What dps/utility buttons old or new would you add to your healer?

I've noticed since making the megathread summary of healer issues, its unanimous that everyone wants more to do during the 70-90% of our time when not healing.
However the nature of the changes are a little more varied.

What form would you have your downtime take on which job(s)?

Note: these are none healing actions, but buffs to healing would still count eg shroud of saints returned would be valid as its a self buff.

Green DPS needs more than 2 DPS buttons. Give us more DoTs to manage at least.

Lately, my thought train has been going in this direction for SGE...

Dosis
- Remains as the standard single target filler spell. Eukrasia still makes this a DoT. The potency will drop to make room for other offensive tools, as will other Dosis-potency actions.

Polydipsia
- A new DPS GCD spell that has the same potency as Dosis and has a higher MP cost and a line AoE with falloff. When used, instead of normal Kardia healing, it applies 4 stacks of Soteria to your Kardia target, doubling the HP restored to them through Kardia. Under the effects of Eukrasia, changes this to 2 stacks of Expanded Soteria, which causes Kardia healing to additionally heal all party members within 20 yalms of your Kardia target. This gives you a way to more directly interact with Kardia healing and augment it. It's interchangeable with Dosis per GCD, but must be managed for its MP costs

Paroxysm
- Renamed Dyskrasia (to avoid the awkward sounding 'Eukrasian Dyskrasia'). It changes to a ranged spell that deals Dosis-potency damage with falloff. It has a higher MP cost and refunds little bits of MP for each enemy hit, making it affordable for AoE but a mobility tool/double weaving tool in single target at a higher MP cost. Eukrasia makes this an AoE DoT that does not stack with Eukrasian Dosis'.

Phlegma
- Stays largely the same, but is slightly weaker in exchange for making enemies hit take 5% more damage from only you for 5 seconds. Gives you a reason to time certain other actions.

Pneuma and Proto-Pneuma
- Proto-Pneuma replaces Pneuma as the action you set to your hotbar. It is a high-potency DPS laser on a 2 minute cooldown used for damage. After it's used, you get 1 use of Pneuma while Proto-Pneuma is on cooldown, which replaces Proto-Pneuma on the hotbar and functions as Pneuma currently does--DPS neutral damage with burst healing.

Toxikon
- Remains the same potency as Dosis while costing an Addersting but with a few subtle changes. It gains a 15 second cooldown while staying on the GCD, and also interacts with a new action...

Toxikosis
- An OGCD ability that deals damage equal to your Dosis as a circle AoE with falloff. It has a 15 second cooldown and 3 charges. When Toxikon is used, decreases the cooldown of Toxikosis by 15 seconds, similarly to BRD's Bloodletter procs essentially. This would use Toxikon I's animation and would function closer to how Alphinaud uses it as well as PVP SGE.

Toxikomania
- A GCD spell that only does a small amount of damage in a circle AoE, but generates 1 Addersting, effectively comboing into Toxikon and Toxikosis. It has a cooldown of 20 seconds with 2 charges.

Additionally to these, I've been thinking that maybe Addersgall needs adjustments to make it less like SCH. Instead of fueling your -chole abilities, Druochole, Kerachole, and Ixochole are just cooldown actions, and Addersgall instead causes your GCD healing to generate 1 Addersting, making it a little more like lilies, but makes SGE want to actually apply barriers regularly throughout battle. This also replaces the barrier-breaking aspect, but when your barriers break, you get MP back.

In this example, Rhizomata instead of generating Addersgall, gives you 1 free use of Druochole, Kerachole, or Ixochole.

I want the old Aero, Aero II and Aero III back.

DoTs with differnt timers to actually manage, AoE DoT and of course the nice animation when you cast Aero III. And the base Aero, while being a dps loss over casting your Stone (now Glare), it was a nice movement tool since it was instant. But because of the nature of DoTs you could not spam it while moving, it was a good design.

I also miss Divine Seal, the cooldown of Temperance is too long. White Mage could get more defensive utility anyway, but it would be nice if I had not to decide between healing or mitigation when the skill has such a long cooldown.

Bravery, Faith, Protect, Shell, Virus, Eye for an Eye. Stick them all in role skills for precious balance.

As a Scholar I want Biolysis and Adloquium to have additional effects like in PvP too (obviously not the literal same values don’t @ me). Damage up on Adloquium, Damage down on Biolysis.
Maybe give Succor a support effect too, something crappy like reduce damage taken or reduce weaponskill recast for balance. Make Deployment 2 charges with 60s cool-down, make it affect Biolysis and the damage increase from Adloquium. Give it a way to interact with its buffs and debuffs, like Recitation increasing additional effect potency or Dissipation sacrificing the fairy healing for stronger buffs/debuffs. They could have procs for abilities that are triggered by having buffs / debuffs on the enemy. Like a Bard style ‘when an enemy takes damage from a damage over time skill, X% chance to proc Big Brain Ruin IV’, or ‘when using a buff on a target affected by a fairy buff skill, increase the potency by X%’ to encourage synergising with the fairy and not making her a solo healer lol

Also make Selene have her own unique skills again. Fey Wind for haste (would probably have to be damage increase because haste is trolling), change her version Embrace to give a buff that increases healing by like 3% with a lower potency, give Silent Dusk a DoT effect (same cool-down). Make Fey Caress work like Celestial Opposition and add to the buff/debuff duration. Then they could have Seraph’s abilities give the effects of both, like a regen + dot pulse from Whispering Dawn / Silent Dusk, or Fey Blessing and Caress restoring HP whilst also increasing buff durations.

Making Scholar so it has Bio, Bio II, Miasma, Miasma II, Biolysis, Biolysis II and Shadow Flare sound boring as all hell lol. You just press the button once every 30 or so seconds and that’s it. Or you do Miasma/Bio first then Bio/Miasma on reapplication because timers. It’s not that deep and it wasn’t the pinnacle of fun lol. I mean realistically we’d be doing the exact same as what we do now but with a few different buttons instead of just one. Still seems pretty mindless to me.

Frankly all the jobs are pretty mindless, it's about disguising that fact.

Ast I'd give celestial opposition and time dilation back, as well as a delayed dot - something similar to exaltation where it sits around a bit before going off.

Scholar gets bane and at least miasma back. I'd also give it fey caress back because people simply can't learn to interrupt those wretched robots. Quickened aetherflow is also returned, as is rouse.

White mage gets stoneskin (can be a long duration low% mit rather than shield if need be) and temperance gets split up into diving seal and temperance, one with healing potency improvements and the other party mitigation. Also aero 3 and glare becomes stone flavour again.

Sage can have abyssal drain as a targeted aoe, and eukrasian abyssal drain with a hp leeching component I guess.

All healers lose cure1 analogues which now directly upgrade.

I don't want more abilities i want more interactions between existing abilities something like: Change durochole into a shield, if shield is broken by dmg in x seconds you get a phlegma stack refunded.

Just gonna rewrite what I wrote in the past with some added tidbits. Trying not to flood too much.

WHM

Aero II
Give back their 18s duration and replaces our current Dia

Aero III
Give back in 21s or 24s duration.

Assize
Made into GCD and given 2 charges.

Tornado
Something that proc after using Assize, with cooldown to prevent ultra dumping

Seraph Strike
An oGCD. Gapclose & shields party around the WHM.

Afflatus Purgation
A GCD. Costs 2 lilies. Damage neutral line AoE with Temperance and AoE regen baked into the action. Replacing Temperance.

And maybe additional lily spender. Maybe a lily themed bravery/faith?

SCH

Miasma I | Miasma III
Given 21s duration and dps increase vs Broil spams.

Miasma II | Miasma IV
Given 15s duration, high MP cost, hardcasted AoE, and 'Virus' effect that reduce target damage dealt the lower target's HP is. Ranging from 3% to 10%.

Bio I to Bio IV
Given 12s duration but made dps neutral vs Broil spams.

Biolysis (separate from Bio line!)
Given 30s duration and dps increase vs Broil spams.

Kaustra/Meltdown
Ruin IV + Iron Jaw with short cooldown, proccing from Energy Siphon.

Shadowflare
Maybe!?

Energy Siphon
Replaces Energy Drain AND Aetherflow to be an AoE damage with damage fall off. Generates fae gauge which will be used to execute other fae abilities.

Eos & Selene
Actually different, please. Also a good time to reintroduce other removed actions like Covenant, Wind, & Silent Dusk but probably with different effect.

Dissipation
Swaps Eos with Selene and vice versa without incurring loss with hefty fae gauge consumption. Gives stacks of aetherflow that can be used to summon seraph later when it reaches 3. Also enhances healing abilities potencies & recovers one stack of Lustrate, Indom, and Excog.

Emergency Tactic
Moved down to lv30 to compensate the loss of Physuck when the SCH learns Adlo (lol not really). At later level gains a trait to reverses the effect of Indomitability and Lustrate into shield effect with slightly lower potencies.

Deployment Tactic
Gains 2 charges and cooldown reduced to 60s. Can be used at enemies to spread miasma (only single target counts), bio, biolysis, and chain stratagem to nearby enemies with damage fall off.

Recitation
Cooldown extended to 120s but each use now also recovers 1 charge of Deployment.

Chain Stratagem
Gains a trait at later level that interacts with SCH's own damage over time, raising the critical chance by 1% for each existing DoT upon application & allows more execution of Kaustra.

I'll stop cause it's now too much >.>

AST

Diurnal & Nocturnal Sects
Gibe them back ty. Neutral can go though. Swapping in battle will incur penalty for short period of time. I'm also hoping these will also affect how Fall Malefic, Combust, and Gravity behaves somehow. But fingers crossed.

Celestial Opposition
Same but with added additional AoE stun, and swaps current sect with the one on reserve without incurring penalty.

Time Dilation
People keep telling this was a nice utility to have & honestly after reading the old tooltip, it sounds promising. Maybe it requires some adjustment to be added back.

And other fun, awesome AST $h!ts that people keep clamoring for.

Can't think anything else for now I'll add more into my rambling doc zzzz idk I'm dumb

Quote:

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Originally Posted by SenzorialBoundries

I don't want more abilities i want more interactions between existing abilities something like: Change durochole into a shield, if shield is broken by dmg in x seconds you get a phlegma stack refunded.

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This. Let us spread Biolysis with Deployment Tactics!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Recon1o6

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Preamble: Objectives and Such

Unanimous is..._A_ word. Not quite accurate here, though. Would probably be most accurate to say "A significant portion of the playerbase would like..."

That said, my position on this has consistently been the following: There are many types of Healer player, and we have four Healer Jobs, so the best solution might be to bend each one into different playstyles so that players can pick the one that closest matches their ideal play.

There are a lot of objectives at play, but my big three are:

1) Ensure there is some Healer Job(s) that play like today to appeal to people that like current healing.

2) Ensure Healers have proper healing and mitigation toolkits and diminish the Pure/Barrier paradigm which...has frankly been a failure.

3) Provide for some Healers to have more complexity and skill expression while not demanding that of Healer players uninterested in that kind of gameplay. In other words, not leave some people out in the cold or advance some people's interests at the total expense of someone else's. There is a way, however, that allows us to go ham on complexity on one hand while also not requiring it of everyone on the other such that it meets this requirement.

To me, this would mean doing the following:

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White Mage: Powerful Heals Refunded With Strong Personal Damage In A Straightforward Kit

WHM: No really big changes. Start by making GCD heals generate a 1/3rd Blood Lily. If they do that, they could honestly remove Solace and Rapture, but leaving them in is fine, too. This way, WHM players could engage with the buttons in their kit they presently do not, such as - Cure 1, Cure 2, Cure 3 (mostly), Medica, Medica 2 (mostly), and Regen (mostly), all buttons that are rarely used, and the ones that are used are only in very specific situations. It would also mean Cure 1 is DPS neutral with Glare, so both players that like casting Cure 1 and those that like casting Glare end up damage neutral, and likewise players that like rolling HoTs (Regen, to a lesser extent Medica 2), and could generate some interesting optimization options for those so inclined. I'd also revert Thin Air to the ShB version!! Finally, I would add a 10% damage reduction for 10 second effect to Plenary Indulgence, mirroring how dAST (Diurnal is back, I'll get to that) has access to a damage reduction twice per minute. Otherwise, WHM would play (and could be played) identically to today.

This is the Healer I'd touch the least (mainly for the players that enjoy healing as it currently exists in the game), but just making all of its GCD heals damage neutral would actually be a pretty significant change and really cement it as the GCD Healer with lots of throughput and raw healing at its fingertips. I'd probably tweak Glare's damage a SMIDGE, but not much. Make it 5-10 more potency or something so it's a SLIGHT DPS gain over using regular GCD heals, but the difference can't be much otherwise we'll have 6.0 all over again if Misery is too much weaker than it. But if we don't do this, then there'd literally never be a reason to cast Glare if you could just cast a Cure 1 on literally anyone and gain the same amount of damage. Which...I dunno, that's probably a bad thing? Additionally, have Blood Lily stack to 2 or something. That is, if you have a full bloom, you can use 2 more casts to build up 1/3rd, 2/3rd without them being wasted, allowing a little more flexibility in Misery use, like in a high healing required period of a fight.

