Healer Suggestions Megathread

[TheDustyOne]

I will never for the life of me understand people's fascination with DoTs...

Personal preference mostly, I dislike standard cooldown attacks that don't offer any interaction with other abilities. DoTs meanwhile on their own still have some thought in how many mobs need to exist before it's better to do my AoE rotation, or if the mob will exist by the time the DoT becomes damage positive. I find it more engaging overall.

It looks like Bio, Miasma, Adlo, Succor, Leaches+, and the Faerie Abilities seem to have a lot of combining, so the total is probably around 30?

31 overall buttons (I think) compared to the current 33. Scholar at the moment feels way too bloated, I wanted to try and keep the current capabilities that Scholar offers in a more condensed fashion, while adding more depth to the abilities overall and making the damage rotation less dull.

- I LOVE modifier buttons...

I KIND of like that you reworked Aetherflow to be more your "Tactics Gauge" that enables use of various strategems (said modifier abilities)

Likewise for modifiers, I prefer it when abilities have some interplay amongst each other as opposed to shoving many effects into 1 ability or having a generic "here's a new cooldown that does damage/heal".

I somewhat like the Grimoires. I think (and am guessing this was your inspiration) that it was how SCH worked in FFXI, which a lot of people seemed to generally like...

Overall, a good take on that system that's much more thematically consistent and pays homage to Scholars of Final Fantasies Past.

XI was definitely the inspiration for the Grimoires. Scholars in XI and III had some overlap with Red Mages in that they were users of both Black and White magic. The Grimoire system however I thought would give people who liked old Cleric Stance something to enjoy while not being as punishing as it used to be, better calls back to previous incarnations of Scholar throughout the series, and helps keep the button count down amongst the spells and faeries.

This version of Broil IV is much like the Ruin 1/2 interplay in ARR where Ruin 2 did the same damage and was more trading MP for mobility. Personally I'd make it AOE that spreads DoTs, but you have Deployment Tactics doing that and it doing more damage than Art of War would make THAT ability meaningless.

I mostly just wanted to keep Broil simple; here's the version you spam, and here's the one you use to move or double weave. Anything else I think would overcomplicate the filler or would make other parts of the kit redundant. There is some potential in the idea of Art of War having falloff damage and having it be used in single target similar to how Miasma II worked back in Stormblood, but to make it non-spammable would mean raising MP cost or adding a cooldown, which wouldn't feel good in dungeons. Better I think to have Broil remain simple.

Kaustra does 2x Broil 3's worth of damage? Seems like Energy Drain now, but meh, I don't hate this, just kinda neutral about it. It does have non-Deployment required cleave, which I suppose is nice.

Can't say I see the Energy Drain comparison, it's mostly there to replace a Broil cast, refund the lost Broil used on a heal or shield, and have a timer to prevent overhealing and/or encourage using Aetherflow abilities to get the most out of a single heal cast.

While the Aetherflow modifier effects are interesting, it might be TOO MUCH to put on AF, and like you say, I'm not sure if they're balanced against each other... Just not sure if they should all be AF spenders.

The balancing is mostly around numbers; the main thing really is to try and make Excog > Succor still worth using even with Adloquium > Deployment still being available. At most I'd probably give a potency increase to Excog and increase the cooldown for it so as to make it more desirable over over Adlo > Deploy.

You didn't include levels, but I have to wonder how this will feel to play in synced content or while leveling up for new players. Right now, it's a little weird, but you have Whispering Dawn for low level content and Eos generally will heal dungeons below level 20 with just a rare Physic for touch-up healing. Without Embrace and Whispering Dawn...how's that work? Granted, Physic and Physic 2 could fix that problem if they were gained at low levels like Cure and Medica, but...I dunno, just something to consider.

My main concern was to try and make something I'd like to play at endgame, that said I could probably look through and see how I would distribute the abilities over the levels. As for the loss of Whispering Dawn (I'll get to Embrace later), Physick II would be available at the same time as Medica on WHM, so AoE healing early on would still be available and would be as viable as WHM that early on. As odd as it sounds, I wouldn't have the faeries until level 30 content, as that's when I feel jobs should start branching out into their unique mechanics, and early dungeons can nearly be healed entirely with just Embrace, Scholar is actually TOO good in lower levels and it can form bad habits if someone takes it into Sastasha to learn it. The first 15-25 levels are mostly to get the bare bones of the role understood in party play.

I like that you work both Eos and Selene into the mix, although a part of me likes being able to Faerie-Glamour. Though SMN allows that for the Egis, so maybe that could work here as well where you could make them have whatever appearance but it's "officially" Eos and Selene, respectively.

I'd definitely still keep Faerie glamours, I like having Carbuncle more now that I've had him.

