Can we make Lucid Dreaming Optional?

Right now, every healer (WHM, SCH, and AST) are using Lucid Dreaming on cooldown to manage their spell cost assuming they are trying to constantly cast spells. For Scholar and White Mage in particular MP can get tricky if Dungeon pulls last too long. Does anyone else think that it would make things easier if each healer had the tools to manage their MP economy within their own kit without relying on Lucid Dreaming to such a heavy extent? I personally would prefer if the cooldown on Lucid was raised to 180 seconds and could be avoided in use altogether in properly performing parties. In scenarios where you need to manually revive an entire alliance or party it could then give us more power to handle this by being an even more powerful tool in exchange for the larger cooldown.

WHM struggles with MP management at low levels and Endwalker changes to Thin Air are likely to cause problems with this to return at end game. I think structuring each healer to be self sufficient if played properly from level 1 to max would be great for the health of the game. We already have Astro using a great system to get MP from Drawing Cards and this incentivizes using their entire kit. I proposed a change in another thread for Scholar to use one fairy for increased healing spell potency and the other for enhanced mana regen and I think WHM could benefit greatly from an oGCD learned early that upgrades into Assize later. It could be an ability that only does damage within 6 yalms of the caster and restores MP for an extra tool to help them in A Realm Reborn Content where they desperately need it.

The specific changes to each kit don't really matter so much as how good it would feel to be free from Lucid Dreaming as a mandatory action every 60 seconds. It doesn't feel impactful or like a true decision that needs to be made if the only way to play healer is using the button on cooldown. If we are truly going to simplify healing then this would be a good first step.

I think that could be a good idea. Experienced players just press it every 60s without thinking about it. It does nothing except punish newer players. It doesnt even need to be moved to a different mechanic, they can just increase passive mana gain instead because that's basically what it is

I want Lucid Dreaming to feel just as good as Surecast or Rescue when used properly. They are tools that allow you to navigate specific mechanics or save people at clutch moments and it feels good to use them well. Lucid should feel good too.

That's quite an interesting angle and it could be used to encourage each healer to use their gimmick per say. I'd go one step further and actually remove Lucid.

For example, making ASTs lean entirely on their cards for their source of MP.

SCHs with Aetherflow and Fairy Actions.

Sage with Cardia and DPS abilities.

WHM would be a bit of an outlier here but I'd go with simply owning that angle and making an adjusted version of Lucid WHM only so it can offer a viable route for players who aren't as good at keeping the GCD ticking all fight.

Obviously this would all need to be tuned, tested and adjusted quite significantly from what we have now, but I think it'd be good way to highlight the importance for healers to use their kit to the fullest.

Well in all fairness.....just get more piety gear if your struggling with MP in game

White mage have thin air, even know it is getting nerfed in endwalker, it still save mp by a lot, u can get 1 free cure lll off or a free Raise

The only time ANY healer will have mp problems is when they are hard casting raises due to player mistakes , which personally i would turn raise into a 20-30sec cd with no mp cost

At low level there isnt really MP issues , but i will say this, due to lack of ogcds you play very differently as a healer

For example whm whilst holyspam will use lucid and do. Holy > holy > cure > holy >cure and if u get "free cure ll" you use that instead

I know alot of people say the "free cure sucks" and they kinda right at "high end" but low end where you dont have alot of ogcds its a god sent

I'm in favour of scrapping it in favour of unique mp recovery, its yet another avenue to undo homogenisation and fix healers

unlike most posters im in favour of mp management being something to learn. At minimum, the basic attack (glare/broil/malefic/dosis) should all cost 0 mp to encourage a freshly raised healer to do something productive while lucid is coming off cd. Basic competence is managing your mp, this is hammered home in the conjurer questline. Smart play shoudl allow mp positive and enhanced gameplay

Lucid can be returned to whm as shroud of saints at level 24 and have it get a trait at later levels where it instantly generates a lily or it can consume a lily to generate double mp. Right now whm overcaps lillies in some duties because there is so little damage and the gcd is better spent on refreshing dia and dropping an ogcd heal and struggles with mp between cure 2 and getting lucid since cure 1 is tapering off in usefulness but cure 2 is expensive.

For sch, i concur with selene having an mp restore, and her other ability should be a silence fitting the "Eos to sooth and salve, Selene to Support and Silence" bit of sch's lore that forms the core of the fairies.

