Chemist Kit theorycraft

[Lyth]

I find the Mudra system irritating on the best of days. I don't think that Mixing should involve pressing multiple buttons to perform one action.

I'm looking for something that is both intuitive but also has some room for strategic thinking. Throw a potion on someone, give them a HoT effect. Throw a second potion with it active to turn it into some burst healing or an AoE. The 'Mix' involves building off of the buffs/debuffs that you've already placed on players or mobs. With correct planning, you should be able to setup an effect that you can take advantage 10 or 20 seconds down the line.

Remember that the charge system applies to cooldown-based abilities, not GCD spells. Most of the interesting action on healers happens in-between GCDs. I'd like to see a system which acknowledges that fact. So you weave in a healing potion in between whatever filler GCD set you use at baseline. Great. Now you have an extra charge of a damage ability that you can weave in later on as well.

By 'WHM-like', I don't want to see a 2s cast "Potion" which costs 1000 MP. You could expand the existing Lily system into something similar to what I was suggesting, but it would require rebuilding WHM from the ground up.

[Shurrikhan]

I find the Mudra system irritating on the best of days. I don't think that Mixing should involve pressing multiple buttons to perform one action.

That's fair. Ever since the servers moved nearer to me I've found it smooth as butter (especially before moving onto the GCD), but experiences and preferences will obviously vary.

I'm looking for something that is both intuitive but also has some room for strategic thinking. Throw a potion on someone, give them a HoT effect. Throw a second potion with it active to turn it into some burst healing or an AoE.

That's an awesome system. I just got confused by your mention of other combo-based classes. Arguably, they should all act more like that, but since they don't I worried it would just turn into ABCABC spam. Your system easily could end up that way as well if it has too few paths to optimize, but I'd rather not assume the worst. Solid concept.

Remember that the charge system applies to cooldown-based abilities, not GCD spells.

I never assumed otherwise. I'm just worried by how the damage<->healing recharge system would work in typical content.

I feel like there are obvious reasons why WHM's load-up system (be it StB's GCD->oGCD version or the current GCD->Misery version) basically just reduce the cost of healing rather than limiting damage abilities by healing abilities cast or vice versa.

Depending on the details not listed in your sample (e.g. how many seconds of recharge are skipped per "restock"), it feels like in content that requires low healing you're either going to be (1) limited to spamming Gil Toss (and oGCDs used only on their regular CDs), as per a Glare/Malefic/Broil spam healer already, or (2) obliged to just throw out oGCD heals every other GCD regardless of any healing actually required so you can go Healing-Damage-Healing-Damage-Healing-Damage in an apm-bloated cycle (e.g. Bomb-Potion-Bomb-Potion or HWrath-XPot-HWrath-XPot once you've spread vulnerability and DoTs). The latter would have to feel very lackluster per throw not to be ridiculously overpowered over time.

That's largely why MP initially came to mind, as it'd at least apply some limitation to ability cycling or provide a more granular means of allowing for that cycling. Remember, abilities can have MP costs too. That, not any GCD based "Spells" or weaponskills, is where I'd figure CHM would use MP.

Of course, MP doesn't have to be the solution; it could be anything, but right now your sample seems like it has a glaring hole that, frankly, MP could have easily solved (even if not necessarily in the coolest or most unique manner). At present, the restocking feature seems like it's halfway to something great, but is at present a convolution that doesn't seem to meet the intentions you've stated. Given that you've already added that much complexity, I don't see why you'd be unwilling to tap into a further system to make it actually work, or, if such truly would be overcomplicated, reconsider the restocking system entirely.

[Lyth]

...

I think if you want to avoid having players spam an unneeded ability to get to one they want, the restock should only proc from the effect (i.e. use Arctic Wind with immolate active, ends immolate (and the DoT), and gives drenched status + 1 Hi-Potion). There's a good amount of setup that goes into that (Oil -> Bomb -> wait for dot to tick down -> Arctic Wind -> Heavenly Wrath -> Vanish -> Dark Matter).

Alternatively - what if your damage abilities restocked your healing potions, but not vice versa? You might not always be healing, but you will be doing damage even during your downtime. Given that you can go above the recast charge limit through restocking as a trait, you could build up a reservoir of heals even if you're not using them.

[Shurrikhan]

I think if you want to avoid having players spam an unneeded ability to get to one they want, the restock should only proc from the effect (i.e. use Arctic Wind with immolate active, ends immolate (and the DoT), and gives drenched status + 1 Hi-Potion). There's a good amount of setup that goes into that (Oil -> Bomb -> wait for dot to tick down -> Arctic Wind -> Heavenly Wrath -> Vanish -> Dark Matter).

