A question: What makes a Healer "easy/simple" or "hard/complex"?

[Semirhage]

All I'm gonna say is, if SE had a PTR where we could test 'SB WHM, with current Lilies and skills added', I would put actual money on the vast majority saying 'this is great'. Maybe I'm wrong, and I'd lose my money on the bet, but I'm confident enough in my assertions to make it. We only have to have these 'nuh uh my way would be better' because we're unable to put them to the test. It's all well and good insisting that 'no if we had all the healers have actual skill ceilings (skill floor remains as is) then EVERYONE would quit and the servers would explode and Blizzard would buy out SE and turn the game into a glorified Hearthstone lobby' when there's no way to disprove that statement. But if we had a seperate client for 'testing' stuff, we could put some of these false assertions in the grave where they belong

It wouldn't even need to necessarily take server space. Could make a 'lab room' of just plain white nothing forever, with a training dummy in the center, and have the game client look at localhost instead of the server IP, and essentially 'host' the 'server' on the player's own machine. We've got the benchmark program, something similar with a 'playtest these moves for us and give feedback on the forums' should be doable. At least, if the 'spaghetti code' issue is as solved as they claim

My disagreement stems from approaching it in the opposite direction; "SB WHM with current lilies and skills" is the logical equivalent to "Endwalker WHM plus Aero 3". I think "lol just add Aero 3 it'd make WHM good again" is...not something I see panning out, and in fact would slot into the folder of opinions I have labeled "Endwalker healer design is terrible, samey, and embarrassing...oh except WHM, suddenly when the white egg job stone is involved this horrible job design I spent the last two paragraphs lambasting is *chef's kiss* near pinnacle".

[Sebazy]

What would you do with SCH and AST?

https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...-revamp-theory.

Note that this was a few weeks after patch 4.1 early on in Stormblood. SCH had been course corrected after it's initial murder at the hands of 4.0.

If was to rewrite it today, I'd definitely take advantage of newer additions such as charges to add additional utility to abilities whilst avoiding bloat such as Fey Antithesis to swap fairies without the additional buffs whilst it was on cooldown to save likely needing to pocket Swiftcast after a Selene burst cycle.

Other than that I think it still holds up pretty well as a concept. It would fit in pretty well with the focus on burst windows that we have now whilst offering some flexibility if you fall out of sync removing the need to skip an entire 2 minute burst to get back in alignment with the group. IMHO it'd offer a little more potential for engagement with how powerful 'throwing' fairy abilities would be. Lastly, it'd give the illusion of being a very pet centric healer once again, despite the pet really being nothing more than a minion/crosshair. It'd reward aggressive play in a more meaningful manner than the speedy aetherflow IMO somewhat similar to how Misery rewards good usage of Lilies.

[ty_taurus]

I've had different ideas of how to approach SCH in the past but here's my bingo card of things I'd want to see from a full SCH rework:

- Restore Miasma and Shadowflare; replace Biolysis with Bio III and upgrade Miasma to Miasma III.
- Separate Selene from Eos with something new where both feel valuable in different scenarios. No party buffs on Selene.
- Rework Aetherpact into a replacement for random casts of Embrace. Instead of your faerie casting heals constantly, you tether her to party members you want to have a permanent, weaker regen on. She can still activate faerie actions while tethered.
- Delete Dissipation.
- Rework Aetherflow into exclusively an offensive resource and rework the Fey Gauge into your resource for healing tools. For Aetherflow, cutting Energy Drain and making it more about Fester, Bane, and a third DoT, for example, or something to that effect would be the goal.

EDIT:
Also, as an additional brownie point, I want SCH to apply Toad to enemies somehow. Perhaps just adding that to Bane, or adding it to a mitigation debuff on enemies from Selene that toads and reduces damage dealt. I know it really isn't important, but it's fun for dungeons, deep dungeons, and any future Eureka/Bozja type content we may get.

[Renathras]

I read all the other posts since this one I'm quoting but I have to ask about this specifically. Emphasis mine, just want to find out how you square this assertion with the data you posted in that other thread a while back, which says:



At least, if I'm reading it right, that HW was the highest level of healer playerbase we've ever had and while there's currently an uptick of sorts, we've never been close to what we had back then? People quit in SB, I'll agree on that, the data says that too. But HW? It seems that, if these numbers are to be believed, HW was the peak of 'people want to play healer' and we've never had it anywhere close to as high as back then ever since, even with a new healer class being released

I would say the most likely answer is that Healers then were diverse (we had a pure/simple Healer - as discussed, WHM was largely played then as it is now, just with more GCD cast heals; a damage focused support Healer in SCH; and a pretty crazy hybrid buffer/support Healer with AST). Everyone had an option available to them.

