Healers need an overhaul

[ty_taurus]

The FFXIV dev team is, sadly, so bereft of ideas that this is their idea of "difficulty". One shot mechanics. Either you do it right or you die. It's lazy design IMHO because it dis-incentivizes gear acquisition. What's the point of getting better gear if said mechanic is going to kill you no matter what?

Back on healers, IMHO every single DPS action gained by healing should at a minimum be DPS neutral. They finally did it with Misery after so many years but Sage Toxikon needs looked at. It only becomes available if you use a healing action so at a minimum each hit should be at least 600 for the first mob + dropoff for AoE

Scholars need the Healing decoupled from the Damage of Aether pact. Put Energy Drain on it's own separate charge system. Again, Sage does this right (Phlegma not requiring Addersgall stacks) but the Devs didn't think to update SCH? What's funny is SCH and SMN have the Arcanist base job and SMN has the right model in Painflare (short CD charge AoE move) which Sage Phlegma literally mirrors.

Just shows they don't fully think things through when designing healers, but that's been a major problem for multiple expansions spanning multiple years at this point.

Misery deserved its DPS neutral buff because your ability to use lilies is limited. I agree that Toxikon needs to change as well, but it can't simply be getting buffed to 660 to be DPS neutral with Dosis because Eukrasian Diagnosis is not gated by cooldowns and thus, in Savage especially, you would have the ability to spam Eukrasian Diagnosis on your tank and burn Addersting and never actually use Dosis.

My personal take is removing the barrier break aspect and removing passive Addersgall generation over time. Toxikon stays the same Potency as Dosis, but grants 3 stacks of a buff that enable 1 use of the OGCD attack: Toxikosis, which is 1/3rd of Dosis' potency each. This not only gives you a net DPS neutral reward for Addersting, but also gives SGE gameplay, which it currently lacks like the rest of the healers. Addersgall is instead generated through a new DPS spell that has a 20 second cooldown and 2 charges, and that also grants 1 Addersting as well, giving you a "combo" of sorts into your Toxikon and Toxikosis stacks. Then, the meter part of SGE's gauge is converted into a gauge that increases by 2 to a maximum of 100 every time a Kardia effect triggers. Once the gauge reaches above 50, casting either Eukrasian Diagnosis or Eukrasian Prognosis will consume 50 gauge and generate 1 Addersting.

This allows you some DPS neutral healing roughly once per minute, allows Toxikon to feel like a proper reward, reduces SGE's potential crit variance since Toxikon's power is broken up across 4 actions, discourages dumping Addersting as you need to spend time using each Toxikosis stack before your next Toxikon, and expands SGE's gameplay by the Addersgall/Addersting generator as well on top of the new Toxikon "combo."

[Zebraoracle]

Misery deserved its DPS neutral buff because your ability to use lilies is limited. I agree that Toxikon needs to change as well, but it can't simply be getting buffed to 660 to be DPS neutral with Dosis because Eukrasian Diagnosis is not gated by cooldowns and thus, in Savage especially, you would have the ability to spam Eukrasian Diagnosis on your tank and burn Addersting and never actually use Dosis.

Not sure what you mean by E diagnosis not being gated by cooldowns, considering the process of eukrasia'ing a diagnosis is still a full GCD-time investment.

[Raven2014]

Not sure what you mean by E diagnosis not being gated by cooldowns, considering the process of eukrasia'ing a diagnosis is still a full GCD-time investment.

He isn't talking about GCD.

You're limited by the amount of Lily generated. Imagine if it's not gated, there would be no reason to do glare, the WHM rotation can simply becomes 3-Lily-1misery-3lily-1misery.

You can cast E-diagonis "as many times as you want". If there is no trade off SGE can just constantly shield eveyrone and simply use Toxion as almost a permanent replacement for Dosis. Your suggestion (of making its neutral) for example, will completely break P7S (double auto) and P8S (NA)

[Deceptus]

He isn't talking about GCD.

You're limited by the amount of Lily generated. Imagine if it's not gated, there would be no reason to do glare, the WHM rotation can simply becomes 3-Lily-1misery-3lily-1misery.

You can cast E-diagonis "as many times as you want". If there is no trade off SGE can just constantly shield eveyrone and simply use Toxion as almost a permanent replacement for Dosis. Your suggestion (of making its neutral) for example, will completely break P7S (double auto) and P8S (NA)

And in doing so you'd be using the same gcd's to heal vs do damage, difference is it'd be damage neutral.

