Healers, then and now:

[ty_taurus]

On the other thread, I talked about healers needing something to fill their gameplay while no healing is needed, and while DPS is the straightforward solution, it's not the only solution. As far as AST is concerned, I feel that it is very fitting to become the healer whos gameplay loop is about building a support engine while their DPS is dealt indirectly. You focus on support tools to build up effects for you to eventually detonate all at once, and the damage you "lose" not using Malefic is passed onto other party members to trigger for you (or yourself if you're playing solo), and I've danced around a lot of ideas over the last year on what that solution is. I really feel like I'm on the cusp of something great, but I can't pin it down exactly.

What I can say about AST is that its overall lack of popularity is largely due to two factors: The card system is too complicated/convoluted, and the constant single target swapping is cumbersome and physically unfun to play. It feels more like a chore for many players more than some type of rewarding system. Now, this doesn't necessarily mean that its the business of the job that's the problem, but how annoying that business can feel when you're trying to maintain attacking the boss and weaving cards on different party members.

I ultimately can't speak on what the 7.0 AST rework will look like, but I have strong feelings that whatever we get is going to try and answer these two questions, for better or worse.

[Vinal211]

On the other thread, I talked about healers needing something to fill their gameplay while no healing is needed, and while DPS is the straightforward solution, it's not the only solution. As far as AST is concerned, I feel that it is very fitting to become the healer whos gameplay loop is about building a support engine while their DPS is dealt indirectly. You focus on support tools to build up effects for you to eventually detonate all at once, and the damage you "lose" not using Malefic is passed onto other party members to trigger for you (or yourself if you're playing solo), and I've danced around a lot of ideas over the last year on what that solution is. I really feel like I'm on the cusp of something great, but I can't pin it down exactly.

What I can say about AST is that its overall lack of popularity is largely due to two factors: The card system is too complicated/convoluted, and the constant single target swapping is cumbersome and physically unfun to play. It feels more like a chore for many players more than some type of rewarding system. Now, this doesn't necessarily mean that its the business of the job that's the problem, but how annoying that business can feel when you're trying to maintain attacking the boss and weaving cards on different party members.

I ultimately can't speak on what the 7.0 AST rework will look like, but I have strong feelings that whatever we get is going to try and answer these two questions, for better or worse.

i feel like the cards are less convoluted and more just...uneeded these days? like when was the last time you looked at your cards and were able to accurately separate them beyond "this gives bonus melee and this gives bonus ranged". it was said in other threads (and i posted my own ideas on a massive revamp/return to SB card systems in one of those, i think it was the "what dps/utility options old or new would you add to healer" one), but since ShB's reworking of them into all being different flavors of Balance, the seals are the only thing keeping the cards from going down to 2 instead of 6. and IIRC, AST's kit was actually the basis for the healer revamp in ShB, cause i don't think it had an AoE DoT or anything resembling one.

As for your personal solution and ideas for improving, i would love to see what those are, even if you think they aren't the "right" answer or the greatness you're looking for.

[Renathras]

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It's why one of my pitches is for Draw and/or Play to be GCDs that increase the damage of your next Malific (I don't know a good way to think about it, but maybe something VAGUELY like Raijin -> Forked/Fleeting Raiju on NIN where you use the one and then it unlocks the other with the second stacking to 3 charges) as kind of a way to slow down that APM a smidge to make targeting less onerous. If Draw and Play were GCDs and boosted your following Malifics, what this would allow in gameplay is for you to not have to worry about targeting a party member, Play, retargeting boss, Malific, Draw, targeting a party member, Play, retargeting boss, Malific, Draw, targeting a party member, Play, retargeting boss, Malific, Minor Arcana weave, and so on. It would break these steps up allowing you to Draw, target party member, Play, Draw, target next party member, Play, Draw, target next party member, Play, target boss, resume Malific spam, with those first 3/6 hitting harder to make it DPS neutral, and for people that really want to push the skill ceiling, they could use those to get more damage in the buff window.

It would both make AST burst a bit less murder on the fingers AND actually allow a higher skill expression with optimal play at the same time, giving it a high skill ceiling for those really wanting to push it.

Another alternative is for Draw to damage the target (if enemy) neutral with Malific, so that you could Draw, target, Play, swap back to boss, Draw; etc and only have to worry about 3 stacks and not have to do something weird to make up the damage, but I just feel SOMETHING in that general vein of thing would be helpful.

But, as I always say, AST is the Healer I play the least, so I defer to AST players for what they think a fix would be. I just feel like that would be one that could help with both the GCD Malificspam monotony AND the hyper-targeting APM in burst that drives players away from the Job.

I think AST is a lot like BLM in that people are intimidated by it PROBABLY a bit more than it deserves. I think a further thing for AST is that it's not a class fantasy that appeals to a lot of people. Some people, it absolutely is their fantasy jam, but a lot of Healers seem more into the academic Scholar, doctoral Sage, or the combination of druid, priest, and unparalleled healing/holy mage WHM (it seems to be a "project on me what you want" kind of class) than there are that are into occultic and astrology themes. There are absolutely a lot that ARE, and AST is great for them, but I feel it will always have at least some limits to its appeal - all other things being equal - just due to having what's probably the least popular class fantasy/aesthetic.

