Fixing Every Healer Job

[SirShady]

These skills would cause Lilies to suffer from the same problem as Energy Drain. Lilies would never be used for Healing again since, optimally, it would be better to utilize Inspiratione to increase DPS of the party. Also, why does it require having 2 Lilies but only uses 1?
Another "issue" would be button bloat. I personally think it's a crock of an argument but everyone and their mother will argue against adding more buttons, at least without consolidating/removing other skills to justify their inclusions.

The requirement for 2 lilies is just a handicap so that players don't spend them all on Afflatus Inspiratione and not have any lilies to heal with. I see what you're saying about Lilies only being used to buff though. I suppose you could set Afflatus Inspiratione on a 60 second cooldown and instead just make it more powerful, but then that kind of defeats the purpose of being able to use it often to break of the monotony of Glare-spam. I'll have to play around with this some more... Thanks for the feedback!

Edit: After considering feedback, I've decided not to overcomplicated things for myself and others and just give White Mage a simple 1-2-3 combo. I wanted to keep things "reasonable" for Square Enix since I know they love their 1-button combos but honestly, yeah it's better to just do that then to add superfluous buffing. It makes more sense for White Mage to remain straightforward. I removed Afflatus Inspiratione and instead made it so Holy II and the three hit glare-combo reduced Thorn's cooldown.

[SirShady]

I will never not be confused by these healer forum AST/SCH/SGE main screeds that spend paragraphs going on and on and on about how dreadfully boring mashing one button over and over again for an entire encounter is, what a wretched awful gameplay experience it is, how it's the worst design in the MMO genre.

And then conclude with "so that's why the 1 button rotation is perfect for WHM."

Quite simply, it's because I believe Square Enix is going to keep at least one healer class at that simple baseline rotation. There needs to be one entry level healer that anyone can pick up and play through the MSQ with. White Mage, as the first and most basic healer, is that job. A second and third damage button could be added just for the sake of having a damage combo, but I don't see them doing that (not that I see them doing any of these suggestions), so instead I suggest additional support options that could be used for a DPS increase instead. However, as Silver pointed out to me, my Afflatus Inspiratione has problems of its own with it basically invalidating lilies as a healing resource, so I'll have to think it through again. I'm a White Mage main too. I play all healers.

I'd also like to point out that the other jobs changes don't give them strict combos like other jobs either, otherwise you could just do that for every healer job and give them a 1-2-3 easy rotation. Scholar has DoTs, a mini-fester, and enhanced versions of broil/art of war, Astro has a machine gun mode that ramps up by rotating through two buttons and an OGCD that is supposed to be timed for when their DoT falls off, and Sage rotates through two different Dosis combos depending on if they need more damage or more heals and gets more toxicon use out of their kit. I find these are all more interesting and nuanced ways to get value out of their kits than a simple 1-2-3 combo, but honestly if White Mage is the "basic" healer, maybe it should get a sweet and simple combo with no strings attached... Huh. Honestly that might just work better.

Edit: Made some updates I think you'd like better! Gave them a basic 1-2-3 combo. The combo and Holy II now reduce Thorn's (renamed Bloom) cooldown. Still a good amount of optimizing to be done.

[pikalovr]

the issue is now look at WHM compared to AST why would anyone bring a WHM anymore? AST has so many more mitigations and buffs on top of stuff like macrocosmos. not to mention the amount of buff potential greatly overshadows WHM. it's the issue we have now the only reason WHM is even remotely chosen over AST is cause it can deal more self DPS than AST can provide via buffs. it's a very tight line to walk when you balance two jobs who really only have 1 thing keeping them seperated rn and thats DPS

hell the lady of crowns change alone would prolly put AST above WHM in terms of defenses a 20% mit (even at single target) every 40s? sign me up WHM wings can suck it. there are some good things here don't get me wrong. but something else i personally feel instead of sleeve draw you should introduce seal spenders so it still requires more effort than get 2 seals monkey slam sleeve draw third seal. sleeve draw introduced the advent of needing 2 seals instead of 3 for your burst windows. which i personally disagree with. you need ways to manipulate seals at all points of the fight which is where seal spenders are superior you could make an ability that eats the last achieved seal or make each seal be able to be used for significant effects and get rid of astrodyne being targettable (which would help in the over buffing department as well)

[Nizzi]

Scholar Changes

Miasma is back.
Bane is back, allowing Scholar to spread their DoTs.
Chain Stratagem is now spreadable as well for AoE situations.

