Chemist Kit theorycraft

I would like to throw my idea for Chemist out into the open, although im sure many have had similar thoughts.

I envision the base kit as a mixture of ninja and dancer in function, with the 3 main abilities being a healing potion(green), a damage potion(red), and a status ailment potion(blue, buffs/debuffs). The idea would be that you can use each potion individually for quick applications and base effects, but you could also combo them together(think casting ninjutsu) by starting a mix, then confirming it after you press the buttons in whichever order you want to create stronger potions, or "items". If a mixture is failed, an animation similar to the rabbit hat for Ninja could take place, but also serve a purpose. The failed potions could later be Cast, or Thrown, at a target for damage potency depending on the amt of failed concoctions.

Here is a list of Items that I think would be likely and make sense;

Phoenix Down - AoE revive, can only be used once per engagement.

Grenade - AoE damage

Giant's Drink - Target gains HP, Party HP Gain

Hero's Drink - Targe Temporary invulnerability

Hard body - Target damage mitigation, Party Damage Mitigation

Speed Drink - Target Movement speed bonus, Party Movement speed bonus, no effect during battle

Power Drink - Target secondary stat boost depending on job, Party secondary stat boost

Poison Potion - Target DoT, AoE DoT


In addition, a buff partner ability like Dancer's partner, perhaps called "lab assistant" could be used to target another party member to gain additional effects for both players when a potion is used.

oGCD abilities could include iconic abilities from throughout other games in the series, including;

Pharmacology - double the potency of all healing effects.

Experiment - allows the combining of 2 finished/completed potions. for instance, a healing potion combines with an AoE damage potion, to create an effect similar to Assize.

Smelt - combine 2 stored potions/items into one for extra potency.

Forge - create potion "charges" for later use

Cast/Throw - toss all failed mixtures at a target for damage with potency based off of the amount of failed mixtures, up to 4)

Safeguard - nullify/shield damage against a target party member for potency of the last healing potion applied.

Astra - protects the target from the next negative status affect they would receive.

Toad Bomb - Turns target into a Toad, no effect on bosses, percentage lower vs higher level targets.

there are plenty of other items i missed, i am sure, and maybe some important abilities others would want as well. Some of this may be too much or too strong as well, but I wrote it with the intention of sparking better ideas and hopefully giving developers some inspiration for creating a new healer that is engaging and fun to play with a very active playstyle that rewards you for comboing well but isnt too punishing when you dont.

I think an AoE Revive is way too hefty. Basically a free Heal LB3.

Also, a buffing healer like this won't happen. This one would bring so many advantages beyond other healers that parties would start to require one for every encounter.

Some of my thoughts and questions:
-You didn't really list how this job would heal. >x>
-What is the cooldown like on Mix? How frequently are you going to use it versus the individual potions you use to mix with?
-Like RicaRuin said, Phoenix Down is a slightly weaker Healer LB3, which can still turn the tides of a fight too easily. I would suggest just let it be a single-target revive. With this, it can be an MP-free, insta-revive that you used your mix on instead of DPS or Healing.
-What kind of additional effects does having/being a Lab Assistant give?

some good ideas, some bad ones. Hero's drink and Phoenix down wouldn't be a thing for example, the former would only be something if its part of the chemists emergency heal like benediction/lustrate/essential dignity, the latter is already an item in game

the poison dot and grenade are good ideas. Very fitting, though hopefully not a ground targeted aoe in the latter case (ground aoes can be a bit laggy)

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Originally Posted by Mimilu

-You didn't really list how this job would heal. >x>
-What is the cooldown like on Mix? How frequently are you going to use it versus the individual potions you use to mix with?

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On the one hand, healers have been homogenized enough that I kind of get why someone might elide this part.

On the other hand, if someone then goes and gives a 'doubles healing potencies' buffs, this part can't really be excluded as this kind of power has to be balanced out elsewhere - leaving out the nitty gritty on how the healing works doesn't let us see this.

I think not listing specific cooldowns is kind of OK.... It's something the dev team would have to balance. But, then, specifying that an effect doubles potencies raises an eyebrow on the balance front, and as has been pointed out, aoe raise is definitely overkill...

LB3 should be Megalixir.