Which is another reason that I'm kind of in the "I'll defer to AST players what they want", since unless it's literally the only Healer Job still playable to me after some godsforsaken future change that I hope never happens, it would never be my main anyway.

and IIRC, AST's kit was actually the basis for the healer revamp in ShB, cause i don't think it had an AoE DoT or anything resembling one.

Agree with a lot of this post, though I'm curious about this.

Never heard this before. I always hear WHM blamed for the Healer rework in ShB, but you're saying you thin it was AST? In a way, that does make sense. WHM changed a lot into ShB (healing kit side), but AST's damage kit was the one left completely untouched (other than Gravity cast time, I guess?)

...hm. Food for thought...

[ty_taurus]

Which is another reason that I'm kind of in the "I'll defer to AST players what they want", since unless it's literally the only Healer Job still playable to me after some godsforsaken future change that I hope never happens, it would never be my main anyway.

As far as DPS vs healing vs support is concerned, AST is the healer that makes the most sense to have a playstyle that moves away from direct DPS given that it's already designed to be a buff-heavy healer and has historically had a very shallow DPS selection due to the volume of card mechanics its juggled. It's been brought up before that this doesn't resolve the issues of AST in solo content being very slow and very dull, even back during the good old days, which could be resolved with a reevaluating of how they engage with this support concept.

Personally, I'd move away from buffing Malefic through card uses specifically simply to keep pushing AST away from direct DPS as much as possible. Instead, you build stacks that you can then give to other players which detonate malefic-potency DPS as they attack. This also avoids the issue of Malefic's potency climbing to very bloated values and having a really significant crit variance issue with virtually all of AST's damage which could be a problem.

[Renathras]

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Hm...not trying to say this the wrong way, but I think it's posts like this that make me think you don't understand the way that I think.

Speaking for myself, I like the idea of buffing people, but I don't like the idea of building exploding buffs. That just seems like "complex DPS rotation with more steps that does DPS while pretending it doesn't". The kind of buffs I like are more things like Protect or Haste or Regen (using normal FF game terminology), or...well, FFXIV doesn't have many good examples of it, honestly, since most buffs are AOE "use ever 2 min on CD". But basically, if you had a selection of buffs to choose from,t hen chose from them and cast them on people whenever, maintain buffs that can be kept up 100% of the time (like Resto Druid in WoW rolling HoTs, particularly on the Tank(s)), etc. Playing a little FFXI, I kinda love using stuff like Protect and Bar-spells, even if they're infrequent. It's also enjoyable (to my old-school MMOer mindset) of buffing random people I come across (bonus points - it levels Enhancement skill anyway)

I don't think "buff" as "stack several things on someone that then explode and do damage. To me, that's no different than Solace/Rapture -> Misery, except I like those better since they seem way more intuitive than exploding buffs and have direct and generally useful effects (filling party health bars that are lowish essentially for "free" in terms of not losing DPS or whatnot for it).

Further, I don't mind dealing damage - and do so frequently - I don't like complex or convoluted DPS rotations, preferring my mental energy be focused on heals and not damage spells. Hence what I mean about I don't think you understand the way I think.

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Anyway, as I demonstrated on the first page of this thread, WHM essentially now plays the same as it did in SB (and HW if we ignore Cleric toggling). The main difference in a GCD sense is that we need less Cure 2/Medica casts since we get those as part of our damage rotation in Solace and Rapture, so we're doing a bit less (for players trying to be skilled, ideally zero) GCD cast healing, but if you WEREN'T having to cast Cure 2/Medica before, then the rotation would have been more or less identical, you're just using Solace/Rapture in place of 1 Aero II and 2 Aero III casts per minute (note the numbers more or less shake out the same).

So WHM as it exists right now is not only more or less what it was in SB, just less rigid (the Aeros were locked by duration, Solace/Rapture can be moved anywhere within a 60 second window), it's arguably the most complex it's been from 4.0 to present.

So all this time I've suggested "leave WHM alone" is, now that I've actually broken it down in depth, functionally equivalent to "leave WHM's damage kit like SB's" as it's more or less equivalent, people just tend not to think of Solace/Rapture as Aero 2/3 replacements, but that's what they are in the rotations and how they work in optimal gameplay.

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Which really leaves us with the crux of it:

SCH very clearly took some major hits (GCD and oGCD), especially when Broil's cast time was reduced, and AST's underlying rotation isn't what changed, it's...basically everything ELSE in the Job, given its DPS kit is the only part that HASN'T changed.

...and then there's SGE...

Very true IMO, the removal of Miasma/Miasma II and now Ruin II being relegated to solely movement at a DPS loss is a huge problem for Scholar.
My thoughts on the weave windows every healer has are mixed, but they definitely damaged SCH's DPS "rotation" flow going into EW, since at least you'd hit Ruin II 3 times a minute or more because of the lack of weave windows. They didn't even consider something like making Energy Drain locked behind Ruin II as a combo of sorts to make Ruin II necessary to use or anything. It's strange but not unexpected.
Now, being optimal on SCH is just being a Broilbot - there's no break from hitting Broil outside of refreshing Bio; literally nothing you can do to escape it. Returning Miasma would really help SCH feel a bit better and give it something unique to do comparatively to other healers now. SCH needs its GCD damaging suite back; things like Shadow Flare (as cool as they are) can stay gone since they're functionally just boring fire and forget oGCDs (though they could make it a GCD again, I guess.)

