Do people in this game not comprehend the concept of shield healers?

[Rongway]

99% of them don't take full advantage of shields.

But you are not taking full advantage of the heal. Whether you are shielding the tank or the party, there will be another attack within the next 30s, so you'll still get the full effect of the shield by casting it after the hit. What you won't get by preshielding is the initial heal, which is 44% of the SCH Succor/Adloquium/A.Helios/C.Opposition and 29% of critAdloquium/A.Benefic.

The number of shield healers using shields like normal heals is so staggering that I wasn't sure if the game failed spectacularly at explaining the concept or if I was missing something since I don't play a shield healer.

You were missing something since you don't play a shield healer.

However, I have a friend who plays AST and particularly enjoys Noct AST and another friend who plays SCH, and they both confirmed that shields were meant to be used to negate incoming damage, so my understanding of the concept was correct.

They were missing something too.

what I noticed with SCH is that when they use their shields after a rather heavy attack hits, their healing doesn't do much and the shields will eventually fall off, thus rendering their spell kinda pointless.

There is always another attack coming in the next 30s, or the heal could have safely been delayed 5s~10s so that the shield would last until the next attack, or it doesn't matter.

Don't get me started on overhealing healers because that's a frustrating can of worms I'd rather not open.

This is an ironic statement because you are advocating for overhealing by insisting that shield healers precast their shields.


If a full health tank or full health party would die to a hit or an immediate followup, precast the shield. Otherwise, cast it after the hit.

Like, I get it. Someone told you how shield healers are supposed to play. Yeah, they understand the design intent. But sometimes the design intent isn't the most effective in practice. Shields suffer from lower effective potencies already; why would you make things harder for yourself by also wasting 44% (almost half) of the spell by healing a full health party? There are only two acceptable answers here:

• Someone would have died without a precast shield.
• The content is so easy the 44% doesn't matter, so it also doesn't matter whether the shield goes out before or after the hit.

[Komarimono]

Last I checked, as someone who loves Scholar... If I pre cast my shields, the AoE being crap, I am wasting MP galore. It's far better to heal up and shield, then Emergency Tactics and heal again. The shield is a buffer for incoming damage then, lasting quite a long time...

The only time I've pre cast my shields, was lazy mode content, using recitation in conjunction with Aldo for super mega shield on the tank. Other then that, save recitation for when it's actually needed for a crit heal or I am somehow out of Aetherflow.

Pre casting shields, for content, is just silly for progression. The tiny shields, won't help, in combination with that huge waste of over healing I just did. Shields are there to buffer incoming damage as you heal.

[Coletergeist]

It's not an exaggeration when I say 99% of them don't take full advantage of shields.

Man you either have really bad shid luck, or you really are doing just that; exaggerating. Most shield heals I come across use them properly.

99% of the time? Surely? Truly?

Dang man.

[Coletergeist]

Also I'd like to add; I'm one of those shield heals (I main noct AST) and I like to keep shields on everyone basically at all times just because I like it. No other particular reason, even if they are topped off on health. Just makes me feel good knowing that whatever comes up next they won't take as much of a hit (or if I seem to not remember a mech coming up).

With that being said though, folks have their preferences. We basically have almost endless MP because Lucid Dreaming/MP potions we can use. So shielding before and then after an attack is my preference, because why not - especially if I'm paired with a regen heals because their regens will eventually top them off the rest of the way as I shield them, and I can just get to dpsing.

But doing so either before or after (or even both in my case) is up to the healer and what is best for them.

[SturmChurro]

I like to keep Medica II ticking at all times, plus regen. You never know when someone is going to take avoidable damage, and it's my job as a healer to make sure when they do they are immediately being healed. So in essence - I'm a shield healer.

[Tanker4444]

waste of gcds tbh fam very situational

This. A few months ago I got SCH to 80 and during all those dungeons, the Bozja Southern Front, raid roulettes, etc... this is what I felt. And when I would use them I'd always be left thinking... meh? I think shield healing as a concept is alright, but in its implementation it was terrible.

Instead of focusing on shielding, I think SCH should instead focus on buffs, similarly to how AST does. The SCH story mentions them being all about tactics, how that turned into a situational shielding is beyond me. I say make the shields an AOE damage resist buff and focus more on "tactical" buffs and healing. Since the fairy can carry some of the healing the player can focus on large heals and complicated tactical buffs. These complicated buffs can be like the NIN mudras or the DNC steps, where you have to press a sequence to achieve this or that buff. I dunno, just something else than damage buffers that you need to preset on a GCD.

[Quintessa]

Praxia - because SCH is a half-done callback to the more in-dept FFXI SCH(actually it started off as the worst job in that game's history until a got a huuuugggge rework.).

To be fair, it's harder to be proactive than reactive when you don't even know what's going on. Assuming they're new, that is.

Right. Unless someone literally runs all the dungeons hundreds of times a day, the patterns aren't going to stick.

[ZedxKayn]

There isn't much to be said regarding correct usage of shields.

Is it oGCD? Got a weaving spot that can't be used for DPSing or swiftcast?
Cast it on a target that's going to be taking damage soon(tm).

Will the next hit 100-0 someone or the party and can a shield save them? GCD shield if necessary.

Otherwise? Forget the shields, it's all about oGCD regens or lilies.

[Eien713]

There is always another attack coming in the next 30s, or the heal could have safely been delayed 5s~10s so that the shield would last until the next attack, or it doesn't matter.

Not really. I've been in many encounters where after the raid-wide aoe, the party members take no damage for the next 30 seconds and the shields fall off. Also, is it useless then to pre-shield a tank about to get hit by a tankbuster? While doing Alphascape 3, I've seen the tank get deleted by the tankbuster more often than not because they didn't mitigate and the shield healer didn't shield. Granted, the main issue is the tank not mitigating, but in such cases, the shields would've prevented their death.

This is an ironic statement because you are advocating for overhealing by insisting that shield healers precast their shields.

It's not ironic since the person I quoted was talking about WHM and their excessive use of Medica II, Assize, and the lilies all together.

[Imora]

If they did pure shields they'd probably come to the problem of another game, where they're impossible to balance properly.

You end up negating all the damage to the point where they need to make mechanics deadly without them, and you're not going to be guaranteed to have them. It's why every single world first kill in wow rolls with a discipline priest. The shields are that good. And broken enough to get the spec a massive rework every expansion and nerfs most patches.

I personally dislike proactive healing in general (hots, shields). But that's another discussion.