I left out specific numbers because those would all need to be figured out internally by the design team to come up with something balanced that makes the class fall in line with the other healers. I was basically just throwing out some ideas for abilities (some cases word for word, others i tried to make them fit 14 because of what they actually did) and what they could do to make them feel similar, yet unique. a big concern ive heard about the mixing mechanic is that it would be too slow for healing, so I dont want to say that using ninjutsu exactly as a model for it would work, although I think that would be a decent start to see how it works, and if it is in fact too slow in an end game scenario. My thoughts are that, Ninja does just fine, so I think something along those lines could work. Im imagining a combination of how dancing and ninjutsu both works, how you "start" a dance, then "end" it, but having a 3 step button combo you can press in different orders to create a bunch of different items for various uses. It could also be as simple as ninjutsu where you press a button then "confirm" it with Mix. it just seemed more appropriate to add a prep button, your 3 button mixing phase, then "Mix" as your confirmation button. It would all fall on how you want the items or potions to actually work though. I think combining the 2 makes for a complex but simple gameplay experience, perhaps "Mix" is your button that starts your sequence and finishes it, and "throw" is your use button.

to be fair, mixing and potion creation would be the staple, so i feel like it should be doing that a lot of the time, if not most. but using single potions should also be a phase or thing you should have to do as well, so Im not sure what the balancing would be like on that. It all depends on timings and what works for general gameplay and end game raiding, but if you are a healer or have played one, I think you can kind of visualize the gameplay in your head. base potions being used for like trash pulls and dungeon content, or spot heals, mixing to set up for big pulls, or lots of incoming damage, similary to how you set on a different healer. Thats why I feel like mixing in and before combat happens and being able to "store" some potions prior would help a bit with the concern that mixing might be too slow for healing. but my exact vision would be like this;

you have 3 potions, red, green, blue. you press Red, "throw" and it deals damage to the target. you press green, then "throw" and it heals the target. Those are GCD abilities.
now you start a mix phase, by pressing "Mix", green, blue, "mix" this makes a oGCD potion that heals for more, and is AoE, readily available as soon as it is mixed, but can also be stored.
lets say you saved that potion, and you start a mix again, and you mix red, blue this time. this creates a grenade or molotov, also a stored potion. Now you can "experiment" and combine the 2 stored potions to create a potion that AoE heals and deals AoE damage, similar to Assize from white mage. since it took so many steps to make, I feel like the damage and healing potency could both be upscaled to be a little stronger than what Assize is, that was always the trade off for Chemists in other games.

now lets say you failed somewhere in that whole situation, and a big poof cloud happens and your character's face is charred and everyone knows you failed your potion. that creates 1 failed potion charge shown on your buffs bar. you could "cast" it out at the enemy, and deal a bit of damage, or save for more failed potions and add a bit more potency to it. Since you have an assistant, they would help you "cast" out failed potions and share in the fun of your failures. With that kind of mechanic, hopefully you can kind of envision things how i do as well as this chaotic all over the place controlled chaos type of gameplay, a mad scientist and their lackey kind of thing.

all in all, your healing would come from either using your single target healing potion, or mixing stronger healing potions with different effects depending on how you mix up, and the cooldowns and what not would all have to be balanced depending on the effects and how exactly you want it all to take place.



As for being a lab assistant, I was thinking when a potion or item is used, or maybe even when youre mixing, the assistant shares the effects, and i kind of thought it would be more interesting as a co-healer experience, so its not just another "throw it on a DPS" ability. For instance, when you pop Pharma, it could give them a potency buff as well, and whenever you use a healing pot, they gain a small bonus to their next heal as well, or something to that effect. I think it could be a fun and interesting co healer experience if the devs or we as players thought that it seemed fun and doable, because your interactions as healer buddies right now already exist, and it could be an interesting way for healers to work together during the course of a fight to plan out healing and damaging phases.

Hero's Drink I think could work if balanced correctly. I could see the Chemist being able to mix during combat as well as pre pull, storing a set amt of charges before a fight starts, and the "potions/items" sharing cooldowns in some cases, or having their own in others. Hero's Drink is one of those items you dont get many of and you have to use with good timing and you only get pretty much one chance to use it during a fight. It would be like giving an extra holmgang to a warrior, or maybe even just function as a shielding potion instead to fit the balance of the game if invuln is deemed too strong.

A lot of the ability design is copied right out of other games, some of it is changed to fit 14 better as well. Doubling potency could be too strong, but it could easily just be changed to 20% or something similar to an existing ability, because it would still do essentially the same thing as what Pharma does in other games.