Please return Miasma and Bane to Scholar, Yoshida. It's insane to me that the healer that starts as a DPS class and was originally "the DPS healer" now has the least amount of AoE options in the game (1 total) and optimal single target GCDs in the game (2 total).

Agreed.

Thank you for this post!

It's...so weird having all of you agree with me on things (more or less), but kinda nice.

I honestly didn't really think about HOW MUCH the Broil cast time changed SCH. I played SCH (decently enough) in ShB, and I used Ruin 2 and stuff, but I guess it just didn't occur to me how often Ruin 2 WAS used for weaves that got removed with Broil having a 1.5 sec cast. Like...you don't think about it, since I guess we all think of Ruin 2 as "movement tool", but when you think of it as "weave tool for a Job that has tons of oGCDs", suddenly relegating it to movement only exposes just HOW BIG of a change that was. And then looking at the fact WHM still has Afflatus abilities to at least mimic the lost DoT refreshes, SCH has none, and that SCH casts more Broil IV in current fights than WHM casts Glare...and it's kind of eye opening.

Somehow, I thought WHM was the worst offender here. But by the numbers and looking at actual logs...I now see it's actually SCHOLAR that has it the worst.

I'm not even sure quite what to think of that...

[ty_taurus]

Speaking for myself, I like the idea of buffing people, but I don't like the idea of building exploding buffs.

I'm talking along the assumption that you would prefer that a healer spend as little time as possible on attacking, which if that's incorrect, then by all means correct me on that. And I understand the mentality of wanting to make decisions based on support and not based on damage. The tricky aspect about that point in particular is priority in this game is determined by how much you ultimately contribute to the fight per cast, and DPS is ultimately what determines which action is the "right" action, even when you're restoring HP. With that in mind, creating a support system that hides that healer's DPS output allows the job design to thrive in an environment where DPS is largely expected, because you can approach the support and recovery tools as support and recovery while the damage that is expected of your job is accomplished for you simply by engaging with those support tools.

When I talked about building and detonating an engine, I meant figuratively. Here's a very light overview of where I'm thinking on AST in this regard. Draw and Play are GCD actions. You can draw up to 3 cards and play them as you hold them. They apply effects like a 5% DPS buff, a 5% crit buff... all simple buffs, but you can only apply each card to one person at a time. Two people cannot have balance, and one person cannot have more than 1 card other than you (for soloing). These effects do not immediately occur once you play the card. Instead, you have another spell that causes all of your cards to activate at once, applying their effects to whom you played them on. You also have your buff window spell that can activate the card on one person and extend the effect to the whole party. Every one of these actions generates a star that will attack an enemy for malefic potency damage when you activate a specific OGCD action on yourself or an ally.

So it's not exploding a DPS bomb on enemies, but rather setting up your buff skill to be used at intervals after you've played your hand. Then you reshuffle your cards and start again.

In solo, what I meant by detonating these buffs in small bursts is you'd play a bunch of cards on yourself, activate them, use your OGCD ability, then hit Malefic several times to detonate all your stars and start over. But outside of soloing, Malefic use would be very minimal. There are other tools I have in mind, but that's the core of what I'm bringing up.

I know you've stated you're content with a 1 button DPS healer that just hits that one spell and that's it, but I was under the impression that if there was a healer that didn't have to DPS very much at all, that would be preferable for you.

[Renathras]

I won't speak for Semirhage but I do want to point out Aero 1,2,3 were all available for WHM during Heavensward. There was also the interaction between Cleric Stance and Assize that determined how potent the skill was in terms of healing/damage as well. Minor things to be sure but still an improvement to ARR.

One of the reasons I'm using SB is it's data I can actually FIND. HW I vaguely remember...but it's been a while and I was in the military at the time so had a lot less time to theorycraft (and remember everything from the time anyway). Though I'm again confused how DoTs "enable choice". As I've said, you're either refreshing them within 3 sec of their duration or you're doing it wrong UNLESS the boss is about to die or become untargetable, in which case refreshing them is doing it wrong. Where is the "choice"?

One could argue (as ForsakenRoe has) that it's still skill ceiling/expression (I disagree, but that's at least a debatable point), but I fail to see how it's a CHOICE expression, unless choosing to do it wrong is somehow a valid choice for optimization purposes somehow?

I'm not meaning to be snarky, I just don't think "choice" is the correct term here.

To show what I mean: Contrast New PLD.

A Holy Spirit is 30 less potency than an Atonement, but provides a 400 (Tank) potency heal and allows for more disengage. Obviously, using too many will screw with your MP, but an occasional second HS/non-Divine Might HS in place of an Atonement is actually viable. The difference in DPS is negligible, and if that 400 potency means a Healer could use another damage GCD, would potentially be a party DPS gain. Now this is an interesting choice. An ability that is very flexible in use that can allow to trade a small amount of damage for extra utility in the form of either positioning and/or sustain allowing an additional Healer DPS spell in some circumstances.

