Healer identity in 5.0

[Reiryuu]

Well, my idea is their main focus will be debuff which the opposite of AST main focus on party buff.
I only imagine they can mitigate damage by debuffing the target such as reduce int, str, acc, crit, etc. by using different skill/ability.
They also able to boost party DPS by lowering target def, mdef, vulnerability, or like Chain Strategem from SCH.
This is just a rough idea from me.
Maybe other people have a different idea which is better than my idea.
I just want to share my idea here

Oh, OK. I thought you meant healing through a debuff like perhaps... say... a reverse damage shield like Mark of Karn (from Everquest) or... I think it was radiant spores in RIFT... but I don't remember. Essentially whenever someone damaged a target with the debuff, they would get healed for a certain amount of health. It would be nice to have a healer that debuffs, though I think debuffs have mostly gone to the bard/mch/dancer arm of the DPS faction. It would be nice to see though.
amage appropriately.


I've realized I've chimed in on a few other topics about this, but I haven't actually made the posts here so I will do that to help keep this thread relevant and discussed as I suggested in a new thread that popped up:

My thoughts on healers is that each healer should have a collection of four things:
1) Healing (duh) but in a primary and secondary form. Secondary heals can be smaller versions of another healer's primary form, so long as they are weaker and stack with that healer's primary form and either augment or compliment it in some way.
Examples:

White Mage would be a Direct Heal and Regen healer. We already have cures, we already have regen. They can work the same as they do now. Perhaps as a sort of synergy we could have a trait called Overheal (I know we have one called Overcure already but I think it's poorly named). This Trait could take any overheal damage from a heal that has healed damage on a target and done more than their missing health total/ and give them a buff to regen the extra healing over 30 seconds. This would not be refreshed or added to if the player is overhealed again (to prevent and discourage heal spam), though in an ideal world the system would be smart enough to say "Ahh, it was just 500 HP of damage at level 70, we'll just overheal all that in one tick"

Scholar has barriers and I would think that their secondary form of healing should be through the pet. Move the buffs to the scholars and give the fairies some heals and perhaps some other minor spells to use passively/actively. Maybe embrace becomes a channeled healing spell so that the pet cannot take any other actions during the channel and maybe Eos's heals the player while Selene's reinforces or heals a shield that is currently on the target. Give them both a weaker version of embrace that they can use to heal passively sort of as if the player casts individual ticks of a regen spell. And perhaps give them both some sort of buff or debuff that they can use on a single person or target.

Ast would become the HoT healer and Time Delay or reactinary healer as someone mentioned in the aforementioned thread. Diurnal sect would give large, fast heals-- the total amount of a cure spell +bonus potency due to it being a heal over time and not a direct heal over 15 seconds as opposed to the longer, weaker 30 second regen. Noctournal sect would change these heals into spells that either worked based on a time delay (earthly star) or create balls to orbit (they are space themed) the target player and explode as that person takes damage much like the Orbs of the Stream from RIFT. Another reason I like this idea is because with healing over time, AST can now have more things to do with their cards while their HoTs/reaction heals are working.

Now you don't have to worry about a dichotomy of healing abilities. Each healer has their own unique way of healing and all of those heals compliment each other provided the numbers are tweaked so that they match the incomming damage

2) Damage mitigation.
Scholars have sheilds already, but I feel some sort of damage mitigation should be available to all the healers as well. Sure, we have protect but that's a kinda def increase that doesn't do a whole lot.
Perhaps WHM could have something like Phalanx, where it would decrease incomming damage by x% up until it absorbed y total damage.
Maybe AST could have a spell that stopped incomming damage, and delayed it. Then reapplied that damage as a DoT debuff on the player over a certain amout of time.

3) Utility
Some form of raid utility or buffs to help out your party is pretty much essential for any grouping class. SCH and AST have these forms already. WHM needs to get something. People have suggested something like a raise with no weakness or a cure for res weakness. I'm not sure if I like that idea, or if it would be overpowered, but it's a suggestion.

4. Damage Because we need some solo ability too, or something to do when our heals are not needed.
-- My only wish here is that WHM either gets something other than just another stone and aero... or that at least the effects for the spells are a lot better than they have been -_-;

[Teykos]

Reposting from another thread for consolidation purposes, and adding a little more.

Given the flavor of AST, I feel like having the main gimmick of AST be reactive heals might make more sense than what they have now.

Benefic is obviously going to be their equivalent of Cure/Physic, but instead of Benefic II or the Aspected spells in their current state, give them a short term buff that can be applied to players.

The buff would have a short-to-medium duration, and when the buffed character is attacked, they'll get a heal for a particular potency. The catch is, the potency is based on the duration of the buff. The longer the remaining duration, the larger the effective potency. Since the buff's heals only trigger when the character is attacked, it's not like a regen, and the expectation is that it might be a few seconds before the character takes a hit, so if you are good at predicting damage, getting the buff on a second or two right before the attack would effectively give bonus potency to the heal.