6 gcd, you'd still have 1800 potency of damage if you did 6 casts of Dosis, or 2 Dosis, 2 E Diag, 2 Toxikon.

If 300 extra potency worth of healer damage is "breaking" an encounter, that's a design flaw. But let's be real, that wouldn't happen (breaking the encounter)

Because in the vast majority of content, healers are spamming a single button anyway and using ogcd's to heal.

But like I said, ALL healers should get this treatment, not just Sage.

[Shurrikhan]

And in doing so you'd be using the same gcd's to heal vs do damage, difference is it'd be damage neutral.

6 gcd, you'd still have 1800 potency of damage if you did 6 casts of Dosis, or 2 Dosis, 2 E Diag, 2 Toxikon.

If 300 extra potency worth of healer damage is "breaking" an encounter, that's a design flaw. But let's be real, that wouldn't happen (breaking the encounter)

But like I said, ALL healers should get this treatment, not just Sage.

Why would you want GCD healing to be limitlessly and entirely free via potency-recuperation on specialized attacks? That'd just make complete bloat of all non-generating heals and non-recuperative attacks, resulting in a somehow even more degen healer kit.

Though I'm not quite a fan of the countersuggestion, I have to agree with Taurus that making any spammable heal potency-neutral would be far worse for kit design.



EDIT: Had left a "not" in there somehow. Meant the opposite.

[Amenara]

And in doing so you'd be using the same gcd's to heal vs do damage, difference is it'd be damage neutral.

6 gcd, you'd still have 1800 potency of damage if you did 6 casts of Dosis, or 2 Dosis, 2 E Diag, 2 Toxikon.

If 300 extra potency worth of healer damage is "breaking" an encounter, that's a design flaw. But let's be real, that wouldn't happen (breaking the encounter)

Because in the vast majority of content, healers are spamming a single button anyway and using ogcd's to heal.

But like I said, ALL healers should get this treatment, not just Sage.

Maybe my math or understanding is wrong but in your scenario you would get ~12 GCDs of E. Diag and ~12 GCDs of Toxicon over a minute of a fight which equates to 3600 pot of healing and 6480 pot of shielding every minute and 7920 pot of toxicon (330p for dosis x2 for toxicon becoming damage neutral x12 damage gcds in a minute) compared to whm getting 2400 pot of healing (assuming aff solus) and 7860p worth of damage in the same minute...

I don't think its the damage that breaks the encounter, its that you get that much gcd healing for the same damage.

[Raven2014]

If 300 extra potency worth of healer damage is "breaking" an encounter, that's a design flaw. But let's be real, that wouldn't happen (breaking the encounter)

I'm not talking about the damage.

I don't think its the damage that breaks the encounter, its that you get that much gcd healing for the same damage.

This, it's the additional shield and healing that will break the encounter. Tanks will literally have the equivalent a semi-permanent 300HOTs and ~450 shield, that will trivialize almost every single tank mechanic or stuffs like Natural Alignment.



The thing that prevent Lily spam is because it's limited supply. The thing that prevent E.D + Toxi spam is the DPS loss, remove that and you might as well delete Dosis. Why use Dosis (which is a hard cast) if you get 300 heal + 180% shield for free without any DPS loss with full mobility as well ? For your suggestion to work there HAVE to be something else that making E.D + Toxi is still a luxury choice over Dosis even if it has no DPS loss. Maybe double or triple the MP cost of E.D to prevent it from being spam.

[Zebraoracle]

He isn't talking about GCD.

You're limited by the amount of Lily generated. Imagine if it's not gated, there would be no reason to do glare, the WHM rotation can simply becomes 3-Lily-1misery-3lily-1misery.

You can cast E-diagonis "as many times as you want". If there is no trade off SGE can just constantly shield eveyrone and simply use Toxion as almost a permanent replacement for Dosis. Your suggestion (of making its neutral) for example, will completely break P7S (double auto) and P8S (NA)

Gotcha, thanks for the clarification. Also, not my suggestion :P

[ty_taurus]

Though I'm not quite a fan of the countersuggestion, I have to agree with Taurus that making any spammable heal potency-neutral would not be far worse for kit design.

What don’t you like about the counter suggestion?