SB was when the simple/easy option (WHM) was at its absolute worst, so we saw a large exodus. ShB was when all of them were made simple, so we lost the complex lovers but regained the simple lovers that had abandoned the role.

This would suggest the answer is a hybrid approach.

The caveat to this is that we don't know what the numebers were BEFORE that because the data wasn't available. What if the number in ARR was 30%? What if it was 20%? Each would lead us to a different conclusion about HW, the second that HW was a peak but the first that HW was the beginning of a downward trend. Unfortunately, we don't have that data, so we don't know.

But what we know is that when Healer Jobs were more diverse across both playstyle and complexity, and that both were viable, the role was more popular.

All I'm gonna say is, if SE had a PTR where we could test 'SB WHM, with current Lilies and skills added', I would put actual money on the vast majority saying 'this is great'. Maybe I'm wrong, and I'd lose my money on the bet, but I'm confident enough in my assertions to make it. We only have to have these 'nuh uh my way would be better' because we're unable to put them to the test. It's all well and good insisting that 'no if we had all the healers have actual skill ceilings (skill floor remains as is) then EVERYONE would quit and the servers would explode and Blizzard would buy out SE and turn the game into a glorified Hearthstone lobby' when there's no way to disprove that statement. But if we had a seperate client for 'testing' stuff, we could put some of these false assertions in the grave where they belong

It wouldn't even need to necessarily take server space. Could make a 'lab room' of just plain white nothing forever, with a training dummy in the center, and have the game client look at localhost instead of the server IP, and essentially 'host' the 'server' on the player's own machine. We've got the benchmark program, something similar with a 'playtest these moves for us and give feedback on the forums' should be doable. At least, if the 'spaghetti code' issue is as solved as they claim

I actually somewhat agree with this. FFXIV's Dev team is pretty tight on stuff, though - they don't even release potency changes in patch notes before maintenance anymore - so it'll never happen. But it would be one way to see which change are popular and which are not.

But given we DON'T have one of those, I think the next best solution is what I've proposed - change 2-3, leave 1-2, see which one players play the most.

I could be wrong, but if people are still playing Healers, they likely wouldn't quit over that. Those that like it the way it is would continue doing it, those who don't would try out the new/changed Healers and, if they enjoyed one, stay with the role, and people that left the role for that reason would likely do the same, increasing the role's population. Everyone tried out SGE. Even jaded Healers who were considering quitting the role (and probably those who did) to see if it could appeal to them. Imagine if it HAD. Imagine if it WAS the DPS focused Healer everyone - and this is one of the few universal statements I'll make; probably EVERYone - thought it was going to be when they heard "heals by doing damage".

Suppose, Einstein thought experiment, that it HAD been that. It had some galaxy brain gameplay, high skill ceiling, and whatever you'd consider a fun rotation - be that DNC, RDM, BLM, GNB, MNK, NIN; whatever it is you think would be fun - and had actually DONE THAT.

Then people like you would have tried it out, and absolutely loved it. Would you still wish that WHM would change? Of course you would. Would you be making threads all the time asking that WHM be more like SGE? Maybe so. But you'd be playing SGE and actually having fun with its mega-complex hyper-active gameplay style where every encounter was as exciting as the most exciting thing to you.

And we would have actual data, because we could look at which Healer Jobs were being played and which were not. If no one liked simple Jobs, WHM would be dead last and everyone would have flocked to SGE, and that would be apparent. That could then be used as a solid argument for changing the other Healers, because it would be an example of it working.

But maybe it would be middlingly popular. Maybe many people would like it...but many wouldn't, just as many people like BLM but many do not and prefer SMN. Well, then that'd be an argument for holding onto that new status quo - one which appeals to both camps.

You might not like that - because it's WHM you'd want to get the SGE treatment - but you'd be running content on SGE and actually enjoying it, and everyone playing Healers in FFXIV would have a Job that appeals to them, and the Healer shortage would abate as people come to the role, either back to or for the first time, playing the awesome playstyle you propose.

I think that's the next best thing we can hope for, given there is no PTR.

Yet you attack me for my position which is far more sourced and supported than your own, which hasn't been by you or any of the posters agreeing with your position...

