Yoshi-P: "If you want more engaging content, go play Ultimate"

[GrimGale]

Or at least call it what it is, a pure nerf. SCH has this unique affordance and you want it gone.[/B]

This I dont understand though. How would having the 100 potency of ED integrated into the 295 Broil potency be a nerf? Isn't it numerically the same? Wouldn't that be like having ED available at all times every 20s without losing access to your heals? I get it would remove skill expression by removing choice but isn't it numerically identical?

[Shurrikhan]

This I dont understand though. How would having the 100 potency of ED integrated into the 295 Broil potency be a nerf? Isn't it numerically the same? Wouldn't that be like having ED available at all times every 20s without losing access to your heals? I get it would remove skill expression by removing choice but isn't it numerically identical?

Back, sorry; I hadn't seen your response earlier.

First, the affordance I was speaking of was the ability to trade excess healing for extra damage. That would not be changed by ED being a 395 potency GCD so long as it remained a spender, not a generator.

But, your 395 potency GCD ED wasn't an spender/option; it was a generator, a step to getting access to your heals, not a means of trading them out.

If balanced, then, the maximum performance from something with cost (a trade) and something without cost (no choice, no trade) would not be the same. Present ED requires an consumption of (healing) resource, excessive though it might otherwise have been. Your suggested ED, since you've used it only as a generator, does not.

Consider, for instance: in a given possible buff, extra potency awarded through Third Eye and extra potency awarded through SAM's every GCD would not always have the same output. Theirs could only be the same if every situation, every fight, allowed one to fully maximize the potency from Third Eye (i.e., to mitigate raid damage precisely every 15 seconds).

Because that will not typically be true, and balance tends instead to target the average situation (note the SCH's rDPS would be overtuned if we were to consider it as balanced for zero ED usage, meaning that most of that damage is truly extra), the maximum performance of the context-dependent capacity will be higher than that of a universal one.

Put more simply, if you make a contributing tool baseline/inescapable/non-optional, you have to budget the job's baseline power for it. Otherwise, you're just slapping an rDPS buff onto the already rDPS-strongest healer, at cost to choice and skill-gap. Unlike the previous choice, that would not be a unique affordance, but simply a tuning error.

[GrimGale]

Back, sorry; I hadn't seen your response earlier.

First, the affordance I was speaking of was the ability to trade excess healing for extra damage. That would not be changed by ED being a 395 potency GCD so long as it remained a spender, not a generator.

But, your 395 potency GCD ED wasn't an spender/option; it was a generator, a step to getting access to your heals, not a means of trading them out.

If balanced, then, the maximum performance from something with cost (a trade) and something without cost (no choice, no trade) would not be the same. Present ED requires an consumption of (healing) resource, excessive though it might otherwise have been. Your suggested ED, since you've used it only as a generator, does not.

Consider, for instance: in a given possible buff, extra potency awarded through Third Eye and extra potency awarded through SAM's every GCD would not always have the same output. Theirs could only be the same if every situation, every fight, allowed one to fully maximize the potency from Third Eye (i.e., to mitigate raid damage precisely every 15 seconds).

Because that will not typically be true, and balance tends instead to target the average situation (note the SCH's rDPS would be overtuned if we were to consider it as balanced for zero ED usage, meaning that most of that damage is truly extra), the maximum performance of the context-dependent capacity will be higher than that of a universal one.

Put more simply, if you make a contributing tool baseline/inescapable/non-optional, you have to budget the job's baseline power for it. Otherwise, you're just slapping an rDPS buff onto the already rDPS-strongest healer, at cost to choice and skill-gap. Unlike the previous choice, that would not be a unique affordance, but simply a tuning error.

I see, so If I understand correctly, I would have buffed the class beyond the brackets of its skill floor and skill ceiling by making something that was previously considered part of the skill ceiling (AF management with ED) essentially integrated into the skill floor. And that would merit a reduction, for the sake of balance, to the other parts of SCH kit.