Agree with all of these, SCH would benefit tremendously from all of this as it stands and these are my biggest wants for SCH and what would happily keep me playing for years to come. (Provided the other good things about Scholar weren't messed with)

Faerie Gauge now gradually fills by 5 per tick while remaining in combat.
Dissipation now restores doubles Faerie Gauge regen for a total of 10 a tick, changes Fey Illumination to Fey Divination and Fey Blessing to Fey Frenzy.

Scholar doesn't need passive resource gain; WHM/SGE have it, let SCH stay different.

Fey Fury - OGCD ability, at the cost of 10 Faerie Gauge, empowers your next Broil or Art of War to deal an additional 25% potency.

If this has a CD, you've just created another ShB Fey Blessing - a button that doesn't need to be tied to gauge at all due to its CD being longer than it could ever feasibly gauge spend with that ability; if this does not have a CD, you've created another reason for the perception of "Scholar doesn't want to heal!"
We don't need any DPS abilities associated with your faerie. I'd rather they get rid of gauge entirely then introduce DPS abilities into your Faerie, and I'm saying this as someone who thinks SCH desperate needs its DoTs back and someone who thinks Aetherflow/Energy Drain is a good thing. SCH doesn't need to be doing more DPS number wise, and it especially doesn't need to sacrifice more of its healing prioritization to do so in my opinion.

Putrefy - 15 second cooldown, deals damage with a potency of 275 in an AoE, reapplying all of the caster’s DoTs

If they give back Miasma to SCH (and I really, really pray that they do) giving it a "Tri-Disaster" that refreshes its DoTs eliminates the point and we will warp back to the exact same SCH that has 1 DoT now in the future. If you use 1 button like Iron Jaws to refresh your DoTs constantly after they've been applied, there's no management and it functionally just becomes the same 1 DoT gameplay we have now. Do not add Iron Jaws/Tri-Disaster to SCH when the DoTs return, or else SCH will be led down the same road it's on now. DoT management needs to actually be management; SCH needs to be casting Miasma and using Bio rather than hitting them once a fight and then pressing a button to reapply over and over. Why bother having separate DoTs at that point?

[SirShady]

Hey Nizzi! Appreciate the feedback!

Scholar doesn't need passive resource gain; WHM/SGE have it, let SCH stay different.

If this is the case, I don't see any way we're going to expand on the fairy gauge idea as the resource pool is so limited and tied to your OGCD heals. And then limiting that resource entirely to healing because of potential "Scholar doesn't want to heal!" perception just seems like a waste. At that point, you might as well get rid of the gauge altogether, like you said. You already have so many OGCD's heals already. The point of the gauge, and Fey Fury, in my little mockup is to constantly have a spender to increase your own personal DPS through "fey power", like how Dissipation works to enhance the caster by sacrificing the fairy, not have the faerie itself contribute to damage. It would just be empowering you with each use. It effectively gives you an unconventional damage rotation where you constantly gain and spend gauge, or save it if you think you'll need Fey Union's healing.

This entire thread is fighting against the perception that "Healers don't want to heal!". Yes we do, we just want to do it while having meaningful ways to spend our time outside of 1 button rotations. I would rather not regulate the faerie gauge to just another healing resource. Plus with how Fey Union currently works, we can't use the gauge on another action related to the fairy without it interrupting Fey Union anyway.

SCH doesn't need to be doing more DPS number wise, and it especially doesn't need to sacrifice more of its healing prioritization to do so in my opinion.

Numbers were not taken into account in any of my changes. Any numbers I put out there are just rough estimates of where they would be in comparison to current kit potencies. They'd still need to be adjusted down to keep the output around the same. The problem with keeping the faerie gauge as strictly healing is that Scholars don't really need more healing. I'm in a bit of a bind... What would you like to see the faerie gauge used? More supportive options like buffs/debuffs? If you wanted to get rid of it, what would you do with Fey Union and what would you suggest as Scholar's bread and butter rotation if I scrapped using the gauge as a personal DPS spender? I'd love to hear your ideas!

I understand your point with Putrefy. I had similar thoughts when I was playing around with the concept. In that case I'd rather just make it a mini-AoE Fester on a cooldown.

Edit: Big update! Went ahead and scrapped the empowered broil/AoW. Instead I gave back Shadow Flare and reduced the cooldown of Putrefy so it will be used regularly between broils. I gave another spender for the Faerie Gauge, which is supportive and on a 60 second cooldown. This keeps it simple. It's just old scholar DPS kit with a couple new supportive bells and whistles. I wanted to ask for your opinion... What do you think should be done to fix the Energy Drain problem?

