SCH needs help

[Kummies]

If people are screwing up that bad then just take the L and reset.

[Brandedblade]

Then what you have is a communication problem or a bad cohealer. Which is nothing to do with Shields or Regens.
As to your 'being fine' with Deployment... It can be only used for free in downtime as it requires you to use a GCD heal beforehand - as well as the target to not have taken damage before you spread it to everyone else.

Succor = 180+225 shield = 405 heal+shield on everyone
Dep.Adlo = 300+375 shield = 375 shield on everyone, with a bonus 300 to the target. And requires a further 80pot loss via weaving.

I can't think of many situations that DeployAdlo is actually better than just casting Succor.

Well I get the argument from a raw healing perspective, but as far as preventing damage goes I'd say a 375 potency shield is a decent chunk more mitigation then a 225 shield. Not every situation is a clear cut optimized run. Sometimes people are bad and you need the extra cushion. Besides, there are ways to offset the potency loss, like using an energy Drain on the Ruin II weave or timing the deploy on a Biolysis reapplication. Iirc shields last long enough that theres gotta be situations where you can deploy on your Biolysis weave instead of a Ruin II one.

[Brandedblade]

Unless people screw up badly, have vulne stack all over or you drastically need extra mitigation because you won't have enough time to heal through (maybe, several massive aoe idk it rarely happen), recitation is better on indom, or excog.
Mitigating is healing that won't be necessary to do. But if you will need to heal anyway, cause damages were huge, maths are simple, but a 375 potency crit is of course worse than a 400 potency crit (indom). If the party doesn't die from the hit, or if succor alone is enough, indom is the way to go for recitation if you didn't use it on excog.
It's more intersting if you can deploy from the tank of course, but since galvanize is being eaten before catalyze.. in dead time after a cutscene maybe.
But that was one of the reason soil were not that good. The damage prevention was not enough to spend a AF on when you could just indom instead (or even ED because that was totally not needeed).

As for sacred soil, there are situations where the damage prevented can be greater then the damage healed by an Indom. Iirc there was a situation in the weapons refrain where that's the case. In most cases however, you'd be right.

I always deploy my shields off myself. Sure I may miss putting a critlo on the tank but at the same time it not only allows me to position myself to where it hits the most people but also to keep the shield from being eaten by boss autos.

Tbh now I'm confused. In all my years of playing mmos I've always heard mitigation is always stronger then healing. While I get it in some situations.

[AmeliaVerves]

Tbh now I'm confused. In all my years of playing mmos I've always heard mitigation is always stronger then healing. While I get it in some situations.

Can't speak for other MMOs, but in XIV shield potencies are always inferior to direct healing. This knowledge is little known tho I think, which is also the reason ppl go nuts if you play diurnal AST when paired with a WHM even tho it's perfectly viable if the fight does not require any shielding to survive mechanics. (Which is 90% of all fights in this game btw)

The only unique thing shields actually bring to the table is the increase of effective HP, which makes you survive a mechanic that would otherwise kill you. Beyond that they are plain useless, because direct heals are stronger and cheaper.
So if you know that your party can survive damage without shields, don't apply them but rather use heals/HoTs afterwards.


This is for high level play tho. If you go with PF a lot you might want to shield everything to make sure the monkeys errrr, I mean teammates don't die to avoidable damage or vuln debuffs or whatever.

[YusiKha]

Snip.

Outside of suboptimal circumstances (vuln stacks, poor gear) there is no situation where 150 shield potency will be the difference between life and death on a topped-up group.
And when the group isn’t topped up, Succor is better because it has a 180 heal attached.

I understand its value in suboptimal circumstances, but a skill so core to SCH’s identity (so much so the 5.0 ability reveal compared it to Fell Cleave and Earthly Star) shouldn’t be relegated to fringe circumstances in failed runs.

Mitigating stronger than healing...

