Shroud of Saints mana regen should not be static

[Syncness]

You guys are starting to go off topic again.

Slark summarizes my points quite nicely.

I find it really frustrating that OP brings up a very strong point on the future of Shroud, yet quite a few people in here completely ignore it, take his/her words out of context, and argue about something trivial and semi-unrelated.

Shroud needs PIE scaling for a few reasons.
1) Shroud is a flat-rate amount that will lose its mana-regen purposes, and turn into threat dump with "a little extra mana" tacked onto the side.
2) WHMs currently have extremely little control over how to manage mana, or gear for it. For example, opening Shroud up for PIE scaling may offer more incentives to invest in PIE attributes, effectively increasing our options for itemization/stat choices.
3) Gearing PIE currently is pretty lackluster right now, and all of it's benefits are passive, meaning it doesn't really change gameplay much.

Don't care for buffs or nerfs, just care for PIE scaling.

[Pharazon]

You guys are starting to go off topic again.

Slark summarizes my points quite nicely.


Don't care for buffs or nerfs, just care for PIE scaling.

I don't think I've been off topic but rather looking at this from a much broader range. But I will try to be a bit more concise to help sum up some of my longer posts.

First, as far as buffs and nerfs go, if you add any amount of scaling to Shroud you will be automatically buffing it on the higher end of the scale and nerfing it on the lower end because it will actually need to "scale" meaning the lower gear levels will get less than 1060 mp and the higher will get more than 1060 mp. Second SE obviously feels and I would agree at this point that 1060 mp back at high end gear levels is enough so adding scaling to the skill now would simply be an unneeded buff, assuming it went above the 1060 since that is already 20%+ of endgame mana pools. Anyone who is leaning on shroud to keep from going oom after learning a fight, either A. is not healing efficiently and thus needs to work on using their tools better, or B. has a team that needs to avoid more avoidable damage or not pull aggro or use defensive cds better.

Directly to Slark's points

1) I agree but its pointless to change now because that is not the case currently. It is likely it will take another tier or maybe two of gear before this happens so for now we should be vigilant how it goes as we move forward but no need in fixing something that isn't currently broken
2a) I disagree about our control over how to manage mana. I have posted a link to my youtube guide in a recent post where I talk about using the right tools for the job and strongly believe that tying the mana management directly to those tools is what makes the white mage challenging. Having Shroud not be part of the mana management but rather your safety net for inefficiency or mistakes is not bad design, just one that will have to maintained as gear levels rise.
2b) As for increasing options in itemization/stat choices there is a far bigger issue than making PIE an attractive stat. You actually need the ability to itemize. Right now the game does not allow for this as an option because end game gear does not have materia slots outside of vanya's pieces which you won't be wearing long if you are regularly downing coil and capping your myth. If there were more ways to itemize your gear beyond what is essentially 10 materia at best then maybe this would hold more weight.
3) You cant gear PIE right now for the same reasons posted in 2b so this again is a pretty moot point. I honestly can't think of any stat that changes gameplay much. MND you heal for more so maybe you cast less heals, Vit you can take a bit more dmg and not die but thats not really a gameplay change, Crit is in the same boat as mnd really, Spellspeed might actually change gameplay but there's not enough of it to really be able to tell so at this point it doesn't change gameplay for now at least, and even with your proposed changed to PIE your gameplay is going to change how, by letting you cast shroud after you are down 1200 mana instead of 1060? That's not a change that is going to effect gameplay so I don't think that's a valid argument.


Again I think Shroud will need a change but its not right now and its probably not in the next 6 months. Anyone asking for it to change in this thread is doing so prematurely and not giving very good reasons for it to change. The best argument for the change is for a hypothetical gear level that we have no idea when we will get to. I hope this better sums up the points that I have been trying to make and sheds some light on the current and future state of Shroud.9

[Slark]

I don't really have 15minutes to spare right now to watch your video, but I have played MMO's for 12 years, and I can safely say that WHM healing is very elementary and basic in comparison to other MMO's I have played. This is mainly due to the fact that many of the things a WHM does to conserve mana are things every other MMO makes you do as a healer, except they add much more to the table on top of that. By doing this, they not only allow for a higher skill cap, but also for more control over your resource(s).