Again, HB time:

What in this:

It's interesting how frequently that you respond with rebuttal such as "Solo content isn't tedious to a lot of people. There's zero reason all Healers NEED those. I think the problem here is that you think that all Healer players want what you do and feel the way you do. Many players find WHM, for example, fun and engaging"

You are backing up your opinion, and based upon likely empirical evidence and claiming it as fact- when you aren't providing any factual evidence (independently sourced metrics) to back it up.

Given that- it remains an argument of one person's preference versus another person's preference. You are "being a contrarian" , you have held to some positions- one for example being "It's explicitly WHY I think we should change SOME Healers but not ALL of them, so that both types of player have at least one they enjoy playing on. There's only one Healer in the game that has 1 DoT + 1 Nuke, and that's AST." - you are absolutely entitled to your opinion, however that isn't one that everyone holds.

...was "sourced and supported"?

You provided no sources, so literally nothing you said there (which was mostly attacks on me) was "sourced", and you didn't offer supporting arguments, only your opinionated statements as if they were facts. Can you provide a source for...honestly, you didn't even make any position other than that you said I didn't source things (I've referred to FFlogs, FFXIV census, and Lucky Bancho census; all of which are actual things - you, on the other hand, have not provided any sources at all) and that I'm entitled to my opinion, which is a statement everyone agrees with.

As to the few points you've now made - which were not points you raised, they are you trying to counter me after your broadside...

No one knows how many people agree with them. But it is, as I've said, a not-insignificant, non-zero number. "a lot" is not "extremely subjective". Things like "X is boring" is extremely subjective. I notice you do not feel like you need to call out "extremely subjective" statements when literally anyone else here makes one, and are attacking my measured statements which do NOT assume universal or near-universal agreement. Very interesting...

For 4, it's not "you just don't know". It's reasonable to infer based on both census data and how the majority of the playerbase behaves. Is it absolute fact? No. But it's actually MORE SUPPORTED than the position Healers are boring. Funny how that works. 1%? No, it's more than that. You can believe it's not, but show me your evidence. Likewise, show me what % of people believe Healers are boring and in need of changing. You speak of sources, time to show yours: Prove that the vast majority of Healer players in FFXIV think Healer Jobs are boring and need to be changed. Can you? We both know the answer is you cannot, but I would LOVE to see you try. Show us that EVERYONE agrees. Can you?

...no. You can't. Maybe 1% agree with you. Maybe 5%. Maybe 20%. WHO KNOWS?! And yet, you support complete changes to all Healer Jobs, all Healer players, and the entire Healing system of the game as it exists, based on...WHAT?

Meanwhile, my position is a modified status quo that actually GIVE YOU some of what YOU WANT. But it doesn't give you EVERYTHING you want. My position is measured so that no matter what those %s are, be they in favor of my position or yours, everyone is served in some way. What if my position was the majority? Your fixes would destroy the game. What if your position was the majority? My position would appeal to them with a majority of the Healer Jobs and arguably could see the Healer role fixed, and maybe even the remaining Healer Jobs changed if your position was popular. Also, the status quo is not the position that requires defending - proposed changes do. And as mine's the half-way solution, it requires less than yours. But if you want to push me back to just saying hold the status quo from the top down...

(5) So when did you stop beating your wife? WHERE did I say they were MEANINGLESS?

HOW MANY TIMES across ALL of these threads do I have to say that I recognize there are people that think like you do and think we should change several of the Healer Jobs to exclusively appeal to you before you get it?

HOW MANY?

One more? Will one more do?

Clearly not.

So how many times must I say it?

And when will you say the converse - that there are many Healers that would not like your proposed changes?

Yes, any change will have minorities disagree - some will have majorities disagree. Can you prove which your change would cause to disagree? Moreover, do you know what the solution to that is?

...to have measured change that offers an opt out for people that don't want the larger change. Indeed, my proposal IS what "managed change" would look like.

(6) I took nothing out of context. But by all means, say what and how I took it out of context. Either you believe we have different preferences or you do not.

(7) Well...at least we have that. A rare oasis of understanding. I'd love to stop with that, but...

(8) - no, don't leave it at that. HOW am I incorrect in THIS statement:

You realize that I'm the only one here who HASN'T stated my position is universal and that everyone holds it, or some statement close enough to that to make no difference? I'm the one here who couches my statements with "many", "some", "a lot", "a not-insignificant amount", and so on; implicitly if not explicitly NOT saying my position is majority, much less universal. While you guys describe your opinions as universal truths, what I do is call your attention to the fact they are not universal.

