FFXIV Job Design Feedback

[ty_taurus]

On my phone atm, when I get to my computer I’ll see if there’s an error on the formulas.

@Ty, btw I just saw something 'odd', WHM's Modes are 1 1 5, SCH's are 1 1 7. WHM's 'total' is 5, SCH's is 1. Is that intended or is the formula for that cell borked (same with SGE maybe) (thank you again though and sorry I just have an eye for stuff that looks like typo's)

Are you referring to the overall ratings when you say "total"? The overall rating was for the "how would you rate [insert job here] overall" so those are the modes of that question, not a collected value of the solo/casual/challenging scores. Does that resolve your confusion or am I misunderstanding your concern?

[Renathras]

...

I somewhat agree on WHM. I think the overall majority could probably be expressed as "Keep the EW WHM, but give us back Aero 3" (with people noting it can upgrade to Banish). If they returned Aero 3 and had it upgrade to Banish in the next expansion, added a charge to something, gave WHM a party mitigation (the other requested thing - my personal ideal would be give Plenary a 5% damage reduction effect since that would give WHM an extra "lesser" party mitigation on a 60 sec CD and already suits the "when lots of big healing will be needed" use-case of PI), that would probably make the vast majority of WHM's happy. Some want the elemental theme back from spells, but that's more an aesthetic change that might also alienate others.

As for the groupings, the idea behind me looking at them that way is "what does the majority want?", because (outside of AST with SB), there is no majority position in any of the other cases. It also doesn't help that the terms are vague; does "No Rework" mean no CHANGES or just the mechanics not changing, and in what way? Is adding a second DoT a mechanics change or not? (Very likely depends on who you ask). Likewise, is a "Minor Rework" adding another damage ability or two, or would that not be a rework? Or would that be a "Major Rework"? If not, what IS a major rework? And what's a "Total Overhaul"? The terms are JUST vague enough that they depend on the person.

Like I would like WHM to get a 1 min CD party mitigation and a second AOE attack. To me, that's a Minor Rework. I'd also LOVE (but don't expect it) for WHM to have all GCD heals turned into Blood Lily generators to make GCD healing damage neutral on WHM. That feels like it would be a Major Rework to me, but some might consider it a Minor Rework or even No Rework.

However, people do have a general gist of thing they're saying, with some overlap. So in seeking a majority, it's fair to say that people who want No Rework, if they were forced to accept Minor or Major, would side with Minor instead. Likewise, MANY (though not all) people wanting a Minor Rework, if forced to side with No Rework or Total Overhaul would pick No Rework. It's kind of like the argument for something other than First Past the Post Voting: "Tiny and worried tarsiers would have voted for the big calm gorilla without tarsier in the race. So if their candidate can't win, they want their vote to go to the gorilla instead." ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8XOZJkozfI ; not sure STV is actually a system I like or not, but the quote applies. )

We often see this in polling where "disagree" and "strongly disagree" are combined, as are "agree" and "strongly agree", despite the terms being somewhat subjective such that one person's "agree" might be another's "strongly agree" or a different person's (slightly) "disagree". So it's kind of what we have to work with.

The point is, to say "majority wants", the right way to look at it is "what are people's first and second choices if we eliminate the extreme choices?" If we removed Total Rework and No Change, the TR guys would vote Major Rework and the NC would vote Minor Rework. If we flip it and remove the middle, again, Major would likely side with Total over No Change, and Minor would likely side with No Change over Total Rework.

"Why can't we combine the middle?". Simple, because you aren't maximizing satisfaction. Even looking at it as I have, let's say, for the sake of argument, we went with Minor Rework. Obviously, the No Change people aren't PERFECTLY happy, but they're happier with Minor than they would be with Major or Total. Conversely, the Major people aren't totally happy, but they're happier than they would be with No Change, and probably would split 40/60 for Minor/Total, meaning at least some of them would also be content with a Minor rework. It's like if a center-right party wins, the far-left is unhappy, but the center-left and far-right are at least mildly content vs other outcomes. By "splitting the difference" for a "half-way between minor and major rework", you're also ignoring that more people lean towards the minor side than the major side. People on the low end of Minor would probably be happier with No Change than they would be with a Major or half-Major rework. Moreover, No Change is approximately the same in number to Major, so why does Major get the higher billing there?

