Fixing Every Healer Job

[Nizzi]

I completely agree on the whole SE does not give a fuck argument tho, that's why a lot of times I say that Aetherflow needs a rework but highly doubt SE is able to do a proper one.

There woudn't be a problem if every healer had to pay some tax but the problem is that the payment is only for Sch and if they are goint to go that route I'd rather see them make the healing free and giving back all the lost dps tools and new ones so the depth increases without hurting the healing part.

Its your opinion, for me the job died after SB when it got gutted so much that its dps healer identity was lost and EW put the last nail in the coffin when the ruin 2 optimizations for weaving were lost and actions that do not give/interact with shields, interact with the fairy or aetherflow were added, so thats why I want it to go back to its former glory even if it means changing some stuff to fit the new gameplay because Shb/EW Sch is not Sch.

I think we're generally in agreement, if SE came back today and said "hey we're going to give back all your old DPS stuff back but we're taking away Energy Drain, cool?" it'd be cool, but unfortunately that's not the type of devs they are. I think I really only defend it so much because like you said, SCH pretty much has nothing left in complexity outside of it. That's generally why I don't like all the free healing too now, because outside of it our kits are just "spam your nuke and hit your 1 non DoT attack off CD" and it becomes a bit boring. SCH at least gives me the ability to have something of a healing plan even in casual content, and the other healers don't really have that because of their huge amounts of free healing.

There are a lot of ways that SE could rework Energy Drain while still keeping it in as a stack dump; they could make it a combo action that can only be used when you hit Ruin II and adjust potencies so its a 10 DPS gain like in ShB again or DPS neutral with Broil IV, they could make it a DPS neutral GCD, they could even even figure out a way to add a trait to Aetherflow that does something with excess stacks. For the sake of argument, it could be called "Conversion Tactics" and it could just give MP and Fey Gauge based on the level of stacks you had left.

It's just a shame that the most likely reality for Aetherflow and Energy Drain is what we got at 5.0 launch; they will remove Energy Drain and replace it with nothing.

[Shurrikhan]

Perhaps I should have specified how Repertoire used to work and not so much its current iteration to clear up that confusion. I haven't played BRD much this expansion so forgive my ignorance on the changes that made it no longer DoT reliant.

Ahh, that makes more sense.

Just bear with me as it's far from being complete given that SCH has a vast array of gameplay elements to it, from the pet, to Aetherflow, to Energy Drain, etc. that I needed to consider...

Oh, no worries. I mean, it's taken a team of... well, too few but nonetheless multiple people almost a decade to arrive at a product nonetheless inferior to what you're hoping to create on your own.

It wouldn't build up the Fairy Gauge and is merely a means of refunding the DPS lost from missing a Broil cast but with the added benefit of Broil granting Fairy Gauge, would that be enough?

I mean, maybe? I'm probably a bit more against anything advantaging Broil spam than some others would be, but in this case, Broil would still be building free oGCD heals, not GCDs like, so... I'm not seeing the connection.

Imagine if it were the opposite, for instance -- whereby MP spent (which naturally more affects healing than our very MP-efficient attacks) would build Aetherpool, which then enhances the damage and MP you can restore via Energy Drain. Now you'd have, atop the damage-reflection, further ways of reducing the punishment for GCD healing, allowing them slightly more use cases for GCD healing + ED over Broil + Lustrate/Indom, etc -- instead of further Broil-spam advantage.

Now, given that you'd then be making Energy Drain and increasingly lucrative ability over MP expenditure, you may want to add a bit more Aetherflow to play with, such as by returning Quickened Aetherflow or just granting an extra AF stack per CD (essentially, one per 15s, up from one per 20 or QA's at best one-per-15). I could hammer out a polish for QA if you specifically want to return it and its margining play (really, just punishment for using AF skills in the last n seconds of AF's cooldown).

I don't want to pull a Toxicon when Addlo breaks but making Ruin 2 turn into Ruination that matches the potency of Broil but offers 10 gauge instead of 5 when Addlo breaks is an option I've been considering.

Understandable; we want jobs to feel distinct. Out of curiosity, would the 5-second spitball above (Aetherpool) be sufficiently distinct, or would the MP Spending->Energy Drain buff interaction feel too similar, still, to Toxicon, in your opinion?

Aetherflow: I am honestly completely stumped here.

Same, tbh. Half my mind says "it's fine," and half is shouting at me that it could result in far better. So much of the existing system seems dependent on a need to balance burst with sustain, both in terms of damage and healing, but with oGCD healing being capable of all one's sustain needs and no mainstay content requiring that oGCDs be saved for burst atop GCD healing... it feels a little destined to fall well short of its potential.