The goal here is to make WHM play like a somewhat traditional MMO raw throughput Healer, while still giving it some optimization options. Allow it to use the 1/3rd of its toolkit that often isn't touched while still supplying the overall damage it has today, and give it a damage reduction ability on a 60 sec CD, which would be 3x what it has today (right now it only has Temperance on a 2 min CD, and of all the Healers, feels to be "missing something"). Lilies can either be removed (since GCD heals go straight into Misery casts every 3x of them) or left in as movement tools and for the Glarespammer of today who wants to not at all change their playstyle. But basically, not to punish WHM for using their traditional heals, open the playstyle to more healing focused players while leaving the existing playstyle for existing Glarespammers in tact, and give them a bit more mitigation bump to bring them better in line with the other Healers. Moreover, this creates a baseline that allows us to get creative with some of the Healer Jobs while ensuring there's an "appeal to simplicity" still on the table for players more into straightforward gameplay.

Summary: All GCD Heals generate Blood Lily (1/3rd) making them approximately damage neutral, Plenary Indulgence/Confession buff acts as a more on-demand mitigation tool as well as healing from that damage, return Thin Air to its ShB incarnation to improve overall WHM MP management, allow Misery to somewhat stack (either 2 full stacks or get up to 2/3rd of the next stack before overcapping), [optional] remove or leave Lilies, removing frees up some spots but leaving allows people who like the current gameplay as it is to keep engaging with it as such, [optional] have Glare be a 5 or 10 potency increase (per GCD) over Misery (in short, Misery doing 20-40 potency less than 4x Glares would do) to allow a SLIGHT damage increase for players able to use Glare more (otherwise, optimal play would always be to cast Cure 1 or Regen since they do additional healing and then Misery rather than Glare unless the boss is going to go untargetable or die within 3 GCDs), though this isn't really required at all.

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Scholar: Plate Spinning Master Leveraging Faerie Companion To Heal Allies

SCH I would dig into the past and bring back some older abilities. My short list is probably a second DoT (for naming convention sake, have Biolysis be a separate spell line so we'd have the Bio line, Miasma line, and Biolysis line). Bio with a 15 second duration that's instant cast, Miasma with a 1.5 sec cast and 21 second duration, and Biolysis with a 30 second duration, 1.5 sec cast time, that stacks to 3. E.g. the goal is to maintain Biolysis with 3 stacks by casting it three times and then refreshing the stack before it falls off. Bane would be back. Fester would be back with a modification that it now does 50 potency of damage per DoT on the target (max 300; it counts each Biolysis stack as one additional DoT) and it refreshes the duration of any of your DoTs on the target (like Iron Jaws for BRD). Miasma 2 would be back as an instant cast GCD with a 10 sec duration and a 30 second GCD (optimal use is to use it on CD and make sure to use it BEFORE Fester, ideally 8-9 seconds before Fester so that you get both the full 300 damage as 50 each from Bio, Miasma, Biolysis x3, and Miasma 2 and get a refreshed duration for that use). DoTs have a chance to proc Ruin 4, which is the SB version of SMN's Ruin 4 (though make it AOE for funzies like EW's version). This will take the spot of Ruin 2 on your bar until used or until the buff expires if not used within 30 seconds or whatever. Maybe allow it to stack to 2 to ease the pressure on overcapping slightly.

Rework Aetherflow/Faerie Gauge as follows: Aetherflow is now for your damaging abilities, Energy Drain, Fester, and Bane. Using AF generates Faerie Gauge, 5 units per use. Using your Aetherflow ability generates 3 stacks of Aetehrflow (for attacks) and 15-20 Gauge. Using some other abilities will probably also generate gauge, like using Ruin 4 or when your Succor/Adlo shields are consumed could generate 5 Gauge or something. Lustrate's Potency reduced to 500, but it now erects a magicked barrier equal to 75% of the healing done (375 potency; for reference, Succor shields are 320, so this shouldn't be too overpowered and would give SCH a Gauge dump). Fey Blessing would have its CD removed and have a Gauge cost ~1/2 of Indoms (it would be your "first line emergency AOE spam" after Indom but before Succor). Shadow Flare is back as well. Abilities removed would probably include Aetherpact (now we have better uses of Faerie Gauge and Lustrate can be the cheap dump for spot healing when Excog is on CD), Dissipation, probably fold Fey Illumination into Seraph or Expedient (as in, it would upgrade into them, so they would get the additional effect that it has right now just on one button), and maybe fold Protraction's effect into Excogitation/make them one button. Also: Eos would automatically summon for you (or at least be instant cast like SMN, but ideally auto-summon when you swap to SCH and are raised), and you use egi-glamour to set her appearance.

The overall goal here is to allow a steady amount of Gauge generation for healing abilities, remove the "war" between healing and (minimal) damage (Energy Drain) allowing one resource to be spent exclusively on damage with the player deciding the priority for best use and the other exclusively on healing, encourage AF consumption on damage abilities as a gateway to more healing, while having backup healing tools and baseline generation sufficient that not doing so doesn't hamper you too much, and to supply more damage buttons, but ones with meaningful and interesting interactions (instead of just "more DoTs" for the sake of having a few more busywork plates to spin). As I've said many times, I personally hate DoTs, but what I really hate are DoTs that are just...there. That don't do anything except exist as another button to press. But DoTs that do things like proc other things or stack where you want to maintain stacks or interact with some other ability to spread or amplify? That I find much more interesting. As much as some people love Energy Drain optimization, minimal as it is, it's kind of a trap for new players and it also feels bad to have to give up an ED to cast needed heals, and there's a LOT more here to optimize anyway, so I feel like even the Energy Drain optimization lovers would be content with these changes. Moreover, this would actually make Faerie Gauge have a POINT.

Buttons removed (either ability removed or effect combined with something else): Aetherpact, Fey Illumination, Dissipation, Protraction, Summon.

Buttons added: Biolysis (as separate from Bio), Bane (possibly as a charge of Deployment Tactics if we really don't want to add buttons...though I don't think that'd work well), Fester, Miasma 2, Shadowflare [Note that I'm removing 5 and adding 5, making this SCH have no more hotbar spots needed than current SCH]

Buttons changed: Lustrate has a barrier and is a spot heal and Gauge dump, Fey Illumination's healing boost and damage reduction would be folded into either Seraph or Expedient, Protraction's HP and healing boost would be folded into Excogitation, Ruin 2 would become Ruin 4 when proced, Summon would be automatic when equipping the SCH Job stone or when being Raised as a SCH, AF abilities would now have a Faerie Gauge cost based on their power with the smallest one (probably Lustrate) costing 5 and other ones costing either 10, 15, or 20, with maybe some big ultimate ability in the future costing 50 or all or whatever.

Summary: Add an additional DoT that stacks to 3, add Miasma 2, add Shadow Flare, add Bane, add Fester that interacts with DoTs, have each DoT with a different duration. Roll some CDs together. Change Aetherflow to a pure damage resource and Faerie Gauge to a pure healing resource, have gauge generate at a consistent rate such that suboptimal damage use doesn't severely curtail healing options, ensure ample oGCD weaving room and remove or shorten most oGCD CDs (Gauge spenders, mainly) to allow them to be used for the bulk of healing as weaves between damage spells.

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Sage: Heals By Doing Damage. No, Really!

I skipped AST because SGE is honestly easier and quicker to say here.

Since SGE didn't exist before (like SCH) for me to draw some abilities back from the aether of history, I'm not going to use names or make up new names (someone else can do that) and instead outline the changes. (That is, on SCH, I can say "bring Bane back" and you know what I mean, but if on SGE I say "add <insert Greek something or other>", that holds no meaning to you.) Note that, because of that, this isn't as hammered out and precise on specifics as SCH above. Consider this a pair of "what if..." options.

For SGE, I would add one of two types of rotation. Either something like what SMN has, or something like what RDM has, or possibly something akin to BRD; albeit as simplified versions. I also reference two things often, a second short duration Kardia on a second target and an AOE/Party Kardia, both on CDs. The idea hear is that SGE gameplay is to Kardia your Tank and go into DPS mode, with Kardia healing your Tank. If a party member takes damage, you can slap a temporary additional Kardia on them (or move it from the Tank and back), or if the party, an AOE/Party Kardia. These can be augmented by the use of oGCD heals. Now, these could either be new buttons, or we could apply them to existing ones. For example, Kerachole and Taurochole could apply the AOE/Single Target versions, respectively. The AOE version could also only heal for 50% or something. Additionally, GCD heals can be made to proc Kardia, so you aren't losing Kardia healing when you're forced to GCD heal, but that's not really necessary. Some versions (namely the RDM one described below) repurpose Adderstgall/Addersting, and changing those WOULD make SGE feel less like a SCH clone, but that's also not really that necessary considering the Aetherflow/Faerie Gauge changes for SCH outlined above.

SGE's oGCD healing kit would be more or less what it is today (though we can remove some things if this is seen as too powerful, such as you might not need Physis if you have AOE Kardia or Krasis if you have Second Kardia; but we honestly don't need to make any outright changes other than possibly making the Addersgall abilities CD based instead of resource based if we change Addersgall and would also tweak SGE's MP regeneration a bit to keep it neutral vs today), with the main changes being to the damage kit. However, due to the way these each work, they don't REALLY require additional damage buttons to be added (the SMN version could actually reduce a few), so each one should come out roughly hotbar space neutral in the end.

As to the three options I can think of for SGE's damage kit.

For the SMN example, those who play New SMN, imagine if Energy Drain/Siphon, Fester/Painflare, Searing Light, and Enkindle were all removed. SGE at all stages has access to Dosis, Diagnosis, Prognosis, and the Eukrasian versions of each. SGE also has Kardia as it exists now, but has two additional Kardia interactions. A second Kardia on a short duration that can be placed on a second target and an AOE Kardia that can be used on the whole party/AOE. These can be used to really flex its damage into healing the party so that it needs to use relatively few direct heals on the party. Like SMN, it can have 3-4 phases of its rotation. DWT/FBT phase would see Dosis become instant cast (and maybe Diagnosis and Prognosis, not that you use those much anyway) with your Astral Flow being some big flashy attack like Pneuma's line laser, just...where it actually hits hard and maybe you get two oGCD weaves of it per use of this phase. Your "Titan" phase would be the 1-2 hit of Toxicon and (ranged) Plegma. Your "Garuda" phase would be four quick cast something-like-Ruin 4s (not sure I'd include a long cast secondary just because you still want the SGE to be able to oGCD weave). And your "Ifrit" phase would consist of some powered up ranged attacks with a 2 sec cast time, and maybe some kind of 1-2 Icarus + Dyskrasia thing going. For simplicity, just make everything AOE so we don't need a second set of all these with AOE versions (the only thing here that isn't AOE anyway is Dosis and Eukrasia Dosis, I guess...) I'm not saying 1-to-1 copy SMN, but a somewhat similar rotation that's a SMIDGE slimmed down so the SGE can still weave oGCDs to heal as needed would probably work. People often say New SMN feels like it's "incomplete" or "missing something", but if that "something" is filled in with oGCD healing, it probably would feel pretty complete. Further, doing it this way doesn't really add a ton of buttons to SGE's bar (one big thing new SMN has going for it is an amazing hotbar economy due to the way Astral Impulse/Fountain of Fire share a spot with Ruin 3 and the way Gemshine and Astral Impulse work) [Aside: In a way, I'd rather it be SCH that does this, just so SCH/SMN players could easily share their muscle memory and swap between playing the two easily, but I think it would much more fit SGE as a newly added Healer that doesn't have SCH's history or historic abilities and already has Kardia to leverage this way for healing while churning through its DPS rotation.]

Another option I'd present here is RDM, specifically RDM's casting phase. Broken down into simple terms and removing the fluff, RDM's caster phase works by swapping between two sets of abilities (Fire/Thunder, Stone/Aero), with a nonelemental "filler" when none proc (Jolt), and with a big finishing combo of Holy/Flare + Scorch + Resolution. If you remove all the oGCDs (Fleche, Contre Sixte, Acceleration, Manafication, Embolden, Magick Barrier) and the melee phase (SGE isn't exactly know for being a master of melee - Citan Uzuki fans, I feel you...but it's not, even if Plegma looks like it SHOULD be), that's RDM in a nutshell. It would be possible to give SGE a similar system, even if on a simpler level, to use just casts (no melee) to build up and then to use the resources on your big spending finisher combo. And we can change things up a tad to make it a bit more distinct from RDM. Just a REALLY simple outline of a rotation could be if Dosis and Dyskrasia (just the names, ignore the current in-game effects) could be your "Verstone" and "Verfire", and using each one makes you "-2 Ready" where the -2 in this case would be Plegma for Dosis (Veraero) and Toxicon for Dyskrasia (Verthunder). Each time you use the second ability, it generates one of two resources, Addersgall for the "White Mana" ones and "Addersting" for the "Black Mana" ones. So your rotation would consist of using three full cycles each of Dosis-Plegma and Dyskrasia-Toxicon. Once you've done so, you have 3 of each big resources, you use "big attack 1, big attack 2, big attack 3" (each use 1 of each resource and act as a 1-2-3 combo finisher). You wouldn't want to build only 1 or 2 of a resource since you'd be robing yourself of the big hit on the end. So the gameplay would be 1-2-1-2-1-2-3-4-3-4-3-4 (you could mix up which you use when, so 1-2-1-2-3-4-1-2-3-4-3-4 and so on would also be allowed), then 5-6-7 on the end. You might have some button (Rhizo) that gives you one of each you could use if you need to boost the process along or have 2/2 and need 3/3 before the boss becomes untargetable, etc. As this is SGE, again, you'd be procing Kardia on each of these, and again, I'd add the short duration second Kardia and AOE Kardia effects so you could use those for basic healing. You would still have your GCD heals and Eukrasia (you could also add the Eukrasia Dosis DoT to this mix, though it's not really necessary), and the gameplay would be designed where casting GCD heals (either normal or Eukrasia versions) would not break combos, allowing for emergency healing needs to be able to take priority over the rotation. This is, again, a simple rotation, but one that would be augmented by oGCD use. Since I'm reworking Addersgall/sting in this model (though again, we can use any names so wouldn't have to), SGE would probably no longer have those mechanics and instead those abilities would be on short CDs, but since this would already make SGE not feel a similar to SCH...is that a bad thing?