[Shurrikhan]

What don’t you like about the counter suggestion?

(For thread context, this was the suggestion given in counter to Deceptus's that heals should be potency-neutral.)

My personal take is removing the barrier break aspect and removing passive Addersgall generation over time. Toxikon stays the same Potency as Dosis, but grants 3 stacks of a buff that enable 1 use of the OGCD attack: Toxikosis, which is 1/3rd of Dosis' potency each. This not only gives you a net DPS neutral reward for Addersting, but also gives SGE gameplay, which it currently lacks like the rest of the healers. Addersgall is instead generated through a new DPS spell that has a 20 second cooldown and 2 charges, and that also grants 1 Addersting as well, giving you a "combo" of sorts into your Toxikon and Toxikosis stacks. Then, the meter part of SGE's gauge is converted into a gauge that increases by 2 to a maximum of 100 every time a Kardia effect triggers. Once the gauge reaches above 50, casting either Eukrasian Diagnosis or Eukrasian Prognosis will consume 50 gauge and generate 1 Addersting.

This allows you some DPS neutral healing roughly once per minute, allows Toxikon to feel like a proper reward, reduces SGE's potential crit variance since Toxikon's power is broken up across 4 actions, discourages dumping Addersting as you need to spend time using each Toxikosis stack before your next Toxikon, and expands SGE's gameplay by the Addersgall/Addersting generator as well on top of the new Toxikon "combo."

My main issue is that it seems an unnecessary overcomplication (or, more "convolution" than identity- or depth-adding). And overall it would seem to have a net negative effect on SGE's kit.

The primary purpose of Lily-Misery is just no-opportunity-cost healing, the same as any oGCD heal. It loses a ceiling on burst healing (since it can't stack with GCD heals) for a higher ceiling on damage window exploitation, and adds more mobility and weave space, but for the most part it's just another ability. It's not that its resource is gated behind time so much as that it and all other abilities are thus gated. This one just happens to have 3 charges instead of 1 or 2. That's all. And that's fine.

The same can be said for Addersgall. It's nothing fancy, it's nothing new... and that's okay. I neither think it needs nor would particularly benefit SGE's flexible Aetherflow-lite resource system being removed in favor of a no-cost Energy-Drain-lite locked behind deploying and breaking Eukrasian Diagnosis casts. That's sounds less fun to me than the earlier flexibility, as, like Deceptus's suggestion, would far more concentrate the kit around just those couple actions (EuD and Toxicon+oGCD_bonus_damage).

Similarly, if I were just looking to increase SGE apm, a one-third-of-filler-spell damage oGCD to be spammed, 3 at a time between EuDs, would be one of the absolute last ways I'd think to approach that.

Meanwhile, the change to lock SGE shields behind a Kardia-based gauge means that you're generating nothing during downtime, are further punished for direct-healing (can't even use your shields without enough Dosis/Toxicon spam), all atop fetter a core mechanic (Eukresia).

I just have to wonder... why do any of that? It seems more "convoluting" than "complicating" -- a net loss.

SGE may lack for gameplay, but creating purposely anti-synergic, downtime-punishing, and slow-to-ramp systems designed to constrain its existing actions doesn't seem the way to go to instill it. The net healing+damage might end up equal to what we have now, but it seems to me like it'd be a far more sluggish kit while still offering no real advantage over SCH (doubly so once stuffing it with SCH-levels or greater of clunk).

I'd far rather just approach SGE improvements from two paths together:

1. Replace or retweak a handful of its especially basic or lackluster abilities (Rhizomata, Holos, Krasis, Pepsis, and maybe Panhaima) with something a bit more synergetic (though not so greatly so that action A would only ever be used with action B).
2. Consider what actual button-flows or variations on pacing and/or considerations might feel especially good on SGE and find where all they might be included.

No need necessarily to complicate its basic gauges or funnel so much of a kit's significance through a forced cyclical relationship (between EuD and Toxicon, which seem merely to have been designed to provide a bit of extra mobility or a smidgen of burst AoE as its small bonus effect opposite Adlo's uber-crits, in keeping with SGE's overall intended fluidity). Just, take what's there and find spaces to make that more interesting and offer a bit more advantage.

...At least until such time as we're rehauling all jobs, though I'd still veer far away even then from anything that makes SGE clunkier instead of exploiting its fluidity for all that's worth.