Undoing homogenisation thought: replace cross role skills with unique versions

I'm thinking as a return to job flavour, since the devs probably won't make cross class skills again, they could change role skills into separate but identical actions, like how the ranged have Shield samba/tactitian/troubador

For lucid
WHM: Shroud of saints, where it started
AST: Luminiferous aether
SCH: Aetherflow

Status remover
WHM: Esuna
AST: Exalted detriment
SCH: Leeches

Rescue:
WHM: Water's edge - a watery tether drags the player as the whm is cloaked in water
AST: Orbit- a ring of stars appears round both players, and the rescued player's fly towards the AST in a line, dragging the player with them
SCH: Rescue

Swiftcast:
WHM: Divine seal/Cleric stance
AST: Swiftcast
SCH: Strategic manouvere

Surecast and Repose I haven't come up with anything, the latter because I expect it will get the chop, the former because I couldn't come up with a name for the AST one

Thoughts?


Edit: This is about the role skills, which i havent seen talked about much. I'm in complete agreement with everyone that healers and their unique spells, abilities etc need to have the homogenisation undone and distinct playstyles returned in full. Think of this thread to be additional decoupling in addition to what everyone wants

Seems like a lot of unnecessary confusion for players that aren't used to them (might be new to the game or a specific job etc). Although it's still common to get healers who don't use Esuna, it still should be a more familiar name than the others. I'm not against unique animations, but names not so much. Also DPS casters use a number of role skills just like healers, so that's 7 unique names just for the same effect.

For me that's just flavour, which is possibly a part of job identity but not essential. In comparison we have; Cure/Benefic,(Physic in between), Cure II/Benefic II, Regen/Aspected Benefic/Adlo, Glare/Malefic/Broil, Dia/Combust/Bio, Holy/Gravity/Art of War, Asylum/Earthly Star/Sacred Soil, Temperance/Neutral Sect/Dissipation (for the healing magic up), Plenary Indulgence/Horoscope/Emergency thing. They don't have the same names / animations, but they roughly do the same thing. I kind of map them all at the same places on my bars and I barely see any difference on each healer I play.

So undoing homogenisation has to got a bit deeper than that, in my opinion.

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Originally Posted by Mansion

They don't have the same names / animations, but they roughly do the same thing. I kind of map them all at the same places on my bars and I barely see any difference on each healer I play.

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This is where the issue is, and why homogenizing healers was bad. Alas, this is exactly what SE wanted and they haven't listened to us over the past 4 years so I expect them to go even deeper with this next expac. Sadly.

Undoing role actions will fix exactly nothing about the issues with healers. Role actions make sense when it comes to tools that you need to be consistent across all jobs in a role, and Raise could've easily been added to that as well. It's an example of where homogenization is perfectly fine. The real issue stems from the ways that their "unique" tools function identically to one another, such as how Asylum and Sacred Soil are used in virtually the same way and do largely the same thing, or to attack the core of the issue, how all healers play their heals in functionally the same way.

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

Undoing role actions will fix exactly nothing about the issues with healers. Role actions make sense when it comes to tools that you need to be consistent across all jobs in a role, and Raise could've easily been added to that as well. It's an example of where homogenization is perfectly fine. The real issue stems from the ways that their "unique" tools function identically to one another, such as how Asylum and Sacred Soil are used in virtually the same way and do largely the same thing, or to attack the core of the issue, how all healers play their heals in functionally the same way.

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Agree with you about role actions. Disagree with the usage of Asylum and Sacred Soil for majority of the content.

Although Asylum and Sacred soil share similar roles because they both work as a ground AoE buff, the way they approach the problem are fundamentally different. Unlike Asylum, Sacred Soil is mainly used for big mitigation until it gets the healing trait at lv 78. Sacred Soil also isn't free unlike Asylum because it cuts into Aetherflow usage. Usually Indom is better than Sacred Soil since damage Sacred Soil mitigates in the game is initially so sparse that indom straight up heals the damage that Sacred Soil could have mitigated, right up until level 78. Asylum is usually thrown right before a raidwide or after to get those ticks and cure potency up since Asylum can also work with oGCD healing. It's usually very beneficial to stand in there to get that regen for Asylum because any and all party members's HP directly benefit for the full duration of the skill.

On the other hand, people generally just stand in the Sacred Soil to mitigate the incoming hit, and then split up before lv 78 because the number of back to back unavoidable raidwides is usually very small. The tank could stand there since they'll be taking damage by holding aggro, but no one else would be generally taking extra damage. By level 78, Sacred Soil becomes very useful to stand in to mitigate incoming damage and recover HP which incentivizes the purpose of staying in the ground AoE buff.

Asylum also further expands its scope by giving an increased healing buff to all incoming sources. If the White Mage or the party needs increased burst healing in the situation Asylum's regen will not cover the healing in time due to mistimed oGCD usage or a death messing up the initial planned healing output while a big raidwide damage is coming up, they can use Asylum for that purpose too to top people off before letting the regen in the bubble do its thing.