Option three is the BRD option. So we're clear, this is BRD without oGCDs/with minimal oGCDs (since, again, we're saving our oGCD space on SGE for healing needs) and without songs (SGEs aren't exactly known for their singing voices), and BRD without oGCDs is actually a pretty slim kit. Two DoTs to maintain, Stormbite and Caustic Bite, Straight Shot/Refulgent Arrow when it procs, Apex Arrow as a gauge spender (Blast Arrow when it procs via using Apex Arrow at above 80 gauge), and Heavy Shot/Burst Shot as filler when your DoTs are both up, you don't have gauge to spend and when Straight/Refulgent hasn't proced. It'd be pretty simple to make SGE work like this, using Dosis as Heavy Shot, Eukrasia Dosis as Stormbite, Plegma as Apex Arrow, Eukrasia Plegma as Caustic Bite, and Toxicon as Straight Shot. It would, again, be a relatively simple rotation, but one with oGCD weave room for healing, several different button presses in the standard rotation, a gauge spender and a proc button, Kardia and oGCDs again present for the bulk of your healing (and, of course, your GCD fallback heals), and this one would actually not require any new buttons be added. The only AOE change might be having Dyskrasia spread and refresh your two DoTs (so you'd apply your two DoTs then Dyskrasia away for AOE) and to have a chance to proc Toxicon and build gauge for Plegma use. I'm not sure how popular this would be, since part of the fun/craziness of BRD is adapting to the constant procs and having the songs to buff your party as you go through your rotation, but at least it would be a lot less boring than SGE's current rotation, and the proc and gauge would already make your abilities have interactions a bit more engaging than present.

The point of all of these is the same, and these are just three ways of doing it: Give SGE a somewhat basic DPS rotation, leverage Kardia (including the second short duration Kardia and the short duration AOE party Kardia) to provide the bulk of the healing, and leave oGCD weave room for mitigation and supplemental healing needs. And, of course, leave the GCD heals as fallbacks that don't disrupt your rotation so you can always "pause" your damage rotation if healing needs are great and then roll back into it once the healing requirement has died down.

Summary: Give SGE one of three (or something else, but these are fairly simple) damage rotations that have ample weave space for oGCD healing, give SGE an additional single target Kardia (short duration on a CD) and AOE party Kardia (same) to leverage the damage rotation into healing, while having additional backup healing options, and ensure casting GCD heals does not break the damage combos, allow them to be put on pause during periods where GCD healing is needed and for the player to be more engaged when healing is not needed.

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Astrologian: Healer/Buffer With All The Cards

AST is honestly the hardest, because it is in uneviable position of having a kit that overall is the most powerful in the game and "just works"...while also being incredibly clunky in practice. Its buff system is random, likewise seals/Astrodyne. There are also issues with changing it, since any change is going to both disrupt current play and any serious change will also (unlike SCH) not appeal to past play. For example, making Draw and Play GCDs would reduce the APM issues, but AST has never used them as GCDs. A further complication is a desire to return Diurnal and Nocturnal to the mix while ALSO trying to reduce the Pure/Barrier dichotomy.

The first step would be to revert AST's healing kit to the ShB era. Dirunal and Nocturnal were both pretty well established and pretty good during that period, and both provided for effective healing. Both also included mitigation and party shields to meet party needs, making both well rounded while also allowing the player to adapt to best synergize with whichever co-healer they got. This would mainly affect Aspected abilities and some CDs, but those largely worked just fine in ShB. Benefic would be upgraded into Benefic 2. Even MORESO than WHM, there's no point in these being distinct. Where Cure 1 and Cure 2 at least have different cast times and a 500 MP cost difference, Benefic 2 has the same cast time as Benefic (so that "clutch 1.5 sec heal when a 2 sec cast wouldn't make it" argument doesn't even exist here, insomuch as it exists out in the wild anyway), and the MP cost is 200 more on the Healer that already has the best MP economy in the game. There's pretty much no reason for Benefic 1 once you get Benefic 2 at level 26 on a Job that starts at level 30 anyway. If it's really a concern, the MP cost can be reduced by 200 for Benefic 2 to make it a straight upgrade. Remove Undraw. Seriously.

Now, what do do about Cards? The big Hauchefaunt in the room is that the RNG is what kills interesting Arcana effects. "I drew the one that reduces damage by 10%! Man that'd be useful for a Tank buster! Right now...the next Tank buster isn't for another 45 seconds, but MAN would it be cool if I got this card for that, huh?!" While RNG is part of AST's aesthetic, it's also what prevents it from being a good buff Healer, since you have no guarantee of getting the buff you want when you actually need it. So the first objective for fixing Cards involves a way to remove RNG, or at least remove the significant RNG that makes buffs so suboptimal. Does this mean people might use the "meta" buffs a lot? Yes, but it means the other buffs might have room to shine as well, and can also cover for other parts of the kit. The second big change is making Draw and Play on the GCD. The reason for this is simple, it removes Lightspeed reservation being mandatory for burst windows (allowing its use more flexibly when the player needs/wants it) and it reduces the frankly bonkers APM required during the burst phase. However, it would need to now have something done to make it damage neutral vs Malific. Fortunately, that's pretty easy. Both Draw and Play would have the Additional Effect: Arcanum Malificum. The next Malific or Gravity spell cast has its potency increased by 100%, stacks up to 6 times, lasts 30 seconds. In short, you use Draw and Play (up to 3 of each), then lay down the Malific/Gravity hurt. Another option (but one a bit more complicated) would be to have Draw hit a hostile target with 1 Malific's worth of damage (presuming you're targeting the boss when you hit Draw) and only Play doing the +100% next Malific...but that's honestly more likely to cause problems than anything ("Oops! Forgot to turn off autotargeting and the 20 sec prepull Draw smacked the boss in the face with a Urianger card! Sorry everyone!"), like Ranged DPS rightclicking the boss before the pull.

A second change I'd make to reduce the RNG would be to have cards arrayed a bit more like Mudras. You have a Damage, Mitigation, and Healing/Restoration (MP refresh) Draw. They share a CD (like WAR's Upheaval and Orogeny or MCH's Bioblaster and Drill). To make it a bit more mistake/fat finger friendly, you'd have the Draw buttons and then a separate Play button, so if you drew the wrong one, you could draw a different one at the mere cost of sacrificing a GCD (e.g. if you drew the mitigation one too late and the Tank eats the Tank buster, now you don't need it, so you can draw the damage buff to put on someone else instead, or the healing one to use on the Tank if you don't have some other better option up). To keep the lore of 6 main constellations, they'd be paired, and using Arcanum shift would allow you to toggle between single target and AOE versions of each. For example, Balance might be a single target 6% damage increase for 15 seconds or you could use its counterpart, Bole, for an AOE 4% damage increase for 7.5 seconds instead. Likewise the mitigation and the healing ones. Spear/Arrow would likely make sense for damage, Bole/Tower for mitigation, and Balance/Ewer for healing, though I'm not married to any of those being necessary, just trying to keep them all relevant.

We could keep a little randomness from Minor Arcana, which is honestly MOSTLY flavor right now. Royal Road can also be added back, with the effects of increasing the damage buff's strength, the mitigation buff's duration, or the healing buff's potency and the HoT's duration, respectively (there'd be no need for the AOE since we already have that covered). We could also do some other stuff like allow the AST to stock a card for later using Sleeve Draw, to store and then play it, but given how we're removing the RNG from the buffs now AND that Draw/Play has charges reducing the need to stock cards for later AND that AST already has a lot of buttons, we probably don't need it. Likewise, we don't need Redraw since you can choose to draw the specific cards you want anyway. If we really want Redraw, we can add another Minor Arcanum (maybe the Jester of Crowns), and allow Redraw to work for those, but it's really not needed at this point.
So that's a LOT of discussion on Cards/buffs, but I feel that's really at the core of what AST is, a playstyle people want in FFXIV (a buffer/healer), and the crux of AST's problems (the "This is why we can't have nice things..." where "nice things" in this case is "more interesting buffs") as well as the APM problem. Collectively, this change reduces APM by making Draw and Play GCDs, prevents using them being perceived as somehow suboptimal by making them damage neutral, removing the RNG so you can get the buffs you need when you need them (which has the side-effect of allowing more interesting and even niche buffs to be added since the player can access them when they need them but not have RNG work against them when they don't), and allowing more player agency in the choice of buffs used and when to use them, freeing up Lightspeed for more overall flexible use in the encounter, and with the Minor Arcana still retaining a bit of the RNG flavor for the Job fantasy.

Now, AST still has some issue with a lot of button bloat, but we can clean a little of that up. First, we're having Benefic upgrade into Benefic 2 as I said above. Second, we can pull a Variant Cure and remove Helios as a separate ability. What would happen is that if the target had the secondary effect (Regen for dAST and barrier for nAST), the spell would, instead of applying the secondary effect, boost the healing potency from 250 to 400. Basically, double up that button's use. Astrodyne would be a MP management tool + Presence of Mind self buff on a 90 or 120 second CD (whichever). No more seal craziness. If we are DESPERATE to retain seals, we could work that into the Minor Arcana Lord/Lady/Jester of Crowns thing and have Minor Arcana have a 40 sec CD so you'd use it for your seal sidegame and Astrodyne would be up every 2 minutes. [NOTE: If 7.0 moves us away from the 2 min meta, then this can be 30 and 90 sec instead, or whatever; I'm just trying to consider the present systems in play as of right now.] We can also do a similar Helios thing with Aspected Benefic and Benefic 2...but I feel like that's a little more niche and we may want to keep those separate.

I suppose for Minor Arcana, Lord and Lady could work as they do now, and maybe Jester could do something like give you two stacks of Arcanum Malificum or something. That's distinct enough from the others while also having some flex on the new kit and stuff. I dunno, just a thought, but that would be kind of a fun effect if you wanted to get a bit more burst at the cost of needing GCDs and making sure you didn't overcap Draw/Play generated Arcanum Malificum stacks.

Another change I would probably make is to make Neutral Sect a bit shorter of a CD (probably 60 seconds) and cause all Aspect/Sect based abilities to take on the properties of both (which...I think is what it used to do) for 10 seconds or something. In short, it allows dAST to have some barriers while allowing nAST to have some HoTs. Celestial Opposition and Celestial Intersection would be oGCD versions of Aspected Helios and Aspected Benefic, similar to how Solace and Rapture are instant damage neutral versions of Cure 2 and Medica 1 in live WHM, each would take on either a barrier or HoT based on being in nAST or dAST stance (or both under Neutral Sect...unless we want Neutral Sect to not affect them, I guess?), and we MIGHT consider folding Essential Dignity into Exaltation...though that's a bit more tricky. Exaltation with a scaling heal would be nice, but one use of Dignity is as a quick spot heal, so...maybe not. Just a thought, though. I guess it would work better if Exaltation and Taurochole were the opposite of one another. Ideally, I'd like to see Synastry rolled into something, but I'm not sure what. Maybe make the duration 8-10 seconds and combine it with Exaltation? If Essential Dignity had a 60 sec CD (I know, I know, a nerf, but hear me out) but upgraded at level 50 to apply the Synastry effect for 10 seconds and, at 80-ish, the Exaltation damage mitigation, that might make it worth it. The heal would be upfront, but essentially this would make it a strong spot heal that also reduces damage the target takes and allows splash healing them while healing other party members with Benefic 2 or Aspected Benefic. Might make up for it? Could also have it trait at some point to add a HoT, but the Synastry effect might reduce the need of that.

Finally, Lightspeed, Earthly Star, Horoscope, and Macrocosmos are all being retained to keep AST's secondary Job identity as a pseudo-Time Mage in tact.

The core damage rotation would be unchanged, but your Combust upkeep + Malific spam would be interrupted by Draw Damage/Mitigation/Healing and Play, followed by even prettier Malifics (1-6 of them), and Lightspeed use would be far more flexible. Minor Arcana would be your RNG Seal game with Redraw attached to it (those could all be oGCDs still), Royal Road and Arcana Shift would be oGCDs to modify your Card effects, and Astrodyne would be connected to the Minor Arcana Seals from Lord(sun)/Lady(moon)/Jester(celestial) of Crowns.

Benefic 1 and Helios would be removed once upgrading to Benefic 2 and Aspected Helios, respectively.

New Buttons: 2 new Draws (three total, but we have 1 already; Draw Offense Arcana, Draw Defense Arcana, and Draw Restorative Arcana), Royal road, Arcana Shift, Diurnal Sect, Nocturnal Sect. [While Sect is set before the battle starts, this means we still need to remove at least 4 buttons for neutrality]

Removed Buttons: Benefic (on upgrade), Helios (on upgrade), Undraw, and Synastry and/or (both) Exaltation if there'd be a good way to roll those effects into other abilities (or if players collectively don't want them). Alternatively, we could remove Celestial Opposition and/or Intersection. We could also remove Redraw or just leave it for Minor Arcana. Collectively, there are 8 total abilities here we could remove 4-6 of (or all 8) to free up some bar space.