A LESS interesting example that's still a choice would be a WHM casting 4x Glare vs 3x Lily + Misery. The two are damage neutral, meaning the player can choose between them. Now, this isn't as interesting a choice since there's literally no reason to do the 4 Glares (even if you aren't using the Solace/Rapture Healing OR putting Misery under buffs, the Lily option is still saving you 1600 MP, not to mention the mobility), you CAN choose between them without any detriment if you aren't going OOM, which we almost never are since Glare is still pretty cheap and Lucid pretty powerful for what it is. It's not an INTERESTING choice (unlike the PLD case which is a "not quite equal but close enough that the utility could be argued to be preferable), but it is A choice where both options are valid.

Contrast DoTs. There is a right way and a wrong way. That's it. If you don't reapply the DoT and the boss stays on the field, your "choice" is objectively wrong. You're doing less DPS and not saving anything or making anything up by doing so. Unlike the Lily choice (where you're saving MP and providing party healing and possible damage buffed Misery) or the PLD choice (where you're sacrificing a bit of damage for some more sustain and mobility/positioning/disengage), letting your DoT fall off is getting you nothing. There's no trade-off where there are cases it could be the better option in a static boss fight. Indeed, the only time it IS the better option flips the coin over to the other side - the boss about to die or be untargetable? Well, now, REAPPLYING the DoT is the wrong choice. There's no trade-off for having done so. What did you gain by doing so? Not healing, not MP, not any utility. In the case of WHM, you can use it as a poor man's Ruin 2 (the up front damage means you can use it for movement; it's a DPS loss if you have a Lily to use instead, but it's a DPS gain over doing nothing in the case you don't have Swiftcast+Glare or a Lily up - its actually the ONLY Healer DoT that has the up front damage and CAN be argued to very rarely be a DPS gain to spam [briefly]). That is, there's no "Trade off" where you're losing something but gaining something (PLD case) or where you're not gaining anything but you're not really losing anything/anything meaningful (4x Glares instead of Lilies; you're technically losing 1600 MP, but that's not hyper-significant, so it's an ALLOWED choice, even if it's a BAD choice - it's inefficient, but not a LOSS in terms of DPS/etc)

...but having your DoT fall off and not refreshing it has no such trade. It's just the wrong option. Unless the boss is going untargetable/dying, in which case REFRESHING the DoT has no such trade. It's just the wrong option.

Get what I'm trying to say?

For a choice to be a choice, it has to be something that either (a) isn't a loss to do or (b) is a trade, losing some thing here to gain something there that MIGHT credibly be argued is equal or slightly greater in some situations.

DoTs - at least standard Healer DoTs - don't do this. The only one that AT ALL does this is Dia if you're using it as a spam movement tool. But that's not even that common. The only time you might do this right now is 4 man pulls (once you Dia all the first pack but aren't to the second pack yet and have already Regen'd the Tank and have no Lilies, you can spam Dia a few more times as you're still walking as you're still getting a slight DPS gain from the chip damage by doing so; again, ONLY Dia works this way of the Healer DoTs, and it's a pretty marginal gain). When it comes to a standard boss...

Well, I'm beating a dead horse/restating myself.

Hopefully somewhere in there I managed to explain what I mean well ENOUGH.

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...

I thought I'd been clear, but perhaps not.

Let me try to say it this way...

I feel the focus of Healers should be healing and support (mainly buffing/debuffing) as a general rule and don't enjoy complex DPS rotations. WHM's current DPS rotation is acceptable to me. I'd rather it not have a DoT because I find DoTs both boring, annoying, and horribly uninteresting unless they do SOMETHING other than "refresh on duration", but it's acceptable. I just don't want MORE of it and feel this has been the level of DPS buy-in of WHM since ARR, and definitely since SB, so I don't think that's asking a lot.

That is, I don't mind simple damage rotations - on par with what WHM already has - on Healers. I just don't desire anything more complex. I don't mind SOME Healers having more complex rotations (as I've noted before) as long as not all of them do, and I don't mean "how about a complex buffing rotation instead?" I wouldn't find a SMN level rotation too terrible if the Healer was specifically designed for it (SGE with Kardia; I've pitched this idea several times), but WHM is not, and so shouldn't be.

The problem with buff gameplay is that FFXIV isn't well built for it. The combat system is too rigid. I mean, this is a combat system where old Arrow had to be changed because giving players a Haste buff was, for most Jobs, either almost not beneficial at all, or for a few, actively detrimental. Where any other game would have haste buffs universally (or nearly universally) a damage buff, in FFXIV, it could actually be a DEBUFF. This leads to really narrow options for utility and buffing, unfortunately. And the high paced combat style doesn't work well with things like camps and party buffs that you'd get from old school MMOs, which is honestly probably why they removed Protect and Stoneskin (the one you could actually cast on people not in your party)

I get what you're going for, but if it was me, I wouldn't make some contingent "activate" spell. They should just be buffs, and they should be GCDs, if that's what you're trying to make.

But that's in a general sense.

If you're talking just AST, as I said, it's the Healer I'll never play outside of hyper-casual tinkering around (I've healed Experts and current 24 mans with it and I like to know how all Healers work so I can work with whoever I get paired with in roulettes or PF, but I probably won't do much else), so I have no strong opinions since it's not a Job I'll main unless I have legitimately no alternative.

