Why does SMN have Physick?

[MerlinCross]

There's a lot of abilities that are just "Why do you exist".

Just as all damage skills on healers were originally useless without Cleric Stance. Yet they changed those to work off Mind, just as Vercure works off Intelligence. So why not do the same for Physick?

Semi related..., does Second Wind scale off anything?

[BloodRubyXII]

There's a lot of abilities that are just "Why do you exist".



Semi related..., does Second Wind scale off anything?

Yes.

//10char

[dinnertime]

Just as all damage skills on healers were originally useless without Cleric Stance. Yet they changed those to work off Mind, just as Vercure works off Intelligence. So why not do the same for Physick?

Personally, I think SMN doesn't need an INT-based Physick. That would just basically make RDM more irrelevant than it is now with it being the same as Vercure but slightly better. Not only that, SMN has a 30% shield that is more frequent than a BLM's Manaward at the cost of their Egi's damage.

[Shurrikhan]

Semi related..., does Second Wind scale off anything?

Attack Power, but there may be a hidden level-based scalar, kind of like how Souleater and Steel Cyclone's %lifesteal diminished with increased levels in SB, so that it scarcely healed for more at 69 than 60.

That or my memories are merely tarnished by having played Monk back when job design amounted to more than just trimming as many skills and traits as possible, allowing Monk a then-hefty 800-potency self-heal.

[Silverquick]

I'm just surprised they haven't put in a trait for SMN that makes Physick scale of intelligence instead of mind. Would be an easy fix, you'd think.

This is actually a long story, and all of it has to do with SCH not necessarily SMN.

First of all, understand that SCH does not really have any direct heals other than Physick. The SCH's heals are all shields/pre-heals like Adlo/Galvanize and Succor. Its got a couple of direct heals that are stronger... but they're Aetherflow abilities so limited use. Their version of Egi Assaults are things like Regen.

SCH isn't really a strong healer, its a preventer. So boosting SMN Physick would in essence give him similar healing power to an SCH.

Why is this important...

Well back in the day, SCH used to have similar DoT power to the SMN. They used to have both Bio and Miasma... and Bane. They nerfed it and removed it to where the SCH only has Bio now and no Bane to spread it to other targets. Which I thought was stupid, SCH is not as strong of a healer, meaning they had to focus more attention on Healing than WHM.... and previously you'd play SCH by throwing out your DoTs and then Bane it out to other targets... then just focus your attention on healing.

Which of course was the point. SCH was supposed to be like that precisely because its healing ability was not as good as WHM.

So this also swings both ways. SCH was stripped of its DoT abilities... and SMN just left with a healing spell that is completely worthless post 50th. This was their attempt to "split" the two. It was in my opinion dumb and hurt SCH a lot more than SMN.

[Payadopa]

Honestly, SMN needs a rework. I'm close to cap and I can't do it anymore... Bahamut and Phoenix are awesome but the three pets and the general rotation... boy, do they suck. /sigh

[dinnertime]

So this also swings both ways. SCH was stripped of its DoT abilities... and SMN just left with a healing spell that is completely worthless post 50th. This was their attempt to "split" the two. It was in my opinion dumb and hurt SCH a lot more than SMN.

They could literally still have kept SCH having more than one DoT if they labeled it as a SCH skill instead, it's just they chose not to so they can homogenize the healer role.
Same for ACN/SMN. They could've removed Physick on ACN because SCH has their own version of Physick, but for unknown reasons they didn't.

[Crushnight]

This is actually a long story, and all of it has to do with SCH not necessarily SMN.

First of all, understand that SCH does not really have any direct heals other than Physick. The SCH's heals are all shields/pre-heals like Adlo/Galvanize and Succor. Its got a couple of direct heals that are stronger... but they're Aetherflow abilities so limited use. Their version of Egi Assaults are things like Regen.

SCH isn't really a strong healer, its a preventer. So boosting SMN Physick would in essence give him similar healing power to an SCH.

Why is this important...

Well back in the day, SCH used to have similar DoT power to the SMN. They used to have both Bio and Miasma... and Bane. They nerfed it and removed it to where the SCH only has Bio now and no Bane to spread it to other targets. Which I thought was stupid, SCH is not as strong of a healer, meaning they had to focus more attention on Healing than WHM.... and previously you'd play SCH by throwing out your DoTs and then Bane it out to other targets... then just focus your attention on healing.

Which of course was the point. SCH was supposed to be like that precisely because its healing ability was not as good as WHM.

So this also swings both ways. SCH was stripped of its DoT abilities... and SMN just left with a healing spell that is completely worthless post 50th. This was their attempt to "split" the two. It was in my opinion dumb and hurt SCH a lot more than SMN.

See that doesn't work since patch 5.05 there has been 2 different Energy Drains functionally different yet named the exact same, Physick could've had something similar happen, they could've removed it since functionally useless(even to sch it is the last resort gcd heal), could've made it scale of int instead of mind they have the power to have two skills named the same to do that, could've given Physick on acn/smn a different effect.

They just haven't done anything it oversight, laziness or so low priority (but then how did it survive 2 expansions of culling and yes ik fluid aura is still a thing)

[Silverquick]

It is functionally useless past 50th. But remember this game has gone on a lot longer than just patch 5.05. And I hardly think the primary concern of the Devs is Physick for Summoners at this point.

But then again.... Its not useless if you're below 50th, and lets face it, you spend a LOT of time in ARR before you ever touch an expansion, plus there are a lot of MSQ instances including Job related ones where this was already calculated into the difficulty level under the assumption you can use it.

That initial campaign with after adventures is loooooonnng.

It also used to be something you could spam on your Pet too back when as Titan Egi (and the others) used to have Health. They don't anymore.

Now I don't presume to know everything there ever was to know about SCH, for me that was only a class unlock just to learn what it was about, after all its free to Summoner Players, and that was my Main, Nowadays I swap between SMN and RDM depending on what I want to use.

I never played SCH seriously even back then. But doing so helped me to see how bad SCH players got screwed.

[Enkidoh]

This seems unlikely to be the reason, since Ul-dah has no dedicated healer class at all. PLD and RDM have some healing capability now, but neither did in the 2.x days. PLD got Clemency in 3.0 and RDM didn't even exist until 4.0. And of course now we have a total of six major cities, four of which serve as starting points for various classes, but there are only three healer classes. Gridania didn't have a tank either until GNB was introduced in 5.0.

It is though, although Ul'dah indeed doesn't have a healer class either at the start, the expectation was that an Ul'dah player would actually head off on foot/chocobo to Gridania and unlock CNJ for a healer (or at least, under the old cross-class system, to get healing spells to cross-class). Where as this was not possible with Limsa, as the ferry to Vesper Bay was actually not available until you progressed in the main story past level 15 and gained your airship pass, which unlocked the ferry at the same time, there was thus more of a need to have a 'healer' in Limsa, or a class with healing spells that could be cross-classed on another class (this is the same reason there is no 'tank' classes in Gridania either, a Gridanian player was meant to head to Ul'dah and unlock GLA).

Of course they could have also just made the ferry available right at the start thus allowing freedom at unlocking all classes, but SE seemed to be pretty set on granting new content to players at the start of the game gradually.