[Silver-Strider]

Snip

Again, Simple =/= Braindead.
Having Aero 3 back is the bare minimum SE can do for WHM but honestly, Healers just need a flatout rework from the ground up; oGCDs need to be consolidated/removed, systems need to be added or enhanced, and skills need to be adjusted.

For WHM, I would have them function as kind of a mix between WAR's rotation and BLM.
Aero/Dia would function like Thunder, having a ST and AoE version that don't stack but instead of having Aero/Dia proc the Thundercloud effect, attach that effect to Regen/Medica 2. This way, your GCD heals aren't completely worthless once you unlock Lily skills and could potentially become DPS positive, without the need for adding any new skills (apart from an AoE Dia equivalent)
As for the WAR part of the rotation, have a branching combo similar to Storm's Eye and Storm's Path.
Stone/Glare -> Water/Banish -> Seraph Strike to get Cleric Stance for 15s to increase their damage/healing potency by 5%
Stone/Glare -> Water/Banish -> Wind/Aeolus as just a basic combo.

Ofc, in order to add these skills, we'd need to compress/remove skills to compensate.
PI could be dropped entirely and the CD on Temperance could just be lowered to 60s so that it could fill the role of buffing up our heals.
Aqua Veil and Divine Benison could just be merged into a single CD of 60s as well.
Remove Thin Air and buff the MP restored by Assize to 10% and granted a 2nd charge.
Have Freecure just upgrade Cure 1 into Cure 2

Still incredibly simple but much more fleshed out.

[Sebazy]

I will never not be confused by these healer forum AST/SCH/SGE main screeds that spend paragraphs going on and on and on about how dreadfully boring mashing one button over and over again for an entire encounter is, what a wretched awful gameplay experience it is, how it's the worst design in the MMO genre.

And then conclude with "so that's why the 1 button rotation is perfect for WHM."

Honestly, I'm actually inclined to agree with him on this one and since 6.1 I've thought it myself as well.

WHM doesn't have much, but one thing it does have over the other jobs is a little more broad synergy within it's kit coupled with a slower but consistent rhythm, it's historically usually felt more impactful and direct than it's alternatives as well (Even if the numbers generally don't reflect that). The Lily System is easily the best healer gauge mechanic of the 4 now, it has impactful self buffs and Assize is literally a second charge away from being perfection, it's this sort of thing that SE need to build upon.

As far as the suggested WHM changes go:

The return of Aero III or a renamed version of it is gud, I'd go one step further and also return Fluid Aura with some potency as an oGCD on a 30 second timer.

As mentioned above, IMHO no WHM adjustment suggestion is complete without adding a second charge to Assize, I've mathed out why it's such a huge benefit to the ability with zero downsides and it just makes sense at all and every level. It allows it to be aligned and double cast with bursts window whilst also giving you a free charge to actually use as a heal in between. Everyone wins.

Personally, as far as the Glare combo goes, my take on this is slightly different. I'd actually like to see a PvP style auto combo that breaks on any other GCD action with the second and third steps having an increasing chance to proc a secondary oGCD alongside reducing the cooldown of your Thorns ability.

This adds some nuance with a proc to watch and rapidly reducing cooldown to track whilst also visibly rewarding and encouraging consistent DPS and the prioritisation of oGCDs to keep it going.

[Vatom]

Sage Changes

Physis no longer heals over time, but grants everyone Kardia's effect for 15 seconds.
Ixochole no longer heals but grants a 400 HP shield.
Druochole no longer heals but grants a 300 HP shield and Kardia's the target for 15 seconds. Can stack with Kardia for double healing.
Pepsis now works with Ixochole's shield, healing for an additional 150 potency on top of the shield potency.
Toxicon now heals an additional 50% potency to your Kardia'd partner.

Duodosis - Combo with Dosis. 370 potency.
Eukrasia Duodosis - Combo with Dosis. 200 potency. Kardia value is tripled.

Sage Breakdown

COMING SOON

More lasers = More healing. More overall kit synergy. Kardia is such a cool concept, it's dumb that it's being regulated to just a fairy-replacement. A legitimate use for Pepsis.

Let me know what you think! Fun? Interesting? Too convoluted? Too busy? Not enough changes? Too many changes? Obviously, I'm not on the balance team so I don't expect this to go anywhere, but I'd love some feedback on what other people think.