...and if such was the case, your idea there is pretty "complex". So I wouldn't be a fan of it, honestly. Seems too burst focused as well (something I don't like at the best of times anyway). That is, it's JUST about everything I'd hate in a Job other than having a DoT. Except it also would have a DoT anyway. XD

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Nah, I like WHM and will probably keep playing it. I like SCH from time to time, and SGE is alright when I want to think a little less, I guess...but WHM is the Job I started with, it's been more or less the same all these years, and I like it now as much as I liked it back when Syrcus Tower was released (2.3 when I started playing). And I loved it then, as it was then, too. Loved it then, and I love it now. It's still fun to me after all these years, and it has (as I've demonstrated) APPROXIMATELY the same general playstyle it's had since SB. Just better (seriously, SB WHM really sucked due to the Lilies being AWFUL; EW's is just as GCD active and more flexible.)

But none of that was the point of this thread.

The point of this thread was more to look back at WHM, SCH, and AST and see how they, today, compare to their historic versions going back as far as I can find good data for, which is SB. Considering with the ShB changes, many people complained and said they wanted SB back, and most people think SB (not HW) was the height of Healing (and arguably Tanking and possibly DPSing) in the game, it seems the most logical place to compare against.

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The short versions are:

WHM today is roughly equal in complexity and slightly greater in flexibility and meaningful choice than SB (shares the Healer overpowered oGCDs and the 2 min burst issues of the present game as detriments afflicting all Healers and, indeed, all JOBS; but actually does a lot of healing with GCD Lily abilities which replace its extra DoT casts in SB)

SCH today is SIGNIFICANTLY nerfed in terms of main rotation, with 2.5-6 (or more) "dead/empty" GCDs that now must be filled with Broil, and worse, without Ruin 2/Miasma 2 for weaving breaking it up, that's even more Broils since you no longer need to use a non-Broil ability to weave oGCDs. This has led to SCH actually being the most Glarespam of the Healers, not WHM. It seems like it definitely needs some of its SB kit back, but the biggest change actually seems not to be the Miasma 1 removal, but rather that Broil is now not 2.5 sec cast, meaning less Ruin 2s (Miasma 2s when close to the boss) to break up the Broilspam.

AST today...actually has the exact same DPS kit as it did in SB. But its Card have been gutted to hell and back, and it traded some more interesting oGCDs (Time Dilation and Celestial Opposition as an AOE Time Dilation) for several oGCDs that are more or less clones of WHM (or SCH/SGE) abilities (Divination vs Plenary, Celestial Opposition is now Assize without damage, Neutral Sect is Holos I guess...etc). In other words, it did what New PLD did. (I've described Tanks as that they were a three sided pyramid and now they're a triangle with WAR, DRK, and GNB being the points and PLD just being a dot in the very center; AST is now this for the Healers)

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Collectively, this indicates the focus of Healer Job changes right now need to be on ASTs having...SOMETHING to make up for all they lost out of their kit that gave them a reason for not having anything other than Malific, and SCH having either Broil go back to 2.5 sec CD and probably re-add Misama or...well, SOMETHING that would give SCH a reason to use Ruin 2 more and/or something else to break up the Broilspam.

WHM, on the other hand, is oddly complete by comparison; its SB incarnation with the major issues it had at the time (MP economy, competitive damage with the other Healers, and a viable GCD healing model) all fixed.

My normal "4 Healers" pitch aside, I think what I explained above about the three Jobs leaves no doubt that SCH and AST both need some serious looking at (even if you disagree with me on WHM, I think it's undeniable the other two need serious help in terms of kit/gameplay)

[Nizzi]

Agreed.

Thank you for this post!

It's...so weird having all of you agree with me on things (more or less), but kinda nice.

I honestly didn't really think about HOW MUCH the Broil cast time changed SCH. I played SCH (decently enough) in ShB, and I used Ruin 2 and stuff, but I guess it just didn't occur to me how often Ruin 2 WAS used for weaves that got removed with Broil having a 1.5 sec cast. Like...you don't think about it, since I guess we all think of Ruin 2 as "movement tool", but when you think of it as "weave tool for a Job that has tons of oGCDs", suddenly relegating it to movement only exposes just HOW BIG of a change that was. And then looking at the fact WHM still has Afflatus abilities to at least mimic the lost DoT refreshes, SCH has none, and that SCH casts more Broil IV in current fights than WHM casts Glare...and it's kind of eye opening.

Somehow, I thought WHM was the worst offender here. But by the numbers and looking at actual logs...I now see it's actually SCHOLAR that has it the worst.

I'm not even sure quite what to think of that...

This sort of thing continually happens to Scholar, it seems. The developers don't think about how taking away or changing things will affect its kit, and instead just go forward with the change and either say "Deal with it" or revert back. (See, Miasma II's in Stormblood, fairy changes/ DoT removal/ Energy Drain in ShB, now cast time changes in EW turning Ruin II from one of the most useful buttons in your kit to a borderline vestigal one).