Phoenix Down as an AoE revive seems extremely poweful, and i understand that, but Ive also been part of an LB3 that goes off and.... does absolutely nothing but get everyone killed again. I added it in because it is kind of a signature thing we dont have in 14 yet that is in every other game, and I think it could be balanced still because youd still be reviving in a weakened state. I still imagine it as mixing a single target revive potion, then mixing an AoE potion, then combining the 2 for an AoE revive that can only have on use per encounter, so it would probably be a potion you create pre pull, and until its used, it takes the place of a single target revive, so youd have to choose wisely when to use it.

thanks for the feedback though, appreciate you all taking the time to read it and add imput. I thought about all the gil abilities and stuff Rikku uses too, but it seemed more fitting for Thief moreso than chemist. Keep the ideas and refining coming though, Hopefully the team takes a look and at least finds some kind of inspiration or something from what we write here

healer LB 3 getting people killed right after isn't the LB's fault... it's the rookie healer that doesn't know WHEN to press the LB.

I think that people who are looking for a new healing job are looking for something that offers a different experience from the existing healing options. I think that the idea of 'mixing' effects between potions and/or toxins (in the same vein as Bravely Default's Salve Maker) is a good idea.

One way to do this is to play with ground effect fields. Let's say that you throw a potion at someone, much like FFT's chemist. There's an upfront heal to the target, as well as a heal over time ground effect field that heals up anyone who stands in your healing puddle. Let's say that you throw a second potion. That then interacts with the 'over time' effect of the first if the fields overlap. So as an example, let's say you threw a Potion, followed by a Hi-Potion, and the two fields overlapped. The heal-over-time effect might be enhanced. Alternatively, if you thew a Potion, followed by a Grenade, perhaps the field ignites, with healing over time for your team and damage over time for enemies standing inside.

As far as resource systems are concerned, I think it would be interesting to play with a system that was more cooldown dependant than resource dependent, especially with the 'charge' system available for some oGCDs. You could create a healer that wasn't reliant on MP at all. Also, don't forget about Auto-Potion. That almost certainly has to show up.

I think that there should be a limit placed on resurrection effects across all healers. Phoenix Down can be a single target rez, but there should be a shared number of uses per fight across all healer equivalents.

Regarding the Hero's Drink, I would suggest that instead of flat immunity to damage, it would maybe be better to grant immunity to certain conditions (that can be removed with Esuna), along with a temporary increase to maximum HP, and a lesser shield that rebuilds itself at a certain rate for a small period of time (like a regenerating lesser Adloquium/Divine Benison shield).

Inspiration: D&D 5e spells 'Heroism', and 'Heroic Feast'.

Edit:
Regarding Mix and throwing/shooting potions: Something that's available in FFXIV and could function as a background in mixing and such for someone that maybe can't use as much aether to heal and do magic as the job would require could e.g. be aether crystal clusters. Use water crystal clusters to get the potion water, then enchant that to get the healing/other effect. One could add aether from other crystals like fire clusters for bomb effects, earth clusters for shields, ice clusters for slow/dot, lighting clusters for dot, and so on, maybe?

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Originally Posted by Lyth

I think that people who are looking for a new healing job are looking for something that offers a different experience from the existing healing options. I think that the idea of 'mixing' effects between potions and/or toxins (in the same vein as Bravely Default's Salve Maker) is a good idea.

One way to do this is to play with ground effect fields. Let's say that you throw a potion at someone, much like FFT's chemist. There's an upfront heal to the target, as well as a heal over time ground effect field that heals up anyone who stands in your healing puddle. Let's say that you throw a second potion. That then interacts with the 'over time' effect of the first if the fields overlap. So as an example, let's say you threw a Potion, followed by a Hi-Potion, and the two fields overlapped. The heal-over-time effect might be enhanced. Alternatively, if you thew a Potion, followed by a Grenade, perhaps the field ignites, with healing over time for your team and damage over time for enemies standing inside.

As far as resource systems are concerned, I think it would be interesting to play with a system that was more cooldown dependant than resource dependent, especially with the 'charge' system available for some oGCDs. You could create a healer that wasn't reliant on MP at all. Also, don't forget about Auto-Potion. That almost certainly has to show up.

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This sounds kinda similar to my suggestion to be honest.
Mixing three healing and one dps elements.
Ground effect that utilises them.
More CD/charge based skills... slightly.

https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...threads/416487

Just for fun, I threw together my own take on it.

Lore:Thavnair. Because Alchemy.
Weapon: Blowgun. Deals damage and extends any existing potion damage effects.