When I many people don't think or feel as you do, that's not me saying NO ONE does or that EVERYONE agrees with me.

It's me saying a not-insignificant, non-zero amount of people disagree with you. It could be a minority, it could be a plurality, it could be a majority. I don't know, so I don't say. But it's not zero, and it's not insignificant. You're the one supporting posters arguing that your position is absolute, or near enough to not matter.

Be specific now!

...or perhaps don't say "you're wrong" in the future when someone isn't...

You didn't attack my argument. You restated one of my statements (not my argument) as if it was implicitly wrong, didn't bother actually arguing that, and then attacked me for stating an opinion without source or support, when I've presented both sources and supporting arguments. You didn't even present an argument that my statement WAS WRONG. At best, you were attacking me for not having absolute proof on how many "a lot" or "many" are, while you have no problem with people making arguments on your side do worse.

My disagreement stems from approaching it in the opposite direction; "SB WHM with current lilies and skills" is the logical equivalent to "Endwalker WHM plus Aero 3". I think "lol just add Aero 3 it'd make WHM good again" is...not something I see panning out, and in fact would slot into the folder of opinions I have labeled "Endwalker healer design is terrible, samey, and embarrassing...oh except WHM, suddenly when the white egg job stone is involved this horrible job design I spent the last two paragraphs lambasting is *chef's kiss* near pinnacle".

Huh.

I'm not saying it's good or bad, but your take is...unusual. Most people that want WHM changes essentially want Aero 3 (and possibly Aero 1 and Fluid Aura) back, and often times...that's it.

Interesting to see you disagree.

Not bad, just...I dunno, different.

[Renathras]

I'm just gonna copy over some ideas I had for SCH from another thread. Although it's somewhat more controversial than my WHM suggestions.

The overall Goal was to reduce the need for our oGCD heals by both expending the DPS toolkit to provide some level of utility and to make the GCD healing toolkit work in a way that would benefit DPS but not handicap the healing side of things. There are some buffs to the oGCD healing side of things but there is also some skills that I want to remove.

Huh. Interesting.

I mean, I'd have gone the opposite way with it - since ARR/HW/SB SCH players enjoyed being GCD damage dealers power-weaveing oGCD healing and mitigation. But I'm always interested in seeing interesting twists. So, obviously, I'm reading on.

So Adlo being kind of a Thorns (WoW Druid) ability, interesting. Though I'm not quite sure how you mean for Succor to work here. Like an AOE Iron Jaws that also is an AOE party heal? Interesting...

Yeah, Physic/Cure/Benefic are all kinda "Uh, wut?" at this point. The only one that isn't instantly overshadowed is...I dunno, Diagnosis MAYbe? But probably not even that.

So your spam nuke/movement nuke gives you some gauge, your DoTs (of which you have...2 GCD ones) have a chance of giving gauge on ticks, Shadowflare is a.....sorta healing oGCD?...oh, three DoTs since you want Bane to be a DoT (not a spread), but on a CD, which doesn't build gauge.....though I'm not sure what "but turns the ability into Fester" means? Bane turns into Fester once you use it? Or something about having gauge turns Bane into Fester? Either way, I do get that you mean for Fester to basically make the Bane DoT a damage down debuff bomb/boobie trap, where the player can either expire it late to get DoT ticks and a short damage down debuff on the boss, or use Fester early if their party needs a longer period of mitigation. That's actually a neat idea. Not sure if it would work or not, but I don't think I've seen it proposed that way before, and that's kind of a cool concept.

Aetherflow: You're honestly not the only one.

Indom is stronger than Fey Blessing and stronger (in healing) than Succor, but if you're pushing more GCD heals, I could see wanting to remove Indom. Just make Blessing into Indom? XD I still think Blessing should have had the CD cut, not the Faerie Gauge. That way you'd have an AOE healing option alongside Aetherpact, instead of gauge being just for a single somewhat lackluster ability and having ANOTHER oGCD CD ability...

The can of worms that is Energy Drain is also something that I can't really think of what to do with. SCH should have plenty of DPS tools now that it wouldn't really need it and if we're reducing oGCD healing tools, we might need to use more Aetherflow abilities more often.

Energy Drain IS one of those kinds of "What even to do with this...?" abilities, isn't it?

Fairies: I feel the Devs want them to be glamour options (though as we know from SMN, you can do that anyway...), but I do like how your Eos and Selene are kind of mirrors of each other, fitting for the Sun/Moon dynamic Lily was introduced to us as having.

