If tank damage is now based on VIT, why do healers still have Cleric Stance?

[Ultimatecalibur]

Cleric Stance adds 10% damage.

It's really just there to add some complexity to their playstyle in the form of stance changing, which tanks still will be doing. But yeah, I wouldn't be against making it MND-based.

No, Cleric Stance is there to allow Healers to meet the DpS requirements of Solo content without being forced to party like they are in other MMOs. Healers stance dancing in duties is the result of unintended emergent gameplay.

Guys, I totally get that Cleric Stance adds potency to attack and reduces potency of heals, and that it's the mark of a good healer to use it properly. My point is more, does anyone feel like the *spirit* of what they did with folding all of Tank damage into VIT, compared with the existence of this mechanic for Healers, is something of a double standard? I sorta do.

First off, both Str and Vit will be influencing tank damage. What is happening is that minimum tank damage based on gear will be increasing (Vit tank damage up) and max tank damage based on gear will be decreasing (Str tank damage down).

The changes are being made to fix Tank gearing problems. Many Hardcore Tanks were ignoring Fending Accessories for Slaying and Pentamelded Crafted Accessories. This would be the same as player meta forcing Healers to need Casting Accessories over Healing Accessories.

[Saccharin]

No, Cleric Stance is there to allow Healers to meet the DpS requirements of Solo content without being forced to party like they are in other MMOs. Healers stance dancing in duties is the result of unintended emergent gameplay.

That's not quite accurate.

Some MMOs just have one caster stat and both heals and damage spells are based on that.

Some MMOs have separate stats for healer spells like FF14 but their damage and healing spells scale off the same stat.

These mean that they dont need a special stance to do some damage while questing.

FF14 has two stats and all casting damage scales from one stat and all healing spells scale from that. This is in theory ideal since it means that healers can't be effective damage dealers. (Well..) It however poses one problem: how do healers do adequate damage while levelling outside, or downtime in instances. The solution: cleric stance. No matter what your class you have all four stats and these are usually known as base stats; these increase slightly while you level. During levelling when you have poor gear your base stats usually are more than enough. It's not until higher gear levels that you gear for your main stat and that means your main stat it's significantly higher than the others.

Take paladins for example: they use conjuror as their job support class. Now if you take cure you can do reasonable heals at lower levels and that's because it uses your base stats. When you gear up the mind component stays the same so with gear you'll have much more health so each heal will cover less of your overall health leaving it useless.

A similar thing happens for healers. As you level up and gear for mind you're damage spells will do proportionately less damage to mobs that are the same level but your heals will obviously increase. Cleric Stance introduces a give and take approach; it gives you the intellect, for damage, but it reduces your mind so you dont heal as much. This is accomplished by swapping the stats around - we can't have healers doing lot's of damage and heals! The 10% extra damage is probably to discourage healers to carry a dps gear set around.

[Ultimatecalibur]

That's not quite accurate.

Some MMOs just have one caster stat and both heals and damage spells are based on that.

Some MMOs have separate stats for healer spells like FF14 but their damage and healing spells scale off the same stat.

These mean that they dont need a special stance to do some damage while questing.

But in some (not all, but enough) MMOs, healer damage potential can be so bad that to complete tasks that Tanks and DpS can normally complete solo they need to party with others or they can not complete it in a timely manor.

We are looking at two sides of the same coin. We pretty much agree on the purpose of Cleric stance: Healers need to be effective in Solo content, but not so effective that they can perform equally to DpS in party content.

My "unintended emergent gameplay" point was about the fact that the Dev team did not expect Healers to "Stance Dance" with Cleric Stance in order to increase their DpS while doing a party content. Players realized that could do so and then ran with it.

Take paladins for example: they use conjuror as their job support class. Now if you take cure you can do reasonable heals at lower levels and that's because it uses your base stats. When you gear up the mind component stays the same so with gear you'll have much more health so each heal will cover less of your overall health leaving it useless.

Uhm, the major reason Paladin heals from Cures fall off so fast is because the magic damage on swords starts lower and scales far slower. (Weathered Shortsword starts at 4 Magic Damage and Almace scales to 53 Magic Damage while a Weathered Cane starts a 8 Magic Damage and Majestas ends up at 105 Magic Damage) That, combined with lack of Mind on Paladin gear, means that the gap between the amounts healed by a single Cure widens incredibly as ilevels increase. An i210 Paladin's Cure heals around as much as that of a naked White Mage using an i55 Weapon.

[FoxyAreku]

No, Cleric Stance is there to allow Healers to meet the DpS requirements of Solo content without being forced to party like they are in other MMOs. Healers stance dancing in duties is the result of unintended emergent gameplay.

