A simple revamp to Cleric Stance that might fix raid balancing..

[RichardButte]

What if Cleric Stance was a baseline skill for all healers, and worked like this:

-Cleric Stance will once again be a toggleable buff.

-Unlike AST's stances, it cannot be enabled in combat, only DISabled. This means that the healer can begin combat with it on, but can only turn it off. Once off, we cannot enable it while in combat.

-Baseline healer damage will be 5% of what it is now.

-While active, Cleric stance will reduce healing potency by 75% but increase damage potency by 500%.

This will do two things, some of which people probably won't like, but it would help the developers a great deal:

1. It will mean that no one will ever call on healers to DPS in boss battles, ever (except maybe at the beginning for a bit of extra damage before we flip CS off to start healing.)

2. It will mean the developers will never again have to worry about whether or not they should factor healer DPS into DPS checks.

Now, is this a change that's better for players? Probably not, but it is way, WAAAAY better of a situation for the developers because balancing raid content has proven to be a nightmare because of how potent healer DPS is (and better balanced raid encounters technically ARE good for players as well).

With this change, healer DPS wouldn't throw off balancing in encounters, but healers would very much still be able to solo when out on their own.

[Penthea]

-Unlike AST's stances, it cannot be enabled in combat, only DISabled. This means that the healer can begin combat with it on, but can only turn it off. Once off, we cannot enable it while in combat.

-Baseline healer damage will be 5% of what it is now.

-While active, Cleric stance will reduce healing potency by 75% but increase damage potency by 500%.

That version of cleric stance won't be useful on fights that start off with high damage but have lower damage later.

I miss the old cleric stance. I actually liked stance dancing, but I understand why many didn't like it.

[WeekendSoja]

Not sure why this is an issue if you are a raider. In fact, if you are truly and honestly tackling savage content with the intent to clear while it is current you should be far more in tune with your main job than almost everyone that plays your job.

Savage was created for the lowest percentage of this games audience because their are still some people who want to challenge themselves. Luckily, in savage everyone is forced to use their entire toolkit to the best of their ability, if tanks can't mitigate, stance dance and dps than you lose, if the healer can't heal it and deal it than you lose, if a dps can't dps than...you wipe at 1% (which is the thing that can easily burn out a group).

Again, not sure the request to change this for raid balancing cause raiding was made for the try hard 5-10%.

[Taika]

This would lead to 1. pretty much no one running any casual content as a healer ever, and 2. groups running all hard content with a solo healer. It certainly wouldn't lead to anything good. And you can already solo heal content if you and your group wish to do so, if you wish to avoid DPS-focused healer play.

[Odd]

I would never play a healer again if I couldn't throw out respectable damage whenever I feel like it. In fact, I would quit the game, since I love my WHM so much as it is.

[RichardButte]

It certainly wouldn't lead to anything good.

Again, this would be better for the developers, not necessarily the players.

Other MMOs deal with healers DPSing by making it so they can't really DPS, but those are MMOs where each class has multiple specs, one of them always being a DPS spec for soloing.

Cleric Stance would be "DPS spec" for healers in this game, since there's no other option. If other MMOs had healing classes that were as strong as XIV's, they'd have similar issues in balancing raiding.

Really, subtracting the whole "We do/n't balance around healer DPS" issue from the equation would help XIV's raid balancing immensely.

[Rawrz]

I ran healer throughout ARR and SB because of the sheer control you have over an encounter. You can adjust healing output to fix slip ups or push DPS while OGCD healing. Someone dies? You have room to adjust your playstyle to raise them. You make constant choices. Do I raise him now or wait 7 more seconds for swift?

If you take away the ability to adjust you take away the fundamental control a Healer has over an encounter.

RDM has since filled that void I had for control, since I'm not a fan of the new SCH playstyle (in part because SCH used Cleric Stance the most efficiently and therefore with its removal it gained the least.)

If I could redo cleric stance, I would change it to something that only rewards. Healers who only heal wouldn't use it. Healers who would use it would need to plan their ogcd openings with it.

Cleric Stance- Increases damage dealt by 5%. Duration 15 seconds.

Cool Down- 10 seconds.

Healers would have to use cleric stance at least 4 times a minute to keep it perm, but it would keep dps healers more active and rewarding them so.

All the benefit of old Cleric Stance without the risk, while creating "work" for the offensive healer.


Edit:

I totally missed the point of this thread.