Itemization/stat choices means having more choices on gear, as well as having more choices on what stats are available to you. I don't see what you are trying to say in regards to what I am.

Gameplay SHOULD change depending on what stat you are focusing on.
You should be able to be a WHM with crazy regen and low-end heals with a PIE focus. You should be able to get a big burst of mana regen out of your mana regen abilities if you focus majorly on it.
You should be able to take advantage of freecures/overcures more often, as well as having more HPS in spammy situations, though seeing a decline in mana efficiency through a spell speed focus.
You should be a better burst healer, and with no downsides besides RNG through a crit focus.
You should be sort of an all-around, and reliable healer with a DET focus.
You should be able to survive alot of things other WHM's cant through a VIT focus.
Most importantly, these things need to be very noticeable.

All of these stats SHOULD change gameplay, but in reality, most of them really do not change anything at this point in time. Largely because there is no incentive, scaling, weak conversions, and balance issues.
Actually, you would atleast be able to go 30PIE attributes, which is a pretty big deal. I've respecced numerous times, and I found 30PIE to be pretty slick by itself. If I had more incentive (an actual ability that scaled through it) then I would go PIE in a heartbeat. I have always been a mana regen and/or a crit-stacking fan in MMO's. But knowing that if I solely focus on Crit for example, I gain such small amounts by doing so (roughly 7% for crit) I ask myself, why even bother? Why should I even care about my gear if it really does not make a noticeable difference? Also, I would like to point out that aside from MND and weapon damage, PIE changes gameplay the most right now. Going from 0 to 30 PIE in attributes is actually noticeable in passive mana regen. Unfortunately, MND is also noticeable, and outshines PIE. All PIE needs is a little something to push it over the edge to compete with MND for players like me, and that push could very easily be scaling on a single ability to make it more attractive.

I ask you this: Scholars' mana regen gets to scale. It gets to become weaker/stronger depending on your gear level, so why shouldn't ours? Aetherflow alone (Not counting aetherflow stacks) is already coming close to doubling Shroud on mana returns. By the time someone is in full ilvl90, it will most likely more than double Shroud. This is in gear that is currently available to us. I'm not advocating for us to be just like them, but its very easy to see that a Scholar is far more in control of their mana supply than we are, simply by better design. (I would like to point out that they may not choose to regen all that mana, and instead, push it into other areas such as HPS or utility, hence, management.) This is mainly because they are given more tools than us to handle it. By the time Ilvl100 comes out, I wouldnt doubt it if Aetherflow+energy drainx3 gave them back 3250+ mana, while ours still returned 1060, on a less-flexible cooldown. Think about that for a while.

Simply being efficient on your 3 single target, 3 AOE spells is nice, but in reality, you should also have to manage and coordinate HPS+mana regen cooldowns, possibly a second resource, (Aetherflow is an example), and have a much more diverse set of spells, making efficiency harder, but more rewarding. Right now, we have enough HPS cooldowns. However, we really are lacking in healing kit options, and having a real way to forcibly regen mana. On top of this, our main mana conserving skill is RNG based (Freecure).

Once again, I'm not advocating to have more mana regen, I'm advocating for us to be in more control of it, which we currently aren't aside from making simple decisions based on our small healing kit. Also, we should have more options. PIE scaling on Shroud only aids in this objective.

In pretty much every MMO, healers have the mana regen stat (PIE in this case) scale with all of their mana regen abilities. Theres a reason they do this. (Also, I'd like to point out SCH's do this.) It promotes diversity in build customization, and proper scaling into harder content, without the need to constantly go and fix it with every content release.