Shouldn't Virus be a healer debuff again?

[KDSilver]

The main problem by asking this is something I noticed in general.
Of course there are some good players arounds, melee or casters who used these spells. But, mostly, it isn't. Of course, I guess there also are DPS who like being able to participate to mitigation. BUT...

This is mostly never done. Unless you run content with people you know and have talked about it, these abilites are completely forgotten.

It is understandable in some way. The first members in the party who care about everyone's life and mitigation of aoe damages are healers. DPS too, but far less than them cause it's not the primary fonction of their job. And because of that, a lot/too many dps seems to completely forget they have this utility.

And this is the sad part of it. As a healer, you knew you had this before, you had the control of Virus, and when you see you can't do it anymore but those you can don't, it's frustrating.

So yes, of course, you can can heal without a prob almost everything (almost I say cause you feel the difference if you have no mitigation on O4S). But still, Virus still exists and is completely forgotten.

Shouldn't healer get this skill back, even a weaker version of it since they are the first concerned about incoming damages? (Virus was super strong, it was 15%, and right now with the current system, it would be overpowered, so that's why I'm saying a weaker version of it. Ast had Disable at 10% and worked with Virus).

Without removing it from dps of course.
I'm not only talking about savage content however, but any type of 8 man trial or more.

[Fynlar]

Well you know, Virus was an Arcanist skill, and Arcanist is a DPS. It technically never was a "healer" skill.

Healers just were able to use it due to SCH being able to use it, which was only because of their ACN heritage.

[JunseiKei]

Like the above reason, it stemmed from a DPS base class. Only SCH had the good version (of the healers).

Most content that a majority of players run don't need these skills at all. You'll only find them as make-or-break in savage- not even extreme primals really need their use (and the last primal that arguably needed it was Thordan's Reign).

[Ametrine]

AST's Disable was gutted as ability bloat and is now relegated to their PVP debuff. Pre-Stormblood Disable was a joke, post-Stormblood Disable saves lives.

I don't really see how giving it (back) to specifically healers benefits parties more than it does having a DPS caster handle it. It was never a necessary skill in anything but bleeding edge content, anyway, and if you're on that level, you'd probably be discussing your strategy on when to use it with your party.

I never really liked Virus as a "mitigation" tool, since healers mitigate almost entirely by buffing/shielding party members, so Virus, at first glance, felt like it was supposed to fit in with the ACN DOTs, despite not technically being one. It's just an awkward skill. Besides, I think the combination of Chain Strategem and Excog comfortably replace and outpace anything Virus offered to the table.

[Tint]

Well you know, Virus was an Arcanist skill, and Arcanist is a DPS. It technically never was a "healer" skill.

Healers just were able to use it due to SCH being able to use it, which was only because of their ACN heritage.

Arcanist has healer skills especially for Scholar and dps skills especially for Summoner. Arcanist wasn't designed to only become a Summoner, wich also means that Scholar wasn't an afterthought. I would say DDs were able to use it because of Scholar ^^

[alimdia]

Arcanist has healer skills especially for Scholar and dps skills especially for Summoner.

One healing skill, and that doesn't change that ACN is a DPS class and virus was an ACN skill.

[Tint]

One healing skill, and that doesn't change that ACN is a DPS class and virus was an ACN skill.

actually ACN had a heal, a raise, and virus.

[Ametrine]

snip

Technically, yes, but I feel SE taking it away from healers while simultaneously lowering the utility of SMN's few "healer skills" (...sustain...) indicates it was intended for Virus to be a DPS skill from the start.

If anything, if Virus was more popularly used by healers, then this is another instance to how jacked up the SCH/SMN split is and the weird things that design decision did to the balancing of both jobs.

[Lelila38]

Problem with giving it to healers again is that they already have too many role skill that are considered mandatory as it is. It would get used even less cause healers just can't fit it in their bar anymore.

[Ametrine]

Problem with giving it to healers again is that they already have too many role skill that are considered mandatory as it is. It would get used even less cause healers just can't fit it in their bar anymore.

Oh Jesus, this too, so much. We're already seeing healers building macros to swap their skills around between pulls. If it's suddenly required for healers to have Virus, what do we give up? Protect? Swiftcast??