Salve: Single target heal. Spell.
Gil Toss: Single target attack. Spell. Damage increases with more damage over time effects on target.
Bomb Fragment: Single target fire damage. 3 Charges. Restocks 1 Potion.
Potion: Restores target’s HP. For the next X seconds, area of effect heal over time. 3 Charges. Restocks 1 Bomb.
Oil: Covers area with oil. On bomb effect, all targets in field gain immolation. Immolation: Take fire damage over time.
Hi-Potion: Restores a medium amount of target’s HP. If used with Potion active, increases effectiveness of heal over time effects received. 2 Charges. Restocks Arctic Wind.
Hide: Evades next attack.
Restock: Reduces recast on all potions by X seconds. Spell.
Phoenix Down: Resurrects target to a weakened state. 4 Charges per fight (shares charges with all other in-combat resurrection actions).
Auto-Potion: If target drops below 50% HP in the next 10 seconds, follow-up with last healing potion used. If target dies, restocks 1 Phoenix Down.
X-Potion: Restores a large amount of target’s HP. If used with Potion active, heals X potency to all targets within an area. 1 Charge. Restocks Heavenly Wrath.
Gyshal Green: Line AoE. Spell. Causes stampede of chocobos to deal X damage. Spreads AoE effects of any field it passes through.
X-Item: The next potion thrown activates twice.
Arctic Wind: AoE ice damage. Binds target. If immolation active, ends immolation and gains drenched status. Drenched: Take additional lightning damage. 1 Charge. Restocks Hi-Potion.
Heavenly Wrath: Single target lightning damage. Gains Forked Lightning: Deals lightning damage over time to self and all adjacent targets. 1 Charge. Restocks X-Potion.
Smoke Bomb: For next 3 hits, all targets take 10% less damage. Lasts 10 seconds.
Vanish Edge: Targets are vulnerable to item-based non-elemental damage.
Dark Matter: Draws targets in to centre of AoE, doing high non-elemental damage over time. If Immolation, Drenched, and Forked Lightning active on any one target in field, damage dealt to all targets is increased. Restocks Bravery Potion.
Reverse Mote: Reverses any damage incurred to target over the last 3 seconds.
Bravery Potion: Buffs damage dealt, damage reduction, and max HP for next 8 seconds. Does not replenish automatically. Does not stack with other buffs.
Nihopalaoa: Reverses nearby healing effects on target enemy.
Rat Tail: Boosts effectiveness of next potion.
Transfuse: You lose X HP. Target gains double HP lost.

LB3: Megaelixir: Blue dialogue box appears with Fight, Magic, Item, and Run. Floating cursor moves down to Item and selects Megaelixir.

Traits:
Compounding: Using certain potions restocks others.
Mixology and Mend: Increases base action damage and HP restoration.
Item Pouch:If an action grants you an additional charge, you can exceed the maximum number of charges available for that ability.
Bartender: If an ally gains a beneficial effect from a potion, you receive half the effect. Effect procs once per potion.

Idea here is that you'd have a healing job that doesn't operate off of MP, but instead uses item charges to deal out healing and damage. There are a few traditional spells in case you mismanage and run out. Healing items replenish charges on attack items and vice versa. End goal should be to reference as much of FF's item lore as possible. Vanish is a reference to FF6's Vanish+X-zone trick.

Chemist will definitely use mp because ffxiv operates on homogenized roles. They will have casts (mixing) and mp costs, probably will contrive the lore to fit, like imbuing herbs and concoctions with aether, so the instead of a hi potion healing 200 HP it heals 26,000 HP etc

For tanks, some use MP as a resource, some don't. There are no hard and fast rules, and the only way to get a unique experience is to break them.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

For tanks, some use MP as a resource, some don't. There are no hard and fast rules, and the only way to get a unique experience is to break them.

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That's because all tanks which use MP essentially use it as a job gauge akin to Ninki, rather than as a limit preventing one from spamming their strongest abilities indefinitely that can thereby carry a further axis for complexity and internal balance.

Breaking such a rule, moreover, would be unlikely to make any unique experience in itself. It simply makes its kit inherently more difficult to provide internal balance for (i.e. allowing one skill of lower ppgcd but greater efficiency to ever see use, as is already likely an excessive issue on existing healers).

I'm all for mix providing such a pacing that MP has no need to be a thing, as the internal balance is provided by other means, but simply removing a further means of complexity for the sake of uniqueness ('All melee have positioning, so let's remove it from this otherwise identical melee class to make it unique!') seems short-sighted at best. MP concerns, if merely brought beyond a barebone state, are already a means of generating further uniqueness, after all.
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Edit: Liking the look of your kit sample, Lyth. Not sure if Niho will end up forcing it into a damage-based off-healer role, though, to the detriment of feel of play; it'd likely depend on healing resource bankability.

I don't see them axing MP even for just one healer, especially as the healer exclusive stat is piety.
Healer is the MP role.