As for astro, well this was one of the strong points of the unique cards- despite what parsers like to pander around the ewer was a great card. it could give yourself a decent recovery of mp, the rdm get back on their feet or back into the game after a verraise and you could always burn it for an aoe card later. Not to mention slapping the bole on the tank meant you didn't need to use as much healing on them indirectly saving mp.
It also had another ability called luminiferous aether. Lucid dreaming but with an enmity reducer, very helpful for your tank. Them scrapping LA and then the Ewer was what caused launch ast to be as bad as rdm when it came to bleeding mana.
Astrodyne is already having an mp restore every time you trigger it come 6.0 plus the excellent draw-gain 800mp

LA replacing lucid dreaming. How about grants the effect of noct sect for the duration of its mp restore- give back more access to the shields that were unneccessarily stripped from it for a pure/barrier split that doesn't actually exist. Alternatively have it consume a card drawn or astrodyne seal. Either of those can directly allow smart play to get the full 3 seals.

Sage can easily have an mp steal attached to any of its attacks.

Lucid Dreaming is the button you press when you've been a wee bit too enthusiastic doing DPS without looking at your MP bar.

For all the complaint about 'lack of things to do as a healer', it's another 'thing to do'.

we actually Used to have unique mp recovery and it got (mostly) scrapped for lucid dreaming as a role action.

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Originally Posted by DPZ2

Lucid Dreaming is the button you press when you've been a wee bit too enthusiastic doing DPS without looking at your MP bar.

For all the complaint about 'lack of things to do as a healer', it's another 'thing to do'.

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One hand hand i agree and on the other i dont.

Lucid dreaming isnt the button you press "when" something. You use it on cooldown since the start of the fight because none of the healers are mp positive. it hardly adds any depth to its gameplay

but on the other hand, i agree. It IS something else to do in a role so dull where pressing draw every 30 seconds is a godsend compared to the other 2 (3?) healers.

if im to understand OP tho, its less about not needing to use lucid ever, and more about having more interesting systems to replace it. which i think would be a good thing overall. (however i know that more available mp just facilities builds with higher spellspeed until you Need to use lucid dreaming on cooldown again, so theres that issue...)

As long as we don't completely rob the mana managment and it's moved elsewhere I'm fine with it.

Ironically we did at one point have individual MP recovery options for each healer class. Lucid Dreaming was the WHM Shroud of Saints skill. I forget what the others had.

I second this notion. Lucid Dreaming is mostly a button you press on cooldown when you're AoE spamming. Now that AoEs are going to cost the same mp as the rest of our damage spells, the ability serves no purpose other than saving the day when fights go wrong, which, in that case, commit to how it's used in practice and make it a high impact, high cooldown ability. With Astrologian getting Astrodyne and a more steady supply of mp via Draw, I love the idea of Selene being repurposed into an mp pet and White Mage getting some changes to help its mp issues.

Come to think of it, it's honestly baffling how the job that's supposed to be beginner friendly is the one with the worst mp economy.

Will disagree with the removal of Lucid, Lucid dreaming is basically a MP recovery skill for all caster jobs other than Black Mage, which can easily translate between different caster jobs and build muscle memory to use it earlier (healers included). Sure, you can change it, but that's just adding more work for the same MP economy gameplay than what we have currently for balancing issues since now SE would have to redesign all the healer's MP again to accommodate for this difference of gaining an extra 3500 MP over 60 seconds at lower level content as well. How is that not more punishing for new players compared to a skill that comes up frequently enough and just needs one button to use? It's a lot more simpler to just add a new skill or adjust existing ones to cover for the MP imbalance that currently exists between healers instead.

That's not to say these new skills that affect MP management can't be synergistic to the toolkit.

Finally, Lucid Dreaming also acts more akin to a safety net for less experienced players. People would complain that they're not using Lucid Dreaming often enough that they're running out of MP... but I've also seen the number of people who doesn't use Aetherflow or Draw on cooldown - which equally affects their MP economy. Removing Lucid Dreaming actually makes things worse since there's an even heavier emphasis on using your job's skills to do it, and less ways to manage your MP right by drawing experiences of other jobs you played with.

I don't think it's very possible to make Lucid Dreaming "optional" in that sense, because the skill would have to be drastically weakened to put more emphasis on the healer's MP toolkit themselves. In the end, that just moves the problem over to the healer's toolkit themselves. MP will never be crazily high since they also have to balance high-end content like Ultimates to be fairly taxing on MP too.

Plus, as a role skill, it means this skill can also be used in content and instances under level 24, and not strictly in content above it. It's actually a lot more lenient at lower levels as a result when you are level-synced since most newbies would overlevel as a result of Road to 70/ Armoury Bonus / Food buffs / Roulette / MSQ compounding on each other. This is also true with other role actions like Rampart, Reprisal, and Arms Length.

