Suggestion about Cleric Stance

[Kabzy]

I think it's safe to say that some people will never learn.

Let us not waste our energy and rejoice in the fact that SE, even with some of their questionable decisions, will not pay attention to the minority here.

[Ghishlain]

So again: outside of false "skillcap" it adds, what's the point of having Cleric Stance, bloating the WHM skillset and other healers crossclass slots, if in all previous games, healers damage would scale with MND, even powerful spells like Holy and Ultima (FFII)?

The simple answer is - because that's what they chose to do. Despite everything, you can see all the references the dev team took from previous Final Fantasy's and morphed them to their vision. Examples include:

• Various weapons derived from the Final Fantasy series. Ragnarok was predominately a sword and they made it an Axe in this version of the game. Gambanteinn was a melee club for WHMs in XI and is now a BLM staff. etc. etc.
• Summoner pets (I think this one speaks for itself)
• All jobs in this game are derivatives of what they represent in prior games. WARs and DRKs were predominately made for high damage, WHM had access to limited DPS abilities (but what DPS abilities they had access to were very powerful), BRD was heavily support oriented in previous iterations, there was no such thing as a "tank" in previous Final Fantasies (though there are high defense classes), and the like.
• The Gold Saucer, Triple Triad, and Lord of Verminion are derivatives of their namesake from previous Square-Enix titles.

The list goes on and on but to put it simply - this is the direction the FFXIV Dev Team chose to do. You're allowed to disagree with their decision but in the end, we can't do anything but complain until they either change it due to popular demand or they tell everyone flatly "no".

I also disagree with your assessment that Cleric Stance provides a false skill ceiling as well. In lower tier dungeon content, it is fairly simple to go to and from Cleric Stance and not Cleric Stance like a pendulum.

However, in higher tier content, it's important for the healer to understand the nuances of the fight and determine when it is a good idea or not a good idea to activate Cleric Stance. Even fights like Alex normal can provide challenges to that. For example, you'll want to refrain from using Cleric heavily in the final phase of A4 due to the out going damage form Nisi + Orbs + Discoid, but there is time to slip in two DoTs or so after Discoid is resolved but before Nisi goes back out again. In contrast, A3 healing requirement is "light" despite how much damage is actually going out. Usually nothing a Medica II / Aspected Helios can fix from a WHM/AST respectively and therefore plenty of opportunities for DPSing.

The fact Cleric Stance exists and basically destroys one's ability to heal for 5 seconds encourages healer's to think ahead and find opportunities where they can continue to support the group via DPS. It cultivates foresight and mechanic understanding. The game as a whole is heavily scripted and Cleric Stance may begin to lose its appeal if the dev team decides to step away from that kind of scripting. Until then, make use of an ability that gives you the equivalent attack stat of any equal level DPS.

If you removed Cleric Stance and made all attack spells MND based, I would dislike the fact that I've now lost 10% attack damage due to removing Cleric Stance.

If you kept Cleric Stance and made all attack spells MND based, I think that would heavily encourage terrible play. Most healers would begin to think "let's just full time Cleric Stance and just heal at 80% capacity!" which would sadly be the case once you hit a certain gear level.

No, I would want to keep it as is - a skill that encourages healer's to give thought to the consequences of their actions. If they activate Cleric Stance at a wrong time, the party will pay for it. This is the risk and reward level I want when healing because I want to keep thinking ahead of the fight.

So, I've answered your question. Now it's your turn to answer mine.

What reason is there for a healer to not DPS aside from the following:

1. I don't want too
2. Because it's not my role too
3. I'm uncomfortable with the content at this time

The only valid reason in that is #3 and eventually a player will overcome that as they get familiar with the content. The other two just show selfishness and stubbornness and those are generally frowned upon traits.

[Fevelle]

So, if the problem is the "skill layer" it adds, why not just transform it into a general action for all healers and substitute it with something else on WHM's toolkit?

[Blessedbythesun]

Gonna have agree. I would much rather not see a change to Cleric Stance. You either know how to finesse the stance dancing, learn, or don't if you aren't comfortable. The whole premises of the ability is for healers to become more involved with one or the other.

Much so, I would also rather them not muck up MND and INT. If that were to happen, healing and magic would have to be completely rebalanced.

[Blessedbythesun]

So, if the problem is the "skill layer" it adds, why not just transform it into a general action for all healers and substitute it with something else on WHM's toolkit?

Because the problem isn't with cleric stance or WHM tool kits in general. It's completely unnecessary to change something that works as as intended just because the casual player base aren't taking the time to learn how to use it in a way that suits them comfortably.

[Fevelle]

Because the problem isn't with cleric stance or WHM tool kits in general. It's completely unnecessary to change something that works as as intended just because the casual player base aren't taking the time to learn how to use it in a way that suits them comfortably.

So explain me the lack of a Virus/Disable counterpart for WHM, outside of Cleric Stance taking up its place. This has nothing to do with casual playstyle. Why would an ability that is a pre-requisite for every healer be kept in one's toolset taking up space if every healer needs it?

[Ghishlain]

So, if the problem is the "skill layer" it adds, why not just transform it into a general action for all healers and substitute it with something else on WHM's toolkit?

There is no problem with the skill layer it adds. You're just making it a problem because you dislike it. You'll notice that there are quite a number of people who like the idea of switching from DPS mode to Healer mode and vice versa and don't see a problem with it.

Again, Cleric Stance cultivates foresight and attentiveness in a healer in higher tiers of content. Remove that and you remove a key fundamental to helping your party as a healer in FFXIV.