You removed several abilities that I actually like - Emergency Tactics (as I said above; though I do understand why), Whispering Dawn, Sacred Soil (WHICH IS ICONIC), and Expedient. While you replace SOME of these, I don't like how they were done. For example, I don't like Expedience's movement speed being tied to Black Grimoire and split up.

Can't say I agree on Sacred Soil being iconic, up until Shadowbringers added the regen it wasn't worth using compared to Indom outside mitigation possibly saving someone. I only really used it back in Stormblood while synced below Indom levels. Even in large pulls I found Lustrate was better than the mitigation. I never really use Emergency Tactics currently outside my party running around like headless chickens in AoEs or with heal to full mechanics. Ironically it would get more use in my rework, but would be made redundant with new Physick and Physick II. Whispering was culled mostly because I wanted to cut down on oGCD heals in general, but I wouldn't mind bringing it back for Eos and giving Selene something else. Expedience criticism I think is fair, but at most I'd probably just combine Covenant and Wind again and still keep it as a Faerie skill.

It also appears that you've removed Embrace/Faerie auto-heals?

Don't worry, Embrace wouldn't be gone, I kinda just forgot about it. However I do have criticisms over Embrace at the moment; it's way too passive and over the course of a fight, would regen more than the regen healers if downtime allows for it. This is especially bad in early dungeons where, outside large pulls, you can literally do nothing and the tank will still be near full health. Kardia at least I have to think about swapping to another player when they get hurt, regens on WHM and AST have to be cast and maintained if you want a permanent regen, while Embrace just exists. I'm fine with keeping it since it's still something that competes with Kardia, but I find it not particularly interesting outside the scenarios you mention where you can't act at all.

Another problem I have with Embrace, although I'd have this fixed with my rework, is the animation lock it causes. If Embrace is being used but I really need that Fey Blessing or Fey Illumination out before a raidwide comes, it may well be too late, and it's out of my control. I could be mistaken and this is less of an issue now, but I remember it being really annoying last expansion.

Removing iconic abilities and mechanics is not going to go over well with everyone (SEE: SMN rework), and I don't think I'd like all of that as a result, either.

The big difference in comparison to SMN and my SCH is that it restores some of the lost abilities we used to have, and tries to remain mechanically similar in most regards. Aetherflow still makes use of abilities we already have, and Faerie Gauge has more going for it rather than as Aetherpact dump. The SMN rework meanwhile has very little in common with its previous incarnations outside Aetherflow, which is mostly just oGCD burst fodder.

While I like the idea with GCD heals/raises/shields refunding damage (2x Broil 3 means it is damage neutral as long as you aren't overwriting it early), the shield breaking bit seems just a bit TOO homogeneous with SCH. It might work better as just "when cast" instead of "when the shield breaks".

It would depend on how I handle Sage, I don't consider the shield break mechanic to be homogenous any more than I consider Addersting procs to be a copy of The Blackest Knight proc. It's about what the proc unlocks rather than the existence of the proc, Kaustra is a different enough ability from Toxikon to make it feel unique.

I'd personally look into making Toxikon oGCD, but I'll save that for if I get to reworking Sage.

You didn't fix the problem of 1.5 sec Broil 3

I don't really consider it much of a problem, the amount of oGCD uses in my rework from Grimoire dancing and Aetherflow would make it far too MP intensive if you had to use Broil IV frequently. Broil IV is for movement and double weaves. I think I'd prefer WHM to have long cast times as part of its mechanical complexity instead of the other healers, maybe Sage as well.

I'm not a huge fan of procs or proc-like effects, especially when I'm focusing on something else. Damage procs on a Healer are generally going to be annoying...

This was my main concern with Fester, it's why I kept the proc chance relatively low. However, if I didn't have the procs, I'd rather just cull Fester and move the potency into the DoTs themselves. It's moreso to give one extra thing to look out for during Broil spam to prevent myself falling asleep between DoT refreshes and shields.

I believe Bard Song Gauge pulses slightly when it procs, having a small pulse around the Aetherflow or Faerie Gauges would help with visibility, as well as a sound effect. The problem you have with the procs I think is moreso around usability rather than mechanically, which is a fair criticism, but not one that's wrong with the kit itself and more with the UI visual and sound design.

Overall, despite the negatives, I don't hate this. A few tweaks - don't remove iconic abilities, consider some abilities not costing Aetherflow, less restriction on beloved abilities like Soil/Expedient, try to cross the streams a little less with SGE, etc - might make it pretty workable. And I do like the call-backs and homages to past FF Scholar incarnations.

Overall, not at all bad.

I could probably combine Fey Sanctum and Fey Illumination so that stance doesn't matter for the mit/heal boost. But I'd need at least 2 more abilities to keep Eos and Selene distinct. Remember that the heal boost from Fey Illumination would affect the shields, so it's still a mitigation effect similar to Fey Sanctum and would give a boost to your co-healer.

That said, glad you liked it despite your criticisms.

Boy this got longer than I expected.