This would be like taking a poll with results of "strongly disagree", "disagree", "agree", and "strongly agree", and saying "well, disagree and agree are kind of the same thing", which doesn't make sense to do. There's just not really a way where that makes a lot of sense overall, especially since Minor Rework tends to mean a few tweaks or a new ability or two, while Major Rework tends to imply large system changes, which the Minor Rework crew probably do not wish for. Grouping them together is thus somewhat odd.

The only REAL way to check, though, is to do a contingent question of "What would be your second choice?"

Not only that, if we extended that to the eras, you'd have the case of SB + ShB, which is a minority of a bit less than 40%...and makes no sense, as the two aren't at all alike, while ShB/EW are and HW/SB somewhat are. So in addition to not even being a majority, it doesn't make sense as an implementation.

This is because the specific case of WHM is that ShB and EW WHM are NEARLY identical. The way the average player engages with the Job is effectively the same. So the two of those being the majority seems pretty reasonable, while a SB/ShB mix would not.

I'll also note that NO ONE is contesting me using this EXACT SAME methodology with SCH and AST...because proponents of change/going back to SB era agree with the conclusion there, and so have no fault with how I arrived at it. Using that exact same metric results in WHM being appraised as I did.

I also somewhat disagree with your solution. We don't know that people want "Water" (though people want Aero 3, that seems obvious) "on shore CDs" (original Aero 3 didn't have a CD, I don't think...)

The one problem with the Lily tools is that the "base" versions aren't locked. You can't use Afflatus Rapture when you have no Lilies but you can use Medica 1. To remove Medica 1, you would need to make Rapture usable whether or not you had Lilies. Which could absolutely be done. Just make it have an MP cost (still instant cast) when you don't have a Lily. We know this is possible because BLM has a somewhat similar system with Flare and Umbral Hearts where a Heart is consumed when you have them up (cutting Flare's cost to 1/3rd) and if you don't have one, you can still use Flare, it just has the full MP cost. The issue is that Rapture/Solace are instant cast, so if the idea was to remove Medica and Cure 2, they'd have to retain that. There are times I hold a Lily and use a cast heal instead because I want the lily for an upcoming mechanic where I need an instant cast and movement. So the one not pruned would have to retain this flexibility at all times because you can no longer choose whether to spend the Lily or hold it, so it must retain that functionality whether or not you use a Lily on it. Also, Medica 2 can't be pruned for that exchange unless you give Rapture a HoT (which is probably a bad idea since people sometimes use them in rapid succession); it has a different use case. Not only that, if the goal is to make Healers a bit more complex, then removing the ability to activate a HoT and then use suplemental burst healing for additional damage spikes, then allow the HoT to heal any residual damage is lost.

It is interesting to me that the same people who often complain Healers are too simple propose making their healing toolkits...simpler. I'm sure there's something to infer there, but I honestly have no idea what. Regardless, merging Medica with Rapture and/or Cure 1 into Cure 2 into Solace I have no issue with as long as Rapture/Solace can be spammed like Medica/Cure 2 can. I HATE PvP WHM's Cure 2 having charges. What if I need 3? Well, tough luck! Yeah, hate that. That's dumb. If Rapture/Solace want to be that, then we'd have to change how they work to essentially be they're Medica/Cure 2 (instant cast, though) all the time, and if you have a Lily, they have no MP cost and nourish the Blood Lily. This would, of course, make WHM far more mobile.

And WHM was at its absolute worst iteration in SB - that's why it has so few votes. I'm honestly half-surprised ARR didn't get more votes than SB for WHM, but most of those people probably voted HW instead.

We already have Divine Seal (Temperance) and we honestly should have Magicked Barrier (just working for both physical and magical) as that's how they want "Protect" spells to work now. As I said before, give Plenary a 5% (or even 10%) damage reduction and you have Protect.

As for "rotation", people have largely been adamant they don't want a "rotation", they just want Aero 3 back. Granted, a lot will be pissed when it upgrades to Banish, but it'll still be there either way. Not everyone wants elemental spells on a Holy Mage.

As for SGE: It needs something changed about Addersting/Toxicon. Maybe Eukrasian Dosis ticks have a chance to proc it or Dosis casts or something. That or it 2x Dosis damage so it's damage neutral with casting the GCD shield, but that kind of goes against how SGE is supposed to be played via mainly doing damage and weaving oGCD tools for supplemental healing and mitigation.

