Fact: Holy is the best Healer AoE spell in the game.
I'm capped on all healers. I don't even main WHM. I exclusively cap WHM for Holy spam and dungeon runs.
WHM dungeon gameplay is substantially easier than the other healers. Holy having the added effect of Stun, an invaluable type of damage mitigation, while contributing similar damage as the other healers. Dungeon enemy packs are essentially inactive for under 10 seconds because of holy.
I'd like for healers to at least have varying Area of affect bonuses.
AST: Gravity could have an added effect of Slow. Reducing the attack rate of enemies affected.
SCH: Art of War could have an added effect of Blind. Reducing the hit rate of enemies affected.
SGE: Dyskrasia could have an added effect of Paralysis. Interrupting actions of the enemies affected.
While there are nuances to the AoE abilities. ie. cast range, player based AoE, potency. In practice the spells all function the same, while Holy is leagues on its own.
The goal of this change is primarily to give non-WHM healers something cooler out of their AoE damage button. This change is thematic to the jobs and act as forms of mitigation for AoE scenarios. It'll also help new players(:)) by giving them a higher reason to use their AoE in dungeons. In addition, further homogenizing the healers but in a fresh way.
Healer Area of Effect revision
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10-11-2022, 05:50 PMAlereRaederHealer Area of Effect revision
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10-11-2022, 07:05 PMSemirhage
Can WHM please have something unique that isn't either stripped off or spread to the other healers? It's already lacking in exclusive capabilities as it is, and Sage swooped in this expansion and stole the dungeon damage output crown. Could WHM maybe be standout good at this one thing?
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10-11-2022, 07:22 PMForsakenRoewasn't SCH's AOW stronger even in SHB in terms of potency? only thing WHM has going for it is the stun, but even then we can just do krasis-physis-kerachole on basically every wall to wall and that's enough to ignore the tank for 15 seconds, and after that we have a selection of top up tools to work with that we can alternate for each pull, eg soteria haima on one, panhaima pneuma on the next, etcQuote:
Originally Posted by Semirhage
but despite this i'd still say yes to this suggestion just because it'd mean it's something that sets the healers apart even the tiniest amount. Then again, most mobs seem to end up being immune to most statuses nowadays anyway so idk how effective these debuffs would end up being, there's the possibility that they end up as part of some cheese strat in a raid (being able to paralyse the boss out of a phase transition cutscene cos of a bug would be pretty funny), etc -
10-11-2022, 07:41 PMRilifaneWHM was far superior thanks to Assize and dumping Lilies between pull for Misery. None of the other healers stood a chance against that.Quote:
Originally Posted by ForsakenRoe
The only thing I want for WHM is a 1,5s cast on Holy so they don't have to clip everything if they don't need to heal with Solace. But other than that, I'd prefer to keep the aoes as it is. It's bad enough for me that AoW and Dyskrasia function exactly the same. -
10-11-2022, 08:17 PMLiam_Harper
Honestly I wouldn't mind seeing Holy reduced to 1.5s cast, it's the last remnant of clip mage and feels awful to play. But WHM having a good aoe (stun) is a small perk for WHM in dungeons.
The only other healer aoe I'd change is AST, since they sorely need help in dungeons. Both a potency buff, possible radius buff and an added effect would be fine. Although Slow is going to conflict with Arm's Length and won't really be as much advantage.
SGE is a dungeon god, SCH is certainly holding up well. Both are fine. -
10-11-2022, 08:29 PMArchwizardOn the one hand, I like the idea of incorporating CC into the AoE kits of defense-oriented and supportive jobs. Of particular note is the idea of AST getting a Slow (and possibly Heavy) on Gravity, not only because Urianger's Trust Avatar is capable of the same but because it plays into AST's Time Mage inspiration. Bearing in mind that AoE Stun was never limited to WHM in this regard, since AST previously had Celestial Opposition as a sort of "time stop" effect, as well as Stella (and later Break) to Heavy enemies.Quote:
Originally Posted by AlereRaeder
On the other though... similarly owing to my experience with Urianger's Trust Avatar, giving any job a spammable Slow effect is disastrous for tanks, since it can override the Slow effect from Arm's Length and thereby cause multiple applications to rapidly grant enemies resistance to the debuff entirely. If Arm's Length had some other effect then maybe, but as of now, it would do more harm than good.
