Can we stop punishing shield healers for playing together?

[Liam_Harper]

Problem with allowing for shields to stack is that it can invalidate a lot of current mechanics and would be TOO powerful.

If they simply made it so mechanics that apply debuffs like Damage Down, Doom or Vuln will still apply even if you took 0 damage, I can't see how it would be too powerful.

You can already stack Neutral Asp Helios with a Reci-Spread-Adlo for some rather huge GCD shields every 2 mins, but even if you added Shake, Divine Veil, lots of mitigation and reduced some mechs down to 0 damage, no one does it because it either doesn't work overall or it's simply not worth the waste of resources.
It was used once back in e10s to simplify one mechanic but all it did was buy a few GCD's uptime on something that wasn't even too difficult.

Shields only have value on a mechanic that would otherwise kill you without a shield. There is no mechanic that needs 2x shields. Stacking a ton of crit GCD shields is still less potency than a regular shield and some pure healing.

[Elesh]

Problem with allowing for shields to stack is that it can invalidate a lot of current mechanics and would be TOO powerful.

I definitely think the better solution would be to have the shield being overwritten heals the person its on for the rest of its value. That ESSENTIALLY does the same thing as allowing stacking while also limited the maximum amount of shields that can be added to a person.

Sage/Scholar is viable WITHOUT that as a healing comp for savage. Possibly even ultimate, although I will admit I haven't checked common comps for that to see for sure.

The question that hasn't been answered here is... why is this necessary?

The healers are viable together for all - or at least nearly all - content in the game. Teams run it and it works fine. Why would they make this type of change and MASSIVELY buff that specific comp that is already perfectly functional and perfectly viable?

[ThorneDynasty]

I think the most reasonable solution would be stacking shields but with a slight delay - meaning you can have double shields but if you take lethal damage but only the first shield counts. How you'd communicate that in the UI is the challenge (and possibly code it, although you should be able to make it a semi-hidden shield-break proc based on the current effects).

[IceBlueNinja]

I agree sage/sch can be powerful however I rather an ast and or whm cause I really dont like shield chaos and ast shields are nice and stacks and dont overwrite with sch or as sage myself. Tbh even as ast i hated when i had to go dirunal cause sch since am more a shield over regen healer lover.

Also its petty but god I hate when a sch seem to literally try shield fight with me whether in my party or in another party of an alliance. I am handling my tank fine geez e diag crit and crit alco is the same pot anyways only galv and e prog pots are different is weird and unsure why.

[ty_taurus]

I agree sage/sch can be powerful however I rather an ast and or whm cause I really dont like shield chaos and ast shields are nice and stacks and dont overwrite with sch or as sage myself. Tbh even as ast i hated when i had to go dirunal cause sch since am more a shield over regen healer lover.

Also its petty but god I hate when a sch seem to literally try shield fight with me whether in my party or in another party of an alliance. I am handling my tank fine geez e diag crit and crit alco is the same pot anyways only galv and e prog pots are different is weird and unsure why.

"Shield Chaos" implies that one or both of them is even casting barriers to begin with, and SGE specifically has a negative amount of reasons to want to be using those at all when a SCH is present. Also, I feel like getting a WHM instead of an AST, SCH, or SGE is like getting just the cookie part of the oreo without the filling.

[IceBlueNinja]

That is fair I know whm aint in a good spot yes but id still take one or ast over another sge or sch. I like to be the one doing migi management even if aint needed for some things but its at least I can focus and not play guess who shielding.

sages shields are strong whether e dig or e prog and panima and hani burst heal which is something sch shields dont even do so am not sure why it seem your saying I should not be playing the job for what its made for, or the sch should be the on shielding if your with sch as sage? Am just asking not having any beef with you. Also on the whm ast part I find it funny though they dont mind regens piling up on each other.

[Deceptus]

I agree sage/sch can be powerful however I rather an ast and or whm cause I really dont like shield chaos and ast shields are nice and stacks and dont overwrite with sch or as sage myself.

That just shows a pretty blatant double standard. WHM/AST shields can stack with SCH/SGE shields but SCH / SGE shields can't stack with each other why?

Because "reasons".

[ty_taurus]

That is fair I know whm aint in a good spot yes but id still take one or ast over another sge or sch. I like to be the one doing migi management even if aint needed for some things but its at least I can focus and not play guess who shielding.

sages shields are strong whether e dig or e prog and panima and hani burst heal which is something sch shields dont even do so am not sure why it seem your saying I should not be playing the job for what its made for, or the sch should be the on shielding if your with sch as sage? Am just asking not having any beef with you. Also on the whm ast part I find it funny though they dont mind regens piling up on each other.

SGE doesn't really have a reason to want to use barrier heals because they have so many OGCD heals on top of getting more chip healing for doing DPS that there's almost never a reason to want to use E. Diagnosis/E. Prognosis over DPS even in savage. They're exclusively for use during downtime and never during a fight. Not to mention there's no DPS opportunity cost for using Addersgall unlike there is for Aetherflow, meaning I have even less of a reason to be frugal with Ixochole, Kerachole, and the like. I toss those around like candy, and even feel obligated to throw out Druocholes to avoid overcapping on Addersgall and get some MP back even when the party is fully healed.

With a SCH partner, if barriers are needed at all for the fight, which savage does encourage at least in some instances, Recitation + Deployment Adlo is a vastly superior barrier than anything I could muster using GCD barriers. In fact, I even use Krasis to further enhance this on SCH and let them carry any and all barrier responsibilities our party could possibly need.

Just because Barrier Healer is the name of the subrole doesn't actually mean that applying barriers is what the jobs are actually made for. Perhaps that was the intention, but the actual game's design heavily deincentivizes barrier use as SCH and SGE are drowning in OGCD pure healing and regen healing that vastly outperforms barrier healing, and often with much shorter cooldowns than what WHM and AST have.

As for WHM, SCH and SGE both outperform WHM at pure healing without their barriers anyway.

[LeonKeyh]

That just shows a pretty blatant double standard. WHM/AST shields can stack with SCH/SGE shields but SCH / SGE shields can't stack with each other why?

Because "reasons".

Because AST/WHM shields are single target and can't be cast back-to-back, they're cooldowns. It's "allowed" once every 30s, SGE/SCH shield stacking would be "allowed" every 2.X seconds.

[Deceptus]

Because AST/WHM shields are single target and can't be cast back-to-back

Laughs in AST Neutral Sect.

Those 30s WHM/AST shields also have 2 charges, are instant cast, and free.