It’s not as much the case in FFXIV, as non-tank mitigation tools are weak (10% at best) and in SCH’s case - directly competes with healing and damage.
Mitigation is worth only as much healing as it reduces. For example:
Soil reduces a 60k hit by 6k, so unless the hit is fatal, it’s strictly worse than an Indom that restores 8k.

That isn’t the case for Soil any more as it has a beefy 600p heal attached to it, but you get what I mean.

[Brandedblade]

Can't speak for other MMOs, but in XIV shield potencies are always inferior to direct healing. This knowledge is little known tho I think, which is also the reason ppl go nuts if you play diurnal AST when paired with a WHM even tho it's perfectly viable if the fight does not require any shielding to survive mechanics. (Which is 90% of all fights in this game btw)

The only unique thing shields actually bring to the table is the increase of effective HP, which makes you survive a mechanic that would otherwise kill you. Beyond that they are plain useless, because direct heals are stronger and cheaper.
So if you know that your party can survive damage without shields, don't apply them but rather use heals/HoTs afterwards.

I mean I'll still use Recitation for Indom unless I'm absolutely hurting for mana, so I do acknowledge that. But the thing about mitigation is that while mathematically inferior to raw or over time heal. It does smooth out damage to more manageable levels. I understand from an optimization standpoint how they're bad, but not everything or everyone is playing at that level so the stabilization helps, such as giving players some margin of error by as you said, increasing their max HP.

[Saefinn]

I mean I'll still use Recitation for Indom unless I'm absolutely hurting for mana, so I do acknowledge that. But the thing about mitigation is that while mathematically inferior to raw or over time heal. It does smooth out damage to more manageable levels. I understand from an optimization standpoint how they're bad, but not everything or everyone is playing at that level so the stabilization helps, such as giving players some margin of error by as you said, increasing their max HP.

In fairness this is how I've tended to view shields, rather than to be a like-for-like to a heal but instead have a different practical use. It acts as a nice buffer for damage. To me heals have had a higher potency because they are intented to top up people's health.

Hence I generally liked SCH's initial design, because it's pure healing potential always felt weaker, but it'd handle problems differently to say, a WHM.

[Brandedblade]

In fairness this is how I've tended to view shields, rather than to be a like-for-like to a heal but instead have a different practical use. It acts as a nice buffer for damage. To me heals have had a higher potency because they are intented to top up people's health.

Hence I generally liked SCH's initial design, because it's pure healing potential always felt weaker, but it'd handle problems differently to say, a WHM.

I suppose then it's like training wheels? They help keep you stable and safe but eventually you take them off and take the risk for more efficiency and thus a reward.

[KDSilver]

As for sacred soil, there are situations where the damage prevented can be greater then the damage healed by an Indom. Iirc there was a situation in the weapons refrain where that's the case. In most cases however, you'd be right.

Indeed. I know about that. Niche uses unfortunately. But yes.

[Saefinn]

I suppose then it's like training wheels? They help keep you stable and safe but eventually you take them off and take the risk for more efficiency and thus a reward.

I don't even think of it like that, but a different way of keeping people alive.

Because if we look at 2.0 where SCH had that principle, it was a weaker burst healer but mitigated damage better and used shields.

Arguably WHM was the easier healer despite it not having that buffer beyond Stoneskin. And I recommended it for peoe who were completely new.

The terms I used to differentiate the two healing styles back then was "pre-emptive" and "reactive", I always felt SCH's approach worked better if planned well, but WHM had better tools to react to problems more easily.

I'd say during that "training" phase healers are more likely to be reactive because they aren't predicting and preventing damage as they can predict it. Though I suppose hypothetically one could keep shields up constantly as a safe measure if they're not confident. But just not how I've tended to view it or play it.

Nowadays the lines are a little more blurred than they were as SCH has greater pure healing potential and has to work much less to keep people topped up. But in a situation where healing is more intensive, then SCH still has a "pre emptive" or planned approach if you can predict when damage is coming because of its toolset.

At least, this was the dynamic I always liked about SCH healing and the tools are still there but I think with how well they heal versus the content its less meaningful, but in situations where you are pushed then I find it is great.