I imagine Aetherflow's (and its spenders') more ideal context would look something more like this:

• There's way more damage relative to mostly-free healer output. This is the basic requirement, though obviously adjustments would have to be made both to (A) not overly increase the minimum skill required to avoid wipes in typical content, and (B) deal with the increased MP requirements.
  
  
• Abilities have MP costs. No, really; I've no idea why the devs decided that MP costs on abilities should only ever be a thing for Dark Knight. By allowing abilities to have relatively high MP costs, similar to the increase in cost in going from Cure I to Cure II (since they offer at least that difference in potency in a given GCD), though not necessarily at uniform efficiencies across all abilities of a given kit, we can at least have a bit of that burst vs. sustain balance available here, rather than oGCDs being the default solution not just for timely burst, but --in typical content-- for sustained healing, too.
  
  
• AoE heals are turned into smart-heals but have lower maximum effective potency. This allows a greater place for spot-healing and for single-target spenders not to become useless on all but tanks and targeted-mechanics victims, which in turn increases interplay between shared resource options, including GCD heals themselves.

Fairies

So Selene remains heal/shield-only (no offensive buffs nor utility anymore), with Eos simply offering a bit more urgent recovery and Selene offering further mitigation. I'm a tiny bit torn on not bringing back SCH's ability thereby to flex with the situation (especially if, say, we could make pet-swaps conditionally oGCD), but I can see how the Dawn/Moon pairing would play out that way. Looks solid.

Aetherpact costs 50 gauge and summons your unused fairy to the target to provide healing for 15s. This way you can use your other fairy skills without needing to worry about the tether turning off.
Seraph costs 50 gauge but Angel's Whisper, Consolation and Seraph Illumination can be cast without cost.

Smart fix on the first, though you could also just change Aetherpact from a cast to an applied aura, absence any cast-locks. That'd then also allow you more granular control over the skill, such as by draining 5 gauge per second to rapidly heal (Eos) or cumulatively shield (Selene) a target, etc.

Seraph's up-front cost seems more attractive than individual costs, short of perhaps borrowing the old Inner Release design of reducing gauge costs by X% for Y seconds, but to briefly repeat an earlier warning... One choice being far more gauge-efficient than the others, so long as it can be maneuvered not to hugely overheal, will not add to decisions, only to constraints (i.e., lesser skills becoming non-options as you near Selene's). Constraints can feel good --in this case, in widening the gameplay impact of Seraph's CD so that its CD feels more real, big, palpable, significant, or what have you-- but it should be carefully considered.

Or, put more simply: Do you really want the punishment for overspending prior to Seraph to be a desynced Seraph, or might it be better to soften the blow slightly, such as by having Seraph's forms of each gauge spender costing less gauge (but that efficiency of course being less exploitable if you enter at less than full gauge / enough gauge to use each ability)?

I'd also repeat that there's zero need for every AoE spender to have a significant CD unless you want to deliberately want to force single-target spending (via Aetherpact). You also don't want overflow issues to be dealt with only upon acquiring Seraph. I'd therefore just put a 2s, 5s, or 10s CD on Fey Blessing.

[Silver-Strider]

White Mage Changes
Aero 3 is back.
A lesser version of Blood Lily is now unlocked at the same time as Lilies.
Glare is now a part of a 3-hit rotation. The Glare combo reduces the cooldown of their new damage GCD, Bloom, by 1 second per cast.
2 charges of Assize. Assize now restores 10% mana.
Gave lilies a spender for when HP is not needed.

New White Mage Abilities
Bud of the Blood Lily - Level 52 version of Blood Lily. Less potency. Replaced with Afflatus Misery at 74.
Shine - Combos off Glare. Deals 310 potency and reduces the cooldown of Bloom by 1 seconds. Combos into...
Smite - Combos off Shine. Deals 330 potency and reduces the cooldown of Bloom by 1 seconds.
Bloom - 30 second GCD AoE with a potency of 400 and empowers the next Blood Lily by 10%. Can not stack. Its cooldown is reduced by 1 seconds for each cast of Holy II and Shine/Smite.
Aero 3 - AoE DoT. This can stack with Dia.
Refulgence - The upgrade to Aero 3. AoE Dia. Has a chance to proc Blinding Refulgence, which works like Thundercloud procs, dealing the full amount of the DoT and reapplying it. This can stack with Dia.
Afflatus Inspiratione - Spends 1 lily to grant a 200 potency shield to all party members.