Fairy Gauge: I kind of like these, too. Though I'm curious which Faerie you're using during Aetherpact? I'm guessing the one you have active. And I'd guess this ability wouldn't allow swapping for its duration? Basically you have your benchwarmer come in to Aetherpact so your active Faerie can heal and oGCD without interruption. And putting all the Faerie oGCDs on the Gauge actually makes it have a purpose. I'm kind of curious if SCH would be unable to effectively heal if they weren't actively damaging - SGE has an issue right now (though much lesser) that if it IS having to GCD heal party members, it's not Kardia healing the Tank, so the SGE player has to devote more resources (and potentially "catch-up" GCD healing) on the Tank. So I'm curious if you're having to spam Succor/Adlo/Physic (for whatever reason) if you're going to be in a "losing battle" of being gimped since you won't be getting any gauge?

Dissipation: I MUCH prefer this version. Basically Recitation/Rhizomata but for Faerie abilities. Neat idea.

Alternatively, Dissipation and Recitation could be reworked to allow 1 free Aetherflow or Fairy ability usage with 2 charges, Recitation just allowing the skill to Crit over Dissipation.

Note that Recitation in this scenario would be more powerful...and has a shorter CD.

Expendant is also something I hesitate to touch since it's still useful, even after the nerf but with the buff to Covenant/Illumination, do we need it?

I would say YES.

Expedient is one of the neatest abilities to me in quite some time since it offers non-mitigation, non-damage boosting, non-Raise UTILITY to the party...and it's utility that people actually VALUE. Yes, a lot of people sleep on this, but it's definitely a form of utility that isn't "you do more damage", "you take less damage", or "I'm raising you because you took too much damage". Most of the rest of the utility in the game is one of those kinds, but Expedient is different. Yeah, it has the mitigation part, which is NICE, don't get me wrong, but it has something ELSE. And it's something else people actually VALUE when used well. Meteors on ZodEx and Chackrams on HydEx, you can really feel the extra buffer it gives the party. Using it on HydEx is what helped me get my first clears there, because people were otherwise largely too slow (and for whatever reason, couldn't use Sprint).

I cannot overstate how cool it is to me for the Devs to introduce an ability that ISN'T damageboost/mitigation/Raise or damage dealing itself, but that is so popular with players they actually have to nerf it. I think we need more of those, not less.

Like I said, it's a work in progress and it might not provide the full picture of anything either but hopefully, it can at least give some context to my thought process.

I mean...I'm not one of the people who dislikes current SCH, but I actually like those proposals a lot. I'm a bit concerned about emergency healing situations and balance, but if those things could be addressed? It seems creative and interesting, and I'd definitely at least give it a spin, even if it wasn't my favorite in the end. It would definitely diversify the Healer Job offerings, in a great way, and I think that's a good thing.

As for AST, ...

Yeah, I'm not much of an AST player (I can play it, I just don't like it that much), but honestly, I really like your proposed changes there, too.

Major Arcana for the "all cards are Balance" since people would fish for Balance otherwise, Minor Arcana for the actual interesting side buffs (which are no longer competing with Balance), and ShB era Minor Arcana (under a new name) to convert cards you don't need at that time into Lord/Lady.

Imo, that's a good idea. One of my complaints about SCH is that BECAUSE Energy Drain uses Aetherflow, it makes Lustrate, Sacred Soil, Indom, and Excogitation (when the latter two aren't using Recitation) fight with Energy Drain, and because "damage >>> all", Energy Drain often wins. But contrast with SGE, which has basically Lustrate, Sacred Soil, Indom, and not-Excogitation...and actually USES them. Is, in fact, ENCOURAGED to use them (for MP management, but what's important is they have a reason to use them and they aren't forced to choose between them and something else).

HW/SB Arcana had all the "bad" ones competing with Balance. And like Energy Drain, Balance always won. Splitting them into Minor Arcana like this takes the SGE route where you have Plegma (Balance) and then Addersgal abilities (Minor Arcana), and you're incentivized to use both and actually USE BOTH because they aren't competing with each other.

I might be gushing a bit, but I think that's a fantastic idea.

And you make it even BETTER with Crown Play there (whatever name you'd call it; I'm guessing Undraw isn't the name you'd settle on?) - Say you get the Minor Arcana Bole but the boss is untargetable or the tank buster just happened and no one needs any mitigation for a while? Convert it into 50/50 free damage (Lord) or free healing (Lady) to open up the slot to draw something else next and get some use out of the "dud" at the same time. And if you draw Bole and the tank buster is coming up? Well, obviously toss it on the Tank!