This might be controversial, but the bulk of important healer gameplay happens on oGCDs. Not on ye olde Cure 2 spam piety builds. It would be nice to see a job that took that into account from the ground up, and left the long cast MP spells as a back up for when you mess up your resource management.

You can have a Chemist that uses MP Spell "Potions" as reskinned Cures, but then there's no point complaining when it turns out to be WHM number 3.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

This might be controversial, but the bulk of important healer gameplay happens on oGCDs. Not on ye olde Cure 2 spam piety builds. It would be nice to see a job that took that into account from the ground up, and left the long cast MP spells as a back up for when you mess up your resource management.

You can have a Chemist that uses MP Spell "Potions" as reskinned Cures, but then there's no point complaining when it turns out to be WHM number 3.

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I'm by no means suggesting that Chemist even have spells, let alone a Cure II spam equivalent. I'm just saying that MP costs are a decent way to allow for especially powerful options that nonetheless do not overpower the kit overall. You could, for instance, include different MP costs in the different mixable components, whereby you could include high-expense ingredients to burst a particular buff period or , might have a high-MP cost dynamic finisher with a lower (or no) GCD cost that you could use to rush a mix in case of emergency and follow more modestly synergetic options otherwise.

MP costs aren't something I'd go out of the way to accommodate, but there's no point in going out of the way to avoid that design axis, either. That would just be to pride yourself for axing one particular means of complexity that otherwise, if well utilized, could have sourced more interesting gameplay.

The more layers you add to something, the more unnecessarily clunky it becomes. So you use MP to purchase ingredients. Great. Then you HQ the sub-components. Great. Now you need to combine them to produce different effects. What is this, a crafting job?

Keep it simple. There are two commonly described Chemists, one from FFT and one from BD (Salve-maker). If you want a 'Mix' to be the job's main theme, then just have the potions combo off each other when you use them. We've done combo-based jobs before, right?

I don't personally care about MP. You can have a combo-based potion healer where each potion has an MP cost, but that's a marginal step away from WHM. What I really want to see is a healer who gains additional healing output from doing damage and vice versa. A situation in which throwing offensive items restocks your healing items and throwing healing items restocks your offensive items. You can keep an MP safety blanket in there if it makes you feel better. Just make sure that the bulk of the job plays differently from WHM, please.

Chemist for FF starts in FF5, and given their love of referencing FF in FFXIV, I think they'd reference it over Bravely Default. They'd have to tone down the mix options, obviously, but they could still reference them all while keeping in line with the intended effects of each. As far as FFT Chemist goes, it didn't really add anything revolutionary to the job. Throw Potion had to be there due to the nature of the strategy RPG, otherwise it would have been eclipsed by White Magic. The majority of FFT's chemist was simply unlocking the ability to use each item. That and gun use.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

If you want a 'Mix' to be the job's main theme, then just have the potions combo off each other when you use them. We've done combo-based jobs before, right?

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So because I want a central Mix feature, but more than a single layer of complexity is "unnecessarily clunky", I'm forced to literally reduce the potions to combos, i.e. Sack of Wind->Jar of Lightning->Bomb Fragment; repeat?

God forbid I want it to be as least as involved as Mudras and not merely carry a healer-equivalent of 10 other jobs' primary system?

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Originally Posted by Lyth

I don't personally care about MP. You can have a combo-based potion healer where each potion has an MP cost, but that's a marginal step away from WHM.

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That one step would be the fact it has combos, not the MP, unless the MP ends up an actual gameplay-affecting concern. But again, you're the one pushing for combos, not me. Why are you strawmanning?

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Originally Posted by Lyth

Just make sure that the bulk of the job plays differently from WHM, please.

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It's literally not a compromise between the two; MP does not necessitate a WHM-like kit.

That NIN used TP did not make it more like Monk or Dragoon; its range of combo-lengths and attack speed did.
That DRK, like PLD before it, used MP for AoE did not make it a PLD-copy; its mostly carbon-copied bank of defensives CDs did, while MP was its largest diversifier.
That PLD later came to use TP for AoE like WAR before it, or MP for ST like DRK before it, did not make it a WAR-copy or DRK-copy respectively; it leveraged its differences from WAR and DRK each through balancing Flash and Total Eclipse and creating alternate burst periods via FoF and Requiescat.

It's merely an available axis of design that allows for further, granular means of internal balance or gameplay periods, not a WHM-ifier.

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Originally Posted by Urianger

Soliloquy.