These seem much more reasonable than the original design you had posted, although I do think Bloom is problematic in this state.
Since you can only have Misery up every 60s at best, having a buff like Bloom appear every 30s (much less if we can maintain decent uptime with the time reductions of Shine and Smite) seems off. Since it also deals more damage than your 1-2-3 combo, you would want to use it on CD, buff or not.

I wonder though, if a rotating buff, in a similar sense to BLM would work, although to a smaller scale. Say we keep Glare -> Shine as is but the 3rd part of the combo branched into Smite or Bloom. Shine would grant a small buff that increases the next Bloom cast and vice versa. Not the most thrilling prospect but would allow more room for experimentation with other ideas to be added to the rotation.

[Shurrikhan]

New White Mage Abilities
Bud of the Blood Lily - Level 52 version of Blood Lily. Less potency. Replaced with Afflatus Misery at 74.
Shine - Combos off Glare. Deals 310 potency and reduces the cooldown of Bloom by 1 seconds. Combos into...
Smite - Combos off Shine. Deals 330 potency and reduces the cooldown of Bloom by 1 seconds.

Let's... not. I know we get "even tank 123 combos would be better" memes every once in a while, but that is only because they're only the tiniest of steps more engaging than 111. They take 3 times the buttons for about 5% more gameplay.

That is, unless these combos would be broken by any intervening GCDs, which then opens up a further bag of worms with that constraint, as needing to heal, DoT, or Misery within 2 GCDs of hitting 1 means you waste that combo's potential.

If you're going to devote an added 4 buttons to WHM's offensive kit, why constrain half of them to a mere pretense of depth (or, if you make this combo break from intervening GCDs, this fetter)?

Additionally, you'd be making your new 30s nuke (Bloom) awkward to align. Each combo, itself 7.5 seconds, would only reduce the 30s CD by 2 seconds, meaning that you'd have a 24-30s CD. It would align only when untouched (30x4) or in 100% uptime scenarios (24x5), which would in turn require that one not use Lilies, which means there'd be no way to exploit Misery during raid buffs. And that's before even getting into DoT conflict. A 30s DoT is already effectively just a superior 30s CD; able to deal with desync and to sacrifice a bit of potency per minute for further mobility if an instant cast.

[Silver-Strider]

Quickened Aetherflow

Well, I did try to experiment on how to bring back Quickened Aetherflow but quickly scrapped it because it further empowered oGCD heals and it caused Gauge to generate even more haphazardly. The only way such a system could work is if Energy Drain was its own system unbound by Aetherflow and that caused its own set of headaches. While still a tempting prospect, trying to create a functional system was something that would require a level of fine tuning that is better done in practice rather than on paper to get an actual feel of the changes, limitations, etc. It could absolutely work, the issue is figuring out HOW it would work that isn't just Toxicon but as an oGCD.

Aetherflow is honestly the single biggest obstacle for a SCH redesign because of how intricately it is woven into the job. Between MP management, Healing abilities, Energy Drain and Gauge Generation, so many of SCH's facilities are so hindgent on it that any small adjustment throws the system into chaos, as we've seen with SE's past attempts to remove Energy Drain. It works because it has to, else SCH crumbles. I tried to remove it in several experiments, tried moving the focal point of the job on the fairies, even tried to make Aetherflow work like Addersgal but for some reason or another, every theory ended in failure.

Make Aetherflow abilities CD based and remove Aetherflow? oGCD healing goes thru the roof since there is nothing keeping Lustrate in check from just being used alongside the other Aetherflow abilities, apart from whatever CD is added to it and then there's still Gauge and MP management to consider on top of what to do with Energy Drain. Have it function as a Fairy Swapping ability? Limits control of the Fairies. Maybe you want Selene for Mitigation or Eos for urgent healing? Well too bad. Have it function like Addersgal? Apart from the obvious homogeny, Energy Drain becomes problematic due to how easy it is to regulate its usage that rises SCH's DPS and make Gauge Generation into a bit of a joke.

I both wish to congratulate and condemn the person that made that skill because I am truly at a loss.

[Shurrikhan]

<Aetherflow nightmares in general>

I feel like the hardest thing about something as integral as Aetherflow is to try to deal with it in any sort of function-first approach, let alone in isolation.

Though I haven't has as much time as I'd like to progress it, my current approach for any broader SCH design improvements, much like for CNJ, is to first start at the roots and level the kit up over time, trying to find something compelling at each step of level progression, rather than taking a top-down approach.