Note that AST is the Healer I play the least, but I do play it, and I've long liked components of it (the buffing gameplay, when it's interesting, paired with a simple damage rotation and flexible heals with interesting oGCDs). So this is my attempt to retain those traits of it while also retaining the RNG and Time Mage feel it has, and restoring it the flexibility that it used to have with Diurnal, Nocturnal, and Neutral Sects.

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Closing Remarks: Not a tl;dr, not sure how to do that with this level of detail, sorry

So...that's a long read. But this is probably the most detailed I've ever put down my overall feelings on the matter.

All you guys that think I hate the idea of complexity on Healers...this is what I've been suggesting all this time. There's a little bit of complexity in there, isn't there? Maybe some of you might even like to play some of those...? (Technically speaking, even this WHM is more complex than live, but built in such a way it could be played identically to live with no real difference.)

[NOTE: I don't mean that as a dig. I think some people genuinely think I'm opposed to all complexity and that's actually not at all true; I'm only opposed to making ALL Healer Jobs complex, which is a very different position to opposing all complexity.]

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EDIT: Yeah, this is kind of written as a mess since I was typing it out as I was thinking it, but I could clean it up a bit in any actual write up.

Okay, Attempt at Summary:

Super short version:

WHM GCDs generate Blood Lily, ShB Thin Air back, Plenary Indulgence/Confession is also a party mitigation, Glare is a SLIGHT DPS gain over Misery (optional); strong heals, straightforward kit, heals reward you with damage neutral gameplay.

SCH has more DoTs (Bio, Miasma, Biolysis that stacks to 3, Miasma 3 for AOE), Aetherflow is for damage (Bane, Fester, Energy Drain), Faerie Gauge is for heals (and is generated by AF and AF spenders and maybe some other stuff), DoTs proc Ruin 2, most CDs have no CD and instead have Gauge cost (Fey Blessing, Whispering Dawn, all current AF spenders aside from Energy Drain), and some abilities are folded together to make room for the new stuff (e.g. Fey Illumination upgrades to Summon Seraph, which does what it does now + Illumination's magic damage reduction and healing spell potency buffs); spins lots of plates with damage GCDs and uses oGCDs mainly for healing weaves.

SGE has a slimmed down healing rotation that's something like the GCD damage Weaponskills of BRD or the caster rotation of RDM (if it was set up in 1-2 combos instead of procs and Dualcast) or SMN without long (over 2 sec) cast times and with its oGCDs removed to make way for SGE's, and have additional "short duration" Kardia and party/AOE Kardia options to leverage Kardia in to your main source of healing, augmented by your oGCD heals.

AST has dAST and nAST back, Cards are GCDs but you pick which card to use and play, Draw and Play generate a stack of boosted (+100%) Malific/Gravity to make using them damage neutral, Arcana Shift to access weaker but AOE versions of the main three buffs, Royal Road to boost the power or duration of said buffs, Minor Arcana is retained as your RNG and Seal mechanic, and some abilities are combined (Benefic -> Benefic 2, Helios -> Aspected Helios, Undraw -> Recycle Bin) to make room for the additional buttons.

That leaves out a lot of the nuance and discussion, but gets the main crux across.

I could see some of the AST changes being applied - perhaps one third of them roughly. I would say that a number of them have been identified for a year or more such as removal of synastry, the benefic upgrades, some people

However some examples of where I would disagree would include the removal of CO or CI, or "cards like mudras"- I do realize that some ASTs might want that, it was interesting to read, my initial reaction is that I would prefer that we revert to the SHb cards, and that draw/play and add a DPS skill. If button bloat is a concern it could be comboed as in PVP.

See this: https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...Scholar-in-7.0

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Originally Posted by Iedarus

See this: https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...Scholar-in-7.0

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Yes, those are some excellent ideas, to be honest I had just focussed on AST for the moment that post was just too long to wade through after work today - at least I get paid to analyze that at work.

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Originally Posted by IDontPetLalas

Yes, those are some excellent ideas, to be honest I had just focussed on AST for the moment that post was just too long to wade through after work today - at least I get paid to analyze that at work.

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Sorry...it's a topic I am passionate about, at least.

As I said, AST is more complicated to me for quite a few reasons. I'm also not sure I explained it all that well. By "like Mudras", I guess I mean where you have the three buttons and you use what you want then hit Play to lock in the effect (and apply it). In theory I suppose there could be some "combining" mechanics in the future, but I was more thinking "buffs laid out before you and you pick which one you need", since I feel like that's the reason we can't have neat and niche Cards in the game, because what if you get them at a time they aren't useful? That's what led to the Balance fishing in the past, which the Dev team seems to want to avoid. I'm not sure it's the best solution, but it's the one that came to me at the time.

[EDIT: And the Lord/Lady/Jester of Crowns Minor Arcana retains that RNG feel as well as working with Astrodyne, so AST still has that going for it, unless people just want to dump that entirely.]

CO and CI is more because I'm not sure you'd need them if Aspected Helios and Aspected Benefic are providing the same buffs (including Neutral Sect buffing them further), but like I said, those 8 were just the "we need to choose at least 4 to remove to have AST be button neutral with today", which may not actually be a concern, but if it is (since I did add several more buttons), those 8 would probably top the list of what to remove/combine.

I take it you liked/agreed with at least a fair bit of the rest?

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The SCH ones were basically giving it some more buttons, but not just a boring "here's another DoT on a shorter CD that you have to...press more often! Isn't that great?!", which I find kind of...a total waste of design.

I like the idea of a stacking buff, of Bane and Fester to spread/burst them, and with Biolysis stacking to 3 + Bio + Miasma + Miasma 2, that gives you a total of, effectively, six DoTs to manage, not including Shadowflare (which is a field effect rather than a DoT). Maybe Energy Drain rather than Fester could be what refreshes the DoT duration, or maybe we could just remove ED/have ED upgrade into Fester (would save another button and, in practice, the only time you'd be using ED is if you needed MP from it or couldn't get DoTs up on a target before it became untargetable, making ED a possible damage gain; but those are niche enough removing ED and just having the rotation use Fester would be fine as long as it had a short/no CD)

I don't mind "moar DoTs!" if those DoTs actually have some character and interactions that make them all more interesting.

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Originally Posted by Renathras

Sorry...it's a topic I am passionate about, at least.

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Some details about the lore of the AST's arcanum deck, FYI, it's not a Jester, but a Knave in the deck. This is from the Encyclopedia Eorzea:

"The Deck of Sixty is most commonly divided into two distinct groups, the major arcana and the minor arcana. The six major arcana--the Spire, the Ewer, the Bole, the Arrow, the Balance, and the Spear--are said to represent the heavens and thus most often utilized in astrological and divinatory pursuits. Conversely, the minor arcana are believed to represent that land and its people, and feature six suits, each containing six cards numbered 1 through 6 (the pip cards0, and three face cards, for a total of fifty-four. Each suit possesses a corresponding element, class, and faculty, as well as direct tie to one of the six major arcana--all characteristics that can be employed (at the teller's discretion) during the scrying of a fortune."

A list of the six suits in the following order of detail:
Suit | Alternate | Faculty | Class | Element | Major Arcana

Crowns | Wreaths | Dominion | Nobility | Lightning | The Spire
Cups | Hearts | Emotion | Clergy | Water || The Ewer
Rings | Pentacles | Possession | Merchants | Earth | The Bole
Knives | Swords | Cognition | Military | Wind | The Arrow
Staves | Batons | Volition | Smallfolk | Fire | The Balance
Irons | Chains | Contrition | Prisoners | Ice | The Spear

"Face cards consist of the 'knave,' the 'lord,' and the highest-ranking 'lady.' When used in conjunction with the pip cards, their numerical values are 7, 8, and 9 respectively."

There's more, but this is I think the stuff not well known about. I'd love to integrate more aspects of this, such as having a Lord of Staves, or a Lady of Cups, rather than just the Crowns, and also include the Knave, but it gets convoluted very quickly. This is shared more just because I think it's interesting, not information that's easy to come by, and that there's a lot of worthwhile lore to try and build out of here, not to try and "um, actually" the reference to the Jester.

SCH should really get what SMN lost in terms of DoT bane,Fester etc etc
and WHM should have a similar cycle Through elements gameplay like RDM and BLM

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

There's more, but this is I think the stuff not well known about. I'd love to integrate more aspects of this, such as having a Lord of Staves, or a Lady of Cups, rather than just the Crowns, and also include the Knave, but it gets convoluted very quickly. This is shared more just because I think it's interesting, not information that's easy to come by, and that there's a lot of worthwhile lore to try and build out of here, not to try and "um, actually" the reference to the Jester.

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No offense taken at all! Jester was just the first thing that came to mind as a Joker or that FFXV line (probably among Noctis best, even if it IS quite ironic considering Ardyn is arguably the rightful king...): "Off my throne, jester; the king sits there." I suppose Jack or Knave would be the other face card.

Also, I love lore and don't have the EE (much as I'd like to get one), so always appreciate a bit more.

As far as the idea, I was more thinking of a third thing to make that (since it's the "new RNG element") feel a bit more RNG, and also to provide a third option for a third seal for Astrodyne. So Knave instead of Jester is perfectly suitable.

So, what did you think, btw? That's the most detail I've put yet into Healer Job reworks...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Duskane

SCH should really get what SMN lost in terms of DoT bane,Fester etc etc
and WHM should have a similar cycle Through elements gameplay like RDM and BLM

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This. If SE is unable to think of more original mechanics to balance, why not have White Mage mirror Black Mage? Unprecedented, I know; it's not like the lore states they were locked in a war or anything unless you really want to believe the White Mages fended off the Black Mages' meteors, blizzards and lightning storms with their dinky little Glares. Instead they decided to compare apples to oranges and try to have White Mage compete with Astrologian when they are in two completely different planes. Have Astro be the handy utility regen focused healer and have White Mage be the stationary healer that heals like a god and hits like a freight train with Quake, Tornado and Holy (if it was made to be a finisher instead of a spammy blinding AoE) if they stand inside their ley lines.

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Originally Posted by Iedarus

This. If SE is unable to think of more original mechanics to balance, why not have White Mage mirror Black Mage? Unprecedented, I know; it's not like the lore states they were locked in a war or anything unless you really want to believe the White Mages fended off the Black Mages' meteors, blizzards and lightning storms with their dinky little Glares. Instead they decided to compare apples to oranges and try to have White Mage compete with Astrologian when they are in two completely different planes. Have Astro be the handy utility regen focused healer and have White Mage be the stationary healer that heals like a god and hits like a freight train with Quake, Tornado and Holy (if it was made to be a finisher instead of a spammy blinding AoE) if they stand inside their ley lines.

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To be fair, being in a war is usually the result of having opposing interests, not alignment of techniques. In the lore, the White Mages of Amdapor's major power was Golemancy, and they fought against Mhach's Voidsent with their stone golems. In a bit of irony, the flying head mount you can get from PotD is probably the most White Mage-y mount in the game - the Unicorn you befriended as a Conjurer, but the flying head's description is that E-Una-Kotor created it from some of the stone of PotD in an effort to better understand the guardian golems from the Lost City of Amdapor. Indeed, Mhach's most powerful techniques were not Blizzards and Thunder spells, but things like Xenoglosy and Voidsent summoning.

Despite a lot of the community mentioning the spells, we have no lore that really supports White Mages using a ton of Quake, Tornado, etc magics. Quake is used by Xande, who isn't a WHM and existed well before Amdapor. A lot of elder and eldrich spellcasters use spells like that, but not really a lot of White Mages in the lore.

Stationary Healer with more and longer cast times that's more of a caster would be kind of neat if it weren't for the combat/fight design demanding lots of movement...

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Originally Posted by Renathras

So, what did you think, btw? That's the most detail I've put yet into Healer Job reworks...

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For now, I'll just go over WHM. It's getting late for me and I'll be going to bed soon.

Without digging into old wounds, what I'll say is this: WHM can still be forgiving and simple while having a little more layers to its consistent gameplay--gameplay that exists regardless of whether healing is needed or not. Offensively, what I'd like to see is:
- Giving Holy a purpose in single target environments.
- The inclusion of a legitimate Water spell at lower levels which can upgrade later.
- Some type of small "payoff" spell. If Afflatus Misery is to BLM's Foul, then something that is a modest Flare.

This would only be two additional offensive actions, and they can be executed in a way that can be simple, yet elegant. For example, what if Water and its future upgrade replace Presence of Mind? Let's say it has 2 charges with a 30 second cooldown on the GCD, but only reduces cast/recast time by 10% for 8 seconds. This gives you a very simple-to-use tool that lets you more consistently pick and choose small burst windows for attack spells, and also makes solo content a little faster.

Additionally, I don't like making all GCD healing universally DPS neutral, and I don't think it actually benefits the appeal to simplicity argument as much as it would seem to at face value. If WHM's DPS contributions are effectively at 100% uptime because everything generates Glare damage, it means that's a factor that needs to go into fight design balance, and the "least" DPS you can do is also the "most" DPS you can do, meaning there's no room for improvement there. But if you let there be room for improvement, that means a WHM who gets better at a fight and can more comfortably trim GCD heals is also able to squeeze out extra damage, and potentially help a party hit enrages, or more optimally cut out mechanics from the end of fights. If all your healing is Glaring, you can't try to squeeze out that extra damage to potentially help your team skip Snake 2/Beast 2 in P8S phase 1, for example, or skip Cochexia 2 in P6S.

If not all GCD healing is DPS neutral, that also makes you think more critically about what tools to work with during healing-heavy phases. In a dungeon, you can rely on mostly just Afflatus Solace and Rapture to handle the shallow amounts of necessary healing you'll have to put out if things run smoothly, but certain phases during EX or Savage fights that ask for back-to-back healing can force you to rely on other tools, and I think that makes the healing side of WHM more fun, no? Having to decide what the most efficient way to heal through that phase is?