I also think that if SGE was at all struggling to the point of needing an "advantage" over other healers, it could probably finagle something out of proccing Kardia additional times from select AoEs (a la Abyssal Drain or Bloodwhetting).
On a similar note, you could probably give SCH some kind of damaging barrier (they previously had Eye for an Eye, just go the whole nine yards and make it a Spikes effect instead), and maybe turn Gravity into a grouping skill (with Heavy attached) instead. We don't really need to homogenize the healers if each one has a "unique" advantage. -
10-11-2022, 09:44 PMForsakenRoe
nah 'apply a barrier that reflects damage to the attacker' will be the genius new idea for a new healer for the curespam healers to play, they'll be able to contribute damage by just constantly reapplying the barrier to the tank
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10-12-2022, 03:17 AMZolvolt
I think the healer aoe's are fine the way they are
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10-12-2022, 04:17 AMKDSilverEverything doesn't revolve around stealing something from others.Quote:
Originally Posted by Semirhage
Besides, for the few spells we have, i'd call it adding flavor more than stripping off WHM "uniqueness".
Stun is still stronger than any other detriment. -
10-12-2022, 05:42 AMSemirhageCool, can't wait for WHM's direct hit raidbuff or massive toolkit of ultra-strong oGCD heals with short cooldowns.Quote:
Originally Posted by KDSilver
Or would that be the bad kind of homogenization. -
10-12-2022, 06:55 AMNizzi
Scholar is the only job with only one AoE ability in the game. Rather than give it a CC clone to mirror Holy, I have a never before thought up idea that I think people would love...
Scholar can spread Biolysis in PvP with Deployment Tactics, right? What if we gave Scholar that ability in PvE as well, and we also let that spread Chain Stratagem? We could make it a trait of Deployment Tactics, maybe give it a funny name like "Bane", I think that would be cool and unique rather than taking another thing from White Mage. In fact, what if we gave a cool MP gain trait to Energy Drain and removed Shroud of Sai-... I mean Lucid Dreaming from them as well so a Scholar is properly managing MP by using Aetherflow and Energy Drain? That sounds pretty cool, I think SE should hire me honestly.
Also if we're taking anything from White Mage, PLEASE give them more mitigation first, it is so dumb that AST's healing kit is pretty much able to be summed up as "White Mage's but better in every way", SE PLEASE understand that "heals lots real good x3" is not an acceptable niche where every other healer heals lots real good too on top of having mitigation, shields or raid buffs too. -
10-12-2022, 07:58 AMASkellington
The only change I'd like to healer AOEs is for
Kardia to scale with SGE's hit. If it makes SGE as powerful as WAR in AoE healing... I don't think many are gonna complain when that's, y'know a HEALER's job and you can always adjust the potency. *cough cough nerf war's cough*
SCH to get back bane to spread its DoT for AOE and maybe Miasma as well to do the same.
AST... Can a Fortuneteller get a detonate to speed up to explode something? Or... can I get a way to swap Lady for Lord?
I don't really care that WHM has a stun and the other healers don't. I'd rather WHM keep their stun and give other healers something else to make their AOE abilities interesting. -
10-12-2022, 08:26 AMty_taurus
I like the idea of adding in trash mob debuffs for the healers, but why do we need to just slap it onto just the AoEs? Aren't we trying to move away from homogenization?
AST used to have Stun attached to Celestial Opposition, and what a satisfying way to enter a trash wave that was back in the day. set a card on someone, perhaps a DPS card for the DPS, or Bole on the tank, Aspected Benefic & Helios, then extend all those buffs and stun all the enemies. It feels blasphemous that Celestial Opposition was reduced to a boring regen. -
10-12-2022, 09:06 AMPayadopa
Can we please stop asking for more homogenisation? If anything healers are in dire need for unique ideas.