It's low-key brilliant and honestly, I'm...kind of shocked you're the first person I've ever seen propose it because it's elegant and allows AST to have both the "wanted" buffs, the "niche" buffs, and some RNG fun, and a "bad draw" protection to keep the "bad" cards from getting you down.

I honestly love this idea. You're selling yourself way short!

Then have their identity be more "time magic" again (HoTs and less direct heals), but like WoW's Resto Druid (same concept, just nature regrowth instead of time, but same diff), having some burst tools and HoT -> burst conversion CDs for emergencies. This would make it more distinct from WHM, which supplies more direct, burst healing but has HoTs on the side, so AST and WHM would be mirrors of each other instead of carbon copies.

I don't really see a reason to keep the Seal system either. Astrodyne is a weak skill, even at 3 seals, that they could probably just turn it into a 2 minute buff with all 3 bonuses without it really impacting AST all that much.

Honestly, the Seal system has never been good. It was introduced as a way to say "See! We've taken your Card diversity but you still have some RNG here!", but then they (yet again) stuck the RNG on things that people want (Divination), which then caused them to 180 and stick it on something where the different levels were arguably "happy accidental bonuses" rather than something people really were excited for, making it completely lame. Just dumping it and making Astrodyne a 2 min buff with all the bonuses would probably work better, I agree. Bonus points: Less buff capping.

Edit: This is what happens when you post at 2am lol. I'll edit this to clarify some things.

Honestly, I think you're REALLY selling yourself short.

Yeah, I don't like your WHM idea, but I love these. These are both pretty creative ideas that I haven't seen other people suggest, and your AST one is an amazingly elegant solution to the "boring cards, but if not, RNG feast of famine" situation. I love it in particular. Though it doesn't change AST's GCD game...maybe with actual interesting Cards, it wouldn't have to...

[Jirah]

Perhaps it would be useful to approach from the opposite direction: take a kit widely considered "good", and play evil job designer with it. Make one change that would absolutely slaughter the kit's fun, and you've probably discovered some key magic that makes the sausage machine work.

What if, for example, we removed the distinction between black and white mana on RDM entirely? Fold them both into Red Mana. Every spell effectively a Jolt. Suddenly you've killed all interactivity in the casting and burst phase. Overrode a proc? Who cares. Used your spells in the wrong order? Ehhh. Disrupted the flow between your black and white spells? Doesn't matter. Choice between Verholy and Verflare? Don't care.

I think one of the most core things that makes a job fun is meaningful choice. There's a lot of flexibility there; the choice can be largely illusory or superficial, as you might know the black/white mana flow is VERY forgiving. It could stand to gain some skill ceiling from there; lord knows I miss the minor optional optimization game that was potency-gain Reprise, murdered in Endwalker.

Most of the healer kits are aggressively unfun because they're so childproof that they're essentially Red Mana jobs. Did you use the "wrong" heal here? Trick question, there isn't one. You aren't punished for basically anything outside death or healbombing so hardcore you deplete your MP. Oh no, I used a lily on the full HP ninja by accident! Oh wait who cares, I got the refund anyway. Oh no, I used Indomitability instead of Sacred Soil! Oh who gives a crap, they do practically the same thing, have exactly the same reward for using them, and barring tight mitigation checks or highly preplanned minimalism nobody will care, not even you. All of the kit "interactivity" is of the passive sort that has little to no influence on the decision tree. Kardia's up on the tank? Such interaction, wouldn't it be nice if it made me think twice about Dosis Dosis Dosis Dosis Dosis Dosis Dosis. Plenary Indulgence? It's Yet Another Healing Steroid. It doesn't change how you interface with your casting flow or introduce any decision-making. There is not a single moment in time where I wonder what my next ability will be, because if everyone's HP is fine it's just Boring Damage Nuke and if it's not, I could probably throw my healing buttons in a hat, fish one out at random, and be rewarded or punished more or less equally.

best take with zero solutions in sight because that would mean reworking 4 jobs, or reworking the platform they're in. with the best case scenario being the healers are harder to play which will anger the casual audience

[Jirah]