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You manage to make pretty much everything, including your posts, unnecessarily complicated. Let's not introduce two steps for what can be easily implemented in one.

MP is not mandatory to create a healer job. Most important healing happens on oGCDs, which surprise! don't use MP. Why not just build around this for once? The instant you find yourself saying: Potion = Cure, Hi-Potion = Cure 2, you've already failed completely and utterly from a game design standpoint. Please for the love of Thal do something original.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

The instant you find yourself saying: Potion = Cure, Hi-Potion = Cure 2

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Cool. 'Cept here's the thing. I've never said that. Nor anything remotely like that. You're strawmanning yet again.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

Please for the love of Thal do something original.

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So if you want a Mix system that amounts to cycling combos as per MCH, DRG, NIN, SAM, DRK, PLD, WAR, GNB, DNC, and largely MNK and RDM, that's "original", but if I ask for anything more then than that it's "unnecessarily complicated" and thereby unoriginal just because it does not preemptively remove mana from the equation?

That makes about as much sense as potency variance among a job's GCDs being an unnecessary and creativity-squashing convolution. Yes, some way to avoid the need for potency variance while building a halfway functional kit would theoretically exist, but insisting on that gimmick for its own sake isn't going to make the resultant job more unique in its actual gameplay, let alone fleshed out.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Excessive verbiage.

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Notice how none of the jobs that you've mentioned are healers.

Let's have a healer that does damage to do more healing.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

Let's have a healer that does damage to do more healing.

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Sure, but why insist on ABDABCABCABCABCABC spam for it?

You are the one who connected "potions combo off each other" to previously done "combo-based jobs".

As a healer, it's Mix feature should be based on heals, not dps. We all know they want to minimise the focus on dps healers have.
And in case anyone missed my link on the previous page: https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...threads/416487

You keep linking the General Discussion forums.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

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Healing is different. You don't always want a healing effect active. Deciding when you want to proc a combination effect (i.e. AoE, etc.) in relation to fight mechanics results in interesting decisions. We also don't have any actions in game that replenish charges yet.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

You keep linking the General Discussion forums.

Healing is different. You don't always want a healing effect active. Deciding when you want to proc a combination effect (i.e. AoE, etc.) in relation to fight mechanics results in interesting decisions. We also don't have any actions in game that replenish charges yet.

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That's not particularly similar to what is implied by

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Originally Posted by Lyth

have the potions combo off each other when you use them. We've done combo-based jobs before, right?

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but okay, again, that sounds good. As I said within 5 minutes of my first post on this thread.

I'm merely noting that

1. that combo system (not at all like combo-based jobs we've ever done) takes the same number of sub-mechanics as what you called needlessly complicated (restock + field-combo effects),
2. making it impossible to deal damage without, in your above sample, at least half of casts (depending on how X-potion works in regard to restocking per potion that "activates twice") spent on healing of healing casts over time would stunt the job in virtually all current content, and
3. WHM already has a cross-purpose spell-stocking mechanic via Afflatus Misery and the (Blood) Lily system -- if even just having MP would make Chemist "too WHM", why reiterate on a WHM mechanic specifically?

That inflexibility seems an issue. The rest comes down to preference. I love field-combo effects. Personally, I'd just also like to have a customizable burst CD of some sort and Mix itself (similarly to Mudras) seemed a good place for that. If somehow having a second mechanic is too complicated, though...

I find the Mudra system irritating on the best of days. I don't think that Mixing should involve pressing multiple buttons to perform one action.

I'm looking for something that is both intuitive but also has some room for strategic thinking. Throw a potion on someone, give them a HoT effect. Throw a second potion with it active to turn it into some burst healing or an AoE. The 'Mix' involves building off of the buffs/debuffs that you've already placed on players or mobs. With correct planning, you should be able to setup an effect that you can take advantage 10 or 20 seconds down the line.

Remember that the charge system applies to cooldown-based abilities, not GCD spells. Most of the interesting action on healers happens in-between GCDs. I'd like to see a system which acknowledges that fact. So you weave in a healing potion in between whatever filler GCD set you use at baseline. Great. Now you have an extra charge of a damage ability that you can weave in later on as well.

By 'WHM-like', I don't want to see a 2s cast "Potion" which costs 1000 MP. You could expand the existing Lily system into something similar to what I was suggesting, but it would require rebuilding WHM from the ground up.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

I find the Mudra system irritating on the best of days. I don't think that Mixing should involve pressing multiple buttons to perform one action.