I'll try to illustrate with putting it into an example:
Benefic II: Cure Potency: 350. Additional Effect: Erects a magicked barrier on target that heals when struck. This barrier lasts for up to 2 strikes. Potency is affected by the remaining duration of the barrier to determine the amount healed. Duration: 13s
Aspected Benefic: Cure Potency: (to be determined) Erects a magicked barrier on target that heals when struck. This barrier lasts for up to 1 strike. Potency is affected by the remaining duration of the barrier to determine the amount healed. Duration: 13s
Aspected Helios: Cure Potency: (to be determined) Erects a magicked barrier on target and all party members nearby target that heals when struck. Potency is affected by the remaining duration of the barrier to determine the amount healed. Duration: 10s

So you cast Benefic II on a player and it puts the buff up. If the player is hit when the buff has 12 seconds remaining, the trigger heals for 350 potency x 1.2. If the player gets hit when there is 10 seconds remaining on the buff, the heal that is triggered only heals for 350 potency. If they don't get hit at all until there's 6 seconds left, then the heal trigger heals for .6 of 350 potency.

[Dyvid]

Though I don't main heal now, I did play SCH in 2.0 and AST in 3.0. I do have to agree that healers lack a sense of style that is different from each other, where AST was obviously designed to fill either Shields or Heals. Though each healer should heal and enhance a party, how they do this should differ from one other giving players a choice in playstyle within the role.

WHM has always been the direct healer with casting Cure spells. The problem SE only wanted it to be a pure healer class which isn't working with how the game is designed. They need to add utility spells the would maybe relate the CNJ's stone, aero, water spells. It's would be great to see a group wide stoneskin that would increase party defense rather than absorb damage. Maybe a Determination or Tenacity buff? Then for damage you could change it up with the WHM casting spells like Radiant Shield minus debuff or EnHoly the deals additional damage from a players attacks. I guess the tagline would be a more direct approach to healer; directly heal, directly buff.

AST I feel needs to focus on one form of healing and since SCH is shield, AST should be Heal over Time or HoT and it makes sense if you look at it. AST is a gambler job so having their main healing ability be over time, it frees them up to focus on card play. I played COR in FFXI and since it was basically Blackjack buff, it was nice to have extra time to maximize the benefits. You can still have Sect dancing in job but maybe make it more related to cards and damage related. I think in the past someone mentioned that Diural Sect was a buff stance and Nocturnal Sect was a debuff stance. Spells like Lightspeed could increase the speed of HoT rather than speed of casting?

SCH should try to distance itself from ACN/SMN, maybe a trait that changes Miasma, Bio, Shadowflare from DoT to direct damage / debuff? Also focus on pet and books.

[Seraphor]

I think WHM could be significantly improved with just a few tweaks and additions:

Shell
30s cooldown.
Bestow a 10% damage resistance buff on target for 15s.
Additional effect: Magic damage received by target has a 20% chance of granting you a Lily.

Protect
60s cooldown.
Bestow a 5% damage resistant buff on all party members in range for 30s.
Additional effect: Physical damage received by targets has a 10% chance of granting them a confession stack.

(Shell/Protect would stack with each other)

Lilies are generated only by Medica and Medica II, or by hits received via Shell.
Lilies are only spent when using Cure, Cure II or Cure III.
1 Lily = Cast time of Cure/II/III reduced by 0.5s
2 Lilies = Cast time reduced by 1.5s
3 Lilies = Cast time reduced to 0.

This would give WHM some useful utility in Shell/Protect, and the other healers losing Protect would give WHM some edge over them. They would interact with their Lily mechanic, which in turn would be useful in granting mobility.
Mechanically, it’s not a major shift to the way they function, Lilies are still pretty much passive but with a greater effect, it’s just two additional cooldowns, and WHM doesn’t have enough buttons as it is if you ask me.

Then you only need to add in a couple new dps spells.

[Coltvoyance]

Then for damage you could change it up with the WHM casting spells like Radiant Shield minus debuff or EnHoly the deals additional damage from a players attacks. I guess the tagline would be a more direct approach to healer; directly heal, directly buff.

The second time now I've seen Enholy or something similar as a suggestion, and I really hope it's something that happens. IMO I think it'd be rad if they basically just turned WHM into pseudo MNK healer. WHM casts Enholy, then everytime a party members holy damage procs, it grants a Lilly (basically like Brotherhood). Lillies then give the WHM a passive "Healing Aura" that automatically applies a regen effect to those nearby until it's used up in a big flashy move for some other purpose like a DPS move, a Mitigation/Shield buff, or some other fantastical move.

Bam, right there, you've made WHM way cooler and more interesting.

[NissaR]

Do we have a source for this? It's the first time I'm hearing of it. If so it's a great idea and could allow Square to introduce the concept of "Overhealing". Essentially creating healing skills that fill a "second" health bar (formerly the TP bar in the party UI?). And perhaps it slowly diminishes over time along with taking damage. This could give healers greater focus on casting heals to maintain this "second" health bar, as it continuously drops, instead of just dealing damage. Especially if the next attack requires that level of extra health to survive, or a specific amount of "Overheal" (which may provide different benefits to regular HP).

