Please Please Please Remove Esuna From CrossRole

[Serilda]

I take it off if the fight doesn't need it.

I'm not saying you're wrong to do this (it makes perfect sense!) but the result is exactly what S-E wanted to solve with the skill consolidations and refinements in the first place - people have to hotkey abilities that aren't active depending on the content (like Stone2 for low level stuff back in the day) and twiddle around with buttons and menus (or macros, yet another button) to play optimally. Swapping between say, Largesse and Cleric Stance is flavour. Esuna can be life or death when it matters so I have it bound somewhere important, yet it's a waste of a button when it doesn't, strictly penalising people who don't know which content requires it for no real reason. I hate fiddling with my bars all the time, especially on a pad. It's clunky :/

The only comparable skill is Provoke, but as three separate tank role skills are all variations on Provoke and it's pretty clear cut when you will need it well in advance, it doesn't bug me nearly as much.

[Fannah]

I believe you almost all get the idea of why those skills are in the action role in a wrong way.
"Protect" and "Esuna" are to Healers what "Refresh" and "Tactitian" are to the Ranged physical dps, and are what "Provoke" is to Tanks.

I don't see all those those actions as non mandatory actions, I mean it's not really what is the message imo, even if we technically can decide to don't pick them, but as we can decide to don't use a spell from our own class.
I see them as actions designed for the role we decided to play :
- "Ranged physical dps have to be those who regen their allies' TP and MP."
- "Healers have to reduce dmg with Protect to heal more easily and then use less MP (also with Lucid Dreaming to also reduce enmity to help the tank keeping it), and also have to remove enemies' debuff and DoT"
- "Tanks have to be able to take back aggro if they die".

As you can see, it's always skills made for a type of role which have no changing values according to the class they are supposed to be played. That's why healing spells are still in their kit as they have whole mecanics implying different numbers/potencies etc.

Provoke = auto 1rst enmity
Esuna = removing debuff/dot
Protect = +X% armor/magic armor
Refresh = +X MP/sec
Tactician = +X TP/sec
Diversion = -20% enmity generated for 15sec

You kinda all tend to think it's not part of your class. But you're wrong, it is part of your class. As it always was. And they are also part of your role, that's why they are called "Action role". And WHM/AST/SCH are sharing that same healer role.

Even a dps can decide to never use aoe skills although it's part of his base kit. But if he does, he is a bad dps. If a Machinist or a Bard don't give back MP or TP, then it means he is bad (but hey, it's not part of what he is now according to what you're saying... so yea, he still is bad if he does not do it). I don't believe those skills are optionnal in team (of course I don't need Refresh and even Tactician in solo mode, as you don't need Esuna in solo mode). I just mean you should start to think about that "role" thing.
Stop thinking they are optionnal skills to see from far like if it was... "something else". It's part of your role, just use them. And if someone don't do Esuna, he probably wouldn't even have use it if it was part of his kit before the patch. It's just or a bad player, or someone learning. But don't try to put it on the fault of SE as they can't guess you will make non sense by talking about those action role skills as optionnal. Everything is optionnal if we decide to don't use them. We can select them so they are part of our class still.

[gumas]

I always take esuna because it is my job as healer to heal their debuff too (if it can be remove)

Esuna is definitely a must for me, i dont like seeing a red icon on my party the same as seeing my party hp going below 50%, i play healer because i want to help and support my party, not "i play healer because fast queue time and when something going wrong i blame someone else and 120% not my fault"

I saw healer who didnt remove poison or other removable debuff because they didnt "feel" need to do so and when i ask why, their answer is either "their fault, they can just avoid it" or "eh no worries its only last xx seconds"

Yes they could avoid it but that mean they can bork their rotation and dps, some dps dont like it and as former dps i know that feel (ugh paralyze). all healer need is press a button and 1 sec later bye bye debuff, its sound not important at all but trust me, dps will love you for that.

[Metsonm]

Well, ignoring removable debuffs is sometimes completely valid. If it will fall off and leave them safe for the next AoE then I'll just top them up later instead of spending a GCD to heal then twice.

Just remember: a healer isn't there to keep you at 100% hp, they're just there to keep you above 0%.

[NocturniaUzuki]

E4E should be in place of Protect after you use it at the start of a run. I suppose in a fight like Lakshmi or something you could take E4E instead of Esuna, and keep Protect but Esuna is a better option in pretty much every dungeon. You can easily switch anything for Protect to quickly cast it before a boss or something, and then switch it back.

