How would you feel if shields had no upfront healing?

[Shurrikhan]

This part right here is correct, but WHM and SCH are very poorly designed for this right now anyway, so what are you even defending?

What part of a critique of an ill-warranted claim is a defense of the status quo?

Nothing in arguing that a variety in decision-making is more important than a variety in button-presses says that WHM and SCH aren't presently poorly designed.

[Shurrikhan]

Why is the comparison unfair? The point is that the contribution that a job's DPS rotation makes to a player's level of engagement is minor in comparison with that made by difficulty of content. I'm only speaking from personal experience here. Perhaps others have had different experiences. But if someone told me that they found playing DNC in a dungeon even remotely as engaging as playing WHM in an ultimate, I would be very surprised.



Well, doesn't that sound a bit self-contradictory? "I want to have more to do, but I don't want to do the content that requires me to do more."

That's quite a strawman. Go ahead and read what you've just quoted. Actually read it this time: "why should [increased fight-specific demands] preclude any desire for having more to do [i.e., actually possible], insofar as I want to do, on a given job even in less demanding content?"

You've been implying that Factor A (engagement through fight design) precludes value in Factor B (engagement through job kit). But they do not preclude each other. They are not mutually exclusive. They are, in fact, mildly synergetic.

The job toolkit gives the ceiling of what all you can do. The fight's demands gives the ceiling of what all must be done, and thus makes the prior elements pertinent even to those who would not otherwise care about optimization. The first is the primary bottleneck. The second is mere situation.

Even incredibly casual content can still allow for pertinent use of one's full kit. Heck, it often allows for greater decision-making through those kits, in that the one particular use (the one designed for in that fight, specifically) doesn't so overwhelm the other possibilities, and optimal action therefore is therefore more conditional and adaptive.

Yes, a dungeon run, for instance, doesn't require that one optimize their kit perfectly. But one can still extract that level of engagement from the content if they so wish, but completing it as quickly as possible. The problem is when there's so little in one's kit that a run done in an apathetic stupor has nearly the complexity of one done when challenging oneself.

The more we trim off job toolkits "in favor of" (since we cannot well prove that fight complexity has remotely increased between, say, Gordias and Edenmete, let alone the sum of complexity) the fights themselves, the more we lower the engagement ceiling across all content, merely to increase the engagement floor (i.e., the barrier to entry, which at best makes certain uses of a kit, or often only WASD, feel more relevant and/or intended) for a very small portion of content.

That's not great design. And pointing at Ultimate when players feel unengaged in the content forms they prefer isn't remotely relevant.

This isn't a case of "If it's hot, then move to the shade." It's a case of everywhere but one or two parts, tiny and not terribly accessible, having been deforested. If players have to go into Savage or Ultimate to feel like they're getting sufficient engagement out of their kits, that is already a problem.

Content can demand more from any kit's usage, but outside of the occasional janky Duty Action it cannot itself give more to use.

[Kabooa]

What part of a critique of an ill-warranted claim is a defense of the status quo?

In fairness, it can be seen as a rather hardheaded block / gate to hold up. I'm pretty uncompromising in some regards.

That said this has gone on too far a tangent, though the topic for the thread can be utilized to show the kind of actions I would want healers to get.

Let's take a Spell option and call it "Disruption". Disruption causes barriers you have placed on a target to overload - After 6 seconds, the barrier dissipates and explodes for potency based on the Shield's initial potency.

In the case where shields are empowered while direct healing is decreased, a hefty shield can be utilized offensively. We can add a conditional or two, such as the explosion potency is based on application of Disruption, and it explodes on expiration from time or absorption. Apply a 300 shield, then Disruption, you have heavily reduced the lifespan of the shield working, but at the end of its duration, it goes boom for 300. Where as you might instead prefer to let the shield ride and pursue other options.

Expanding on this, if we use Broil as the basis of the GCD cost, then two GCDs (580) is the target to beat. At a baseline, this spell would probably have a short cooldown and a minor baseline gain in offense to be worth using, but certainly something you'd instead want to abuse as the more ideal circumstances come up instead.

Shields that do not restore HP would need another indicator, or perhaps they show their value with a Blue number instead - Restoring no health, but granting easy access to see the shield's value, or rather, when it gains a critical effect.

This in turn means you're likely to have Disruption available (After all - it's a minor potency gain at baseline) during uptime, have an additional thing to set up around when the boss moves away (Setting up a strong shield to absorb initial damage and then go boom), and you can capitalize on random or forced BIG SHULD. Giving an example of how I'd change some abilities and what sort of interactions they should have... (Also consider it a small contribution to your other thread - Did you know that reducing BLM beneath 15 buttons is really hard?)

Overload: A mechanic in which a Shield's duration is greatly reduced, but deals damage upon expiration to nearby enemies.

Adloqium: 300 potency shield.
Emergency Tactics: All applied shields dissipate and heal for their current amounts.
Deployment Tactics: The next Spell gains a Radius of 10y at reduced potency.
Disruption: Overloads the target's shield.

'Tactics' we can give a charge system to, and this is primarily how the Scholar recovers from damage, where as their first response is preventing it in the first place. Adding charges to Tactics allows the Scholar to create more complex combinations without being a preset 'combo'. It also serves as their own variant of Metamagic (Such as Surecast, Swiftcast), and an addition to the 'Tactics' category grants them increasingly varied options, but that would obviously require a fair amount of care when adding new ones.

And if we really want to get stupid, we could have the Scholar manipulate -any- barriers on a person, not just their own.

[Shurrikhan]

And if we really want to get stupid, we could have the Scholar manipulate -any- barriers on a person, not just their own.

That sounds more fun than "stupid", so long as the concept's resultant applications aren't riddled with (overpowered or underpowered) oversights. Count me in.

[EaMett]

Shields are almost never required. If they did a change where no direct heals were attached it basically wouldn't change anything.

[RyuDragnier]

Shields are almost never required. If they did a change where no direct heals were attached it basically wouldn't change anything.

It would require them to pump up the damage everybody takes to where they need to be topped off or shielded to survive. But because they're afraid of upsetting the casual players (who they made a lot of the changes in ShB for), that's very unlikely. Which is a shame because I miss the heartpounding action that was HW healing. Remember the dangerous heavy pulls in Neverreap that required the full party to be good in order to avoid wipes? I miss those days so much, everything hit like a truck, tanks had to constantly rotate CDs, and DPSing as a healer was something you couldn't do that often and was basically your reward for good healing.