As for AST: I disagree. I think the reason nobody voted No Rework is because everyone wants one (though probably not the one they'll get...). 37.2% of DRGs want No Change even though they're also getting a rework in 7.0, so I don't think "acceptance" is the answer for why no ASTs are voting that way. We'll see what the Devs come up with, though. They might knock it out of the park...though I'd wager it's far more likely there'll just be a lot of pissed off (even more pissed off) ASTs in 7.0, if past trends are any indication.

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I don't disagree with you on the 8/10 vs 9/10 vs 5/10, though I disagree with your projection. If 7.0 continues the trend, then a lot of the people who hate Healers now will probably quit the role/game. They'll still hate the Healers now, though. Meanwhile the people that are fine with them will probably continue to be. As one Philip J. Fry once said regarding TV audiences, they don't want something new and daring, they want the same thing they've seen a thousand times before. The jaded people would be even more jaded...but let's be honest, most of them are already giving ratings of 1, so they aren't going to shift the average much spamming the 1 result even harder...

It will be interesting seeing what the AST rework does, though. But I really do think that SCH needs a rework as well. Our discussions in the Healer forum, on Reddit, the long form survey results, and these results all indicate it's needed.

[Renathras]

Could you explain cos I'm confused, when I look, 'no rework' is the smallest chunk of the chart for each of the healers (it doesn't even appear on the AST one), so I'm maybe misunderstanding what you mean by it being 'the majority'.

I'm not her, but No Rework (21.0%) is more than Total Overhaul (18.1%) on WHM, and essentially tied with Major Rework (22.9%). It's not the smallest chunk. For SGE, No Rework (29.6%) is essentially tied with Major Rework (30.9%), both of which are just behind Mini Rework (32.1%), and well above Total Overhaul (7.4%).

No single one is a majority, though Major Rework is 44.7% for SCH and 44.2% for AST. No Rework is larger than Total Overhaul for WHM and SGE, and essentially tied with Major in both cases, and with Mini as well in the case of SGE.

Condescension aside,

Read her posts, then note I only respond in kind to her using it. If she didn't use it, my responses to her wouldn't, either. And mine is less than hers at any rate. I prefer discussing the actual data since that's both objective and more interesting to me. It's why I don't use words like "fun" in a general sense like that, since I know (and frequently state) that fun is subjective and different people have fun with different things, and that's okay. The entire reason I came up with the "4 Healers" idea in the first place was based on that idea that fun is different to different people. I will use people's self-identified numeric "satisfaction" rates, since that's them converting their subjective viewpoint in to an objective (ish) mathematical data point that can be used in things like averages and statistical analyses.

the mode is 'the value that occurs the most often in a dataset'

Correct. Which is why I asked her if she knew what bi-modal and tri-modal meant. Quick and dirty graph of the overall satisfaction numbers:



Not that it matters since WHM is very level across the board. When one says "most people", it's not the mode. Mode is "number that appears most often", not "most people". Most people means "majority of responses". In a total of 103 responses, that would be 52. No vote number has 52 votes for WHM. 5 and 1 are tied at 14. But 14 is << 52. (52 is ~3.7x 14). So there's no outright "most" in that sense.

In fact, them being the same (or near the same) is an example of bi-modal behavior, where there are two modes/peaks to the curve. In the case of WHM, it's a double peak (1 and 5) curve with a rather fat tail, meaning the values to the right that are less than the second peak are still substantial, as opposed, to, say, the BLM curve where the numbers to the left are super tiny compared to the peak at 10. SCH and AST's curves are just all over the place. AST is almost the reverse with more people in the 6-7 range, bit doesn't have the 9-10 to weight the average higher. SCH is...just weird. And SGE...the SGE numbers have that tri-modal thing going most explicitly, with three peaks, at 1, 5, and 10, where 5 got 13 replies, 10 got 12, and 1 got 11.

Bi-modal/tri-modal behavior means there's not really an average or consensus, there are several groups of people that have different desires that may not overlap much or be very compatible. Like SGE is the most extreme case of this, since there are some people that love it as it is, hate it as it is, and are neutral as it is. There's not really a way to please all those people, so the Job direction should probably be to pick one and run with it instead of try to dilute it across all three and continue to only please a middling amount of people. It's interesting to note that most of the Healers seem to have this behavior in some form, either the bi-modal or tri-modal arrangements - SCH is also arguably tri-modal at 1, 5/6, and 8.