Don't really know why people aren't utilizing the "no more CD when switching abilities" thing.

I know. I have a macro to swap-cast Protect, which I use at the start of every dungeon/trial. I also have various macros on various classes to swap one skill for another. For instance, when I'm tanking, I don't usually have Low Blow on my role skills. But if I'm running a dungeon and I know the next pull has a mob that requires a stun, I quickly tap a macro, it swaps out one of my lesser-used defensives to Low Blow and I'm good to go.

It's also worth noting that, unlike the old cross-class skills, you can use all of your role skills, regardless of the dungeon sync level. For example, I can use my Lv48 role skill (Rescue) even in a level 24 dungeon (Toto-rak).

[Rox_Unlimited]

snip

Exactly. It's not like it even cost a ton of mana! Esuna Cost<Raise Cost/DPS loss!

[Shurrikhan]

Speaking as a tank/healer who's seen plenty of players walk in bad, even then only a couple Stormblood dungeons 61-70 even have a removable debuff, and they're incredibly minor.

It is your job to remove a debuff when and only when it is a raid DPS gain to sacrifice another RA and another GCD for that purpose.

[Yorumi]

Magic ranged DPS get Erase, which is sorta a poor man's Esuna. "Removes a single damage over time effect from target party member other than self." With a bonus heal. A bit underwhelming in that it only works on DoTs, and I guess not all status effects.

It's also worth mentioning that erase is on like a 2 min cooldown. The mentioned boss puts a new dot on about every 10 seconds and it hits multiple people. It's no substitute for esuna.

to be fair this is kind of the case for every role. Provoke is a tank necessity. Lucid Dreaming is a caster necessity sans BLM. Invigorate is a melee DPS necessity

I'd debate this. Lucid on my rdm gets used as a hate dump more than mp recovery, and I don't tend to need to dump hate with a decent tank. Rdm has pretty incredible long term sustain unless they're forced to spam raise. Would I go with out? No, but I wouldn't put it on the same level as the healer required skills. Similar with invigorate, on my sam unless I'm aoeing it's not really needed. More needed than lucid I suppose giving the way dungeons are aoe'd. Provoke as well is really only needed in a tank swap fight. I get what you're saying and all but I just don't think the skills are as required in as great a quantity as the ones required by healer.

[Gemina]

I've said it several times now, if the skill is mandatory, it doesn't belong as an optional skill to choose from. It's absurd, and it should just be part of the healers tool kit.

All healers need a base skill set which includes at least one cure, one regen, one cleanse, a raise ability, and dps tools. Shields, cards, damage ability etc. is what should be implemented to diversify the healers, and each should have something to compensate for what it doesn't have that another healer does. This is how I see them finally being balanced.

All this BS with buffing one healer to the heavens, while pruning the living crap out of the others isn't getting it done, and the devs would have to be deaf, blind, and dumb to not be aware of this.

All that said, I've done that fight countless times, and more often than not, players stand too close to each other, causing multiple stacks of slime. Esuna won't help you if this happens. You need to focus on who the boss is staring at and start casting a cure spell before the tail swipes. This will keep the player from dying, and it's just good practice at proactive healing. This can be a very challenging fight for healers running PUGs.

[HyoMinPark]

Magic ranged DPS get Erase, which is sorta a poor man's Esuna. "Removes a single damage over time effect from target party member other than self." With a bonus heal. A bit underwhelming in that it only works on DoTs, and I guess not all status effects.

Ah I see. I didn't take that skill for my RDM, so probably why I was unaware of it. (I've got Lucid Dreaming, Addle, Apocatastasis, Diversion, and Break for my RDM--took Break for the self heal prior to getting Vercure since I ripped a lot of aggro from tanks.)

Still though; can't expect to always have a caster in the group, so healers should really always have Esuna. It shouldn't be a role action just because it's too vital to a healer toolkit (when has a healer in any FF game not had a cleanse already built in?). I feel the same way about the MP refreshes, to be honest. After having to take Protect, Esuna, Swiftcast, and Lucid Dreaming (speaking in terms of 4-man content here, not 8-man or 24-man where you have more than one healer), there isn't much room for anything else.

I took Largesse on my AST, since we currently have a lot of tanks with the "it's still the end of HW" mentality pulling way too much than they can handle in leveling dungeons, so I appreciate the little healing boost.