Problem :On a good day with a good team in most instances you will not but doing much besides 1-1-1-1-1-1. tank busters are a joke, raid wides are infrequent, mechanics revolving around healing is slim to nonexistent. On a bad day with a bad team youll at most do some ressing or healing slightly more than continue 1-1-1-1 Due to this gameplay the question is irrelevant due to the jobs being irrelevant. Doesnt matter how complicated the kits are, you can get by raw healing medica 1 and cure 1 and its equivalents for 99% of the content. Except savage which is where all jobs are designed for no matter how few of them their are. Not helped by some job skills being outclassed or never used to due how many tools healers kit. Secret about me is as a SGE ive never used; Kardia, Soteria, Hamia, Panhamia, Zoe, Pepsis, Diagnosis, Prognosis, Kerachole, rhizomata, Holos, & Krasis due to never needed too and all healers have this fluff issue. In dungeons specifically if your with a WAR you dont even need to heal. Bosses are a bigger waste of a healers time because nothing is thrown to warrant your existence due to trivial mechanics. Trials could be fun with 1 healer but with 2 its plainly overkill back to 1-1-1-1 and doing 2/14 healer actions.

Solution The biggest naysayers are raiders for a job overhaul with some exceptions. For dungeons; mobs needs more diversity than bowling pins, vague answer but dont wanna rant on dungeon design again going off topic, Dungeon bosses need to do more damage and need more mechs where the party takes damage, all bosses need this change 24 man raids and nm trials dubbed raids included

ask again once the game uses healers in their day-to-day content using at least 50% of their kit vitally

[Silver-Strider]

Though I'm not quite sure how you mean for Succor to work here. Like an AOE Iron Jaws that also is an AOE party heal?

Pretty Much.

though I'm not sure what "but turns the ability into Fester" means? Bane turns into Fester once you use it?

Think of it like how SAM's Ogi Namikiri turns into Kaeshi: Namikiri after use. You use Bane and then the skill changes to Fester in a similar fashion.

Just make Blessing into Indom?

There's a few reasons I didn't. For the proposed Fairy Gauge to work well, there needs to be more frequent usage of Fairy Abilities. It's why I cut the CDs on Blessing and Illumination/Covenant in half during the Fairy Ability changes. With the abilities also being stronger than the current forms of the skills (Whispering Dawn is currently 560 total potency to my proposed 600 potency, Fey Blessing granting a Shield effect under Selene and Fey Illumination/Covenant provide 15%/8% buffs as opposed to the 10%/5% buffs) as well as the change to Succor to make it useful to maintain DoT uptime, and by extension restore more gauge via DoTs, I felt it was fine to remove Indom.

Though I'm curious which Faerie you're using during Aetherpact?

Correct on the Benchwarmer Fairy. They would tether to your intended target and the other would continue as normal.

I'm kind of curious if SCH would be unable to effectively heal if they weren't actively damaging

I attempted to mitigate this issue as much as possible. Succor refreshing your DoTs to allow the Fairy Gauge to continue to accumulate while you healed, Dissipation allowing a free Fairy Ability usage, the buffs to the Fairy's skillset, Bane providing Mitigation, Shadowflare becoming a secondary Sacred Soil but instead of mitigation/regen, provides more healing received/Max HP, etc. was all an attempt to make SCH able to prevent that emergency scenario from happening in the 1st place. I even considered making Addlo shield breaks proc an effect that turns Ruin 2 into Ruination that provides 10 Fairy Gauge on usage but that was too much like Toxicon for my liking. The only other things I could consider was buffing Emergency Tactics to provide Gauge and give it 2 charges or put an effect like DNC's Espirit on Chain Stratagem so that the party would provide SCH with more Fairy Gauge as they attacked while the SCH focused on Healing.

Though it doesn't change AST's GCD game...maybe with actual interesting Cards, it wouldn't have to...

That was my thought process as well. AST never really had many attacks to start with, just the 2 DoTs (3 if you cross classed Aero 1), Malefic and Stella. Stella, however, lost its main purpose of being a 1.5s cast time ability over Malefic and the Heavy debuff hasn't really seen much, if any, usage in recent times that it would need a rework to be of any use to AST and while I'm fine with AST getting Stella back to break up the monotony of 1-1-1 Spam for them as well, I can't confidently suggest anything for them since I'm not sure what the class really needs to be engaging for AST mains again.

[ASkellington]

snip

1. Leaving them alone still makes them just as boring. Bosses STILL have too long of wind ups, still hit like a wet noodle and still have too many dodgeable aoes. That isn't going to change without an overhaul. Just because I'm more engaged in lower level content doesn't mean I am properly engaged. As I've said. A good chunk of content feels like Old Praetorium. And I've already said what would make healing more engaging. Which would require a rework. Just because I now GCD to break up my nuke doesn't not make healing suddenly engaging. I'll also add that making our healing tools more engaging means absolutely nothing if the bosses themselves are still boring.