Woudl like to point out folks, htis is about making the role actions unique to each job like how some of them used to be, rather than the meat of each job

we all know we want healers unique with their actual spells, abilities etc and this has been discussed at length already in plenty of threads, that's not what this thread is focused on. this one is focused specifically on the role actions

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Originally Posted by Recon1o6

Woudl like to point out folks, htis is about making the role actions unique to each job like how some of them used to be, rather than the meat of each job

we all know we want healers unique with their actual spells, abilities etc and this has been discussed at length already in plenty of threads, that's not what this thread is focused on. this one is focused specifically on the role actions

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The problem with homogenization is that it leads to all healers feeling the same to play. Changing the name and animation of role actions does nothing to fix that because it does not address the mechanical similarities that all healers' toolkits share. Others have rightfully pointed out that all healers need the same baseline actions (Lucid, Swift, Surecast, Esuna, etc.) in order to function interchangeably. Changing role actions to unique, class specific versions does nothing to address the root cause of homogenization and would draw development resources away from meaningful changes.

Homogenization is a mechanical issue that cannot be solved with a fresh coat of paint.

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Originally Posted by Jaelommiss

Homogenization is a mechanical issue that cannot be solved with a fresh coat of paint.

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I agree that the idea wouldn't solve the core issue, but I also think that it wouldn't hurt to have the animations and V+SFX individualized to the job in question (if only to create a deeper, though still-shallow illusion of individuality, and aid the perception overall if they only ever decide to bring subtle nuance in for differentiation of the healers).

Also, for as much as development resources are a valid concern to take into consideration, I think we should put that aside for suggestions, in general. For one thing, it undermines the responsibility of the development team to manage their workflow and employees (and provides them an easy excuse to provide less for the same profit, and to stop trying in general), and, for another thing, it generally just puts people down for any and all suggestions that could be made (because whether or not someone likes a suggestion, or how "valid" the suggestion might be, only the development team is really able to decide if the endeavor is worthwhile).

But that just makes things more complicated and doesn't change the homogenization.

I like the core role actions. That’s where the homogenization should end. Next the should focus on making each class distinct. Astro could focus on buffing teammates while scholar abilities would debuff the enemies and white mage would focus on personal dps and each would be capable healers w scholars shielding white mage regens and Astro a mix of both w their sects.

While I'd like to have the flavour and will forever mourn the day we lost Leeches, that's not how you un-do homogenization. Hard rewind SCH to SB, really look at it - see how it fared differently and played differently from the other healers. It's only a wonder of 'Will SE do this?'.

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Originally Posted by Recon1o6

I'm thinking as a return to job flavour, since the devs probably won't make cross class skills again, they could change role skills into separate but identical actions, like how the ranged have Shield samba/tactitian/troubador

For lucid
WHM: Shroud of saints, where it started
AST: Luminiferous aether
SCH: Aetherflow

Status remover
WHM: Esuna
AST: Exalted detriment
SCH: Leeches

Rescue:
WHM: Water's edge - a watery tether drags the player as the whm is cloaked in water
AST: Orbit- a ring of stars appears round both players, and the rescued player's fly towards the AST in a line, dragging the player with them
SCH: Rescue

Swiftcast:
WHM: Divine seal/Cleric stance
AST: Swiftcast
SCH: Strategic manouvere

Surecast and Repose I haven't come up with anything, the latter because I expect it will get the chop, the former because I couldn't come up with a name for the AST one

Thoughts?


Edit: This is about the role skills, which i havent seen talked about much. I'm in complete agreement with everyone that healers and their unique spells, abilities etc need to have the homogenisation undone and distinct playstyles returned in full. Think of this thread to be additional decoupling in addition to what everyone wants

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I see a few people already pointed out how just a different name and animation won't really change anything, but I would like to point that with a few tweaks, AST's Lightspeed could have already been it's variation of "Switftcast" without needing a replacement for the action "Switfcast". I'm not oppose to scrapping role actions if all of these effects were actions with additional effects that synergized with the healer in question's kit or they had unique actions that did one thing, but an additional effect that was an anti-knockback (like WAR's Inner Release), MP recharger or movement option that was flexible enough to still be technically disposable for just one of their purposes without too much of a loss (if any at all). I think WHM's Assize is a good example of that. Use it for damage, healing and MP regen and if you don't need to really heal or low on MP, the damage is always still welcomed.

I would think adding secondary effects via trait to some role actions would make sense.

WHM: Esunaga - Can remove multiple ailments in an area of effect around the recipient.
SCH: Leeches - Successfully removing an ailment grants a crit bonus and an artherflow stack.
AST: Exhalted Detriment - Extends the duration of beneficial status effects on an ally when successfully removing an ailment.