And no, not looking at "challenging content". Looking at overall rating. We're not grading/making Jobs only for challenging content. And, honestly, overall rating should help your argument since it will bring the numbers down a bit (since it's weighted down by the solo and casual scores; contrast 5.18 challenging satisfaction vs only 5.01 overall).

So Semi's assessment was incorrect.

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Also, Ty:

Aside: Future polls should probably just use 1-5. Note that 1-10 is unbalanced.

1-2-3-4 5 6-7-8-9-10

You're splitting where the middle is 5.5 instead of 5, so do 5s count with 1-4, or do they count with 6-10? Scale should be 0-10 or 1-5. In the former case, 5 would be the middle and in the latter case, 3 would be the middle. There's no true middle option, but I suspect most people picking 5 mean to pick a middle option when they do so.

0-1-2-3-4 _5_ 6-7-8-9-10
Or
1-2 _3_ 4-5

By removing a middle option, you're forcing people to say they like or dislike something even if they're entirely neutral, and because people generally don't realize this (most people would think of 5 in this scale as being "neutral/undecided"), it quirks the numbers a bit since people saying they're neutral are actually lowering the average rather than further cementing it.

Honestly, I think 1-5 would work best. 0-10 is a little TOO gradiated. Like what does a 4 say? Does the person like it? Not like it? Neutral? How is it different from a 3? Makes it harder to draw distinct conclusions.

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As for the Modes: Noticed that, too, but it's because they're different questions. You aren't taking Solo + Casual + Challenge / 3 to get Overall. Overall is its own separate question.

[fulminating]

Why aren’t you using whole numbers in your graph? It shouldn’t make any difference, but looks weird

[Renathras]

Why aren’t you using whole numbers in your graph? It shouldn’t make any difference, but looks weird

Just cause it was the quickest way to hit bar graph and form them. I was trying to figure out a way to do it better, but I use Excel so little for that, I couldn't force it to unless I included 0s for some reason, which was just weird.

But yeah, it doesn't make any difference because none of the lines (other than the 1 and 10) are a X.0, so they aren't double dipping. 1-1.9 is only 1s since 2 > 1.9. 1.9-2.8 is only 2s since 1 < 1.9, 3 > 2.8, and only 2 falls in that range. 9.1-10 is only 10s since 9 < 9.1. So it doesn't change the numbers, it just happened to be what it wanted to default to, and after confirming it wasn't misrepresenting the data, I just didn't want to wrestle with it further.

[ForsakenRoe]

I considered editing my post to say 'unless you meant 'well actually 5/10 only happens 14 times, compared to all of the non-5/10 results that total 100something' but then I decided against it, because it makes so little sense to use as a line of reasoning. And yeh I used 'challenging content' numbers because they were the higher satisfaction levels. Not dragged down, as it were, thinking that if those indicate 5/10 and they're the best possible showing, then that's pretty damning

As for rework/majority, I guess my whole argument falls apart because I was wrong about WHM's 'no rework' chunk being the smallest, gg, what the hell was I looking at then, maybe I had one of the other sheets open and got them mixed up. Anyway, I'd call whichever has the larger percentage 'the majority' even if it's not over 50%. Else you'll never have any definitive 'answer' without having to band groups together. An then there'd be disputes over whether Mini goes with No, or Mini with Major, or if Total Overhaul is too extreme for Major to align with and etc. It's like politics, cos just like politics, people cast their votes, nothing gets done, repeat

If you wanted to group stuff up based on how much they align, there'd be three bandings, no rework (people who want zero change), mini rework (people who want a bit of a change) and then major/total as a group (because they want big change). I'd expect that most of the people who want a total overhaul would grumble a bit but ultimately accept a 'major rework'. I had put 'total overhaul' for WHM. If it got 'a rework on the level of DRK in 5.0' (and it was targeted at the issues the class has, not 'we added 6 more healing tools') I'd be like 'well at least they did something to try and fix it' and move on, I think. And in that regard, WHM would then be about 40% for a big change, and about 38% for a small change. So clearly, the answer is to leave it as is, maybe add another healing GCD like Cure 4 (sarcasm). Even if we don't group anything though, just settling on 'the biggest number wins' like FPTP, 'no rework' still isn't winning any seats. Alternatively, we could take the 'median' and cancel out the most extreme view from each side over and over until we're left with 'the guy in the middle', which by the looks of it would be 'Mini, but on the side that is slightly more towards Major', which I assume means that instead of 2 extra GCDs to the DPS rotation, we'd get 2 and a 60s selfbuff or something

Are you referring to the overall ratings when you say "total"? The overall rating was for the "how would you rate [insert job here] overall" so those are the modes of that question, not a collected value of the solo/casual/challenging scores. Does that resolve your confusion or am I misunderstanding your concern?

