Which healing job are they gonna gut for Sage?

[GeminiReed]

Classes in this game is honestly way to homogenized. If DPS were to be mapped across an axis of proc vs fixed rotation, nearly every job ends up far on the fixed side.

Encounter design that insists that you stare at the boss for attack tells is not conducive to Simon Sez classes. A shame really, I much prefer priority based. Maybe next tier I'll opt for something with a brain dead rotation assuming I don't burn out on this one.

[Saefinn]

We know it'll be Noct Sect on AST, which I am okay with on the condition it means they can resolve our complaints with healers. IMO what needs to be done to get us moving in the right direction:

WHM:
You're nearly there, I mean the healing side flows and works, but it's just so boring. Give it more to do in its downtime. WHM is meant to be the most powerful of the healer jobs as part of it identity (with SCH being tactical and AST being technical), heck maybe use a proc-like system for DPS like Level 50 BLM has and throw in a couple of extra abilities. An example use might be: you have Stone IV and Aero III as your DPS abilities but there's percentage chance that it will proc Tornado or Quake. Tornado can be all of Aero III's damage at once, Quake can be a stronger Stone. Make Dia into a utility spell, maybe a defense debuff on an enemy. Make Glare into a Lily dump like SCH has an aetherflow dump, so people aren't sitting on unused lilies and can get their Afflatus Misery procs more. Tornado and Quake already exist in game and just teasing WHM's whilst BLM has Flare and Freeze.

Doing it this way would keep WHM DPS very simple, but offers more interactive and breaks up Glare spams. It would keep WHM approachable for beginners but give more for veterans to not be bored out of their minds.

SCH:
This is a mess TBH. On the healing side, create more dependence on shields. Shield healing used to be a healing style but with how effective its oGCD's are and the lower healing requirement shields end up being a safety buffer or a niche use and not a healing style. This I feel will be a NECESSITY with the upcoming shield/pure healer divide for it to work. Make SCH a true Shield healer again, it is currently a pure healer with extra shields. Model Sage's balance off of this.
Then give it back its DoT mage identity. DoT Mage always made more sense for SCH than SMN. SMN is in need of a rework, so this is an opportunity to differentiate the two this way & give SMN more pet love/focus. In our DPS kit we should have: Bio, Bio II/Biolysis, Miasma, Miasma II, Bane, Broil, Shadowflare, Energy Drain
Bring back Selene's abilities, give her more utility instead of deleting her. Make more use of faeries.
Think more about how SCH's healing abilities work together. Do we really need Dissipation?


AST:
I think its Diurnal Sect healing is fine.
Sacrificing Noct Sect is fine if it means we'll get a better healer situation. But please don't sacrifice Neutral Sect as part of that.
Bring back the old card system with some adjustments:
- Change card effects to accommodate TP loss - Direct Hit & Crit hit are options.
- Balance healers so MP management is a thing again or give the Ewer a different effect - I feel like The Ewer would now very niche or used for Royal Road. Personally I'd prefer to have MP management again. Even then, potential DRK & PLD benefits.
- Replace Sleeve Draw with Hold
- Replace Divination with Royal Road
- Reduce Redraw charges to 1
- Keep the Current Minor Arcana system
I envisage the following from it:
A Redraw charge reduction will cripple any fishing attempts and reduce card fishing. The current Minor Arcana system offers a beneficial alternative to card fishing, so your fail scenario is still a DPS boost and no card feels wasted. Royal Road could affect card choice. You might use hold to keep cards you don't need now but might need later, eg: The Bole or The Ewer or any you might want to use with Royal Road but lack a Royal Road card at present, eg: The Balance or The Arrow.

General Healing:
Up the healing requirement in non-highend content. I should not be able to do a dungeon run where maybe 20$ or 30% of the abilities I use are healing related. Having better DPS abilities would at least alleviate the pain here within them tuning dungeons in a way that's unfriendly to beginners. There's nothing fun about spamming Art of War for the majority of a dungeon run.