Because of this too, I expect they'll likely remove Ruin II in 7.0 and add nothing in its place, leaving another gaping hole in Scholar's offensive kit without a single care for how it feels to play.
It's funny when you think about how because of the Misery potency increases, Afflatus skills now pretty much perform the same function that Ruin II + ED did for SCH in ShB in terms of lossless movement and if weaving is necessary (though in this case it'd be for double weaving because of the single weave slots now)
The Misery change to be neutral/positive in 6.1 was an immensely positive change for WHM and definitely did alleviate some of the "glarebotting" fatigue that WHM feels, meanwhile SCH is at the peak of Broilbotting that it has ever been at. Scholar went from a job that had 3 GCDs of lossless movement/weaving/break from Broil every minute to a job with 0 for the first time ever in Endwalker. That certainly seems like a bit of a problem to me, personally?

One thing that's also interesting to note too is that Scholar is the only job in the game that has not received a single new offensive skill from 2.0 on. Some people would count Chain (I do not, it's a debuff and changes nothing about Scholar) but Scholar has only ever had its 'toys' taken away from it continually. It's no wonder Scholar players, out of all the other healer mains, usually seem to be the loudest with their discontent over how the healer role has turned out. A job that was designed around maintaining your DoTs and using Ruin/Broil for filler between refreshing has been turned into literally just Broiling with no breaks. Riveting gameplay evolution over a 10 year period.

[Renathras]

But i think the biggest changes is "Healers need to gcd to heal" to "Good healer make few uses of healing gcd", and i'm not sure people would love to go back as using gcd for it. Personnaly I would dislike to.

Technically, WHM is still a GCD Healer, it's just not obvious since Lilies are damage neutral and instant cast, so it kind of "hides" it. WHM only has 4 oGCD heals, and of them, Assize is used on CD for damage, not held for healing, so Tetra is the only shortish one (60 sec CD) and is single target. Asylum is 90 and Lilybell is 180 sec/3 mins. There's not a LOT of healing required in the game right now, but there's a BIT more than THAT. Solace/Rapture fill the gap, and you get 3 of those per minute. They just made them not feel like GCD heals (no casts) and useful for your damage rotation and MP management, so people don't think about it, I think.

Ren stuff

Still don't think DoTs are terribly engaging and shorter is worse than longer...to a point. I think 30 sec is about right. Usually around 25 sec is when I start thinking "I haven't thought about Dia for a while...yup, about time to refresh". But that does work both ways, as 45 sec is a bit too LONG. That's about the time I've remembered to check it twice and it still not been up yet and I start to just totally forget it. If you want a high skill ceiling DoT, make it a 49 sec duration... <_<

9 sec? I don't THINK anything was ever that short, but I didn't touch BRD back then, so no idea. That's like...ever 3rd/4th GCD. o.O

Looks like only BLM survived all these years. Surely a coincidence, huh

I've said more than once that BLM is the Tardis of FFXIV, complete with anti-paradox shielding making it immune to changes in the timeline.

...somewhat ironic given the name of its level 90 capstone ability, but I consider that BLM just rubbing our faces in it.

I'm not really sure that the Monk fantasy is "striking like a piercing spear or arrow", but... I think it's more "offtank with meh defense but high health and a mix of offense and utility skills - not spells, we aren't dress wearing wizards! Oh, and we PUNCH people. With our BARE HANDS because who needs a weapon when you're a badass?"

Like, I tend to think of Monk (the archetype) as like Alya from Chrono Trigger, FFTactics Monks, Zell from FF8, or Amarant from FF9. Fist fighter, light armor, high HP pool, very high strength, abilities like Chackra (health and MP regen), line/aoe attacks, punch/kick techniques, and (rarely) a low % chance of working revive (FFT Monks actually had Revive, a lowish chance of success lesser Raise; Raise restored 50%, Raise 2 100%, Revive 20%). So a more physical, less magical RDM. Monks in MMOs alst have a history of being pullers (feign death) and/or off-tanks.

...FFXIV does none of that either, lol

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As for Medica vs Medica 2; it's more that you can spam Medica (not the best choice, but it makes sense mathematically if you need the healing) but doing so with Medica 2 is actually an inferior result since you'd be clipping the HoT and since it costs more MP (not massively more, though, so...) Though...hm...is Medica 2's first tick up front or after 3 sec/server tick? It doesn't seem to have an up-front tick when I spam it, but on the other hand, the tick seems to consistently go off before the follow-up cast registers and they do approximately the same healing anyway. It just seems odd to have something that does less as an "upgrade". If Medica 1 already had the HoT and was weaker...but then it wouldn't be as useful if you need to spam it below level 50. Though if the game just had Medica 2 and Cure 3, I suppose that covers those bases well enough, though Cure 3's 10y range is only half Medica 2's 20y. Medica 1 to Medica 2 is a range upgrade, though, from 15y to 20y... And Medica 2 does cost more MP to cast. Upgrades costing more MP made sense when we had variable MP pools, but not when they're fixed at 10000 from level 1 to level 90.

I dunno, the more I think about it, the more okay with it I'd be, honestly. It still FEELS weird, but in a practical sense, it's not so bad given WHM still has Cure 3 as its other AOE and that, at worst, Medica 2 is about damage neutral. Though maybe drop the MP cost down to 900 with Medica 1. Because. That's why.

