Cleric Stance Discussion - Is it needed?

[Ogulbuk]

Not necessarily. The formula does not have to be entirely linear, nor over-penalize that there are people at 80%, it can also weight roles. It's the kind of thing that could be designed carefully so that you encourage the healer to always keep everyone at least at 80%, with a minor incentive on top for keeping everyone at 100%, major incentive to not let anyone be at 20%.

[Elleia]

Not necessarily. The formula does not have to be entirely linear, nor over-penalize that there are people at 80%, it can also weight roles. It's the kind of thing that could be designed carefully so that you encourage the healer to always keep everyone at least at 80%, with a minor incentive on top for keeping everyone at 100%, major incentive to not let anyone be at 20%.

Not sure I like this idea either, it seems like it might lead to lots of overheal as both healers try to scramble and top the party even when it's not needed right away. Could also fall into the trap of one healer solo-healing while the other goes full-time DPS, with the DPS healer yelling at his co healer to top the party faster to keep up the damage buff. Not to mention server ticks would make this very annoying, having to wait for your buff to come back on even though the party's been topped.

[Ogulbuk]

Could also fall into the trap of one healer solo-healing while the other goes full-time DPS, with the DPS healer yelling at his co healer to top the party faster to keep up the damage buff.

Already been in raids where one of the healers refuse to turn off Cleric. As for overhealing, well, at least that makes sure the healer is doing his primary job, and is not unlike people that refresh all their 30 second DoTs every 9 seconds.

If I was to nitpick the idea myself, Id say the biggest issue with it is solo play, when Cleric is the most needed, you are unlikely to be full HP because you actually got agro.

[Elleia]

Already been in raids where one of the healers refuse to turn off Cleric. As for overhealing, well, at least that makes sure the healer is doing his primary job, and is not unlike people that refresh all their 30 second DoTs every 9 seconds.

If I was to nitpick the idea myself, Id say the biggest issue with it is solo play, when Cleric is the most needed, you are unlikely to be full HP because you actually got agro.

I'd rather they increase the healing needed in fights for Stormblood to help reduce idle/DPS time than force players to overheal the party so they can DPS better. The idea of a damage buff increasing as the party's health increases just seems unnecessarily clunky to me. It's an interesting idea but I'd rather them figure out something else if they really want to cut cleric stance.

[Ogulbuk]

I'd rather they increase the healing needed in fights for Stormblood to help reduce idle/DPS time than force players to overheal the party so they can DPS better. The idea of a damage buff increasing as the party's health increases just seems unnecessarily clunky to me. It's an interesting idea but I'd rather them figure out something else if they really want to cut cleric stance.

It is impossible to permanently increase how much healing is needed in an RPG. Progression will continue. EX Roulettes require iLVL of 230, if you go there with a group exactly of that level, you may indeed find that the healer needs to stick to healing. If everyone is i270, the healer will have idle time. Take those players to any other lvl 60 dungeon, even more so.

Personally, I used to love a dead MMO called City of Heroes, it was a balance mess, BUT it had some good ideas. One of them is that "healers" didn't exist per se, instead you had support, healing just happened to be a support tool. A "healer" wasn't just healing, he was also buffing players and de-buffing enemies, and also doing some damage, all while also healing (if they had to.)

This is a detour even from what I said about a passive damage boost while everyone is full HP (I was trying to stay on topic) but ideally, Healers would simply be improved by giving them more support tools OTHER than healing.

I posted this somewhere else: Imagine if SCH had a vulnerability soil that boosts everyone else's damage, WHM Stone landed a vulnerability on the target and AST was able to give everyone a haste or damage buff, and all these would require their own meta-games to sustain.

[Elleia]

...ideally, Healers would simply be improved by giving them more support tools OTHER than healing.

I posted this somewhere else: Imagine if SCH had a vulnerability soil that boosts everyone else's damage, WHM Stone landed a vulnerability on the target and AST was able to give everyone a haste or damage buff, and all these would require their own meta-games to sustain.

More support tools would be nice, but I'd like them to do something more interesting than a "set and forget" kind of thing, like how AST's card are now. For example, stone putting up a vuln buff doesn't really change the playstyle or help with downtime at all - WHMs will just have to DPS as they do now to keep the debuff up. I can't remember where somebody mentioned it but I liked the idea of channeled buffs. Filling downtime with a channeled move that buffs the party's dps or speed would be interesting. Of course, with aoes and dodging, the cooldown would have to be fairly short (similar to the current cleric stance, even) so that you can channel your buffs whenever heals aren't needed.

[Ogulbuk]

More support tools would be nice, but I'd like them to do something more interesting than a "set and forget" kind of thing, like how AST's card are now.

I was giving quick examples that would require little redesign. SCH already have exclusive soil effects, that's why I mention a vulnerability soil for them. It could be also tied to Aetherflow, making you have to evaluate if it's use would be better at the time than use of Lustrate or Sacred Soil.

WHM could get Dia (in XI, that spell lowers defense and adds light dot) tweaked to work with this game's effect. It could have some synergy with healing, something that encourages a bit more thought than just tossing it at the foe.

I got to admit I am not familiar with AST at all. And these again are just examples, im sure there are tons other mechanics that could be used as support tools.

[Adire]

I posted this somewhere else: Imagine if SCH had a vulnerability soil that boosts everyone else's damage, WHM Stone landed a vulnerability on the target and AST was able to give everyone a haste or damage buff, and all these would require their own meta-games to sustain.

If all of this is on top of removing cleric stance, I'd have to oppose it. If the DDs suck, the healer giving them 10% haste or 10% more damage really isn't going to help anything. A good healer that DPSes can somewhat offset bad DD damage with cleric stance, they would not be able to with just support buffs.

Though I guess it would encourage people to kick bad DDs more and maybe get them to stop being bad or apathetic or lazy. That would be nice.