2. Makes me wonder if you even read what I said. I'm asking for support options outside of mitigation "Feint/Addle" and gave examples of how SE could do that. Healers already have mitigation. Even WHM (Temperance). I don't think we need more, but if want to give healers more sure. I want other support tools that other MMOs give to either support roles or healers and that's on SE for one, not making any (outside of Expedient) and two, not making any boss mechanics that can use them. As I've said.

3. AST isn't the only healer that has 1 Nuke and DoT. Misery, Toxicon, Assize, Lord of Crowns, and Energy Drain don't count. Why? All but Lord are tied to healing in some way and Lord is RNG. Who made this stipulation? I did. When I asked for all healers to get a Phlegma-like ability and another DoT. None of them but Assize counts for that and like I said, its tied to healing. I want a straight up damage option. Are Misery and Toxicon more interesting? Yes. Do I think with tweaks they could be the answer I'm looking for? Sure. Is that what I'm asking for? No. Stop saying that they are.

Also we can debate back and forth on whether or not all healers need to have extra dps buttons. My stance is yes. Its always going to be yes. And I still see 0 reason why none of them can't get another Phlegma or DoT.

4. We're never going to agree on. Period.

All healers can stand to have more engaging healing kits, but they ALL can stand to have more engaging dps kits when healing isn't required.

What would you do with SCH and AST?

SCH I don't play but:

• Selene is a glorified recolor. Make her different.
• Fey Gauge needs more actions to interact with it.
• Bane. You can even give the trait to Deployment Tactics like PvP.
• Perhaps as a fix to pet issues, give SCH the Closed Position as a trait to where fairy skills are casted from both the SCH and the fairy, but obviously don't stack.

AST:

• Cards - 1) make them different, either give 6 six back with changes or give the 3 support back (Bole, Ewer, Spire) with cahnges, separate them by Melee/Ranged and keep Divination as RR Balance, 2) fix the seals system by making the seals combination actually matter with certain combinations giving a supportive buff (still keeping Divination as is, 3) remove the cards and rebrand AST as Time Mage the healer and burn the last set of bridges give time manipulation abilities (delayed damaging spells, Time Dilation to work on HoTs/DoTs and maybe buffs).
• Change AST from being a WHM but better clone - focus hard on regens/delayed healing OR give back Noct sect, remove Neutral sect, and allow it to be toggled in combat giving advantages and disadvantages for both (Diurnal has 0 mitigations for example) that a good AST will optimally use, but a not as good AST will not struggle.
• Skills I personally want to be addressed - CO/CU, CI, Synastry, Earthly Star, Undraw

1. CO/CU - this I think would be fixed in several different ways, but ultimately it comes down to a flaw with all healers: cool down for both is 60s, mechanics I would use both are ~60s, I end up never using one (CU) as a result and thus it becomes a dead skill in most content, because what one can do... the other can also do with differences that ultimately don't matter. Fixes I would like to see is changing the effect of one or again, changing the CD to something that isn't 60 or 120 seconds.
2. CI - Exaltation is a better CI and fits thematically with AST being a delayed healer. Without Nocturnal and even with it, I would rather see it changed into something else or modify into being a weaker Exalt (same CD) that trait upgrades.
3. Synastry - Either remove the skill or make it work on all single target abilities (excluding cards if they stay single target)
4. Undraw - Remove.
5. Earthly Star - This is the nittiest of picks but I don't care, reduce the size from 30y to 20y. All the fun was taken out of it now that it covers the entire arena. And honestly, there was no reason for it to be this big.

Pain points:

Lightspeed - I don't want a second charge. While I understand the reasoning for it (so it isn't locked into the opener and can be used for movement) 2 charge abilities feel less fun to use. While I will concede that AST could use this change now, I don't want them to keep it and I would also like to revisit ED and CI (if it stays). 2 charges are nice to have in W2W. They're less as nice when most of the time I don't even need the first one.

GCD vs oGCD cards - No to GCD cards. Removing the seals system or changing it to be an secondary support would fix the high amounts of BS targeting underneath the Divination window, which is the main problem with AST. Making them GCD doesn't fix the fact that you need to target a player and then retarget the boss. Making them AOE like in PvP probably would.

[ForsakenRoe]

God could you imagine how cool it'd be if you could Synastry-share Exaltation's mit effect (at 40% effectiveness on the secondary target) for double TBs?