be built on in the next expansion rather than trying to reinvent the wheel. I haven’t touched White Mage and Astrologian for different reasons. White Mage because it’s usually my last interest in healer and Astro because they ruined the card mechanic that made the job thrilling and skillful to play.
That being said, here’s what I’m looking for in Scholar going forward.
1) Bring back Selene as DPS orientated Fairy. Give our Fairies the Summoner treatment and make them instant cast. I used to like when there was another Scholar and we would each take responsibility of a different Fairy. I also like when I’m the only Scholar and I can skillfully swap between the two.
2) Upgrade Ruin II. I like to use it when on the move and attacking as well as to double-up when an enemy is about to die. I think a good “Upgrade” would be to give Scholar a trait that upgrades the spell to a higher potency while you’re under the effect of Aetherflow. Whether this should use a stack or not is debatable. Some people want another Aetherflow dump, I for one don’t need one. Opposite of Broil being hot themed, this spell would be cold themed. Someone in another thread explained that the Japanese naming for Broil basically refers to “Heated Argument”. Ruin II’s upgrade should refer to something like “Last Word” or “Cold Shutdown”. I called it “Climaspear” when I first thought of this concept.
3) Trait: Tactical Analysis - makes Biolysis effect everything around the enemy that is effected by Chain Stratagem. This is kind of a throwback to Bane, but performed in something of a “strategic” way.
4) Trait for shorter cast time on “Bread n’ Butter” healing spells like Physick and Adloquium. Playing a lot of Blue Mage, I can see from “Sonic Boom”, that having a short cast time on a simple spell will help to be able to throw out OGC spells without clipping at all.
5) Trait: High Ground - increases the potency or critical hit rate of Art of War when used inside Sacred Soil.