For high end content: up healing not through artificial difficulty, but interesting healer-specific mechanics. Kefka Savage I think could be a good example, because even undersized healers have to work and do mechanics and not simply cheese it (well, not entirely, there are some cheese mechanics)

MP management: I feel like Shadowbringers has us nearing a point where MP is redundant as resource management. The only time I feel like I'm running low is if I'm having to res a lot. MP management I feel like is a feature of playing a mage class. Have people thinking about MP economy again, heck, people might start using piety materia more in progression runs if you do. This is what I did when AST had MP problems.

[Rongway]

WHM:
Make Glare into a Lily dump like SCH has an aetherflow dump, so people aren't sitting on unused lilies and can get their Afflatus Misery procs more.

Not a chance.

The whole point of Misery is to refund the DPS lost by using Rapture or Solace instead of Glare. As long as Misery is the action unlocked by spending lilies, it would be simply absurd to have a DPS lily option.

SCH:
create more dependence on shields. Shield healing used to be a healing style but with how effective its oGCD's are and the lower healing requirement shields end up being a safety buffer or a niche use and not a healing style. This I feel will be a NECESSITY with the upcoming shield/pure healer divide for it to work. Make SCH a true Shield healer again, it is currently a pure healer with extra shields.

As long as shields are on the GCD, pre-shielding will never be an effective healing style. Shields are only meaningful if an unshielded hit will KO someone or if shielding prevents a fight-losing debuff. If everyone has enough HP to survive without shields and there are no critical debuffs to block, it'll always be more effective to use regens or oGCD heals after the fact. And because light parties only have one healer and the DF will probably not force regen+shield healers except in Raid Finder, every non-Savage non-Extreme non-Ultimate fight has to be survivable without shields.

[Fland]

I honestly prefer they won't go back to this divide between regen healer and shield healer. There should be other characteristic that distinguish the healers rather than whether they are a regen or shield based. It's better if it's closer to current form where all healers have some form of regen and shield/mitigation, but have other things in their kits that distinguish them from each other.

Having this division would just going back to ARR era where the regen healer would be expected to bear the brunt of the healing (even solo heal) while the shield healer would just DPSing and throw shield/mitigation occassionally for raidwide.

The PF slots for pugs would also most likely going back to one slot locked to regen healer and one slot locked to shield healer.

[Saefinn]

Not a chance.

The whole point of Misery is to refund the DPS lost by using Rapture or Solace instead of Glare. As long as Misery is the action unlocked by spending lilies, it would be simply absurd to have a DPS lily option.

it'd be better than just sitting on 3 lilies not doing anything whilst you're mindnumbingly spamming a single spell ad infinitum. It'd break the monotony and use a resource that's sitting unused. If that's not acceptable, they offer something different to break the monotony.

As long as shields are on the GCD, pre-shielding will never be an effective healing style. Shields are only meaningful if an unshielded hit will KO someone or if shielding prevents a fight-losing debuff. If everyone has enough HP to survive without shields and there are no critical debuffs to block, it'll always be more effective to use regens or oGCD heals after the fact. And because light parties only have one healer and the DF will probably not force regen+shield healers except in Raid Finder, every non-Savage non-Extreme non-Ultimate fight has to be survivable without shields.

I agree as it stands with it on GCD pre-shielding isn't effective, especially when we have heals on oGCD that're more effective and this is one of the things that's shifted Scholar from a shield healer to a pure healer, just the devs still call it a shield healer, in its current state shield healing is a niche use, not a healing style and it means DiAST and WHM can accommodate this too (as WHM/WHM etc need to be able to handle it).

I'd be fine with that if this is the direction we're heading and I've in the past given ideas on how they can make SCH more interesting without said shield focus.

But the problem is they're making this differentiation from Shield and Pure healer and this is something that can work, it worked in 2.0 and it would make sense in that if done well each healer would only have to be balanced against 1 other healer.