And again, I have to ask.

What reason is there for a healer to not DPS aside from the following:

1. I don't want too
2. Because it's not my role too
3. I'm uncomfortable with the content at this time

The only valid reason in that is #3 and eventually a player will overcome that as they get familiar with the content. The other two just show selfishness and stubbornness and those are generally frowned upon traits.

This is the third time I've asked some semblance of this to you. Either answer the question or say you don't know how to answer it because you don't. Stop dodging the bullet.

Your move.

[416to305]

So, if the problem is the "skill layer" it adds, why not just transform it into a general action for all healers and substitute it with something else on WHM's toolkit?

I feel like you're not actually reading what anyone on here is saying. No one is disagreeing that getting rid of Cleric and letting you DPS without it would make things easier and free up a spot on your hot bar, since it obviously would. What everyone is saying is that no fight requires you to be healing non stop. There's tons of downtime which can make healing boring sometimes especially in low level dungeons, so filling that space with DPS is what most people do. The point is that even doing DPS during downtime is still pretty boring, so Cleric at least adds a level of skill to doing it. You have to be good and know if you have time to flip it on, get out some DoTs or DPS and flip back. That's where Benediction is super handy as well, since it still restores 100% HP even if you are in Cleric. I just honestly can't help but feel that anyone that actually thinks it should go away, can't possibly be that good of a healer. At the end of the day, removing Cleric and not having it be a requirement is basically like getting a major potency boost and makes the class easier. So I feel like it's no different than whining that Bard's Heavy Shot should be 200 potency instead of 150. Like there's no logic behind it other than just making something more powerful.

To be totally honest with you, I've played as WHM almost a year now. Even when I first started I don't ever remember thinking "man I hate having to use Cleric Stance" like ever. Yeah there's those odd times where you're like "why is it so hard to bring this tank's HP up?" and realize it didn't turn off properly, but I can say with total honestly that I've never wished once that it wasn't required. When I was playing as my level 50 BLM for fun the other day (haven't touched it since I started healing), it felt so weird just attacking and not changing stances. Like I just kept instinctively trying to turn it on when my mind would realize I'm targeting an enemy and the red Cleric icon wasn't up. It just gets embedded in how you play.

[Fevelle]

...

Because, as a player who played every freaking game from this series, ~personally~ that's not what I rolled healer for. I didn't advocate for the end of Cleric Stance, I wanted a change in damage scaling to reflect healer's main stat, wich would free space on hotbars/crossclass slots. Just it. If you like to DPS, fine, I do not and I only do it because of the current meta.

So don't dodge the bullet too: why keep CS as a Conjurer skill instead of adding it to general actions and replace it on the Conjurer's toolset with a much needed utility skill?

I feel like you're not actually reading what anyone on here is saying. No one is disagreeing that getting rid of Cleric and letting you DPS without it would make things easier and free up a spot on your hot bar, since it obviously would. What everyone is saying is that no fight requires you to be healing non stop. There's tons of downtime which can make healing boring sometimes especially in low level dungeons, so filling that space with DPS is what most people do. The point is that even doing DPS during downtime is still pretty boring, so Cleric at least adds a level of skill to doing it. You have to be good and know if you have time to flip it on, get out some DoTs or DPS and flip back. That's where Benediction is super handy as well, since it still restores 100% HP even if you are in Cleric. I just honestly can't help but feel that anyone that actually thinks it should go away, can't possibly be that good of a healer. At the end of the day, removing Cleric and not having it be a requirement is basically like getting a major potency boost and makes the class easier. So I feel like it's no different than whining that Bard's Heavy Shot should be 200 potency instead of 150. Like there's no logic behind it other than just making something more powerful.

To be totally honest with you, I've played as WHM almost a year now. Even when I first started I don't ever remember thinking "man I hate having to use Cleric Stance" like ever. Yeah there's those odd times where you're like "why is it so hard to bring this tank's HP up?" and realize it didn't turn off properly, but I can say with total honestly that I've never wished once that it wasn't required. When I was playing as my level 50 BLM for fun the other day (haven't touched it since I started healing), it felt so weird just attacking and not changing stances. Like I just kept instinctively trying to turn it on when my mind would realize I'm targeting an enemy and the red Cleric icon wasn't up. It just gets embedded in how you play.

This has nothing to do with the sentence you quoted and people who think that stance dancing is fun is just personal opinion, just like it's my personal opinion that the 2.0 BLM rotation was fun, something a lot of people find boring. Outside of that, yeah, I agree, but don't you think it's useless to keep it as a skill when every healer needs CS? Wouldn't it be better to have it as a general action instead?

[Ghishlain]

Because, as a player who played every freaking game from this series, ~personally~ that's not what I rolled healer for. I didn't advocate for the end of Cleric Stance, I wanted a change in damage scaling to reflect healer's main stat, wich would free space on hotbars/crossclass slots. Just it. If you like to DPS, fine, I do not and I only do it because of the current meta.

Thank you.

So don't dodge the bullet too: why keep CS as a Conjurer skill instead of adding it to general actions and replace it on the Conjurer's toolset with a much needed utility skill?

Because an ability that swaps MND and INT doesn't belong in the general toolset. There's no need for it on any other job to have. You can make the argument it might fit for ACN or THM but you can also make the argument that healer's needed something that allowed them to solo fights in MSQ and thus only healer's needed it. CNJ is the only healer available pre-30 so it makes sense that it belongs in that category. Though I don't think CNJ/WHM needs any non-healing utility. They're designed for high impact and it shows with their kit.