Yeh, I had just done something quite stressful in a different game and adrenaline was up, so brainfog set in and thinking turned off. I got it now, just wish I could work out why I thought that was the way to interpret that, the joys of neurodivergence I guess, sometimes you make yourself look like an idiot (like that), sometimes you... still look like an idiot, but you did a flip while doing it so at least it was entertaining. This blunder, there was no flip, it was just disappointing

Oh yeh and, in a shocking turn of events, I actually agree with Ren that having 5.5 be the average is a little bit odd. Solution is, next time you run one of these, give people the option to vote 0/10. It'd be interesting to see how many of those 1 ratings are actually 0's in disguise

[IDontPetLalas]

Could you explain cos I'm confused, when I look, 'no rework' is the smallest chunk of the chart for each of the healers (it doesn't even appear on the AST one), so I'm maybe misunderstanding what you mean by it being 'the majority'. Unless you meant the opposite, that the majority say 'we need at least something to change for healer X'



While back I suggested somewhere that maybe they could just merge DragonSight as a bonus effect on Litany, since you pop both at 2min anyway. Rather than 10% crit and a seperate 'you and your ally get 5% damage', it'd be more like, idk, 10% crit and 2-3% damage for all, with some potency adjustments to rebalance it. I also would suggest merging Spineshatter with Dragonfire Dive (it upgrades at 50) because I'd argue DFD really sucks too in terms of impact. A 2min OGCD that does 400p, wow, meanwhile GNB gets 350p on a 30s CD, later upgrading to like 800p (Blasting Zone). Or Bow Shock being 650p over it's full duration, on a 1min CD. So yeh, make DFD a 1min CD that replaces Spineshatter, move the potency from SS to DFD to compensate for the loss as needed, and have DFD get the 2 charge trait instead.

Also make Stardiver either way faster to avoid clipping, or potentially make it a GCD with a ridiculous potency (this would be potentially interesting because we could LifeSurge it to guarantee it crits). If it stays OGCD though, they can remove Life Surge.

To reply to your question, I wrote that somewhat rapidly, what i meant to say, and didn't even get all my edits in- what say from my view a majority of the healers wanted a rework. Now I see both of you and Renathras are discussing what a "rework" is- and to me that is a more interesting discussing - since the extremes are self evident i.e. no and full re-work- however knowing what is meant by a minor and a major re-work is not as clear to me for the survey respondents, unless the verbatim analysis was done- I may have missed that.

[Renathras]

...

Plurality.

The largest single group, but still less than 50% and thus "the largest minority" in a case where there is no majority.

Problem with catering exclusively to those people is that it is technically a case of the majority not wanting what those people want, and so the majority isn't getting what they like. So the trick is to see what is the largest either first OR second choice total. Hence Ranked Choice Voting/Instant Runoff being a good way to determine that.

As for 5/10 - a net rating of around "neutral" honestly isn't terrible. One interesting thing is (baring SMN because of maybe(?) salt bombing), none of the Jobs rates 4 or lower. The "weakest" Jobs otherwise (AST) are pretty close to "neutral" satisfaction. Assuming people with 5/10 ratings actually mean neutral.

Also, not going to hammer you on the No Rework thing. Not sure what you were looking at, but maybe...I dunno, another tab or the different eras people preferred?

Since I DO like when we can find things to agree on - you agree with my assessment of SCH and AST based on the data, yes? That it's pretty clear a majority really want their SB kits back?

I don't think it's fair to group Major/Total while not grouping Mini/No or Mini/Major. That just happens to be the grouping that you'd pick if you really wanted to push for big changes, but I don't think it's a fair appraisal of what the majority want. Besides which, as I noted with WHM, even adding them like that; the numbers as of now:

No Change: 21.0%
Mini: 38.1%
Major: 22.9%
Total: 18.1%

Major + Total is still only 41%, which is a minority. It's barely even bigger than the people that want JUST a mini rework (38.1% is only 2.9% less). So even if we grouped them that way, the WHM majority falls into the camp of "Doesn't want a Major or Total rework" since 59.1% aren't voting for either Major nor Total reworks.