As for other tools, extra mitigation is absolutely necessary if it's going to keep being as mandatory as mitigation has been this expansion. Personally, I like the flavor of extending max HP on WHM more than flat mitigation, but that's besides the point. I also think WHM deserves some kind of strong utility to help it stand out more against the other healers. I'm not sure if you've ever responded to the idea of giving WHM Float which I've brought up, as a 2 minute cooldown that lets your party ignore puddle damage and floor damage for 10 seconds, and perhaps with some additional mitigation or a regen so that it's still useful even when those mechanics don't exist.

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

For now, I'll just go over WHM. It's getting late for me and I'll be going to bed soon.

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Honestly, WHM is the one I wish you would have skipped. XD WHM I changed the least, and I know you really want all the healers to have new spells and/or interactions and/or complexities, so I already know you wouldn't like my WHM proposal. That's the one I could guess at offhand. :)

What I wanted to know is if you liked the SCH, SGE, or AST proposals, since those are actually more sweeping changes to the Jobs and I constructed them specifically to appeal to players like you.

Strictly speaking, I do have a solution for ONE of your concerns, though:

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The inclusion of a legitimate Water spell at lower levels which can upgrade later.

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Holy.

Make low level Water be an AOE centered on self that makes a water bubble float into the air and then burst.

Playing FF8 on Steam (picked it up and it's been literally 2 decades since I played it, and I don't think I ever finished it because PS2s would hardlock during the Lunatic Pandora sequence, so I'm giving it a new go!) and the Water spell there is a big water bubble that kind of forms on the enemy, floats up with them trapped inside, then pops. Water also worked this way in FF9, I believe. Water was always an uncommon spell for players in FF games, but was generally a mid-level spell. Instead of "Water 1, 2, and 3", there was just "Water" that was roughly comparable in strength to a 2.5 level Fire/Blizzard/Thunder spell (that is, somewhere between 2 and 3). Some iterations were AOE, but the animation always made it look like it should be. And given the way Holly works right now where it kind of floats up and bursts, Water doing that would make perfect sense.

Also: Did Qarn normal this afternoon in my Leveling Roulette and noticed in the very first pack "lol, forgot I don't have Holy yet... XD" when I was smacking the button and nothing was happening. (It was a fun goofy run with a DRK Tank that's normally a Healer and some chill DPS leveling folks). Getting AOEs for leveling is something that happens somewhat stupidly late for a lot of Jobs, and WHM is no exception, not getting Holy until 45. Getting an AOE Water spell at 15 when you do the Trial of Water quest. This would give you an AOE damage spell for every Dungeon in the game from Sastasha normal at 15 to level cap. The only group content you wouldn't have it for would be the first two Guildleves, the first of which enemies come in small packs and the second one is mainly a boss fight that occasionally summons 1-2 adds.

Regardless, Water upgrading to Holy would work pretty well as the Water spell's cast time and animation would be very similar to Holy's and it would be a pretty natural transition. Not to mention getting an AOE at level 15 after the Trial of Water quest just makes sense in every way possible - the quest, being the level to start running group content; the stars align themselves for it!

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and the "least" DPS you can do is also the "most" DPS you can do

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Not really. Letting Dia fall off would be a DPS loss, and I even explicitly said to make Glare x4 20-40 potency higher (5-10 per) vs Misery to make Glare the slightly higher damage option. Collectively, these two things already prevent your least damage being equal to your most. Though for the record, the worst player doing the same damage as the best player WOULD be a simplicity argument. You can't get more simple than that. GCD healing doesn't have to be perfectly damage neutral, but it shouldn't be a massive DPS loss. Per my way of thinking, Healers shouldn't be focusing on damage at all, and the damage should be a thing that kind of happens (basically the reverse of Eos/Kardia, which are healing that just kinda happens), but that doesn't make sense in FFXIV's combat model, so Misery/Glare/Dia works fine for that instead.

Note that the other Healer propositions are all pretty unique from that, for players that really want that high skill expression gameplay...

...which is why I'd like to hear you talk about those instead. Since I already knew you wouldn't like my WHM proposal so we didn't really need to even discuss it. :) I've already accepted you won't like any "leave one alone" option I present, no matter which it is, or even if I proposed adding a new Healer Job specifically to be "the simple one", so I'd rather just skip over that part and get to the good stuff of the other three since maybe we could have some agreement on those.

Other than Water -> Holy. That's a good idea I'm going to have to remember for any future proposals...

Float is an interesting idea, but I feel like the problem is it's based entirely on fight design. Either lots of fights will have to have puddles for it to matter (but if it matters too much, then WHM becomes OP), or fights won't have puddles and no one will care about WHM bringing Float. It's kind of like Expedient. Super useful when it matters (the movement speed component), but when you don't need it or when it can be detrimental (forced march mechanics), no one cares. I personally HAVE thought Float and/or jumping should mitigate some types of arena AOEs, but I'm not sure working that into a specific Healer would work, because then people would complain if they didn't have that Healer Job in their parties. In my FF8 game, just did the Brothers GF recently. Laughed at the NPCs running from the tomb shouting about using Float, and figured I could use it to avoid an Earth attack, but then in both fights when I saw Sacred and then Sacred and Minotaur both healing from Earth damage being absorbed by them (at least, I THINK that's how that works...might just be some kind of field effect, but either way...), I put two and two together and kept THEM floating for the fight, too.

It's one of the problems with situational non-damage/mitigation/healing utility - when it's useless, it's totally garbage, but when it's strong, it tends to be super strong (Expedient's speed buff was nerfed super fast); it shouldn't have to be binary, but for some reason, it often is.

.

EDIT: To be clear:

I don't mean this to be unnecessarily dismissive or anything. I just know that anything even approaching "leave as it is" you're going to dislike or propose changes to, so we're just not going to agree on that and I think it's better to simply ignore those cases because there's no way to agree on it. Even my proposed WHM changes ARE changes rather than leaving it as it is, they're just compatible with someone playing as they do today being in more or less an equal position to someone playing it the new way (rather than the new way person having an advantage), which you don't wish to allow. That is, even "change it, don't leave it alone" is unacceptable to you unless anyone playing the old way is disadvantaged/put out/unviable/etc.

So since we CAN'T agree on that, I'd rather we discuss the others where we may actually have some avenues of agreement.

Anything that doesn't leave any of the healers in their current skill-ceiling-pancaked-against-the-floor state. Working toward getting better at playing a job should never make it actively more boring to play. "Find ways to spam Glare even more times" is an unacceptable "goal".

Nocturnal sect (able to be used in combat). Neutral removed in its place.

Bring back actual MP management.

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

Some details about the lore of the AST's arcanum deck, FYI, it's not a Jester, but a Knave in the deck. This is from the Encyclopedia Eorzea:

"The Deck of Sixty is most commonly divided into two distinct groups, the major arcana and the minor arcana. The six major arcana--the Spire, the Ewer, the Bole, the Arrow, the Balance, and the Spear--are said to represent the heavens and thus most often utilized in astrological and divinatory pursuits. Conversely, the minor arcana are believed to represent that land and its people, and feature six suits, each containing six cards numbered 1 through 6 (the pip cards0, and three face cards, for a total of fifty-four. Each suit possesses a corresponding element, class, and faculty, as well as direct tie to one of the six major arcana--all characteristics that can be employed (at the teller's discretion) during the scrying of a fortune."

A list of the six suits in the following order of detail:
Suit | Alternate | Faculty | Class | Element | Major Arcana

*snip*

"Face cards consist of the 'knave,' the 'lord,' and the highest-ranking 'lady.' When used in conjunction with the pip cards, their numerical values are 7, 8, and 9 respectively."

There's more, but this is I think the stuff not well known about. I'd love to integrate more aspects of this, such as having a Lord of Staves, or a Lady of Cups, rather than just the Crowns, and also include the Knave, but it gets convoluted very quickly. This is shared more just because I think it's interesting, not information that's easy to come by, and that there's a lot of worthwhile lore to try and build out of here, not to try and "um, actually" the reference to the Jester.

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I find lore interesting from a conceptual aspect, but I do not want a job held back due to what reads well due to lore or pretty animations. Yes, I like sparkly stars and stories however I would give that up in an instant for a job that has better gameplay- which I did.

I would not find a convoluted card system, what sounds "interesting" on paper becomes less so in practise when (at least for myself) cards are part of the job, the fun is spent dealing cards, healing and doing damage, and their is no major fascination in dealing cards. It's like asking a tank to get excited about rotating their mitigation - they're happy that they have good mitigation skills, they don't expect to spend all of their time looking at them or thinking about them.

There are some simpler things that could be done for QOL changes (remove some useless skills), and some more dramatic ones - such as bring back Nocturnal sect (ie. basically SHb AST). I could also propose allowing ASTs to change sects while in combat. Give AST another DPS skill or combo action.

I would also really be a proponent of restoring SCH skills or giving them alternatives, and I would say that each healer can make a good case for changes.

WHM:
Aero 3 is back. Same potency as glare. Increases potency of next heal by 50%. 15 sec cooldown. Heal buff stacks twice.

Dia has a 2.5 second cast time and works the same as thundercloud on BLM.

New OGCD: elemental ward. Puts a persistent aoe on the floor as big as asylum that increases your damage by 10%.

Any GCD heal that doesn’t consume a lily (cure, medica 2 etc.) while standing in elemental ward charges your lifebloom.

Your lifebloom works the same way as blood lily. However, it grants access to Seraph Strike.

Seraph Strike- Usable regardless of how much your lifebloom has been charged. Dash at the enemy and strike them with an attack that deals damage equal to the missed glares. Restores 10% of your MP. 50% chance to proc into enhanced Holy III. 15 sec cooldown.

Afflatus Misery- Now has a 50% chance to grant enhanced Holy III.

Enhanced Holy III- deals damage with a potency of 500 to all nearby enemies. Stacks twice. Grants freecure.

Glare- Has a 20% chance to grant Enhanced Holy III or freecure.

Freecure: Your next GCD heal is free (ie doesn’t consume lily or cost MP) but still feeds blood lily or lifebloom.

SGE
I really like Taurus’s ideas but I’ll toss in my idea too.

Sage has a raid buff. Libra. 60 sec cooldown. Increases damage dealt to nearby enemies by 5-10%. Every cast of dosis against the target has a 50% chance to grant a sting or a charge of phlegma. 30% of any healing you do while libra is active is dealt to any enemy affected by Libra.

Aimolipsía- AoE cone OGCD attack that lands 2 hits on the target and nearby enemies. 300 potency. 2 charges. 60 sec recharge.

Toxicon grants a free charge of phlegma.

Every four casts of dosis grants a charge of aimolipsia.

SCH

Miasma 3 is back. 18 sec duration.

Miasma 2 replaces art of war. Works the same as it did in SB.

Any time you apply a barrier, you gain a buff that increases the damage of your next miasma 3. Stacks 3 times.

Bane is back. Spreads your dots to nearby targets.

Shadowflare is back. Persistent ground AoE that continually damages any enemies inside. Consumes an aetherflow.

Energy drain is replaced by fester. Damage increases based on the number of dots the target has. Maybe on the GCD?

All heals sans adlo and succor consume fairy gauge. Fairy gauge heals have a 50% chance to grant aetherflow.

New cooldown that consumes your DoT's and makes them deal all of their remaining damage at once.

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Originally Posted by IDontPetLalas

I find lore interesting from a conceptual aspect, but I do not want a job held back due to what reads well due to lore or pretty animations. Yes, I like sparkly stars and stories however I would give that up in an instant for a job that has better gameplay- which I did.

I would not find a convoluted card system, what sounds "interesting" on paper becomes less so in practise when (at least for myself) cards are part of the job, the fun is spent dealing cards, healing and doing damage, and their is no major fascination in dealing cards. It's like asking a tank to get excited about rotating their mitigation - they're happy that they have good mitigation skills, they don't expect to spend all of their time looking at them or thinking about them.

There are some simpler things that could be done for QOL changes (remove some useless skills), and some more dramatic ones - such as bring back Nocturnal sect (ie. basically SHb AST). I could also propose allowing ASTs to change sects while in combat. Give AST another DPS skill or combo action.

I would also really be a proponent of restoring SCH skills or giving them alternatives, and I would say that each healer can make a good case for changes.

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I’m just saying I would like to see the lore integrated and respected when possible. For example, I’ve had the idea that Minor Arcana could just draw the lord, the lady, and the knave rather than only 1. These could be enhanced versions of existing actions. And perhaps you get the lord of staves, the lady of crowns, and the knave of knives in diurnal sect, and the lord of irons, the lady of cups, and the knave of rings in.

And maybe all that looks like is something like the lord replacing gravity for one use, dealing damage to nearby enemies, and if it’s the lord of staves that causes your next draw to be the balance, and if it’s the lord of irons, that causes your next draw to be the spear.

This is just a very shallow thought to reflect what I’m saying, bI agree that it shouldn’t come at the cost of smooth gameplay. But if there’s a way to integrate the lore in a way that doesn’t convolute things, then I’d like to attempt to take that route.