Given SCH's ACN roots, that seems to orient around very unique takes on MP. Of course, for any of that to be pulled off, MP needs to first be a mechanic beyond merely a rez charge meter (or, for that to be the case in more than a mere <5% of content).

Which means, to have the liberty/license to make SCH far more compelling... I need to be able to tap into broader changes and fix the dysfunctional systems that surround it. RIP.

Make Aetherflow abilities CD based and remove Aetherflow? oGCD healing goes thru the roof...

Well, again, that'd just depend on the in-practice frequency and burst thereby made available. Given single cost and three charges thereof per minute, burst wouldn't likely be too affected. Their CDs would doubtless have to change, though. And, of course, you'd lose the ability to not only shift around forms of healing within that difference in cooldowns, but to trade out would-be excess healing (or, in a more ideal context, the ability to trade burst for sustain).

Have it function like Addersgal? Apart from the obvious homogeny, Energy Drain becomes problematic due to how easy it is to regulate its usage that rises SCH's DPS and make Gauge Generation into a bit of a joke.

This one seems the most lucrative question to follow.

Consider: What would be the difference in affordance between (A) a 6-charge maximum Aetherflow that starts at 3 charges and builds a charge per 20s and (B) what we have now, apart from needing one fewer weave space per minute (which we had more than enough of anyways)?

Between the current version and a 3-charge maximum Addersgall-like system, there's a faint difference, but only for dumping an extra 3 Energy Drains into even-minute bursts; for all other uses of Aetherflow, there'd be little to no practical reason to pool that many heals, given the efficiency you'd be giving up in leaving Soil, Excog, and Indom untouched.

In terms of playflow, there's the obvious difference of "must hit button as near as possible to on CD (delaying at most 1-2 GCD during the second buff cycle only)," but, again, that's it.

Surely we could do more with an active button-press being attached to our resource generation? Something to actually make that button-press good for more than a wonky trade-off for having an, effectively speaking, 6-charge limit?

[fulminating]

This would depend entirely on mobs not progressing towards auto-attacks or future special attacks while stunned. If player behavior is anything to go by, they likely progress towards both. The stun would then merely delay readied auto-attacks from being cast, much like downtime does for us.

I.e., if one is stunned for 2 seconds with only 1.5 seconds left until auto-attack, they've lost .5s of autos; however, if they're stunned for 2 seconds and still had 2+ seconds left until their next auto-attack, their damage won't have decreased at all.

The same interaction would occur with special attacks, most noticeably the instant casts among them.

tl;dr:
Holy's total stun duration would need to have no gaps for it to provide even 7 seconds of complete damage mitigation (technically, still short of that, as any time until next auto eclipsed by the stun would not be affected).

On average, Holy likely instead tends to net about 3 seconds of trimmed autos from mobs being unable to use capped/readied auto-attacks, and briefly delayed castless specials, across the spam. Its utility value is both generally greatly overestimated and appears to come at cost elsewhere in the toolkit (in terms of bankability and modularity of free heals).

I think you're downplaying it a bit, being able to halt the entire pull's damage output for any length of time is insanely good mitigation. It's difficult to tell just how long the mobs stop for, but from experimenting it seems to be closer to seven than three seconds. Not to mention the bulk of damage naturally coming at the start of pulls when all the mobs are still alive.

Tetra, bene, assize, asylum, liturgy for free heals, 2x divine benison, aquaveil and temperance for free mit. Pulls usually last about 40s-1m so you're usually going to have at least tetra and assize up each time.

[SirShady]

If you're going to devote an added 4 buttons to WHM's offensive kit, why constrain half of them to a mere pretense of depth (or, if you make this combo break from intervening GCDs, this fetter)?

Additionally, you'd be making your new 30s nuke (Bloom) awkward to align. Each combo, itself 7.5 seconds, would only reduce the 30s CD by 2 seconds, meaning that you'd have a 24-30s CD. It would align only when untouched (30x4) or in 100% uptime scenarios (24x5), which would in turn require that one not use Lilies, which means there'd be no way to exploit Misery during raid buffs. And that's before even getting into DoT conflict. A 30s DoT is already effectively just a superior 30s CD; able to deal with desync and to sacrifice a bit of potency per minute for further mobility if an instant cast.