I'm not exactly sure when this was mentioned, but it might've been during one of the FanFests or LiveLetters. It wasn't on a slide or anything, but they did talk about being able to see shields in the future. I wish I remembered. The Las Vegas FanFest would be my best guess.

[Dyvid]

The second time now I've seen Enholy or something similar as a suggestion, and I really hope it's something that happens. IMO I think it'd be rad if they basically just turned WHM into pseudo MNK healer. WHM casts Enholy, then everytime a party members holy damage procs, it grants a Lilly (basically like Brotherhood). Lillies then give the WHM a passive "Healing Aura" that automatically applies a regen effect to those nearby until it's used up in a big flashy move for some other purpose like a DPS move, a Mitigation/Shield buff, or some other fantastical move.

Bam, right there, you've made WHM way cooler and more interesting.

Maybe but let me ask this, does WHM need more heals or would it be better to have lillies buff utility stuff. So what if SE added Holy Shield that last for 30s and inflicts 50 potency back to any enemy that attacks, Holy Brand that adds 30 potency to players auto attacks. Then Lilies would be used to buff those abilities based on how many are accumulated?

[tesni_g]

WHM currently does not suffer from a lack in healing spells or throughput. What I would like to see is some interactivity between spells/abilities and faster cast times. Also, lilies can just go. Gone. Please. I'm begging. Can we lose lilies and get a meaningful gauge for WHM?

I love ideas like holy shield/brand, because they really stick to WHM flavor and bring low-key utility. I understand that the design goal so far for WHM has been the low utility, powerhouse healer, but I feel like there are still a lot of tools that could be designed while still keeping that feel, and giving WHM something more to do when the powerhouse healing is not needed. Like adding a magic vuln up effect to Aero--something small, or it applies an additional debuff that doesn't last the whole duration. A few minor effects to a few things in the toolkit they already have would keep the toolkit small and powerful as is the design goal, while giving WHM some utility and not changing the flavor or straightforward, powerhouse feel of WHM.

[tesni_g]

More WHM thoughts...

One of the things I keep coming back to is shields vs. not shields, because while we have the setup we do, we will always revert to "need a shield healer, then we can fill the other spot with whatever."

By nature, shields are powerful. Preventing damage smooths out an encounter and lets players survive mechanics. Shields add to a player's effective health. We use them for some tankbusters, and a variety of other mechanics for raidwide AOE bursts/bleeds, including ones where the healers both must move while the damage is going out, and mechanics that have two damage components back to back, usually ticking faster and stronger than hots.

Players might use shields more often, but in essence, these mechanics are why we bring the shield healer.

I anticipate that shields will be less potent looking ahead, but no amount of nerfing numbers will change why we dedicate a shielder spot in raiding.

Instead, I hope that SE looks at tools for non-shielders to respond to these types of damage that aren't just "everybody gets shields and hots and that's balanced!"

I would like a tool for WHM that grants effective health or heals on a conditional delay--like excog but not. A raidwide buff with (3-5) stacks where each stack represents X potency. When damage is taken that drops a player below (50 or 75) percent health, stacks of this buff get used to bring them back up to 75%. If stacks are left, they will activate on the next damage taken with no hidden internal cooldown (making them faster than hots, essentially, and it can keep up with each pulse Akh Morn, Flamethrower, Earthshaker, etc).

A spell or ability (perhaps an ability that modifies the next qualifying spell cast) that grants effective health to a player, for tankbusters or targeted mechanics (and probably also heals what effective health is given, because otherwise that extra health doesn’t matter). Short duration and somewhat short cooldown.

FFXIV doesn’t utilize channeling, and I understand why—maximized play is all about the GCD, and that’s why PLDs really only use Passage during ultimates/no enemies up. But what if WHM had a single target, channeled mitigation that was powerful enough to justify losing a GCD or two? While channeling, WHM’s target is 50 or 80 or 90% invulnerable to most things (same considerations as tank invulns, long cooldown). Would this be stepping on tank toes? Or would a get-out-of-tankbuster-free card help tanks stay in dps stance a little more often, thus the WHM brings utility?

These ideas are powerful, but honestly, so are Indom, fairy skills, Earthly Star, Collective Unconscious. That’s kind of my point—these abilities make an encounter “easier” or more manageable, and WHM should have tools beyond just “I cast Cure III until whack-a-mole is over.”

[NYCAcimStudent]

Healers aren't even really healers in this game. They are support DPS...

^ Thank you, Gemina! You just succinctly phrased what I have been trying to say for 2 years. I have been playing MMOs since the original Everquest and I have never seen the "healer" role require healing less than 50% of the time. Sometimes in FFXIV, I am actively healing less than 25% of the time. If I want to play mostly DPS, I would just play DPS.

If we want a revolution in Healer identity, healers need to actively heal again. This oGCD and GCD split is madness. Our healers aren't healers. They are hybrids.