Suggestion about Cleric Stance

[Anova]

I am wondering if this is just a group of players who don't want to get penalized as much for not using cleric stance.

Keep in mind Cleric stance came out in patch 1.20, when conjurers could still equip Fire, thunder, and other 1.0 abilities that scaled off INT or other attributes. So the arguments that this was a relic feature are valid, but I think the benefit of switching between dps and healing is something unique and only possible in FFXIV's thoughtful and more measured pace. You certainly couldn't do this in a game like Wildstar or Secret World where the combat speed is a lot faster.

So this is a hypothetical scenario and I'd like people to weigh in their thoughts on it. Does it ruin the game, make the game better, or something else?

In the next patch, SE decides to make MND contribute to healer damage and healing. They do not remove cleric stance, but instead keep the +10% damage and -20% healing buff. The only difference is that it doesn't switch INT and MND any more. The DPS in cleric stance doesn't change; the CD, animation, and everything else is the same. The only effect is that healers deal more damage outside of cleric stance.

It is a bit of a compromise. The result is that healers who don't use CS aren't crippled in to doing no damage with it and can do their damage rotation between heals. More experienced healers however will probably want the damage boost, even if it costs healing power, especially if they're pushing content and meeting dps checks.

Is it babying casuals? Would it make healers who use CS any less effective? Would it make players feel better learning to use DPS spells and rotations first without cleric stance so they can learn when to put cleric stance on? Would it make players feel more comfortable healing in cleric stance if they weren't crippled with the MND penalty (as easy as popping an emergency divine seal, rouse, or synastry to offset the heal penalty when a healer messes up)?

[Ghishlain]

So this is a hypothetical scenario and I'd like people to weigh in their thoughts on it. Does it ruin the game, make the game better, or something else?

It certainly makes the game better in my mind. The game as a whole is quite slow paced compared to other MMOs. We, as healers, have high impact heals in a game where outgoing damage is relatively low short of a few instances of "ERRRRRM, WOT?". Being able to freely move between using these high impact heals to contributing a fair amount of DPS makes the game more interesting for me to play.

In the next patch, SE decides to make MND contribute to healer damage and healing. They do not remove cleric stance, but instead keep the +10% damage and -20% healing buff. The only difference is that it doesn't switch INT and MND any more. The DPS in cleric stance doesn't change; the CD, animation, and everything else is the same. The only effect is that healers deal more damage outside of cleric stance.

It is a bit of a compromise. The result is that healers who don't use CS aren't crippled in to doing no damage with it and can do their damage rotation between heals. More experienced healers however will probably want the damage boost, even if it costs healing power, especially if they're pushing content and meeting dps checks.

Is it babying casuals? Would it make healers who use CS any less effective? Would it make players feel better learning to use DPS spells and rotations first without cleric stance so they can learn when to put cleric stance on? Would it make players feel more comfortable healing in cleric stance if they weren't crippled with the MND penalty (as easy as popping an emergency divine seal, rouse, or synastry to offset the heal penalty when a healer messes up)?

I wouldn't say its babying. I think the players who are adamant about not DPSing will not DPS even if this change was enacted. It feels like they're just using Cleric Stance as a scapegoat to prevent wanting to DPS because of the "it's too difficult to stance dance" argument. If you remove the necessity to Cleric Stance, the difference is you get to heal GCD --> DPS GCD --> heal GCD --> DPS GCD instead of heal GCD --> DPS GCD --> DPS GCD --> heal GCD. There isn't a big difference in the actual timing but I guess one could argue there's a bit less thought behind it too.

Regardless, in this scenario you presented, if one single GCD is going to wreck your group (and that can be possible), prepare for the big blow. If not, go DPS. It's similar to the current thought of "if group is gonna get wrecked in two GCDs", then don't activate Clerics and be prepared. Else DPS away.

In general, I hope S-E continues to let us have the option with healer DPS. If S-E wanted to remove healer DPS from the game, they would've found a way to disable Cleric Stance for any serious group content by now. If they wanted to force healer DPS into the game, they could force the DPS check so high that you will need the healer DPS on the majority of content (Savage is its own beast in this respect, but I have my own opinions about that). Since S-E has done neither of these, they're basically encouraging the option to DPS, not "you must" or "you mustn't".