White Mage:
The risk taker healer. A 1-2-3 combo that gets upset if you heal but the highest potential of DPS among the healers. As their hp gets lower the final skill of their combo's potency gets higher (20% maximum at 50% hp). Glare III upgrades to Light. Cure upgrades to Wind. Aquaveil upgrades to Water. Medica upgrades to Pray(non-element). Afflatus Misery is a chance prock at 60% every time you use an afflatus skill but the damage is halved and it is only a single target. Lilies no longer generate red gauge and only shows u when Afflatus skills are usable, instead Red Gauge will generate at a 30% chance whenever you lose hp. Dia>Dia III(does more damage than Dia)> then becomes Grace, upon using Grace does Dia III damage but also applies a mp restoration buff to the white mage (Memento of Graces). Using Grace again just refreshes memento's timer. Assize no longer restores mp. New skill: Afflatus Purgation: Upon having three red lily gauges, consumes them and fires a beam of the same potency as Misery (AoE) however bestows Memento of Misery, all Misery Procks while this is active become 100% (you still need to wait to gain lilies). Shares a button with Afflatus Misery. Thin Air, gain a lily.

Light: consumes 10% hp does 300
Water: shields yourself, does 330 on combo, base is 300.
Wind: 350 on combo (420 when hp is 50%), base is 310. If you complete the combo, 15% chance of Freeing Misery (Next Afflatus skill will guarantee Afflatus Misery prock)
Holy IV: 170 (consumes 20% hp, stuns)
Pray: 200 on combo (220 when hp is 50%), base is 100, provides party wide light-heal and light-regen (Memento of Prayer). Think of it like a Light Medica II but does damage.
Light>Water>Wind
Holy IV>Pray

Personally, I'd like something akin to SCH's Energy drain for SGE.
My biggest pet-peeve with SGE right now is that you have to overheal with your addersgall or just stay at 3 stacks for a lot of fights.

The best solution for it would be to give it an ogcd that consume a single addersgall but on a CD (something like 60/90sec) so SGE doesn't end up in a situation like most greedy SCH who just use all their aetherflow in burst windows.

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Originally Posted by Renathras

To be fair, being in a war is usually the result of having opposing interests, not alignment of techniques. In the lore, the White Mages of Amdapor's major power was Golemancy, and they fought against Mhach's Voidsent with their stone golems. In a bit of irony, the flying head mount you can get from PotD is probably the most White Mage-y mount in the game - the Unicorn you befriended as a Conjurer, but the flying head's description is that E-Una-Kotor created it from some of the stone of PotD in an effort to better understand the guardian golems from the Lost City of Amdapor. Indeed, Mhach's most powerful techniques were not Blizzards and Thunder spells, but things like Xenoglosy and Voidsent summoning.

Despite a lot of the community mentioning the spells, we have no lore that really supports White Mages using a ton of Quake, Tornado, etc magics. Quake is used by Xande, who isn't a WHM and existed well before Amdapor. A lot of elder and eldrich spellcasters use spells like that, but not really a lot of White Mages in the lore.

Stationary Healer with more and longer cast times that's more of a caster would be kind of neat if it weren't for the combat/fight design demanding lots of movement...

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Like I said, if Yoshi is unable to think of new mechanics, just mimic existing ones. As it stands, mimicking BLM would be the most logical course of action and would work with WHM being the GCD focused healer. As for movement, well, it wouldn't make much sense to worry about fights demanding lots of movement when Yoshi's golden child BLM exists. Quite frankly I'm gobsmacked that he hasn't swooped in yet since the job has been struggling in this meta at least compared to melees. I digress though; WHM as it stands in this game has been effectively merged with Geomancer with its druidic origins and starting out with earth and wind magic along with water. Thus, assuming the devs have no plans to add Geomancer in the future, it would make sense for Tornado, Quake and Flood to go to White Mage.

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Originally Posted by SargeTheSeagull

WHM:
Aero 3 is back. Same potency as glare. Increases potency of next heal by 50%. 15 sec cooldown. Heal buff stacks twice.

Dia has a 2.5 second cast time and works the same as thundercloud on BLM.

New OGCD: elemental ward. Puts a persistent aoe on the floor as big as asylum that increases your damage by 10%.

Any GCD heal that doesn’t consume a lily (cure, medica 2 etc.) while standing in elemental ward charges your lifebloom.

Your lifebloom works the same way as blood lily. However, it grants access to Seraph Strike.

Seraph Strike- Usable regardless of how much your lifebloom has been charged. Dash at the enemy and strike them with an attack that deals damage equal to the missed glares. Restores 10% of your MP. 50% chance to proc into enhanced Holy III. 15 sec cooldown.

Afflatus Misery- Now has a 50% chance to grant enhanced Holy III.

Enhanced Holy III- deals damage with a potency of 500 to all nearby enemies. Stacks twice. Grants freecure.

Glare- Has a 20% chance to grant Enhanced Holy III or freecure.

Freecure: Your next GCD heal is free (ie doesn’t consume lily or cost MP) but still feeds blood lily or lifebloom.

SGE
I really like Taurus’s ideas but I’ll toss in my idea too.

Sage has a raid buff. Libra. 60 sec cooldown. Increases damage dealt to nearby enemies by 5-10%. Every cast of dosis against the target has a 50% chance to grant a sting or a charge of phlegma. 30% of any healing you do while libra is active is dealt to any enemy affected by Libra.

Aimolipsía- AoE cone OGCD attack that lands 2 hits on the target and nearby enemies. 300 potency. 2 charges. 60 sec recharge.

Toxicon grants a free charge of phlegma.

Every four casts of dosis grants a charge of aimolipsia.

SCH

Miasma 3 is back. 18 sec duration.

Miasma 2 replaces art of war. Works the same as it did in SB.

Any time you apply a barrier, you gain a buff that increases the damage of your next miasma 3. Stacks 3 times.

Bane is back. Spreads your dots to nearby targets.

Shadowflare is back. Persistent ground AoE that continually damages any enemies inside. Consumes an aetherflow.

Energy drain is replaced by fester. Damage increases based on the number of dots the target has. Maybe on the GCD?

All heals sans adlo and succor consume fairy gauge. Fairy gauge heals have a 50% chance to grant aetherflow.

New cooldown that consumes your DoT's and makes them deal all of their remaining damage at once.

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from your fingertips to the devs ears... what about ast?

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Originally Posted by glamazon

from your fingertips to the devs ears... what about ast?

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I haven't played AST really since Stormblood so I'm not the most insightful about its current issues but I do have a few thoughts.

Nocturnal Sect is back

Lightspeed has two charges

Doublecast from PvP is now in PvE. The spell you doublecast is 20% more potent and costs 20% more MP.

Stella- GCD attack, same potency as malefic. Prevents the next X amount of damage dealt by the target and any other nearby enemies. About as much as one raid boss autoattack. 30 second cooldown.

Combust applies 3 stacks of combust to the target lasting 30 seconds. Any GCD heal you use consumes a stack of combust on the target and deals damage equal to one cast of malefic.

Astrodyne, divination, and seals are removed.

Celestial Opposition applies a HoT or barrier depending on your stance. Also applies stop to all enemies hit by it and extends the duration of any buffs you have on party members. Stop is dispelled after the enemy takes enough damage.

Draw is replaced by Solar Draw and Lunar Draw. Upon using solar draw it becomes solar play and vice versa. If used outside of combat there's no cooldown.

Solar draws one of three cards. Balance increases damage, spear increases crit damage, arrow increases crit rate.

Lunar draws a card for utility. Ewer restores MP, Bole increases defense, spire increases max HP and gives a move speed buff.

Spread and royal road are back. If you royal road a lunar card, your next card also applies a HoT or barrier, if you royal road a solar card its effects are doubled.

Cards affect everyone in 15y of you.

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Originally Posted by Dakam

Personally, I'd like something akin to SCH's Energy drain for SGE.

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Honestly, Energy Drain is probably one of the worst abilities in the game. It's the crux of otimizing one Job, but the difference between optimal play and not is RELATIVELY minimal, and further, it actively encourages people to not use a resource for Healing if they can at all get away from it, even if that's unintuitive and requires using inferior abilities instead. It's why they probably won't do it again. Having a resource compete for both healing and damage is something the Devs clearly don't like, and the only reason SCH even has it now is because people complained about NOT having it, which was less due to people loving Energy Drain and more due to (a) people being used to it, (b) it having a legacy position as an MP management tool (which has been entirely replaced by Aetherflow just giving the MP outright), and (c) the actual problem: That SCH had nothing useful to do with AF stacks if AF was coming off CD, Excogitation was on CD, and they had any stacks left while the party was at full health (in theory, could throw down a Soil, but if there wasn't damage going out soon or you were saving it for damage a little further, this would be bad). That problem could just as well have been solved by giving SCH an AF spender that was either a barrier (think Divine Benison) or a Regen to toss on the Tank. Either of those would have solved the problem (provided they didn't ALSO come with CDs, which was the problem in the first place; if Excog and Soil didn't have CDs and could be used left and right, that also would have fixed the problem.)

It's a badly designed ability which has only gotten worse as the Devs have tried to make it as unattractive to use as possible without outright removing it.

Moreover, people already complain frequently that SGE and SCH are too similar. I'm not sure adding something that would make them even more similar is the way to go...

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Originally Posted by Iedarus

Like I said, if Yoshi is unable to think of new mechanics, just mimic existing ones.

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I guess my point is that the combat system doesn't allow for this. Again, think of how many OFF-GCD abilities BLM has that allows it to play like it does. Also instants. People that think BLM is a pure turret are people that haven't looked at the Job since SB. It's changed quite a bit in regards to its mobility. WHM would have to be given tons of mobility tools - as I've pointed out before, BLM has something like 12 GCDs of free movement when using its GCD and oGCD abilities, BEFORE it has to resort to Scathe spam. WHM has no where near that mobility.

Also, no, WHM hasn't been merged with Geomancer. The lore (SB AST quests) say that Geomancy is a type of Astromancy, not Conjury, and definitely not White Magic. (Despite them using CNJ spells and wands, but whatever, the lore's the lore). And on top of that, the Devs and game have spent no less than 2 and probably closer to 3 expansions moving WHM away from Conjury in most every way that counts, not towards it. Lamitt was no where tied to Conjury or nature magic, and we haven't used any since we went to the First ourselves. They even removed our one Water spell from existence and removed the Aero spell we'd presumably still have at higher levels (Aero 3) to make sure we don't have any real connections to Conjury at this point, and certainly to Geomancy. Aquaveil is the only non-holy, nature themed spell we have, and...it is still pretty holy looking, like Divine Benison (which also makes a water-ish sound but is pretty clearly holy element)

So I'd say WHM has been the exact opposite of effectively merged with Geomancer. It's been more or less completely severed from it.

I feel like a lot of people want GEO, and I REALLY wish they'd add it to the game (it would be cool if it branched from CNJ since that would make some thematic sense and give WHM/GEO the SCH/SMN treatment, which is kind of a nice little perk), but they seem to not want to do it for some godforsaken reason. They could make any number of GEO Caster builds doing so easily. And if they didn't want it to be shared with WHM, they could just make it its own thing (though the former makes more sense considering all the GEO NPCs in the game are basically CNJs). Making a proper DPS Job out of it would be laughably easy at this point, either as a Caster or as a Melee.

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

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So...about the SCH, SGE, and AST ideas?

Also, what did you think about having Water be low level (level 15) Holy you get after Trial of Water at level 15 that you can use so you actually have an AOE spell for dungeons and such from level 15-45 when you actually get Holy? Imagine the FF8/FF9 big water bubble forming and floating into the air then bursting and that's more or less what Holy does, so the animation and stuff would work great and give you that Water spell, and it'd be useful for all those leveling dungeons before level 45 we get in roulette where we'd LOVE to have an AOE spell but just don't have one...

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Originally Posted by glamazon

from your fingertips to the devs ears... what about ast?

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*cough*

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Originally Posted by Renathras

Astrologian: Healer/Buffer With All The Cards

AST is honestly the hardest, because it is in uneviable position of having a kit that overall is the most powerful in the game and "just works"...while also being incredibly clunky in practice. Its buff system is random, likewise seals/Astrodyne. There are also issues with changing it, since any change is going to both disrupt current play and any serious change will also (unlike SCH) not appeal to past play. For example, making Draw and Play GCDs would reduce the APM issues, but AST has never used them as GCDs. A further complication is a desire to return Diurnal and Nocturnal to the mix while ALSO trying to reduce the Pure/Barrier dichotomy.

The first step would be to revert AST's healing kit to the ShB era. Dirunal and Nocturnal were both pretty well established and pretty good during that period, and both provided for effective healing. Both also included mitigation and party shields to meet party needs, making both well rounded while also allowing the player to adapt to best synergize with whichever co-healer they got. This would mainly affect Aspected abilities and some CDs, but those largely worked just fine in ShB. Benefic would be upgraded into Benefic 2. Even MORESO than WHM, there's no point in these being distinct. Where Cure 1 and Cure 2 at least have different cast times and a 500 MP cost difference, Benefic 2 has the same cast time as Benefic (so that "clutch 1.5 sec heal when a 2 sec cast wouldn't make it" argument doesn't even exist here, insomuch as it exists out in the wild anyway), and the MP cost is 200 more on the Healer that already has the best MP economy in the game. There's pretty much no reason for Benefic 1 once you get Benefic 2 at level 26 on a Job that starts at level 30 anyway. If it's really a concern, the MP cost can be reduced by 200 for Benefic 2 to make it a straight upgrade. Remove Undraw. Seriously.