Like the idea but might not work since Doom and downtime exist
I would love to see a pneuma synergy since there isn't much that interacts with it
also there is alot of shields and thats cool I like the idea but could you stack them since your losing heals
A OGC dmg ability would be nice instead of another GCD spell feel like that would make the feeling of dps from SGE better (Maybe uses the addersting gauge doesn't have to be Toxicon)
they have the most attacks already so another GCD doesn't seem necessary to me but for other healers yeah

[WaxSw]

Sch

The problem with your Sch changes is that you add opportunity cost to even more Sch mechanics without addresing any of the current issues aetherflow has. Currently Sch wants to heal with aetherflow as little as possible with one of its core mechanics an with stuff like Fey fury, fey divination and fey frenzy we make it so it wants to no heal with the fairy gauge too.

I think there are good changes like the return of dots and the spread stratagem but Sch is a healer and this design punish Sch anytime they want to heal with anything that interacts with any of their gauges instead of creating a situation where they want to rely on those.

Sage Changes

Good ideas in theory but not all that good in practice, to summarize:

-Physis changes would make the tool completely useless in downtime scenarios meaning Sage would have a disadvantage healing there and in stuff like ultimates downtime is present (and in DSR a lot). I think the idea of an AoE kardia should go in soteria, a tool that is already useless in downtime, making it trigger a kardia heal in all the party members and an aditional 70% potency kardia heal on the kardia target (so it doesn't lose its niche as single target sustain)

-Ixochole changes would be very bad when doom mechanics happen making sage ill suited to deal with those as aside holos and pneuma (both locked until very high Shb and EW endgame) all the hp heal Sage would have is prognosis and the physis you propose, but as prognosis doesn't trigger kardia physis there would be useless too. Like Physis I like the concept but there is other skill that would benefit from that and its holos, not only it change woudn't leave Sage without HP heals at lower levels but also would make holos a more cohesive tool as both the shield and the damage reduction are effects you want to trigger before the attack happens instead of how now both effects want to happen at different times (hp after the attack but mitigation before)

-Toxicon, a nice addition but not a meaningful one. Sage use toxicon as either AoE dps tool or movement tool and both uses are much more meaningful than the extra heal

-Duodosis, I like the idea of the combo but... that's all? You just changed 1 spam into 1-2 spam, where are the kit interactions? where are the build up or additional effects? Where are the branching paths? A standard combo works in other classes because as filler when its used its effects go further than just damage (building gauge, branching paths, giving buffs...) but this combo doesn't really do anything like that, its fake depth.

-Eukrasia Duodosis would barely be used if used at all, its in reality a 340 heal at the cost of dps potency in a class bloated with free heals. Eukrasian Diagnosis at least has a niche of building up toxicon and even with that is barely used because single target sustain is not a problem in the current game so a similar fate would await this attack.


I think that the main problem of these Sage changes is that as the "dps healer" it barely changes its dps rotation in a meaningful way and creates a way more limiting playstyle when healing.

[SirShady]

the issue is now look at WHM compared to AST why would anyone bring a WHM anymore? AST has so many more mitigations and buffs on top of stuff like macrocosmos. not to mention the amount of buff potential greatly overshadows WHM. it's the issue we have now the only reason WHM is even remotely chosen over AST is cause it can deal more self DPS than AST can provide via buffs. it's a very tight line to walk when you balance two jobs who really only have 1 thing keeping them seperated rn and thats DPS

hell the lady of crowns change alone would prolly put AST above WHM in terms of defenses a 20% mit (even at single target) every 40s? sign me up WHM wings can suck it. there are some good things here don't get me wrong. but something else i personally feel instead of sleeve draw you should introduce seal spenders so it still requires more effort than get 2 seals monkey slam sleeve draw third seal. sleeve draw introduced the advent of needing 2 seals instead of 3 for your burst windows. which i personally disagree with. you need ways to manipulate seals at all points of the fight which is where seal spenders are superior you could make an ability that eats the last achieved seal or make each seal be able to be used for significant effects and get rid of astrodyne being targettable (which would help in the over buffing department as well)

Hey Pika! Just did another pass at the Astro cards. Made the card/Astro effects easier to understand and overall less powerful. The old values were based on StB values, so now they're all more in line with current numbers. Astrodyne is now the new Time Dilation. To be honest, you'd expect a higher skill ceiling class like Astro to have better value when played at max potential, even though both are viable. I can see the 15% mit being a problem, especially combined with the new Ewer as a way to cheese certain mechanics, but besides that I think it balances out pretty well. Let me know what you think of the changes!