[Sebazy]

At the risk of sounding incredibly snobby;

It gets kind of old seeing people with little to no savage experience (From what I can see at least, no Windup Louisoix, no Gordias/Creator mounts, no logs, nor even any normal alex/omega minions if I'm not mistaken, by all means correct me if I'm wrong) making suggestions involving sweeping changes that would effectively remove a very significant portion of the gameplay healers have in the end game.

Currently we have the choice of either pushing DPS or focusing on the heals, DPS/HPS checks and the rest of the party play a factor in this as well of course, lets not forget that this is a team game now. Irrespective of the pressure you might feel that's being placed upon you, it's still a decision that you have a very substantial say in.

What you're proposing is every bit as bad as the fictitious and oft quoted (But rarely seen) PF leader that demands 90percentile healer DPS or kick. This would entirely remove that choice from us and force your seemingly baseless and completely unfounded ideals upon everyone irrespective of if they are chasing world firsts or just wanted a break from ERPing in Limsa.

So yeah, thanks but no thanks. Yoshida's raid design team appear to have learnt a huge amount from the mistakes they made with Zurvan and Creator Savage. The only example I've seen so far of a rough mechanic being 'skippable' in SB so far is Zeno's dual tethers + pushback in Ala Mhigo. I've not seen any poor phasing whatsoever in the 8 mans tho.

Just to clarify, healer DPS was really only an 'issue' with stuff like Zurvan because of two issues, the content was marginally undertuned with DPS checks that were perhaps a little too easy. More significantly, the phases within the encounter were poorly planned out with transitions happening at fixed percentages and key gimmicks and mechanics happening late into a phase that would easily be skipped with people pulling their socks up and healers pitching in a good amount. This seemed to be a mentality unique to how SE designed encounters late into HW as it's never really been an issue elsewhere even when the content was far harder (Aka Gordias/Midas/ThordanEX).

[Cynfael]

What if Cleric Stance was a baseline skill for all healers, and worked like this:...

How about...no.

What I would like is for people to stop trying to strip power from the healer role. Those who want to do less with it will continue to idle; those who enjoy the versatility of the role will continue to do so.

As for developer issues, I think they can handle it just fine. It's a gross overstatement to claim that healer DPS alone is making raid balancing a nightmare; if anything, in most cases, it's part of what allows top progression groups to clear while below the expected minimum ilvl. If developers are so concerned about healer DPS breaking the design of a particular encounter, they can simply increase the healing requirement.

[technole]

Not sure why the OP thinks healer damage is so potent, of course it's required to clear Savage early on and even then it can barely be enough at first glance. Later floors, first weeks clears are generally near enrage in i320. Obviously as the weeks go by and statics get i340/345 weapons the balance changes. But that's normal raid reward progression. Weekly clears get easier and if you are already a more higher-end group that can push healer and tank DPS, the better.

The A11S designer, aka Mr. Ozma and Sophia hasn't done a Savage floor in Deltascape yet, so we might not be out of the woods yet on awkward phase pushes.

According to an interview by YoshiP before SB, O1S was designed by someone who hasn't done a raid before (that is very obvious), O2S was by the A9S designer, and O3S/O4S was Sudo from A3S/A8S/A12S, the best raid designer this game has. He also did Thordan Extreme, and will be responsible for the "Super Savage" in 4.1. I love that his fights are always well-scripted.

I'm not sure who did Zurvan, he hasn't been on-record who the designer was. But we remember YoshiP saying they considered the higher number of A12S clears as a baseline, and that sure made a pug divide. Aka "Skip Soar or Disband". I kind of enjoyed seeing the salt because it really shed some light on every person contributing good DPS and those who had no business being in an extreme primal.

At the risk of sounding incredibly snobby;

It gets kind of old seeing people with little to no savage experience (From what I can see at least, no Windup Louisoix, no Gordias/Creator mounts, no logs, nor even any normal alex/omega minions if I'm not mistaken, by all means correct me if I'm wrong) making suggestions involving sweeping changes that would effectively remove a very significant portion of the gameplay healers have in the end game.

Currently we have the choice of either pushing DPS or focusing on the heals, DPS/HPS checks and the rest of the party play a factor in this as well of course, lets not forget that this is a team game now. Irrespective of the pressure you might feel that's being placed upon you, it's still a decision that you have a very substantial say in.

Yeah exactly. I'm sure it shows in my tone sometimes in some questionable threads. However sometimes it needs to be called out when they haven't even stepped foot, let alone cleared the hardest content in the game.