Suggestion about Cleric Stance

[Azurr]

A suggestion to reduce stress on healers:

Make all healer attacks dependent on MND, not INT stat, removing the need to dance in and out of cleric.

That way there will be less downtime, and it would be faster to react to incoming damage to the tank. Those that do not want to dps can still just heal, while those that do want to dps and heal can do so.

Edit after the discussion:

Counterarguments:

Point 1: Cleric gives a 10% damage buff, 20% healing reduction (on top of attribute switch, disabling healing for all intensive purposes). To keep the balance with other jobs losing that 10% might not be too bad.

Point 2: Cleric adds a level of complexity to being a healer, a sense of danger...its been around for a long time, so people are used to it now.

Point 3: Cleric is what makes healers good...even if thats only one piece of a puzzle, other than knowing the encounter well, being able to handle large pulls, undergeared tanks, multiple dps eating the dirt, stray mobs attacking you, all while dodging aoes, controlling your fairy, shields, card buffs, etc.

Point 4: You are asking for nerfs. Not really. Its a shift in what attribute is used, attacks still have a cast time and cost mana, healing is still the main task.

Arguments:

Point 1: Cleric does suffer from lag, meaning sometimes it doesn't come off fast enough.

Point 2: Accuracy penalty is still there. It doesn't feel particularly good to switch to cleric and toss in a mana-costing skill that just misses, even if that only happens on occasion.

Point 3: Cleric became a metric for judging healers, and that's not a good thing. MND base would make it less visible if healer tried to weave in dps or not.

Point 4: Removing cleric would give WHMs space for another skill.

An Alternative Idea:

Remove MND/INT swap that cleric does (with MND being the new stat), while keeping its 10% damage up and possibly increasing the healing penalty from 20% to 50%. That way there would still be a need and a risk to dancing in and out of cleric, but out of cleric healer dps will be more potent than it is now.

[Fevelle]

If something like that is to happen, they should implement it as a norm for all healers and scrap Cleric Stance, changing it into something else, exclusive to WHM, like Lightspeed is to AST.

To be honest, this would solve 2 problems with one change: the lack of WHM utility (since the new skill could be our version of Virus/Disable - something called Dispel, maybe? And Virus could go back to be a SCH only skill) and the burden of stance dancing, that prevent some healers of doing DPS due to lack of confidence.

I HIGHLY want this.

[Twilite]

Right, Cleric Stance while on recast, can mean the death of a tank. But it takes some experience in knowing when it's right to use it.

[Jamillion]

So are we just asking for nerfs on everything now?

[Fevelle]

So are we just asking for nerfs on everything now?

This is not a nerf, this is a system change much like tanks damage scaling with vitality (they should have added that already).

[GarnetTribal]

I never thought about this. It's fantastic. I fully support this decision.

[Ghishlain]

I don't agree with this. I like the idea that it requires some semblance of skill and forethought to go from Healing mode to DPS mode and healer's need to understand the fight and their toolkits properly so they can make the most beneficial decision for their party. Activating Cleric Stance disables your healing (mostly) for 5 seconds. It's important for the healer in question to understand when your party is safe and can safely toggle Cleric Stance and when its not safe to refrain from activating Cleric Stance and prepare for the big oncoming hit.

Also, I'm not quite sure what your point is about why all attacks, if MND based, would generate more enmity. In fact, you're incorrect in this assessment because Cleric Stance also contributes a 10% attack power boost so your DPS abilities actually generate more enmity when Cleric Stance is active. I'd like you to clarify this point further, please.

[Miyu20]

And be it said hereforth, that a new breed of healer be born unto the world. A healer unthinking, only caring about DPS. Honestly, this is what separates the good Healers from the bad healers.

Without this, why not every tank have one stance that is tank stance and DPS stance all in one? Don't forget Monk's Super stance Fists of Heaven now including Fire/Wind/Earth in a single super stance.

Not only that but SE made it so healing is reduced in Cleric so you can't lustrate in Cleric anymore. You missed the easy days of Scholar, my friend. I embraced the changes and enjoy switching a lot more. Brings more challenge to the game.

Please don't shy away from a learning experience. Don't shy away from challenges.

SE, please DO NOT do this.

[Normalizer]

The ability to stance dance is what make you a good healer... But I guess it doesn't matter anymore, right! Just dps without cleric stance if you can't. Stance dancing is not what prevent healer not doing dps though. It does prevent bad healer from doing good dps though :P

[Fevelle]

The ability to stance dance is what make you a good healer... But I guess it doesn't matter anymore, right! Just dps without cleric stance if you can't. Stance dancing is not what prevent healer not doing dps though. It does prevent bad healer from doing good dps though :P

Yes it does. With the current attitude of the community, a lot of new players I know (some of them that I invited personally) feel discouraged to try and DPS because they could let the tank die.
And let's stop calling people 'bad', geez.

And be it said hereforth, that a new breed of healer be born unto the world. A healer unthinking, only caring about DPS. Honestly, this is what separates the good Healers from the bad healers.

Without this, why not every tank have one stance that is tank stance and DPS stance all in one? Don't forget Monk's Super stance Fists of Heaven now including Fire/Wind/Earth in a single super stance.

Not only that but SE made it so healing is reduced in Cleric so you can't lustrate in Cleric anymore. You missed the easy days of Scholar, my friend. I embraced the changes and enjoy switching a lot more. Brings more challenge to the game.

Please don't shy away from a learning experience. Don't shy away from challenges.

SE, please DO NOT do this.

Your way of looking into things is wrong, so let me explain.

Stances for MNK and Tanks in general are BONUSES - be it to enmity or damage - while our stance is a complete swap of attributes.

A MNK without any stance can still do damage, lower, but still damage.
A tank with Tanking stance can still do damage, lower, but still damage.
A tank with DPS stance can still generate aggro, lower, but still aggro.
A healer in Cleric Stance can't heal. And that's it.

Your view would be right if Cleric Stance was a 10% bonus to damage with a 20% healing reduction - not a complete change of main stats with healing reduction.