Alternatively - what if your damage abilities restocked your healing potions, but not vice versa? You might not always be healing, but you will be doing damage even during your downtime. Given that you can go above the recast charge limit through restocking as a trait, you could build up a reservoir of heals even if you're not using them.

Edit: I still need to better know what you mean by Vanish Edge's "Targets are vulnerable to item-based non-elemental damage", btw. Did they previously deal no damage? Or is it just basically the old Foe Requiem, reducing resistance by 10% (i.e. increasing non-elemental magic damage taken by 10%)? And since Dark Matter is the only one affected, does this really only matter when you need to spam Dark Matter for AoE, as Dark Matter is already worth maintaining for its Trick Attack effect? Additionally, is the Bravery Potion going to deal more relative potency per animation than the best possible direct damage spam, thus meaning you'd always want to spam DM-Bravery until Immolation, Drenched, and Forked Lightning need to be refreshed?

Let me make sure I'm visualizing the combos correctly.

All damage combos initiate from Oil, right, with some supplementation or extended combos provided by Vanish Edge (unless that's only really for AoE)? Oil -> Bomb (Immolation) [Pot] -> Arctic Wind (Drenched) [Hi-Pot]-> Heavenly Wrath (Forked Lightning) [X-Pot] [-> Dark Matter (with VE first in AoE so it can be spammed for higher damage, otherwise used only for the vulnerability debuff)]. I'd imagine so long as HW's initial damage under Drenched is greater than Bomb's normal initial damage, you'd want to use X-item on it outside of Niho windows, unless of course Dark Matter's damage under Vanish is even higher despite being an AoE???
(In Niho windows, you'd use X-Pot instead, I'd imagine, but the actual playflow would only change insofar as you delay X-item by one oGCD weave so it goes on X-Pot instead, since you wouldn't ever want to waste Oil CD or duration that could be spent cycling the highest potency per animation spam possible, except to refresh Dark Matter.)

Healing combos, on the other hand, initiate off themselves. Potion (AoE Hot) -> Hi-Pot (AoE Convalescence buff) // -> X-pot (Bonus healing).

Even if you made it so you could only Restock on a proper combo, you'd still have unlimited abilities to cast. Heck, unless they're incredibly low-potency, you wouldn't bother casting at all:

You'd just go Oil-Bomb-Pot-Arctic-HIpot-Xitem-Wrath-Bomb-Pot-Wrath-Xpot-Bomb-Pot-Wrath-[DarkMatter-Bravery]-Xpot-Bomb-Pot-Wrath-Xpot... making sure to refresh Immolation just before Oil falls off, Drenched just before Drenched falls off, Forked Lightning just before Forked Lightning falls off, Dark Matter before it falls off, etc., while otherwise just maximizing Wrath casts during Drenched but ensuring Xpot combos so it affords you more Wrath, which in turn forces you to alternate with Bomb-Pot.

If we made it only restock heals, it'd ensure that CHM would probably use GCD heals even less than existing healers, which doesn't sound all that... enviable, even if iconic. Worse, though, all it'd really amount to is Oil at best granting an extra 3 Pots, 2 Hi-Pots, and 1 X-pot per its burst phase. Depending on the potency and natural CD's of each, that'd likely mean Oil would have to be a pretty infrequent CD even then. Additionally, a tight duration on the Oil effect would ensure you don't want to waste any potential ability-casting uptime on mere spells during Oil's duration, thus removing any chance for weaves. If the Oil debuff is consumed on the first Immolate, then that phase would give 1 more of each healing potion, which would be a bit more reasonable and wouldn't feel as rushed; it'd just be kind of like GNB's added apm and ppm via its every other burst phase. Still, that may feel like an unnecessary convolution to some. (You'd be dealing that damage anyways, so why lock the extra 1 of each potion per 30/60/90/whatever number of seconds via a the burst phase you'd want to maximize anyways?)

tl;dr: Are you sure these item abilities need to be oGCD? It seems to cause a ton of problems, given that your only balancing point is basically just the limited windows of opportunities by which to chain combos as long/far as you can. Already this job looks like it'd be basically unplayable on any but the lowest ping, if balanced around its maximum potential. Couldn't we just make most of these abilities into weaponskills or instant casts instead?

Heck, you could throw out Salve completely and just spend casts refilling your Potion inventory if you wanted to go further with that.