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10-12-2022, 12:16 PMAlereRaederEven then, the funny number compilling website/tool says otherwise. WHM competes for the top in damage contribution and speed in current dungeons. I didn't check dmg taken but im sure a dungeon with a WHM in it also has really low values because of Holy stuns. I'm sure the devs know these values and I hope for cool changes.Quote:
Originally Posted by ForsakenRoe
I had an inkling the thread would become into healer vs healer talk, hahah. Lets put what you said differently instead. SGE is the only healer that is strong enough to compete with WHM's in dungeons. "Compete" in a true sense aswell because WHM is still holding strong. In addition to being simple, and how unattentive you can play the job.Quote:
Originally Posted by Semirhage
Yeah i'm on the AST train right now. I use to play during heavensward so the whole "time mage astrologian" thing is dear and close to my heart. I remember giving a dps a 60 second duration 10% dmg buff.Quote:
Originally Posted by Archwizard
On the topic of overwritting slows cause by tanks, there would definitely be some interaction there. Arm's length is only able to apply once while Gravity would have diminishing reapplication durations. In essence, the slow effect should be balanced in a way that its duration is able to mitigate as much as another healers' AoE would.
I believe that giving the healers thematically appropriate effects is a step in the right direction when homogenizing. It can give a little spice to the AoE buttons healers have. As it stands, WHM is the only one with an added effect while the other healers just have damage. What would be your idea instead?Quote:
Originally Posted by Payadopa
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10-12-2022, 01:58 PMRithy255
meh any change to make healers feel more important so they stop healing me in my req window, ;-; I'm not afraid to clemency if you cure 1 me c:
I don't mind this, I know a lot of people will complain about "mah homogenization!" but making the aoe effect actually do something different shows that it would more add something instead of Homogenizing, I think if you made all "stun" then yeah people would have a good reason to complain, In general White mage would still even have the best effect lol, I also think we should consider other healers dungeon viability, because dungeons are going to get "hard modes"
In general It doesn't really effect me, I don't really like current healer's they need more meaningful changes, but the idea itself isn't bad. -
10-12-2022, 01:59 PMty_taurusOr we add CC to other tools and give each healer different wants of applying different debuffs like I mentioned.Quote:
Originally Posted by AlereRaeder
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10-12-2022, 04:17 PMLimonia
WHM already has that long cast time on Holy. If the other healers get effects on them they should be around the caster and have 2.5s cast time. But honestly, who would want them all to be the same?
What I would change is make Gravity's AoE just slightly bigger so it'll hit more than 1-2 enemies if they're not grouped up perfectly, and make Art of War and Dyskrasia different from each other. They're practically the same now. -
10-12-2022, 04:19 PMRein_eon_Osborne
I want a conal or linear Dyskrasia. Is that so much to ask? I want to shoot lazor, not make a m3th shower. :(
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10-12-2022, 06:03 PMCalysto
Wasn't there something like that mentioned by Yoshi in the pre-EW live letter ?
I think I remember something about adding "effects" on AoE, or was it just a translation error.
and for the homogenization argument, who remember shadowflare (sch slow/dot dome for those who don't) ? you know, when each healers had more than the same kit -
10-12-2022, 08:17 PMUkcsAlias
Holy only works for about 6 seconds. After that stunning doesnt work, and any aoe of the enemies means you need to move (and potentialy cancel casting). It disrupting the ability for a tank to stun is on that a downside that doesnt matter that much (against big groups as tank you wont control them anyway).
6 seconds against tankier enemies isnt realy that much. Its mostly on outdated content that this feels massively OP. Sure, it saves you 6s from healing, but in the end, since you mostly use oGCD heals. Thats all the time you save. In 6 seconds enemies generaly dont dish out such large values that you suddenly become forced to use GCD heals.
Its ranged, which i think on its own does quite a lot as it means you dont have to dodge any attacks (and that guarantees you finishing casts). And it can also be used while moving when you turn on insta casting. I think this is a decent alternative already.Quote:
Originally Posted by AlereRaeder
And dont underestimate the value of it being ranged. If as WHM you have to interupt a single holy, the value of all the stuns barely matters since its still a lost GCD cycle at that point. Being ranged makes this interupt less likely to happen, and that is the value it gives.
For SCH and SGE, while they are instacasts, they dont realy add great benefits, since any enemy aoe already forces you out. Slow and blind wont change anything here. Giving only SGE paralyze and SCH only a blind would instantly benefit the SGE a lot more, since that can actualy interupt a lot of casts of the enemies and still allow you to stand in the danger zone. This makes them significantly weaker than holy and gravity in such effects, but their damage does allow them to be interupted every 5th cast anyway.
1 missed holy cycle takes 140 potency away. Even if gravity does less at 130. If you get interupted once every 10 casts, you are still losing out on damage value.