That...is not even close to accurate. Healer DPS in groups unitended? Really? You can't honestly think something so ridiculous, can you?

Healers have always been intended to do damage in ALL aspects of the game. They didn't give every healer class a new, higher potency filler move in heavensward for it to not be used. (Not to mention Aero III, Assize's ridiculous damage potential, etc..)

And before someone jumps down my throat...intended=/=required.

[Asmodai]

That...is not even close to accurate. Healer DPS in groups unitended? Really? You can't honestly think something so ridiculous, can you?

Healers have always been intended to do damage in ALL aspects of the game. They didn't give every healer class a new, higher potency filler move in heavensward for it to not be used. (Not to mention Aero III, Assize's ridiculous damage potential, etc..)

And before someone jumps down my throat...intended=/=required.

Yoshida: Yes. Since all DPS jobs will be increasing up through level 60, it makes sense to have the white mage's DPS extend by a proportional amount as well. For development, such as with Bahamut's Coils, the development team assumes what the item level should be for general equipment on players when they clear a raid. They sum up the basic DPS for four DPS and tanks at that assumed item level and cut that by about 10-15% for the minimum clear DPS. Healer DPS is not taken into account when this is set.

Certainly for people who are at world's first level, their goal is to clear it at as low an item level as possible, lower than the one assumed during development. So if you look at the fight and figure out that if it's not numerically possible to clear with four DPS and tanks, you'll need to make up the gap with DPS from healers. Then when those publish clear videos and other people see the healers DPSing, they might think that healers need to be DPSing even though its a situation that only arose because their clear would have otherwise been impossible. While we could take this into account, and assume a different item level in the next update which would then make it impossible to clear even with the healer DPS, we'd eliminate this type of play for highly skilled players who use communication, items, and a high level of understanding to come up with those last second clears. That would be a tough decision to make, so I still think it should be up to each party's own plans.

This is also one of the reasons we decided to implement both a normal and savage version of Alexander. Once again, healer DPS was not included in the development team's calculation as it was for other jobs, so you should just think of healer DPS as a last way to get your overall party's DPS up to where it needs to be.

[Hyperia]

Yoshida: Yes. Since all DPS jobs will be increasing up through level 60, it makes sense to have the white mage's DPS extend by a proportional amount as well. For development, such as with Bahamut's Coils, the development team assumes what the item level should be for general equipment on players when they clear a raid. They sum up the basic DPS for four DPS and tanks at that assumed item level and cut that by about 10-15% for the minimum clear DPS. Healer DPS is not taken into account when this is set.

Healer DPS is certainly required for most clears, even when at target ilevel. This is because many players can not get 90% DPS efficiency out of their class due to a variety of reasons in raids. As much as I would love to see the need for mandatory healer DPS to be removed, I do not expect nor see it in the future.

[Alahra]

As much as I would love to see the need for mandatory healer DPS to be removed, I do not expect nor see it in the future.

Healer DPS wasn't necessary for all of Coil except at low item levels. It's only since Alexander Savage that it became basically mandatory, and they've already said they're going back to a SCOB/FCOB level of difficulty for Midas (Savage), so healer DPS likely won't be required except during earlier stages of progression, as it was in the past.

[Ultimatecalibur]

That...is not even close to accurate. Healer DPS in groups unitended? Really? You can't honestly think something so ridiculous, can you?

Yes, I can say that, because it has been said as such in various interviews with the Dev team. Healers DpSing in ARR content caught them off-guard. Level 50 Healer gear originally did not have accuracy on it as they did not expect healers to be make attacks and require accuracy to hit things. It was only added to i100 to i130 gear after healers started complaining about missing during Coil.

Healers have always been intended to do damage in ALL aspects of the game. They didn't give every healer class a new, higher potency filler move in heavensward for it to not be used. (Not to mention Aero III, Assize's ridiculous damage potential, etc..)

The healers received those new DpS moves to keep up with HW open world mob hp levels while soloing. The Dev team did not want the damage gap between DpS, Tanks and Healers to be so great as to force people to party in the open world while leveling.

And before someone jumps down my throat...intended=/=required.

Yes, intended does not mean required, but it does mean planned for.
Unintended does not mean bad nor unacceptable either. Healer DpS in party content was not planned for, but the Dev team accepted it and for the most part have not nerfed it. (Healer DpS in Cleric Stance was deemed unacceptable in PvP so Cleric Stance was disabled in PvP content)

[KaitlanKela]

No, Cleric Stance is there to allow Healers to meet the DpS requirements of Solo content without being forced to party like they are in other MMOs. Healers stance dancing in duties is the result of unintended emergent gameplay.

Here we go...