However, I will agree that there is quite a clear imbalance on AST and WHM in MP currently on paper, so hopefully that'll be adjusted. I just don't think removing Lucid Dreaming is the right way to go about it, or rather it's not the core of the MP imbalance problem.

Here's an interesting concept, though it doesn't quite work with how the healers are set up now...

What if Lucid Dreaming had 2 charges, and similarly to Thin Air, negated your next spell cost while also restoring MP equal to that cost? We don't really have high MP-costly spells other than Raise really, and to a lesser degree, Cure III, but if we shifted to have some more expensive tools, it could be rather interesting to use effectively.

As a SMN main that has a tendency to die a bit in higher level content(apologies to my healers), it's nice to be able to pop Lucid on rez and get ready to pull a pinch rez when needed. Yes, I should be better at my position, but it's nice to be able to help rez after something goes wrong.

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Originally Posted by TaleraRistain

Ironically we did at one point have individual MP recovery options for each healer class. Lucid Dreaming was the WHM Shroud of Saints skill. I forget what the others had.

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• WHM had Shroud of Saints which turned into the role action Lucid Dreaming.
• AST had Luminiferous Aether (I think that’s what it was called.) And back then, the Ewer Card was an MP refresh and could be buffed to double potency, double duration or be aoe, and then it could be further extended in duration with Celestial Opposition and Time Dilation.
• SCH had and still has Aetherflow and Energy Drain.
• (BRD also had an AOE MP refresh with Mage’s Ballad (ARR) which turned into a ranged role action Refresh (SB) then got deleted (ShB).
• Casters also had Mana Shift to help in SB.)

I like that they had more identity with their MP skills in the past but really they still do. The problem for WHM is that it has the highest spell costs while not getting its own MP skills until after 50, (while AST’s Draw is at 30 and SCH/SGE get their MP skills at 45). Assize (56) is barely MP positive at only 500 MP and Thin Air (58) will be nerfed soon but doesn’t generate MP, it only conserves it. The simple fix is to move Aetherflow and Druochole to a lower level for SCH and SGE, but WHM would need something new probably.

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Originally Posted by BlueMageQuina

• WHM had Shroud of Saints which turned into the role action Lucid Dreaming.
• AST had Luminiferous Aether (I think that’s what it was called.) And back then, the Ewer Card was an MP refresh and could be buffed to double potency, double duration or be aoe, and then it could be further extended in duration with Celestial Opposition and Time Dilation.
• SCH had and still has Aetherflow and Energy Drain.
• (BRD also had an AOE MP refresh with Mage’s Ballad (ARR) which turned into a ranged role action Refresh (SB) then got deleted (ShB).
• Casters also had Mana Shift to help in SB.)

I like that they had more identity with their MP skills in the past but really they still do. The problem for WHM is that it has the highest spell costs while not getting its own MP skills until after 50, (while AST’s Draw is at 30 and SCH/SGE get their MP skills at 45). Assize (56) is barely MP positive at only 500 MP and Thin Air (58) will be nerfed soon but doesn’t generate MP, it only conserves it. The simple fix is to move Aetherflow and Druochole to a lower level for SCH and SGE, but WHM would need something new probably.

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There's a million different ways that SE could handle WHM's MP issues.
Dropping the cost of WHM's GCD skills (Cure 2, Regen, Medica, and Medica 2) to be equal to the cost of AST's equivalent skills would be a huge benefit because the overwhelming majority of them are worse than AST's version in some way; Helios has a Cure potency of 330 and a 2s cast time vs Medica that has a 300 cure potency and 2.5 second cast time and yet Medica is the more costly spell. The only exception is Medica 2 having more range than Aspected Helios but that's hardly enough to warrant a 500 MP difference between the skills. That one change alone would go a long way to helping WHM in terms of its MP economy.

Next thing would be to buff Assize to a 8-10% MP restore. Again, comparing to AST, when they had MP problems, SE added an 8% MP restore to Draw and they were fine. 8% might not be enough for Assize considering it has a 45s CD vs Draw's 30 but we will have Thin Air, even if neutered, so it might be enough when coupled with the cost reduction as well.

Not saying that i'm against your idea at all.

BUT, in the current state of things, the natural MP regen is so ridiculous that as a healer, if nothing happens, you'll never have to use Lucid Dreaming. In essence, it's already kind of like having it on an 180 seconds CD.

I would be 100% in favor of giving back tools to each healer class for MP regen, and put Lucid Dreaming on a longer CD, but for that to have a meaning, SE would first need to nerf the natural MP regen of healers.