The problem isnt realy the effects here, its just that its a single button that you spam for all healers. And the same issue that a lot of healer abilities have. -
10-12-2022, 09:25 PMAmiableApkalluEither shape would add a welcome bit of variety and complement Phlegma's mildly-ranged nature.Quote:
Originally Posted by Rein_eon_Osborne
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10-12-2022, 09:51 PMArchwizardAnd while I can agree about giving all healers "thematically appropriate effects", they don't all necessarily need to be hard CC.Quote:
Originally Posted by AlereRaeder
Lemme put it to you this way: AST (as Time Mage) and WHM are two jobs I would fully expect to have some control-based effects, because of their history across the series; WHM as the early adopter of any defensive spell including damage prevention like Silence as well as being the archetype among healers, Time Mage as the eventual repository of such effects as Slow, Stop, Immobilize, Disable, etc.
SCH, put down as a hard maybe, you can justify one way or the other.
SGE however, is a job that we actually have relatively little thematic backing for. Yes, Sages exist within the series, but generally as advanced Scholar or Red Mage types, while 14's carves out a completely oblique identity that only shares the name. For instance, the most iconic character to use the Sage title within the series was Tellah, who famously was able to cast Meteor at the cost of his own life; even if Comet was in the cards for any healer, we wouldn't even consider it for 14's SGE because it exists outside the purview of SGE's abilities.
We can't really say that CC is "thematically appropriate" to the job because it's still in the early stages of what it can and cannot do -- you're assigning them Paralysis for the sake of giving each healer a CC, but not necessarily because you know it's fitting for 14's SGE specifically. This isn't to say "maybe some other CC is better for SGE, you don't know," but rather to pose the question: Is it even permitted, in your mind, for the devs to create a healer who thematically avoids CC?
Because as we can see from the existing paradigm, it's not some bare minimum requirement of the role. We see BLM as the one Caster who doesn't have rez support (or any utility outside of Role Actions) because it's designed to be selfish and falls outside of its theme since that would classically be White Magic; same principle, different role.
Even on the premise that you were shooting for some semblance of parity, the flaw in your reasoning is that no two of the CCs you mentioned were created equal. Yes, you can try to tune their durations so a 20% attack slow or 15% accuracy loss from Blind mitigates approximately equal damage to a hard Stun over the course of a trash pack, but ignoring for a moment that enemies have different resistances to different status effects (with some bosses even vulnerable to stuns that wouldn't be vulnerable to slows like Arm's Length), and ignoring that a trash pack may die well before their Slows or Blinds run out (so they didn't actually mitigate as much overall) versus a full bevvy of Stuns in the first 10 sec? Each one of these CCs is at their most powerful in different circumstances, with Stun able to act as an interrupt on powerful attacks that Slow won't. Paralysis is the next closest to this capability, but it's unreliable due to being RNG, and we still don't know the chance of its activation. Slow and Blind can't hold enemies in place when they're grouped for optimal AoE; hell, Blind is RNG just like Paralysis but without the same lockdown, so it's arguably the worst option here.
The list goes on. The only two types of CC that are truly "equal" are the ones that are just reskins of the same type of effect (like Stun vs Freeze vs Knockdown).
Like I said, there are thematically appropriate things that are untapped for each healer, like SCH throwing out a Spikes effect or SGE's "heal by attacking" theme; there isn't just one way to tune them to match up to Holy's stun window in terms of either free damage output or added defense/support. -
10-13-2022, 03:59 AMSebazy
Interestingly, SCH actually used to out perform WHM quite significantly in dungeons during HW.
1000 DPS was a realistic figure to aim for in Neverreap, the very first expert dungeon of the expansion and I distinctly remember doing more damage overall at the end of the expansion in dungeons like Baelsar's Wall.
Why? Because SCH generated most of it's AoE damage stacking dots and baneing them over the rest of the pull and dropping shadow flare ASAP. You had a GCD AoE to spam (Blizzard II) but it was a comparatively small portion of your damage vs WHM or AST which meant that when you did have to spend a GCD doing something other than nuking, you weren't penalised anything like as hard as the other healers. If you were having to heal through a rough pull with the tank not helping, most of your damage was still ticking away providing you were on the ball and getting things prepped as the pull was still in motion.
Of course SE did an SE and removed this, making SCH dependant on it's GCD nuke for aoe damage just like everyone else.
