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

[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).

[Shurrikhan]

Oh my primals. Suddenly I realize I have not played WHM since Stormblood and lilies aren't actually generated by abilities anymore so scratch the lily generation ideas for now, I goofed big on that. That said:

1. scratch my lilies ideas, I need to rethink them
2. you're right but that's because of the scuffed damage centric paradigm this game has. If rng is the problem make it stacks. Try things dang it. I feel like the devs are too afraid to experiment with minor mechanical tweaks and wait until there is a build up before doing a sweeping rework.
3. Downtime is already punished under the ABC mentality. The purpose of this is luring players who aren't into always casting with rewards and give more to those who are.
4. this speaks more to the need for the mp cost reduction for WHM than anything else. if they won't give WHM actually bigger heals they should at least give them bigger heals per MP.
5. What option? I don't recall a free AoE heal unless you mean free from costing damage
6. what were you using those for? healing or dmg? at a certain point the fact that you have to make a choice isn't actually a bad thing.
7. ^
8. That's either a dot you cast twice a minute or an AoE. what is the lost? the AoE is worth more than Glare on 3+ targets anyways and that dot should have higher priority for dps over a glare. Again I don't think its a bad thing if you have to make a choice.
9. Button bloat is an excuse the devs use all the time I was trying to avoid that. I am beginning to understand that because oGCDs CAN be woven after a cast that has been taken by players as it should be so I shouldn't count oGCDs as free of GCD consequences but rather requiring a GCD to be rolling to be optimal. My mistake. I guess you could drop the oGCD part and see how that shakes.

Quick replies:

1. Fair enough.
   
   
2. The developers would have to give us more of substance to do in the short and mid-term before the game could possibly avoid gravitating towards fixation on uncapped throughput (damage, always damage, in XIV's case, as that is the only thing that can actually ultimately clear any dungeon).
   
   
3. Right, but giving a single job a further disadvantage (further dependence on uptime) without fitting compensation (and the options for that are few and far between) should never been considered a boon or mark of identity, nor should any job's kit be sacrificed just to slightly reframe an issue one (or, the devs) refuses to tackle head-on.
   
   
4. WHM gets roughly 2400-2700 MP worth of free healing per minute from Lilies, all without potency cost (technically at mild potency gain if one has raid buffs available). While I'll agree that WHM should perhaps still have the likes of Cure III made cheaper, that is significant. Having bigger heals or more MP-efficient heals also wouldn't change the fact that no other healer would need to sacrifice GCDs of damage to meet healing needs (or, for that matter, need to use MP beyond the extent of Broil/Malefic/Dosis spam outside of the odd Recitation-Adlo-Deployment cast). At present, neither does WHM, so long as you account for those GCD's redemption via Misery, but if you gate Lilies behind regular GCD heals, then that becomes a much greater issue.
   
   
5. Afflatus Rapture. Its the Lily-Medica. If your replacement for ALL Lily heals and Misery is to be, in effect, just an oGCD Cure II (which therefore would be impossible to bank), then you'd lose any AoE usage of this system.
   
   
6. They're instant casts. They're still on the GCD. They provide neither extra damage nor healing beyond the mobility or weave-space provided. But, that is significant. By removing GCD Lilies, you'd have removed 3 opportunities for mobility/weaving per minute (4 if you count Misery), and cost a further 3 weave slots per minute.
7. ^
   
   
8. I'm referring to Afflatus Misery, which was previously used once per minute. It therefore at least gave us one more thing to hit besides just 2 Dias and 18 (or 22, with your suggestion) Glares per minute. By moving the Lilies to oGCD heals (gated behind regular GCD healing) and removing Misery, you've increased Glare's frequency from 75% of our GCDs to 92%.
   
   
9. If you already know button bloat is a terrible excuse (especially for lost capacities or controls within gameplay), then let's kindly leave it out -- especially in cases like this where you'd otherwise sacrifice the ability to utilize burst or mobility when you need it most.

The problem is the only thing that stresses me during a fight is when I am new and don't know what the damage profile is but the damage is almost always either deadly so I can't solve that with healing or so low I can solve it in 1-2 GCD. As you learn the fights you get better, sure, but I so infrequently see the same dungeon fight that I rarely memorize any given fight. If they don't want to stress me they shouldn't always drop hp bars below 30% for dramatic effect, giving me a heart attack because I can't tell if we scuffed a mechanic or not.
The devs need to stop designing combat for healers like a bad haunted house, relying on cheap jump-scares that mean nothing after the first few times through.

Fully agreed.

[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.

[Shurrikhan]

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.

See fflogs. One doesn't need to parse, themselves, to see the tonnage of data already collected.

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.

I mention this because healers already meet your target rDPS. And while healers as a whole doing 50% of a DPS's rDPS instead of, say, 60% won't stop healers from being played, one healer doing 5% more than it's competitors baseline, at no trade-off, definitely could impact how open that role feels.

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.

So long as those buffs aren't so huge a boon over filler damage that one feels notably obliged to prepop them for every dungeon pull or their solo performance noticeably suffers, sounds good.

[Rein_eon_Osborne]

Reminder for those who wanted to file their feedback via in-game ticket, cause I actually forgotten mine last week D: I just finished turning in mine before making this post.

(also a lowkey bump up attempt)

[Maltothoris]

Want to know one of the best things? When you reach Niddhog in Ultimate, you can't really use more than 2-3 healing gcds or else you run the risk of wiping to the enrage. The same kinda goes for the eyes as well. It seems the only really really intensive parts are when you dot he rewind part where the shockwaves keep going off and the akh morn edges but other than that, it's the usual spam one button when the boss is active.

[EaMett]

Want to know one of the best things? When you reach Niddhog in Ultimate, you can't really use more than 2-3 healing gcds or else you run the risk of wiping to the enrage. The same kinda goes for the eyes as well. It seems the only really really intensive parts are when you dot he rewind part where the shockwaves keep going off and the akh morn edges but other than that, it's the usual spam one button when the boss is active.

I came here to say this. And as a shield healer there's a lot of pressure to execute properly but you still only ever end up spamming 111111111111

I'm getting more and more frustrated with that disconnected stance.

[Nethereal]

Want to know one of the best things? When you reach Niddhog in Ultimate, you can't really use more than 2-3 healing gcds or else you run the risk of wiping to the enrage. The same kinda goes for the eyes as well. It seems the only really really intensive parts are when you dot he rewind part where the shockwaves keep going off and the akh morn edges but other than that, it's the usual spam one button when the boss is active.

I'm progging DSRU rn and that sounds kinda sad. Guess it's a good thing I swapped to SCH for my comp.