But of course the concept would have be evolved to how things work in current content. So shifting shields to the oGCD might be one thing that'll help.

Either way, for them to BE a shield healer, shielding needs to be more efficient than pure healing, pure healing doesn't need to be gimp just the shield healing needs to be more effective.

For light parties, honestly? 80% of the a dungeon run it's an Art of War spam. And we never really had an issue in 2.0, speaking as a SCH 2.0 main who healed speedruns of dungeons when it was a thing.

For Duty finder 8 man? The reason SCH/SCH caused issues in 2.0 was lack of shield stacking. I understand the reason for this is because it can cause problems with mechanics being absorbed and not just damage, I feel like it'd be better if they fixed that issue rather than punish healer design. Whether it's a shield cap over maximum HP or something else, or a change in shield code to avoid that problem.

[Izar_Chillen]

it'd be better than just sitting on 3 lilies not doing anything whilst you're mindnumbingly spamming a single spell ad infinitum.

Isnt that the point though? You dont sit on them when you have a bloody Lilly ready due to having a full Lilly bar?

Always be casting is what I've learnt in my time here and in game

[Rilifane]

Isnt that the point though? You dont sit on them when you have a bloody Lilly ready due to having a full Lilly bar?

Always be casting is what I've learnt in my time here and in game

When you have Misery ready, you want to get it out before the fight ends and definitely before using another lily but only if you're certain to get the following Misery out aswell.
But using Lilies is a dps loss over simply using Glare, because 3 Lilies + Misery itself are 4 GCDs for a total potency of 900, while 4 GCDs spent on Glare are 1200 potency.
So unless you were able to dump at least one Lily during a transition/ between pulls or need to move more than a slidecast can cover and couldn't preposition before either or need to actually heal/ weave something right now without being able to wait for Dia refresh, it's best to just sit on 3 lilies and spam Glare.
And that's almost always the case in DF content. Even in savage raids I had cases when I just sat on 3 lilies because I didn't need to move, heal or weave anything that couldn't wait until Dia refresh. Sad as it is, it's best to use them as little as possible and let them overcap unless the situation calls for any of the abovementioned things.

[Caurcas]

Whatever they do, I can almost assuredly tell you it's going to suck.

[Nethereal]

Isnt that the point though? You dont sit on them when you have a bloody Lilly ready due to having a full Lilly bar?

Always be casting is what I've learnt in my time here and in game

Adding onto what Rilifane already said: The only dps potency loss related to lilies is over capping blood lilies before you use misery, it's essentially the same as using aetherflow without spending everything or just straight out discarding a card on AST, lost damage that will never return during that particular phase.

Holding lilies actually isn't a dps loss at all (and is a dps gain if you're glaring) even if you use one, as long as you reach misery eventually(900÷4=225 if misery). Generally though you want to time everything in such a way that lilies are being kept on cooldown when you need to GCD heal, need weave space, or couldn't be using GCDs at all or during downtime to get a true 900 potency attack.

So you use lilies to move, weave, "always be casting", or to replace GCD heals you would have had to do because if you reach misery every GCD up to it is worth 225 potency, if you don't reach misery however you get no dps return

[Shurrikhan]

As long as shields are on the GCD, pre-shielding will never be an effective healing style. Shields are only meaningful if an unshielded hit will KO someone or if shielding prevents a fight-losing debuff. If everyone has enough HP to survive without shields and there are no critical debuffs to block, it'll always be more effective to use regens or oGCD heals after the fact. And because light parties only have one healer and the DF will probably not force regen+shield healers except in Raid Finder, every non-Savage non-Extreme non-Ultimate fight has to be survivable without shields.

...Why are we assuming that the only type of shield that could ever be coded is one that would be utilized irrespectively of relative damage value?

If you provide a buff to an ally that absorbs up to 500 potency worth of damage and is consumed based on each attack's would-be damage relative to the target ally's remaining HP, and thus is scarcely if at all reduced by auto-attacks prior to a tankbuster... does that just stop being a shield?