IMHO the solution is to move SCH back towards being more reliant for dot damage as it was in the past. That way it doesn't have the WHM raid contribution problem in reverse. -
10-16-2022, 06:29 AMAlereRaederI agree that I am at fault for assigning CC to the healers, I did so in a way to make my point easier to understand. SGE is the newest healer and definitely not a healer I spend a lot of time playing, so the CC i assigned the job was more loosely added. I do believe that a healer can avoid CC, and still perform in an effective way. At the end of the day, the players will chose the stronger weapon. My ideals stem from the statistics; AST and SCH are heavily underplayed in endgame dungeons, and that's my issue with it all. For every ast/sch, there are ~2 whms/sges and that's a 100% difference.Quote:
Originally Posted by Archwizard
On the note of balancing; I understand that holy's hard CC is insanely strong. To balance a slow against a hard CC like stun is difficult, however we have the law of averages on our side(for the most part). As in taking the data from a holy'd trash pack and balancing a slow'd mob pack against it. Blind being similar to slow. While Paralysis may be unreliable, the effect does happen. Arm's Length's effectiveness speaks for itself.
In FF11, SCH had Accenssion and Manifestation. Accenssion works pretty much like Deployment Tactics. Manifestation makes the next spell cast over an area instead of single target. So some semblance of Bane, but different enough that its within possibility to have back on scholar. In a way that it'll work like an offensive Recitation. SGE is kind of a star child tho, we'll see what comes :P -
10-16-2022, 06:30 AMAlereRaederQuote:
Originally Posted by Rein_eon_Osborne
I really liked Reiner's and Limonia's ideas. I like the vast theme in AST abilities. Also liked the conal/line AoE take on SGE. Tho, we should be aware of what happened to SAM's conal and WAR's overpower :( . But I will still hold fast to cool changes.Quote:
Originally Posted by Limonia
If the LL stuff were true, it'd definitely increase the healer queue rate lol.Quote:
Originally Posted by Calysto
On Shadowflare, that's exactly why I thought SCH could keep the same slow effect they did back in ARR. Slow and shields are very job appropriate. -
10-16-2022, 10:52 AMAmiableApkalluIf we're talking about dungeons and other normal-mode content, then…Quote:
Originally Posted by AlereRaeder
Because there is nothing in that content that requires the absolute best of the job or the player, there is no reason to assume that jobs being played at different rates is because of which jobs are stronger, and there is no reason to treat jobs being played at different rates as a problem.
For example, my problem with AST isn't Gravity. My problem is that playing cards feels unsatisfying because there is little to no feedback in-game about how effective those buffs actually are. -
10-18-2022, 06:08 AMAlereRaederNormal-mode AoE spell usage is the subject matter. As to avoid derailing, what I said can be observed just by anyone. You can even feel it yourself if you play SCH or AST in dungeons vs playing WHM or SGE in a dungeon. It's so much more effective, therefore stronger. When a job is disproportionately used in content, it generally means that it is the better pick. Warriors have ~120% play rate in dungeons. #MachinistsQuote:
Originally Posted by AmiableApkallu
I'll acknowledge that the numbers could just be the playerbase on the healers, however that should be reflected across all content(give or take) and it does not. This leads me to believe, and even experience myself, that healer AoE scenarios vary in effectiveness. -
10-18-2022, 09:23 AMty_taurusAt the end of the day, just play the healer you want in dungeons. Never has someone gone "ew... AST in a dungeon? Gross." If other players want to swap because "WHM is the better dungeon healer," who cares? That's their choice. Play what you want to play.Quote:
Originally Posted by AlereRaeder
I'm more concerned about healer balance in Criterion. AST might be in tatters due to losing half its buff potential. Holy's stun though might end up being a bad thing though. What happens if there's trash that needs to be stunned out of some nasty attack, but now they're stun immune due to constant Holy spam? -
10-18-2022, 12:10 PMASkellingtonI'm just gonna quote myself here:Quote:
Originally Posted by AlereRaeder
Pretty sure AST's low play rate isn't because WHM is better in dungeons or at least just because.Quote:
Originally Posted by ASkellington
As an AST player I'm pretty sure I can say that the top reasons AST isn't played is:
Astrodyne isn't worth the effort you put into it
and
let's call it "ease of access" - constantly switching targets/button bloat.