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That's fair. Ever since the servers moved nearer to me I've found it smooth as butter (especially before moving onto the GCD), but experiences and preferences will obviously vary.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

I'm looking for something that is both intuitive but also has some room for strategic thinking. Throw a potion on someone, give them a HoT effect. Throw a second potion with it active to turn it into some burst healing or an AoE.

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That's an awesome system. I just got confused by your mention of other combo-based classes. Arguably, they should all act more like that, but since they don't I worried it would just turn into ABCABC spam. Your system easily could end up that way as well if it has too few paths to optimize, but I'd rather not assume the worst. Solid concept.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

Remember that the charge system applies to cooldown-based abilities, not GCD spells.

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I never assumed otherwise. I'm just worried by how the damage<->healing recharge system would work in typical content.

I feel like there are obvious reasons why WHM's load-up system (be it StB's GCD->oGCD version or the current GCD->Misery version) basically just reduce the cost of healing rather than limiting damage abilities by healing abilities cast or vice versa.

Depending on the details not listed in your sample (e.g. how many seconds of recharge are skipped per "restock"), it feels like in content that requires low healing you're either going to be (1) limited to spamming Gil Toss (and oGCDs used only on their regular CDs), as per a Glare/Malefic/Broil spam healer already, or (2) obliged to just throw out oGCD heals every other GCD regardless of any healing actually required so you can go Healing-Damage-Healing-Damage-Healing-Damage in an apm-bloated cycle (e.g. Bomb-Potion-Bomb-Potion or HWrath-XPot-HWrath-XPot once you've spread vulnerability and DoTs). The latter would have to feel very lackluster per throw not to be ridiculously overpowered over time.

That's largely why MP initially came to mind, as it'd at least apply some limitation to ability cycling or provide a more granular means of allowing for that cycling. Remember, abilities can have MP costs too. That, not any GCD based "Spells" or weaponskills, is where I'd figure CHM would use MP.

Of course, MP doesn't have to be the solution; it could be anything, but right now your sample seems like it has a glaring hole that, frankly, MP could have easily solved (even if not necessarily in the coolest or most unique manner). At present, the restocking feature seems like it's halfway to something great, but is at present a convolution that doesn't seem to meet the intentions you've stated. Given that you've already added that much complexity, I don't see why you'd be unwilling to tap into a further system to make it actually work, or, if such truly would be overcomplicated, reconsider the restocking system entirely.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

You keep linking the General Discussion forums.

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Yeah, I don't know why the url is general discussion, but the topic is on page 3 of the healer forums.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

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I think if you want to avoid having players spam an unneeded ability to get to one they want, the restock should only proc from the effect (i.e. use Arctic Wind with immolate active, ends immolate (and the DoT), and gives drenched status + 1 Hi-Potion). There's a good amount of setup that goes into that (Oil -> Bomb -> wait for dot to tick down -> Arctic Wind -> Heavenly Wrath -> Vanish -> Dark Matter).

Alternatively - what if your damage abilities restocked your healing potions, but not vice versa? You might not always be healing, but you will be doing damage even during your downtime. Given that you can go above the recast charge limit through restocking as a trait, you could build up a reservoir of heals even if you're not using them.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

I think if you want to avoid having players spam an unneeded ability to get to one they want, the restock should only proc from the effect (i.e. use Arctic Wind with immolate active, ends immolate (and the DoT), and gives drenched status + 1 Hi-Potion). There's a good amount of setup that goes into that (Oil -> Bomb -> wait for dot to tick down -> Arctic Wind -> Heavenly Wrath -> Vanish -> Dark Matter).

Alternatively - what if your damage abilities restocked your healing potions, but not vice versa? You might not always be healing, but you will be doing damage even during your downtime. Given that you can go above the recast charge limit through restocking as a trait, you could build up a reservoir of heals even if you're not using them.

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Edit: I still need to better know what you mean by Vanish Edge's "Targets are vulnerable to item-based non-elemental damage", btw. Did they previously deal no damage? Or is it just basically the old Foe Requiem, reducing resistance by 10% (i.e. increasing non-elemental magic damage taken by 10%)? And since Dark Matter is the only one affected, does this really only matter when you need to spam Dark Matter for AoE, as Dark Matter is already worth maintaining for its Trick Attack effect? Additionally, is the Bravery Potion going to deal more relative potency per animation than the best possible direct damage spam, thus meaning you'd always want to spam DM-Bravery until Immolation, Drenched, and Forked Lightning need to be refreshed?

Let me make sure I'm visualizing the combos correctly.