Quite frankly, it's because I wasn't sure what else to add without having White Mage's juggling a bunch of additional mechanics outside of Lilies and OGCD's and without adding too much button bloat. There isn't much that can be done with a White Mage damage rotation outside of what it currently has besides adding basic combos because of the linear design of their class mechanic, the Lilies. If you want more depth, sure, you can get experimental and do that, but your best bet is to add another unique mechanic/gauge, and I don't want to overcomplicate the job too much when its identity has always been straightforward: "big heals, big damage". Th changes were meant to add depth in the way of rewarding good OGCD heals and avoiding overhealing with even more damage, but in a more interesting way since it directly influenced the power of your strongest GCDs Bloom and Blood Lily.

I totally understand where you're coming from though. It doesn't feel as satisfying as it should. I took another pass at it anyway and split the two abilities so that it's two different two part combos. One buffs the White Mage, the other provides stacks that empower your next Bloom up to a cap. If you reach that cap, Bloom powers up your next Blood Lily. That way, you're not dealing with any raid buff weirdness (as much as I dislike the restrictions of the 2 minute system) and it adds some more tangible depth to the combo system. Let me know what you think!

Also, just weighing in here on an unrelated note... Holy's stun is definitely closer to 7 seconds of mitigation! It's the best mitigation in the game as far as normal pulls go imo.

[Silver-Strider]

With Aetherflow removed, you would need to increase the CD of Aetherflow abilities but not so much so that it becomes detrimental to the Fairy Gauge system while also keeping them at least somewhat in line with other healers so as to not lower SCH's ability to heal adequately in high stress scenario. The most promising combination of these factors was 2 Lustrates on 30s CDs, 2 Sacred Soils on 60s, 1 Excog on 60s and 2 Indom on 60s, which is just AST's CD line up on steroids, even before accounting for fairy abilities. Any increase in CD or charge removals caused SCH to start to fall behind in its healing capabilities since I was working on an average uptime of 75% in terms of Broil/DoTs so as to give some wiggle room for less experienced SCHs. It worked the higher your uptime was but started to fall apart at lower increments and given prog can get messy at the drop of a dime, I didn't think it was wise to pursue it further.

As for changing Aetherflow into Addersgal, the problem stemmed more from the other adjustments to the job I had made, such as Succor and Addlo being more useful and Blessing, and Covenant being on shorter CDs. You could get several additional casts of Fairy Abilities in that could substitute for other Aetherflow abilities instead, when coupled with Succor or Addlo, that you could use Energy Drain unabated and that it would be optimal to do so over using any of your Aetherflow Heals, that theoretically, I could completely axe all of the other Aetherflow abilities almost entirely, which became the case when I moved the uptime threshold up from 75%. Between the extra DoTs of Miasma, Bane and Shadowflare, 3 Energy Drains a minute for 7 minutes rises SCHs DPS into Tank Levels, with an estimation puting it just between PLD and WAR in terms of damage, i.e. more than any of the other healers could get close to.

I couldn't make ED solely a sustain tool with no damage because locking sustain independent of healing would be disastrous for a healer and removing it entirely would just further homogenize SCH and SGE. I can't increase the CD on Fairy abilities since that causes Guage Overflow issues. I can't make Aetherflow abilities more lucrative because it defeats the point of making GCD heals more useful. Admittedly, it wouldn't be a problem if the Fairy Abilities and Gauge were left unchanged but creating the resource management mini game that is my suggested Fairy Guage is something that I would like to see become a thing, even if only to test the waters with and seeing if it could realistically work first before admitting defeat on it.

[Shurrikhan]

It's difficult to tell just how long the mobs stop for, but from experimenting it seems to be closer to seven than three seconds.

It has a cumulative stun time of 7 seconds, yes, but that is irrelevant to the cumulative full mitigation time unless, during time stunned, the given mob generates no offensive resource / do not progress towards any further offensive events. That does not appear to be the case.

Instead, a stun only appears to prevent capped/readied auto-attack / special attack timers from going off, not from progressing their timers.

Tetra (700p), bene, assize (400p), asylum (800p), liturgy for free heals, 2x divine benison (500p), aquaveil (15%) and temperance (10%) for free mit. Pulls usually last about 40s-1m so you're usually going to have at least tetra and assize up each time.

As compared to Essential Dignity (up to 900p), Collective Unconscious (500p), Celestial Opposition (1000p), Earthly Star (720p), Lady of Crowns (400p), Celestial Intersection (600p), Horoscope, Exaltation (10% + 500p), and Macrocosmos (15s, 25%), and Neutral Sect into pre-shield (750p).

Again, the claim was merely that the other healers have a bit more potency and fluidity to make up for Holy's full mitigation time, which is, again, less than the total stun time Holy provides.