CONVERSELY, though:

SCH:
No Change: 9.6%
Mini: 29.8%
Major: 44.7%
Total: 15.8%

Major + Total here would be 60.5%, a clear majority.

AST:
No Change: 0.0%
Mini: 27.9%
Major: 44.2%
Total: 27.9%

Major + Total = 72.1%, again a clear majority.

Those two have a clear verdict, though note that Mini = Total for AST (meaning Major should be the objective), and Min > Total for SCH (again meaning Major should be the objective. For WHM, Mini > all, Mini is the natural plurality (doesn't have to add anything to it and is still the plurality), and Mini + No or Mini + Major is > any other combination anyway. This means for WHM, the objective should be a very minor rework, on the lower end of Mini. Which seems to be what people want judging by the replies to mostly leave it the same, add a mitigation and Aero 3/Banish, and kind of call it a day.

But no, I don't think it's fair to group as three separate ones with Major and Total together. Either we need to redo the survey with only the three options or we have to look at all four and see which would be "natural allies" to get to a majority (an absolute > 50% majority, which does require combining some). Like I'd say No Change, but be content with a Minor Rework. So if that logic means to you you can combine Major and Total, then it must also mean we can combine No With Minor. Keep in mind, I'm saying the larger/more moderate of the coalition is the coalition policy. If we're forming a "coalition government", the No Change will caucus with Mini before they would with Major or Total, and even if Major and Total are caucusing together, they're still not a majority (50%+1) and thus couldn't form a government unless they also bring some Minis and/or Nos on board. Mini is already the largest vote recipient in the first round of voting, so they get to form the core of the coalition to begin with, and they can reach a majority causing with either No or Major, and the No people would be quick to accept that caucus/coalition offer.

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Also, no worries on honest mistakes. /hug

To reply to your question, I wrote that somewhat rapidly, what i meant to say, and didn't even get all my edits in- what say from my view a majority of the healers wanted a rework. Now I see both of you and Renathras are discussing what a "rework" is- and to me that is a more interesting discussing - since the extremes are self evident i.e. no and full re-work- however knowing what is meant by a minor and a major re-work is not as clear to me for the survey respondents, unless the verbatim analysis was done- I may have missed that.

Agreed. Total rework is fairly obvious and No Change is self-explanatory. Minor and Major are a bit trickier. They're nebulous, but still concrete ENOUGH to talk about, even if the specifics are kind of off. Fortunately, the written out answers can help with understanding there. E.g. how most WHM ones that actually state specifics amount to "Give us a short duration party mitigation and give us Aero 3/Banish"; those are pretty actionable items and really wouldn't change the overall Job itself all that much. A different lead button to hit in AOE trash packs and a button to hit when you'd like to hit Temperance but it's on CD (especially if that button was an effect added to an existing button, like Plenary)

I tend to think of things like this as "what would the most natural second choices be?"

The extreme positions generally have the least votes. Total Overhaul (WHM, SGE) or No Change (SCH, AST) are the least picked. So the question is, what would their second choice be? For No Change, it's naturally going to be Mini Rework, and for Total Overhaul it's going to be Major Rework. So then we look at the numbers again and see if that's a majority. If it is, yay, we have our answer. If it's not, we look at what else is needed. AST has Mini and Total equal, and Major the plurality, so Major change seems to be the obvious solution there. The others aren't AS clear cut, but Major is the plurality for SCH (which would be the second choice for Total) and Minor is the plurality for WHM and SGE (which, when the No votes are added to them becomes the majority coalition)

EDIT: Also, unless someone specifically asks otherwise (case by case basis, that), I use the pronouns of their avatar. /shrug That's the closest thing (given forums) to a chosen identity being expressed, and the most fair and neutral way to choose a base pronoun set. But yeah...irrelevant to the topic, just that's the why.