[Shurrikhan]

I see, so If I understand correctly, I would have buffed the class beyond the brackets of its skill floor and skill ceiling by making something that was previously considered part of the skill ceiling (AF management with ED) essentially integrated into the skill floor. And that would merit a reduction, for the sake of balance, to the other parts of SCH kit.

Yes, specifically to its damage.

Rather than raising just the job's at-healing-cost offensive ceiling, you'd have raised its offensive floor (to its former ceiling).

Given that'd otherwise come at no cost (unlike the earlier choices), that'd be, of course, imbalanced. Such would then oblige a decrease to, say, the potency of Broil itself until SCH was back at the rDPS available to any other healer that has no way to trade out its excess healing (since SCH would likewise have no such option at that point).

[SeverianLyonesse]

Given that'd otherwise come at no cost (unlike the earlier choices), that'd be, of course, imbalanced. Such would then oblige a decrease to, say, the potency of Broil itself until SCH was back at the rDPS available to any other healer that has no way to trade out its excess healing (since SCH would likewise have no such option at that point).

I may be missing some nuances, but also this correction may not be needed to such an extent if healers were allowed to do 50-60% of DPS damage. At the moment I think there is no good excuse for healers to not do comparable damage to tanks.

[Shurrikhan]

I may be missing some nuances, but also this correction may not be needed to such an extent if healers were allowed to do 50-60% of DPS damage. At the moment I think there is no good excuse for healers to not do comparable damage to tanks.

I'd agree, but between-role balance is irrelevant to in-role balance. (Also, healers ~already average a little over 55% of a DPS's rDPS, no?)

If SCH has no trade-off to taking a lead in rDPS, why would it deserve a notable lead in rDPS? After making ED a generator, not an option, what possible reason would exist for SCH to do be able (now, guaranteed) to contribute more damage than the other healers?

You can swing the role as a whole however you wish after, but there's no good sense in leaving a single job as an unjustified outlier within that role just because said role (together) ought to be higher or lower.


____________

Tangent:

Personally, I feel like each healer should have a button or few more to manage offensively, Lucid Dreaming removed in favor of generally reduced MP costs (400->250 or so), significant MP costs on their healing abilities and/or less oGCD healing throughput and should be able to do even a good 75% of a DPS's damage if allowed full offensive uptime. I just also think that forgoing all GCD healing for said 100% offensive uptime shouldn't be the norm, even in simple dungeons.

Tanks, likewise, should probably have Tank Mastery stripped from them, with enemy tankbuster damage reduced to compensate and tanks' maximum offensive potency increased to ~70% of a DPS's in compensation.

[SeverianLyonesse]

I'd agree, but between-role balance is irrelevant to in-role balance. (Also, healers ~already average a little over 55% of a DPS's rDPS, no?)

Do they? I don't parse and the few estimates I have come across said Healers were ~40% and Tanks ~60%. At this point I would believe anything haha.

You can swing the role as a whole however you wish after, but there's no good sense in leaving a single job as an unjustified outlier within that role just because said role (together) ought to be higher or lower.

I absolutely agree, so I guess the implication which I left out of my previous post would be that a change like that would likely merit boosting the other Healers' DPS in some way as well.

Personally, I feel like each healer should have a button or few more to manage offensively, Lucid Dreaming removed in favor of generally reduced MP costs (400->250 or so), significant MP costs on their healing abilities and/or less oGCD healing throughput and should be able to do even a good 75% of a DPS's damage if allowed full offensive uptime. I just also think that forgoing all GCD healing for said 100% offensive uptime shouldn't be the norm, even in simple dungeons.

Tanks, likewise, should probably have Tank Mastery stripped from them, with enemy tankbuster damage reduced to compensate and tanks' maximum offensive potency increased to ~70% of a DPS's in compensation.

I agree with these assessments. I still think that the game should force open buffing/debuffing niches for Healers to have more to do. Even if that means rethinking larger design/balance rules.