Now, what do do about Cards? The big Hauchefaunt in the room is that the RNG is what kills interesting Arcana effects. "I drew the one that reduces damage by 10%! Man that'd be useful for a Tank buster! Right now...the next Tank buster isn't for another 45 seconds, but MAN would it be cool if I got this card for that, huh?!" While RNG is part of AST's aesthetic, it's also what prevents it from being a good buff Healer, since you have no guarantee of getting the buff you want when you actually need it. So the first objective for fixing Cards involves a way to remove RNG, or at least remove the significant RNG that makes buffs so suboptimal. Does this mean people might use the "meta" buffs a lot? Yes, but it means the other buffs might have room to shine as well, and can also cover for other parts of the kit. The second big change is making Draw and Play on the GCD. The reason for this is simple, it removes Lightspeed reservation being mandatory for burst windows (allowing its use more flexibly when the player needs/wants it) and it reduces the frankly bonkers APM required during the burst phase. However, it would need to now have something done to make it damage neutral vs Malific. Fortunately, that's pretty easy. Both Draw and Play would have the Additional Effect: Arcanum Malificum. The next Malific or Gravity spell cast has its potency increased by 100%, stacks up to 6 times, lasts 30 seconds. In short, you use Draw and Play (up to 3 of each), then lay down the Malific/Gravity hurt. Another option (but one a bit more complicated) would be to have Draw hit a hostile target with 1 Malific's worth of damage (presuming you're targeting the boss when you hit Draw) and only Play doing the +100% next Malific...but that's honestly more likely to cause problems than anything ("Oops! Forgot to turn off autotargeting and the 20 sec prepull Draw smacked the boss in the face with a Urianger card! Sorry everyone!"), like Ranged DPS rightclicking the boss before the pull.

A second change I'd make to reduce the RNG would be to have cards arrayed a bit more like Mudras. You have a Damage, Mitigation, and Healing/Restoration (MP refresh) Draw. They share a CD (like WAR's Upheaval and Orogeny or MCH's Bioblaster and Drill). To make it a bit more mistake/fat finger friendly, you'd have the Draw buttons and then a separate Play button, so if you drew the wrong one, you could draw a different one at the mere cost of sacrificing a GCD (e.g. if you drew the mitigation one too late and the Tank eats the Tank buster, now you don't need it, so you can draw the damage buff to put on someone else instead, or the healing one to use on the Tank if you don't have some other better option up). To keep the lore of 6 main constellations, they'd be paired, and using Arcanum shift would allow you to toggle between single target and AOE versions of each. For example, Balance might be a single target 6% damage increase for 15 seconds or you could use its counterpart, Bole, for an AOE 4% damage increase for 7.5 seconds instead. Likewise the mitigation and the healing ones. Spear/Arrow would likely make sense for damage, Bole/Tower for mitigation, and Balance/Ewer for healing, though I'm not married to any of those being necessary, just trying to keep them all relevant.

We could keep a little randomness from Minor Arcana, which is honestly MOSTLY flavor right now. Royal Road can also be added back, with the effects of increasing the damage buff's strength, the mitigation buff's duration, or the healing buff's potency and the HoT's duration, respectively (there'd be no need for the AOE since we already have that covered). We could also do some other stuff like allow the AST to stock a card for later using Sleeve Draw, to store and then play it, but given how we're removing the RNG from the buffs now AND that Draw/Play has charges reducing the need to stock cards for later AND that AST already has a lot of buttons, we probably don't need it. Likewise, we don't need Redraw since you can choose to draw the specific cards you want anyway. If we really want Redraw, we can add another Minor Arcanum (maybe the Jester of Crowns), and allow Redraw to work for those, but it's really not needed at this point.
So that's a LOT of discussion on Cards/buffs, but I feel that's really at the core of what AST is, a playstyle people want in FFXIV (a buffer/healer), and the crux of AST's problems (the "This is why we can't have nice things..." where "nice things" in this case is "more interesting buffs") as well as the APM problem. Collectively, this change reduces APM by making Draw and Play GCDs, prevents using them being perceived as somehow suboptimal by making them damage neutral, removing the RNG so you can get the buffs you need when you need them (which has the side-effect of allowing more interesting and even niche buffs to be added since the player can access them when they need them but not have RNG work against them when they don't), and allowing more player agency in the choice of buffs used and when to use them, freeing up Lightspeed for more overall flexible use in the encounter, and with the Minor Arcana still retaining a bit of the RNG flavor for the Job fantasy.

Now, AST still has some issue with a lot of button bloat, but we can clean a little of that up. First, we're having Benefic upgrade into Benefic 2 as I said above. Second, we can pull a Variant Cure and remove Helios as a separate ability. What would happen is that if the target had the secondary effect (Regen for dAST and barrier for nAST), the spell would, instead of applying the secondary effect, boost the healing potency from 250 to 400. Basically, double up that button's use. Astrodyne would be a MP management tool + Presence of Mind self buff on a 90 or 120 second CD (whichever). No more seal craziness. If we are DESPERATE to retain seals, we could work that into the Minor Arcana Lord/Lady/Jester of Crowns thing and have Minor Arcana have a 40 sec CD so you'd use it for your seal sidegame and Astrodyne would be up every 2 minutes. [NOTE: If 7.0 moves us away from the 2 min meta, then this can be 30 and 90 sec instead, or whatever; I'm just trying to consider the present systems in play as of right now.] We can also do a similar Helios thing with Aspected Benefic and Benefic 2...but I feel like that's a little more niche and we may want to keep those separate.

I suppose for Minor Arcana, Lord and Lady could work as they do now, and maybe Jester could do something like give you two stacks of Arcanum Malificum or something. That's distinct enough from the others while also having some flex on the new kit and stuff. I dunno, just a thought, but that would be kind of a fun effect if you wanted to get a bit more burst at the cost of needing GCDs and making sure you didn't overcap Draw/Play generated Arcanum Malificum stacks.

Another change I would probably make is to make Neutral Sect a bit shorter of a CD (probably 60 seconds) and cause all Aspect/Sect based abilities to take on the properties of both (which...I think is what it used to do) for 10 seconds or something. In short, it allows dAST to have some barriers while allowing nAST to have some HoTs. Celestial Opposition and Celestial Intersection would be oGCD versions of Aspected Helios and Aspected Benefic, similar to how Solace and Rapture are instant damage neutral versions of Cure 2 and Medica 1 in live WHM, each would take on either a barrier or HoT based on being in nAST or dAST stance (or both under Neutral Sect...unless we want Neutral Sect to not affect them, I guess?), and we MIGHT consider folding Essential Dignity into Exaltation...though that's a bit more tricky. Exaltation with a scaling heal would be nice, but one use of Dignity is as a quick spot heal, so...maybe not. Just a thought, though. I guess it would work better if Exaltation and Taurochole were the opposite of one another. Ideally, I'd like to see Synastry rolled into something, but I'm not sure what. Maybe make the duration 8-10 seconds and combine it with Exaltation? If Essential Dignity had a 60 sec CD (I know, I know, a nerf, but hear me out) but upgraded at level 50 to apply the Synastry effect for 10 seconds and, at 80-ish, the Exaltation damage mitigation, that might make it worth it. The heal would be upfront, but essentially this would make it a strong spot heal that also reduces damage the target takes and allows splash healing them while healing other party members with Benefic 2 or Aspected Benefic. Might make up for it? Could also have it trait at some point to add a HoT, but the Synastry effect might reduce the need of that.

Finally, Lightspeed, Earthly Star, Horoscope, and Macrocosmos are all being retained to keep AST's secondary Job identity as a pseudo-Time Mage in tact.

The core damage rotation would be unchanged, but your Combust upkeep + Malific spam would be interrupted by Draw Damage/Mitigation/Healing and Play, followed by even prettier Malifics (1-6 of them), and Lightspeed use would be far more flexible. Minor Arcana would be your RNG Seal game with Redraw attached to it (those could all be oGCDs still), Royal Road and Arcana Shift would be oGCDs to modify your Card effects, and Astrodyne would be connected to the Minor Arcana Seals from Lord(sun)/Lady(moon)/Jester(celestial) of Crowns.

Benefic 1 and Helios would be removed once upgrading to Benefic 2 and Aspected Helios, respectively.

New Buttons: 2 new Draws (three total, but we have 1 already; Draw Offense Arcana, Draw Defense Arcana, and Draw Restorative Arcana), Royal road, Arcana Shift, Diurnal Sect, Nocturnal Sect. [While Sect is set before the battle starts, this means we still need to remove at least 4 buttons for neutrality]

Removed Buttons: Benefic (on upgrade), Helios (on upgrade), Undraw, and Synastry and/or (both) Exaltation if there'd be a good way to roll those effects into other abilities (or if players collectively don't want them). Alternatively, we could remove Celestial Opposition and/or Intersection. We could also remove Redraw or just leave it for Minor Arcana. Collectively, there are 8 total abilities here we could remove 4-6 of (or all 8) to free up some bar space.

Note that AST is the Healer I play the least, but I do play it, and I've long liked components of it (the buffing gameplay, when it's interesting, paired with a simple damage rotation and flexible heals with interesting oGCDs). So this is my attempt to retain those traits of it while also retaining the RNG and Time Mage feel it has, and restoring it the flexibility that it used to have with Diurnal, Nocturnal, and Neutral Sects.

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Okay, Attempt at Summary:

Super short version:

AST has dAST and nAST back, Cards are GCDs but you pick which card to use and play, Draw and Play generate a stack of boosted (+100%) Malific/Gravity to make using them damage neutral, Arcana Shift to access weaker but AOE versions of the main three buffs, Royal Road to boost the power or duration of said buffs, Minor Arcana is retained as your RNG and Seal mechanic, and some abilities are combined (Benefic -> Benefic 2, Helios -> Aspected Helios, Undraw -> Recycle Bin) to make room for the additional buttons.

That leaves out a lot of the nuance and discussion, but gets the main crux across.

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[NOTE: As Ty pointed out, it would be Knave of Crowns, not Jester, but otherwise, all that.

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Originally Posted by Renathras

So...about the SCH, SGE, and AST ideas?

Also, what did you think about having Water be low level (level 15) Holy you get after Trial of Water at level 15 that you can use so you actually have an AOE spell for dungeons and such from level 15-45 when you actually get Holy? Imagine the FF8/FF9 big water bubble forming and floating into the air then bursting and that's more or less what Holy does, so the animation and stuff would work great and give you that Water spell, and it'd be useful for all those leveling dungeons before level 45 we get in roulette where we'd LOVE to have an AOE spell but just don't have one...

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I had raid night and my brain is a little fried.

As far as WHM stuff, I just don't really feel like having a couple extra buttons with a little more interconnectivity is asking for much, especially when AST makes so much more sense to be the healer who can intentionally have limited DPS buttons in favor of setup tools that disguise support as DPS. I'd rather Water be its own independent piece of the earth, wind, water CNJ trinity. Regardless of how it's implemented though, Water I-IV actually have animations in the game already and are used by enemies and CNJ NPCs as well as Y'shtola, and Water IV is essentially a large bubble explosion. Though I see that more as a single target spell early game that upgrades to AoE eventually before becoming something else. I also just really want something like Aerith's Tempest action in FFVIIR or anything Aerith-inspired really.

For SCH:

It's not dissimilar to the SCH build I've had in mind really. I personally would like to see Biolysis replaced with SMN's lost Bio III and restore Miasma III as well. SCH is the healer who feels like its identity is being overshadowed by other healers in other ways. It's healing doesn't visually stand out in anyway that feels different to WHM's healing, and its sci-fi tones are heavily overshadowed by SGE now. Redirecting SCH toward its ACN roots gives us as poison healer which I feel like would stand out very nicely. Having a third DoT as well to revive that feeling of HW having your core 3 DoTs would be a great treat, perhaps something like Pain or Rasp from past Final Fantasies to go with the poison theme, and adopting Fester would also be nice.

As for AST:

I really can't say right now. AST is a healer that I know clearly what direction I'd like to go in, and I've thought of many ideas that I think help accomplish this--essentially having GCD cards that you play in advance on your party members, and then use another GCD to activate your cards, all the while generating a passive resource that you can give to other players to do your damage for you basically--potency magic attacks that come from you that other players detonate. That said, I feel very confident about 1 thing with the AST rework slotted for 7.0: Whatever we get is going to eliminate the bulk of AST's single target buffing. I can't say that for certain of course, but constantly needing to cycle through single targeting is the thing that the general player hates the most about AST and what makes it so undesirable for so many people. I think it's a massive deal breaker that they will address in some fashion, but trying to rattle my brain around ways to eliminate single targeting while creating unique card buffs that take the place of your general DPSing and still make solo-content enjoyable has been a tough challenge. I've yet to settle on anything that I'm fully satisfied with.

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Originally Posted by Renathras

Honestly, Energy Drain is probably one of the worst abilities in the game.

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I agree on this point but I disagree on how you addressed the issue. Granting an Aetherflow spender that is just a shield or heal is no different than just spamming Lustrate to get rid of excess stacks; It's pointless overhealing/overwriting the shield. SGE has to tolerate that playstyle because their MP suffers otherwise, whereas SCH has other problems that would need to be addressed in order for Energy Drain to be removed, those problems being that SCH's toolkit is practically reliant upon it. Dissipation and Aetherpact are 2 very lackluster abilities that are so reliant on Energy Drain that removing it would be pretty much akin to nerfing those skills because 1) The CD on Aetherflow abilities means that you can't use the extra Aetherstacks from Dissipation before Aetherflow comes off of CD and 2) Aetherpact would take even longer to build up unless you're spamming overheals, in which case the abilty itself isn't needed because you've already overhealed whoever would've needed Aetherpact in the 1st place. Not only that but Energy Drain makes up an average of 2-3% of SCH's current damage, that removing it would result in SCH's overall contribution being even lower than AST's unless the damage is distributed elsewhere. However, this damage cannot simply be added to Broil or Bio since increasing their potency would make their impact during the 2 minute burst phase even more important, whereas Energy Drain's low potency received very little help from the 2 minute burst phase so you'd ultimately just end up replacing Energy Drain with another low potency attack anyways, defeating the whole point of trying to remove Energy Drain in the 1st place.