And this, in turn means two things :
- Healers will become more difficult to play, and we know SE wants the opposite
- Piety materias will become a thing again, which means less damage output/healing potency for healers, which again will make them slightly more difficult to play

So yeah, in conclusion, as much as i'd be in favor of getting back to a more complex resource management system for healers, with all the things that it would imply i can't see it happen realistically, since SE wishes the opposite for their game.
Also, keeping Lucid Dreaming as THE common MP utility skill for all healers is more convenient for them, since they're also aiming at standardizing all healer jobs.

Reading this thread made me realize I never once had to pop a single Ether while leveling my healers.

Not once.

I think Lucid Dreaming is mostly responsible for that.

Ethers are probably the most valuable and underrated item in the game. The problem is that when we run out of MP and it causes a wipe most people don't think, "An Ether would have saved the run." Instead its more likely to feel the wipe was inevitable so many scenarios where an Ether would make all the difference go unnoticed. Lucid Dreaming still bugs me tho for multiple reasons. It's a role skill and like all role skills it doesn't show up in the same menu as class actions so its easy for new players to miss altogether. Our natural MP refresh could be tuned to function without Lucid Dreaming as an action as someone else mentioned, and it just isn't fun to press. Shroud of Saints cutting Agro in half on WHM felt great in ARR when healer agro was outrageous. Call me crazy but I want more out of the action instead of a mandatory keep me casting button.

I still carry hundreds of Ethers as a habit from Stormblood and before =(

I might use one once in a blue moon these days though.

I join a lot of practice parties for Extreme and Savage content and if you're commonly in parties struggling to do blind clears Ethers start becoming a cornerstone of gameplay. I play Scholar mainly tho and prememptive heavy shielding is really effective for forcing players with vulnerability stacks thru mechanics that should have killed them. Its costly tho and so my mileage out of Ethers is affected by that as well. It's not a playstyle that leads to Orange DPS Parses but it does allow you to carry party to a clear. I get far more enjoyment from carrying a party on my shoulders than slide casting Broil for 10 minutes straight tho.

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Originally Posted by NobleWinter

It's not a playstyle that leads to Orange DPS Parses but it does allow you to carry party to a clear. I get far more enjoyment from carrying a party on my shoulders than slide casting Broil for 10 minutes straight tho.

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My favorite moments on healers are when I work my butt off to make sure we're able to get the clear, I wish the game gave me more opportunities to feel like I was actually contributing and helping with my healing rather than just a "if I don't press an oGCD the party will eventually die". My favorite memories on any healers are all related to saving runs with my healing or preventing people from dying. I don't want content to be harder for casual players but I want the ability to shine, dang it!

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Originally Posted by Nizzi

My favorite moments on healers are when I work my butt off to make sure we're able to get the clear, I wish the game gave me more opportunities to feel like I was actually contributing and helping with my healing rather than just a "if I don't press an oGCD the party will eventually die". My favorite memories on any healers are all related to saving runs with my healing or preventing people from dying. I don't want content to be harder for casual players but I want the ability to shine, dang it!

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Trial Roulette: Cloud Deck
Me on SCH.
OT has broken gear and dies instantly to auto attacks.
WHM co-healer can't stay alive to a single mechanic (and I legitimately mean not a single one despite marking myself with a marker to follow me).
DPS are irrelevant since none have a rez and despite being capable of handling most mechanics, due to paper mache OT, they get targeted for Tank busters so, lot of rezzing on my part. Eventually, despite my best efforts, they start dying faster than I can rez while keeping MT alive. Most of the DPS get hit by chasing AoE mechanic and die at around 50%.
LB3.

OT goes down again instantly. WHM, to their credit, survived 2 mechanics before dying again. Once again party is going down one at a time so the fight is taking forever. I've stopped bothering to revive either the OT or WHM at this point and just try and force my way thru but Tank Busters are killing the group and Auto attacks on myself stop my casts periodically so I'm keeping myself and MT alive as best I can while party is left to the wind. Boss is only at 30% and we already have LB3 again so I let it rip to revive as many people as I can (group is essentially dead on both platforms and LB3 only revived the OT and 3 DPS but whatever). We keep going, autos are still hitting me so I can't cast half the time but we're slowly making progress. We get LB 2, melee DPS lets it loose at around 10%, 2 of the other DPS go down, leaving myself, MT, and 2 DPS. We almost die to the stack mechanic but just barely pull off the win.

Most fun I had in recent memory on a healer because I actually had to carry so hard and this wasn't even the extreme version it was the HM and that's just sad af that I need people to suck just to have any sort of enjoyment on my healers.