All damage combos initiate from Oil, right, with some supplementation or extended combos provided by Vanish Edge (unless that's only really for AoE)? Oil -> Bomb (Immolation) [Pot] -> Arctic Wind (Drenched) [Hi-Pot]-> Heavenly Wrath (Forked Lightning) [X-Pot] [-> Dark Matter (with VE first in AoE so it can be spammed for higher damage, otherwise used only for the vulnerability debuff)]. I'd imagine so long as HW's initial damage under Drenched is greater than Bomb's normal initial damage, you'd want to use X-item on it outside of Niho windows, unless of course Dark Matter's damage under Vanish is even higher despite being an AoE???
(In Niho windows, you'd use X-Pot instead, I'd imagine, but the actual playflow would only change insofar as you delay X-item by one oGCD weave so it goes on X-Pot instead, since you wouldn't ever want to waste Oil CD or duration that could be spent cycling the highest potency per animation spam possible, except to refresh Dark Matter.)

Healing combos, on the other hand, initiate off themselves. Potion (AoE Hot) -> Hi-Pot (AoE Convalescence buff) // -> X-pot (Bonus healing).

Even if you made it so you could only Restock on a proper combo, you'd still have unlimited abilities to cast. Heck, unless they're incredibly low-potency, you wouldn't bother casting at all:

You'd just go Oil-Bomb-Pot-Arctic-HIpot-Xitem-Wrath-Bomb-Pot-Wrath-Xpot-Bomb-Pot-Wrath-[DarkMatter-Bravery]-Xpot-Bomb-Pot-Wrath-Xpot... making sure to refresh Immolation just before Oil falls off, Drenched just before Drenched falls off, Forked Lightning just before Forked Lightning falls off, Dark Matter before it falls off, etc., while otherwise just maximizing Wrath casts during Drenched but ensuring Xpot combos so it affords you more Wrath, which in turn forces you to alternate with Bomb-Pot.

If we made it only restock heals, it'd ensure that CHM would probably use GCD heals even less than existing healers, which doesn't sound all that... enviable, even if iconic. Worse, though, all it'd really amount to is Oil at best granting an extra 3 Pots, 2 Hi-Pots, and 1 X-pot per its burst phase. Depending on the potency and natural CD's of each, that'd likely mean Oil would have to be a pretty infrequent CD even then. Additionally, a tight duration on the Oil effect would ensure you don't want to waste any potential ability-casting uptime on mere spells during Oil's duration, thus removing any chance for weaves. If the Oil debuff is consumed on the first Immolate, then that phase would give 1 more of each healing potion, which would be a bit more reasonable and wouldn't feel as rushed; it'd just be kind of like GNB's added apm and ppm via its every other burst phase. Still, that may feel like an unnecessary convolution to some. (You'd be dealing that damage anyways, so why lock the extra 1 of each potion per 30/60/90/whatever number of seconds via a the burst phase you'd want to maximize anyways?)

tl;dr: Are you sure these item abilities need to be oGCD? It seems to cause a ton of problems, given that your only balancing point is basically just the limited windows of opportunities by which to chain combos as long/far as you can. Already this job looks like it'd be basically unplayable on any but the lowest ping, if balanced around its maximum potential. Couldn't we just make most of these abilities into weaponskills or instant casts instead?

Heck, you could throw out Salve completely and just spend casts refilling your Potion inventory if you wanted to go further with that.

I really just wanted to reference Vanish-Doom/X-Zone. The end goal is to set up a bunch of elemental effects on some mobs, and then combo some big damage effects off of them to regain your healing potion stock.

You probably could make most of these into weaponskills or instant casts. I do think that having potions (healing or damage) be somehow limited by a total stock is still necessary, because that's what differentiates items from traditional spells. This is just brainstorming, you can flip around the combinations however you want. I've just laid out some of the healing and damage items that tend to recur in the series.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

I really just wanted to reference Vanish-Doom/X-Zone. The end goal is to set up a bunch of elemental effects on some mobs, and then combo some big damage effects off of them to regain your healing potion stock.

You probably could make most of these into weaponskills or instant casts. I do think that having potions (healing or damage) be somehow limited by a total stock is still necessary, because that's what differentiates items from traditional spells. This is just brainstorming, you can flip around the combinations however you want. I've just laid out some of the healing and damage items that tend to recur in the series.

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Again, the spirit's great. The names are great. The effects are cool. It's only the emergent gameplay that would be worrisome, but as you've said, this is just brainstorming. As long as all but the spirit of the kit and its gameplay is open to revision, this seems the most attractive CHM sample I've seen so far for sure.

I'd try to post my own in turn, but I'm still trying to work out what I'd want to see from the existing healers.