Short of a rework, Energy Drain literally cannot leave without the job falling to pieces, as was the case the last 2 times it got removed.

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

I had raid night and my brain is a little fried.

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All good.

"As far as WHM stuff" - Already went over this (and it's why I didn't mention WHM other than pointing out Water there) that we wouldn't agree on it since you want it to change and I want it to not change (though I'm offering some changes anyway) and so it's no point talkingabout otherwise. So I'll log you as "No, you don't want Water as an early AOE spell version of Holy". Got it. : )

"For SCH" - I figure Biolysis is a different enough name from merely Bio, and this would let us have Bio, Miasma, and Biolysis spell lines in the future (additional spell ranks or whatnot) without the names tripping each other up. Well, except for Masma 2...I suppose we could just make that Shadowflare and be done with it. Have it apply a DoT on enemies entering it akin to how Lype (SGE LB) works in PvP, maybe, and that can count as the 6th DoT. I'm not really married to the idea. But yeah, that's why I suggested the name scheme the way I did. I don't understand how "Bio 3, Miasma 3, Miasma 2, and...Bio 2...?" all being single target DoTs makes very much sense when we could instead have Bio 1/2/3/4..., Miasma 1/2/3/4..., Biolysis 1/2..., Shadow Flare 1/2... instead. I feel that'd be quite a bit LESS confusing. I already find BLM's system annoying (though at least it and RDM use the nomenclature of "even numbers means AOE", I guess...) I never felt SCH was "sci-fi", so I'm a bit confused about that. I always thought of it as a combination of fae and barrier magics.

What I REALLY wanted to know is if you like or dislike the idea of a DoT that has 3 stacks and Fester that optimizes use based on playing with 3 spamable DoTs, one that stacks to 3, and one on a CD that must be used smartly to maximize damage potential. You talk all the time about skill expression, and I feel that's some pretty good skill expression...but you completely...ignore that part of the idea. <_< That's the part I actually most wanted your feedback on. XD I personally love the idea because I liked Resto Druid in WoW having a HoT that worked that way (in fact, all of the stuff here I presented as DoTs Resto worked with HoTs...which I wasn't thinking of when I wrote it, but funny how that worked out; including the "makes a burst heal based on which ones are on the target" thing), so I was hoping to hear your take on that.

"As for AST" - I think what the playerbase hates about the single target buffing is that you're trying to do it as weaves. Malific-Draw - Malific-target-Play - Malific-Draw - Malific-target-Play - Malific-Draw - Malific-target-Play is pretty hard to do. But Draw-target - Play - Draw-target - Play... would fix most of that issue. It is, indeed, why I proposed it. That and actually making it where the AST gets to choose the buffs they want, thus preventing the "Balance fishing" issue, which was why the cards were changed in the first place.

You may be right that they'll just gut the single target buffs, but I'm trying to come up with an idea that's not that. Also to bring back dAST/nAST since I do feel a lot of the playerbase enjoyed that. Though the likely alternative is that they'll just make them like PvP Cards where they're AOE so you could just Draw and Play them right away (if the radius is big enough) and the auto-self-targeting affect the whole party.

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Originally Posted by Silver-Strider

I agree on this point but I disagree on how you addressed the issue. Granting an Aetherflow spender that is just a shield or heal is no different than just spamming Lustrate to get rid of excess stacks; It's pointless overhealing/overwriting the shield.

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Uh...but it's not?

This is going to take a sec, but I genuinely don't understand your position here...

In practice, you're never sitting on 3 AF stacks when AF is coming off CD. IF you didn't have Energy Drain, AF spenders would be your go-to heals, and one per 60 seconds (2 every third minute or so) are spent on Excogitation, which is basically always useful to put on the Tank (again, if you have no ED so aren't suffering a DPS loss by doing so). Soil can be used twice per minute as well. Note that Tanks are always taking damage outside of downtime, so there's no time that these are ever pointless choices. But you can sometimes run into a situation where you've used Soil based on a big damage portion of the fight that required you to hold it for 15-20 seconds of this AF CD (meaning it won't be up again before you need to refresh AF) and Excogitation is already on the Tank, so you have 1 stack left. Presumably if you used Dissipation, it's because you had a lot of healing needs, so we're going to assume you shouldn't have a full 3 stacks from that.

This means, in practice, you only ever "needed" to burn 1 AF stack.

Placing a barrier on the Tank would always be a good use of the resource. Especially in ShB when encounters didn't have 30-50 second gaps where the bosses did literally no (unavoidable) damage. The shield being used on the Tank or being thrown on a party member with a Vuln stack would pretty much always be useful in this sense. It was for this ONE errant AF stack at the end of a 1 min AF cycle that SCH had to have ED added back, but what that did was make people try not to use ANY AFs on healing (since it was now costing them 150 or whatever the potency was before they nerfed it even further to 100) and just dump them all into ED, which also meant using Dissipation as a damage CD instead of a healing one (WHM has this same general issue with Presence of Mind, which was, in ARR alongside Divine Seal, supposed to be used as a healing CDs). In short, rather than saying SCH's toolit is reliant on Energy Drain, I'd say ED broke SCH.

Lustrate DOESN'T work like this because it's a heal all at once. This means if the Tank is at 100%, it does nothing useful. A Shield OR a HoT wouldn't have this problem, as at least some of them would be useful even if the Tank is at 100% right this second, where a Lustrate would not. This is why either of those would be useful, and why I often propose Lustrate should be weaker but have a small shield so it's at least vaguely useful, even when the party's all at 100%. A Shield or a HoT would work, as either one is likely to be at least somewhat useful.

SGE has a similar problem in that it doesn't have a good AG dump, but because it doesn't have ED, people instead think of "Well, since we can't use this on damage...it means using AG isn't a damage loss! So instead, let's talk about how best to use it on healing/mitigation!" (which should be the point of...Healers...after all; at least in theory). So the discussion is instead about keeping good, but also effective, Taurochole and Kerachole uptime and conserving SGE's bigger CDs for more important/heavy hitting mechanics. Where SCH uses AF as a last resort (well, last resort before GCD heals, other than Recitation Spreadlos which is sometimes even used before AF healing), SGE does the opposite, prioritizing AG heals first and then CDs second or in tandem with AG spenders.

This makes SGE feel much better, smoother, and more dynamic since you aren't tying your hands by trying to ignore that 1/8th of your toolkit exists unless you're forced to engage with it. SGE, instead, is rolling through these short CD abilities, throwing them out left and right between its damage rotation, while still having its bigger CDs to fall back on, which honestly feels WAY better and more satisfying to me to play.

And I think this goes into how SCH and SGE (despite superficial similarities and people suggesting otherwise) actually are and feel different to play. They have essentially an inverted priority system where SCH attempts to heal and mitigate through CDs first while SGE attempts to heal and mitigate through resource spenders first. While both are Barrier Healers, both focus more on mitigation than throughput, and both attempt to work out healing plans, SGE's is a lot more flexible to deal with mistakes from party members since it has a much lower cost to throwing out, for example, a Durochole on someone than SCH does a Lustrate.

Though...I'm somewhat curious:

You say that Aetherpact and Dissipation are "reliant" on ED. Shouldn't that be more worded "They aren't reliant on ED, but not having ED makes overcapping them - which feels bad since it's foregone efficiency - feel bad"? You don't HAVE to spend all your AF before refreshing Aetherflow when it comes off CD. It feels bad to do it, but you can hit your AF refresh button even if you have 3 stacks unspent. I'm not trying to be...not trying to get you on some kind of technicality, I feel this actually is an important distinction. The Job doesn't NEED Energy Drain to work. If Energy Drain was removed and Broil did 15 more potency of damage (more or less damage neutral vs using an average of 4 Energy Drains per minute - 3 natural from AF and 3 per 3 mins of Dissipation = +1 per minute average for a total average of 4 per minute; that would technically be 16.6... more, but I'm trying to keep it simple, so pretend that's 15 for now :D ), then SGE would have the exact same performance it does now under optimal ED play, meaning the Job would not be suffering at all - in terms of clearing Enrages and stuff, I mean.

I'm just not sure how it breaks the Job. Feels bad IS a big deal - 100% agreement from me on that - but I'm more saying I don't think it is the crux of the toolkit. And if SCH had something to spend those extra stacks here and there on that felt useful (barriers or HoTs for the MT are basically always useful), then it would even remove that. This also addresses the Aetherpact/Faerie Gauge thing (though I think most of us (?) agree that mechanic ITSELF needs a serious rework...)

The only thing it wouldn't do is that there wouldn't be a "skill" DPS gap between SCHs using ED and those not doing so or not spending all AF on ED, I guess?

I'm also confused why you think buffing Broil would make SCH overpowered in the burst window. It'd be the opposite - ED allows you to slam more buffed potency damage in the burst window whereas putting it on Broil would (15 potency per cast) would reduce SCH's burst potential slightly, but overall it would average out to a similar amount. If it was a smidge low, 20 potency instead would more or less equal it out.

I don't think the Job "(fell) to pieces" without ED the last time. It still worked fine and was still the meta Healer in both SB and ShB during the periods where it didn't have ED. It just felt awkward to play. (WHM had a similar issue with blowing a Lily on overhealing as a movement tool being a DPS gain in ShB...I guess it technically still is/does.)

IF we removed ED tomorrow but buffed Broil by 20-25 potency, SCH would actually be VERY slightly buffed as a Job, not nerfed. Note Glare 3 does 310 damage per cast vs Broil 4 doing 295. A 15 potency boost would make Broil 4 equal Glare 3. A 25 potency boost would make Broil 4 do 10 more potency than Glare 3, which would also be 10 less than Dosis 3's 330. (And keep in mind Biolysis and Eukrasian Diagnosis both have 700 overall potency vs Dia having 660 but applying 60 immediately on hit with the 600 being from the DoT). On balance, SCH needs ED because Broil 4 is 15 potency weaker than Glare 3. Boosting it 15-25 potency would entirely eliminate the need for ED in terms of damage balance. WHM has Assize and SGE Plegma - which I could do the math for when less sleepy - but SCH brings Chain Strat, so those should roughly even out depending on your party's crit luck and performance.

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Short version/TL;DR:

I'm not sure SCH needs Energy Drain in terms of balance. I think the question is more does it need it for play/feel/satisfaction. And as I said, "feels" IS an important part of gameplay, so IS important (to be absolutely clear, I'm not hand-waving that; I just feel that's the actual question). And I say it definitely does while there's no good AF dump.

...but if there were better AF dumps, it might not. So I'm not sure ED is inherently tying the Job together.

But as far as SGE goes, I think it NOT having something like that is actually a positive. It makes it feel and play differently than SCH (in both healing and in damage), which is probably a good thing, and imo (subjective assessment), it makes SGE feel more dynamic, smooth, and fun.

The first thing that comes to mind for SCH for 'what can we make as a Aetherflow spender', assuming the whole system isn't just fully reworked (which it really needs), is a way to apply shielding OGCD. SGE has Panhaima/Haima and Holos for this, SCH has Consolation. Even if that shield were to be very limited in some way, eg the CD is 1min compared to Indom's 30s, or it's 30s but the potency is lower (300p shield vs 400 for Indom, would give it parity with the shield from Holos), or even just having it be equal to Indom, but cannot be effected by Recitation (and is unable to crit full stop). This would allow for the whole 'do I shield this with [new skill], or do I mitigate in a different way, then use that same stack on Indom to heal after?' kind of battle planning to occur. You know, SCH's identity

As for it's VFX, they should rework skill VFX at some point and drop all the sci-fi from the class. SGE has it locked down. Instead, we should go for a more 'mathematical' sort of vibe. Since it evolves from ACN which uses 'mathe-magics' and arcane geometry, something that leans into that. IDK what that would look like though, the first thing that comes to mind is like, the code screens from The Matrix, but that goes back towards sci-fi again. Maybe less 'slam book shut' animations, and more along the lines of Painflare, where you write stuff in the air with a pen?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Renathras

What I REALLY wanted to know is if you like or dislike the idea of a DoT that has 3 stacks and Fester that optimizes use based on playing with 3 spamable DoTs, one that stacks to 3, and one on a CD that must be used smartly to maximize damage potential. You talk all the time about skill expression, and I feel that's some pretty good skill expression...but you completely...ignore that part of the idea.

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I mentioned it. It's literally what I had on my own SCH build as well, basically taking SMN's old Fester. In terms of offensive, as I mentioned, we're both on largely the same page.

On the healing side for SCH, I also wanted to pull a little from modern SMN in a fashion. Basically, beyond Physick/Adlo/Succor, you'd have a single target and AoE spell that changes based on your faerie and consumes Fey Gauge and generates extra Aetherflow for your DPS. This would be Protraction and Indomitability for Eos and Retaliation (Eye for an Eye) and Expedient for Selene. Both Protraction and Retaliation would also be spread-able via Deployment Tactics.

I like how WHM workes atm..
but if i where to improve it i would:

1) Make Dia into an AOE dot!!!!!!!!..
2) Make Glare spam more interesting by adding an % to proc ability
=> that change Glare ability into somrthing else for a short time..ect..

Energy Drain is the best button in the game.