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And I don't think Protect would step on AST's toes too much. First, because WHM had it FIRST anyway. Second, because AST already has 3 party mitigations per 2 mins between 2x CU and Neutral Sect. Temperance might be stronger than Neutral Sect, but if so, just give Neutral Sect a damage mitigation and call it a homogenized day. CI also does 10% reduction, which is why I specifically said that Pro-Plenary would do 5%. Still mitigation, but less so, as Temperance does 10%. And AST not being better than WHM at literally everything for once might not be a bad thing.

Why is something that doesn't automatically neatly align considered "clunk"?

I'm honestly not even talking about raid buffs, I'm more talking smoothness of play. I guess it depends on what you consider good cadences, but a lot of wonky numbers are weird to remember and disrupt rather than enhance play. Ever play a game where the controls were so clunky, every time you died, you could LEGITIMATELY blame the controls? That's what I mean when I say clunk. Stuff that just...doesn't work well and feels bad.

I've messed with the HUD a lot but never found a good way to have it show just the things I want it to show. And there are sometimes things besides my own that I do want to see, like Mug and Chain Strategem. I'm with Roe that they should have it on the "engaged target list" on the right hand side. That might honestly be the best way to do it. But in general, I've never seen a good MMO UI for DoT tracking. It's one of (not the only, but one of) the reasons I hate DoTs so much. I've seen add-ons that do it SO much better, though..."better" to the point of braindead and annoying "CHECK YOUR DOT! IT'S FALLING OFF!" type sound ques that ALMOST play the games for you (again, WoW abounded with these, and the community expected most players to be using them anyway, but especially players of DoT classes like Warlock)

I don't mind bleeds in a game like Remnant: From the Ashes, but it's also blatantly obvious when you have them on the targets because you see the string of damage numbers of a tick per 0.5 sec or whatever, so it's super easy to see when they've fallen off because the number string stops. No timer tracking, no add-ons needed; the game actually makes it apparent when your DoTs ARE and ARE NOT on the target. Also helps that a lot of DoTs actually change the enemy's model (e.g. progressive frost covering, coated in green if poisoned, little fires on their clothes/body if burning, etc)

HW seemingly ended on a very different development direction compared to how it started, I guess in reaction to how the average player took difficultly spikes seen in the likes of ThordanEX and Gordias.

I more or less talked this out as did Roe, so I'll kind of leave it for now other than to reiterate what I said above, more or less. As I said, 4.0 to present is essentially "A Realm Reborn, Reborn", and as Roe said, the Devs have already indicated they don't want to go back to 3.X. So using 4.X as the baseline makes the most sense.

As far as WHM itself goes. Yeah for sure, WHM is the best it's ever been in terms of relevance. I don't think anyone with any sense is going to deny that? I can think of 2 times in past expansions where WHM was a must pick for Savage (Gordias and Deltascape), on both occasions it wasn't because WHM was a powerhouse, but rather it was because one of the alternatives was just plain bad (AST for Gordias prog was a struggle right from A1S, SCH wasn't as bad but it still fell noticeably behind Noct AST in 4.0).

Right, but this is the first time it's kinda good in its own right, not just because its competitors were garbage. It may even be meta on some fights, I dunno, but it's definitely holding it's own well and is in the best shape it's ever been in both rotational and functional and feels ways, imo

Even so, it's still not perfect.

Nothing is, but I think it's close. I think the real thing it's lacking right now is that, while having no buff utility game, it ALSO has (almost) no mitigation game. This wouldn't be a problem if it wasn't the ONLY Healer this is true of. AST being a Pure Healer with 3x mits kind hurts, but this more affects the feels. Even 4 man bosses use big attacks at a rough cadence of needing 2-3 mitigations per 2 minutes or so, and even though it's "irrelevant", WHM is the only Healer that can't provide them. The Plenary change is honestly the only thing I think WHM absolutely needs at this point.

It's too mindless to play below Savage.

I mean, every Healer is. But that aside, I never understand this argument because I play it the same way I play it in Savage. The only real distinction is that I never have a need for Medica 2 or Regen, and only use Cure 2 situationally (mainly if I have 3 Lilies, a Misery ready to go, but it's the second wall to wall and a boss is about to come up and they're almost dead; would rather go into the boss full on resources and open with a Misery, so I'll Cure 2 the Tank in that very specific situation). But in terms of using oGCDs and mitigation and such, I do that (on all the Healers) even if I'm doing 4 man content. I make it a game to myself to go through dungeons not only using only oGCDs (Lilies aside) for healing, but also using most/all of them at least once to kind of cycle through them. I do the same thing on the other Healers, and it actually made me better on them, particularly SCH, since it got me more used to using the CDs I was much more rarely touching.

For sure part of it is a content design problem, but job design has to take a part of the blame as well.

I really don't think so, honestly. I think the problem is that content design has shifted, and Jobs were shifted partly with it, but not completely, leading to the disconnect. But I think that IS a combat systems and encounter design problem.

Taking away healer utility from ARR and HW was an awful decision.

I'm trying to think, but what utility do you mean? Protect? Stoneskin?

Just a small correction, WHM absolutely did not have MP issues in SB,

Hm...I may be thinking of HW, then. I remember some point WHM having REALLY bad MP economy. Other than 6.0, that is.