[ForsakenRoe]

Right, but the problem with the whole 'caucus' thing is that it doesn't always follow that line exactly. For example, if you have three parties, one wants to keep tuition fees as they are (so, 'no rework' to the education system), one wants to lower tuition fees by 50%, (mini), and one wants to abolish fees completely and make universities be paid for out of the taxes (major/total overhaul, pick one), it's more likely those asking for 'lower tuition fees by 50%' will align with the 'remove tuition fees entirely' group if it'd give them a majority, as their goals are more similar (that is, making university education more accessible). We did have a party that wanted no rework to tuition fees align with the one asking for free university (so they could make a coalition majority), and the first thing that went out the window was the plans to change tuition fees. Crazy what people do to get power isn't it?

Anyway, back in FFXIV, I'd have assumed that essentially, people at the higher end of the scale (total reworkers) would grumble and complain, but eventually temper expectations and move to the 'major rework party', because 'its not as much as what I'd hoped for but at least it's something'. And then if that pair didn't have the majority, it'd happen again with Majors grumbling and complaining and moving down to Mini (and Totals getting very disillusioned with the system and vowing never to vote again because it's all a sham). Then, I would expect Mini to actually be split, with some leaning towards No and some towards Major. I can't see every single Mini Reworker deciding 'yes lets align with 'no changes at all' to get a majority', because they're fundamentally opposed. Not as much as Major vs No, but one wants a rework and one does not, I don't think there's any room to come to much of an agreement. What are they gonna do, barter around the table saying

'ok we get 2 new damage buttons and a 60s selfbuff, and in return you get a new Lily spender and a trait that makes Regen/Medica2 ticks have a chance to proc an additional burst of healing'
'1 damage button and a selfbuff, and we want a 60s mit tool on top of the stuff you listed'
'2 damage buttons, no selfbuff'
'deal'

Chart's currently looking like this. If we don't have a majority, we can do what sometimes happens in politics, and prune away the extremes, Total and No just cancel each other out, they're equal. That leaves us with Major, and Mini. But neither are the 'midpoint' on this because there were only 4 options, there's no 'center ground'. So while Mini is larger than Major, it'd have to swing towards the Major side of Mini, because there was 2 groups on the Major side and one on the No side. At least, that's how I see it. If you just go Mini rework, they're happy they got what they wanted. But the No's didn't (it's too much change for them), and the Major's and Total's didn't (it's not enough). And since Major+Total adds up to more than 'No', the rework should, theoretically, lean more towards Major.

If we assume Mini (as I have been working off of so far) means 'akin to when they made NIN mudra's GCD', or 'when they just removed GL from MNK in 5.4', then I'd assume that a 'Mini rework to WHM' would look something like what I suggested, but without the Shielding Lily spenders. So Banish as a 15s GCD, new damage neutral heal tool that is charged by doing damage, and rescaling Dia to be much shorter duration (so it feels more bursty). If they wanted to move it into 'Mini, leaning towards Major', they could add one extra thing for the damage side that doesn't take too much thought, like Cleric Stance as a 10% damage selfbuff for 10s, 1min CD. Upending the whole Pure/Barrier split with the Shielding Lilies would be at least 'Major rework' grounds, so I would cut that part. Rescale Dia to 12s duration, Banish as a 15s GCD, a new gauge that charges from doing damage (and maybe healing, but at a lower rate) a new heal spell that is damage neutral, Cleric as the 1min window selfbuff (like Trick) and your Protect>PI idea. A damage skill, a slightly retuned damage skill, more healing, a new mit, and a new CD to do damage with in the 1min windows, that'd be pretty close to what I'd hope for from a 'Mini, leaning Major' rework.

edit since idk where else to put it: new idea, if we add Cleric as a 1min selfbuff, we can have a new gauge element that tracks if you casted a Misery. And at the 2min window where we use our second Misery, we could have it instead be Purgation from PVP, doing even more damage. So you'd alternate a Misery and a Purgation each minute. Can even put them on the same button to save space if you really want

[IDontPetLalas]

These are both some interesting comments. I would only add that from my perspective , seeing that a "5" overall for each healer shows that there is very good consistency . So is someone's goal was " can each healer do the job"- then no healer is better or worse than the other.

However, if I want a job that I consider to be interesting/fun/engaging/ well designed - if I knew nothing about FFXIV and I saw "5" across the board - I would definitely be leery of maining a healer as a '5" is not a satisfactory score - I don't know if any of you have every calculated NPS scores, but that's in not the neighbourhood of people who would recommend a job - it's in the neighbourhood of people who would discourage people from selecting that job.