Thin Air did absolute wonders for the job

Okay, make that TWO things I think need to be changed about WHM: Old Thin Air I liked a lot. New Thin Air is growing on me as a Raise tool, but it's kind of clunky to double weave Swiftcast + Thin Air + Raise, especially if you have a macro on any of the three to try and prevent the other Healer from blowing Swiftcast (it never works, but, we do it anyway with the hopes SOMEONE reads /party...)

If you dropped the current EW Lily/Misery system onto SB WHM, it would have been highly competitive.

Fair enough. And more or less what I've said about how good WHM is right now.

The only real difference between SB and EW WHM is Aero 3 vs Lily/Misery and that our DoTs don't have wonky timers. Of those, readding Aero 3 and having it upgrade to Banish if they want to keep the Light/Umbral theme could work, especially if they combined Cure 1 and Cure 2. Though I still think it as a blast CD with 2 charges would be the better option than another DoT.

Quick correction,
Miasma II did 25 potency per tick over 12 seconds, giving it a total potency of 200 (only 30 potency less than Broil II) and making it a lot more useful as a weave tool (even for single weaves) provided you could afford the MP cost.

Was that a buff sometime during the expansion? I think it was 20 early on...but either way, you still end up with the same use-case - Miasma 2 if you were close to the boss and had ample MP for a DPS gain and needed movement or a double weave/unclipped weave / Ruin 2 if either of those conditions weren't met.

or a smooth alliance raid run at all given how gentle and infrequent damage taken happens,

I kind of scratch my head whenever people say this. People die in 24 mans all the time, so healing kind of IS needed. You can meet it with oGCDs most of the time, true, but it's definitely not "gentle" when attacks deal over half a party member's HP in damage. Standing in bad often isn't fatal but it's CLOSE ENOUGH to fatal that if they aren't healed they'll die to the next raidwide, or if they weren't healed from the prior one they'd die. And some of the unavoidable damage does hit rather hard. Halone's 3 hit AOE will knock a lot of players down in the 10-20% health range, and I'm not sure passive generation will heal them up before the next raidwide or not. Haven't tried it...

I don't disagree with making GCD healing useful. I very much agree with that, in fact. I think WHM is basically there, just that their non-Lily heals need to be brought into the fold. It's one reason I suggested before to remove Rapture and Solace and just make all their GCD heals generate 1/3rd a Blood Lily like that. SGE could do a similar thing with Toxicon, they just...don't want the barrier to be damage neutral for whatever reason. Probably to encourage more oGCD only healing. But both of them EFFECTIVELY have a solution to the problem, they just need a bit of a nudge.

SCH and AST, on the other hand...I don't even know how to begin. Maybe for AST every GCD heal generates a stack of Lord of Crowns up to 3 stacks or something? But maybe that'd be too boring and require them to rework Minor Arcana...

Though, strictly speaking, it's probably not BAD if there's an oGCD focused Healer. SCH in ARR and HW was quite popular for this reason. SGE could be today if it actually...had a DPS rotation to make that its actual core identity.

This sort of thing continually happens to Scholar, it seems.

I mean...you aren't wrong. It seems to just be "The Scholar Curse", since FFXI also had some weirdness with SCH. It's somehow (almost) always powerful, yet at the same time, always just has weirdness with it. And yeah, for all the talk people have of WHM being the boring one, the data and feels seem to show that SCH actually is. When we don't count oGCDs (which we don't for WHM, so... ...but we do for AST..........so....... /shrug)

One SLIGHT correction, though: SCH also got Miasma 2 in...HW, I think? It doesn't have it NOW, mind you, but it DID receive at least that. I think it was because the direction for SCH early on was damage based, but its damage was shunted to oGCDs instead.

One other thing: Afflatus doesn't really do ED for the simple reason ED is a competition between using a resource for healing or damage - something the Devs haven't liked since they first tried to remove it in 5.0. Some players love it, some hate it. For those who hate it, WHM is a more perfect version of that system. For those that love it, SCH's version they prefer, but there's no AOE version since Bane was removed. Oh, and you do have breaks. Exactly two of them, like clockwork, per minute. Riveeting, I agree. <_<

It really goes to show how you can have oGCD focused Healers, but they need to actually have their play centered around that - SCH did up until SB then got it wiffed - or alternatively, you can have a GCD centric focus, but you have to lean into that fully to make it work - ShB and really 6.1+ EW WHM for that example.

[Deceptus]

Because of this too, I expect they'll likely remove Ruin II in 7.0 and add nothing in its place, leaving another gaping hole in Scholar's offensive kit without a single care for how it feels to play..

Little fun fact I learned doing way too much MSQ:

Synced to lvl 50, Art of War does the exact same damage(potency) as Ruin for the exact same mana while being instant cast and hitting every enemy around you for that potency.

From when you get Art of War (an AoE) at level 46 until you get Broil at level 54 there is literally no reason to ever use Ruin 1. Ever.

When people talk about how CBU3 job developers don't know what they're doing with healers, that's another example. It shows how badly they have designed SCH in particular.

The Original Miasma II could have stayed. All they needed to do was make the on hit low enough it dis-incentivized spamming it, and the Dot portion high enough to make it worth the dot timer of the skill.