Healer Suggestions Megathread

[ForsakenRoe]

I'd actually argue the opposite stance: A more 'complex' looking tree like Dragonflight's is better suited to FFXIV than the 3 choices type one, and let me show why with a great example I got back in Shadowlands:



If the chances of having 'locked slots' like this are even remotely possible, it's probably better to have a DF style tree, where yes there are more moving parts, but the 'opportunity cost' of taking talent X over talent Y is way less. In the 'choose one of three' style, not only are some of the talents just dead as shit (love being locked into rune of power, thank god they're removing it), we can also see from those days, eg Ret Paladin. If you wanted to have more mobility, you'd take Cavalier to get a second charge of Divine Steed (45s CD btw). If you wanted to have your defensives up like 30% more often, ie, it's a very tower-soak heavy fight, you'd take Divine Purpose or whatever it was called. Problem is, they were on the same row. To be able to be 'more useful to the raid re: taking soaks' you have to give up Cavalier, and specifically Cavalier, gimping your mobility. Now, you could choose which of your other talents to lose out on to get Divine Purpose. Maybe you don't need the incidental healing from Consecration, so you can bin Golden Path, or maybe you don't care much about the flat 2.5% armor boost from Lightforged Plates or whatever that one was called, so you can take one point out of that

Now to be fair, I did essentially suggest 'pick one of three' with the High Materia idea, but at least there I had the foresight to make it entirely utility based. If you had a choice for BLM between 'Fire4 now does 10 more potency, stacking each time you cast it', 'Manaward now is a 60s CD' and 'Scathe now applies a 20% damage down on the enemy for 5 seconds', people would instalock the first one because 'more damage innit'. Blizzard did 'try' to have utility vs utility on certain rows, and damage vs damage on others, but sometimes you just had 'utility vs mobility vs damage' and the row was essentially locked in

[ty_taurus]

If the chances of having 'locked slots' like this are even remotely possible, it's probably better to have a DF style tree, where yes there are more moving parts, but the 'opportunity cost' of taking talent X over talent Y is way less. In the 'choose one of three' style, not only are some of the talents just dead as shit (love being locked into rune of power, thank god they're removing it), we can also see from those days, eg Ret Paladin. If you wanted to have more mobility, you'd take Cavalier to get a second charge of Divine Steed (45s CD btw). If you wanted to have your defensives up like 30% more often, ie, it's a very tower-soak heavy fight, you'd take Divine Purpose or whatever it was called. Problem is, they were on the same row. To be able to be 'more useful to the raid re: taking soaks' you have to give up Cavalier, and specifically Cavalier, gimping your mobility. Now, you could choose which of your other talents to lose out on to get Divine Purpose. Maybe you don't need the incidental healing from Consecration, so you can bin Golden Path, or maybe you don't care much about the flat 2.5% armor boost from Lightforged Plates or whatever that one was called, so you can take one point out of that

Now to be fair, I did essentially suggest 'pick one of three' with the High Materia idea, but at least there I had the foresight to make it entirely utility based. If you had a choice for BLM between 'Fire4 now does 10 more potency, stacking each time you cast it', 'Manaward now is a 60s CD' and 'Scathe now applies a 20% damage down on the enemy for 5 seconds', people would instalock the first one because 'more damage innit'. Blizzard did 'try' to have utility vs utility on certain rows, and damage vs damage on others, but sometimes you just had 'utility vs mobility vs damage' and the row was essentially locked in

There is some flexibility you could do with damage, but I really struggle to think of a how different you can actually be given how this game is otherwise structured, and even if there is arguable nuance, I have little faith this community would be accepting of the nuance that justifies the lower damage option. I just don't think any branching system that works for FFXIV will actually feel satisfying for anyone looking for skill trees. I've said it before, but the different jobs themselves effectively are your skill trees seeing as you can swap between them freely as long as you level them.

[Shurrikhan]

I'd actually argue the opposite stance: A more 'complex' looking tree like Dragonflight's is better suited to FFXIV than the 3 choices type one...

If the chances of having 'locked slots' like this are even remotely possible, it's probably better to have a DF style tree, where yes there are more moving parts, but the 'opportunity cost' of taking talent X over talent Y is way less.

<snip>

This feels... rather misleading.

First, having a dead talent isn't fundamental to grids the (pick 1 of 3 choices in each of 7 rows) nor trees (be they in the style of Dragonflight, Cataclysm, or Wrath of the Lich King). That's simply a matter of actual balance.

Moreover, the tree design by itself tends to have just a high a portion of dead talent points. The main difference has simply been that Dragonflight kits have less of their strength coming from 'borrowed powers' (though some of the initial tier sets could still be pretty egregious, constraining competitive builds to even fewer), which otherwise tend to favor some builds over others with little choice over those actual borrowed powers (since they tend to not only provide difference in means but also difference in capacity, with a typically clear winner --or mere two-- for a given category of content).

As for obligatory talents, the tree design has far more. That is, of course, to be expected; as it's not designed as a just a customization system, but also one's progression system. Most of the actions and traits previously gained passively just from leveling up now require talents to be spent on them.

Far more importantly, though... many previous gameplay-shaping decisions, such as in taking or avoiding Mongoose Bite, are often made obligatory by the simple fact that those skills need to feel powerful in themselves and be acquireable from an fairly early level... making them highly overpowered now that they're no longer mutually exclusive with anything but one point of 'stat-stick' or 'QoL utility' points, etc. Each spec has essentially taken one or more iconic but controversial mechanics and made them essentially automatic/obligatory, despite still having players pay talent points for them.

As for total build diversity... the actual number of competitive builds, too, has dropped heavily. This is in part because, with so many nodes, dependencies of one talent upon another (in turn dependent upon another, repeating), talents tend to more 'bundled' than they were under the grid system. Under the same definition of "competitive" by which I'd have had about 12 builds available as an Arms Warrior, or --cumulatively) 4-5 optimal for a given covenant, 3 for a given legendary, 2-3 for a given affix week, etc., I now have 3 in total, or 1-2 for a given affix (and covenant and legendary). The same is true for any of my 8 other classes, unless counting changes that have virtually zero impact on gameplay (but if we count them, then I probably also need to triple the builds considered before, too).

(Non-)choices occurring between utility, mobility, and damage still occur in the tree system, too. The tree design's advantage is simply that it can better force you to take things you don't want by making absolutely vital nodes reachable only from utility/mobility you'd otherwise avoid in favor of yet more damage. Which is a good thing, of course (though, also, any well-designed not-directly-throughput row already did that just as well, with the main problem just being too few fine manipulars when having only 7 rows and only 1 choice each). Taking just yet more damage simply raises the throughput ceiling in a way that then have to be balanced down, despite having left the specialization all the more vulnerable -- or, more simply, short on choices in mobility/utility.

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Edit:
To be clear, I suspect our ideas for what constitutes good design would still be very similar. I just feel like the explanation above left out some core pieces that would be relevant to the discussion at hand.

A few among them:

• Customization systems, especially where highly granular (many points, perhaps acquired per level) often double as progression systems. In those cases, a degree of obligatory nodes is to be expected, as the only customization that was intended for those nodes was the order in which you unlock them, not what you actually acquire by the end.
• Apart from the above, though, few systems are fundamentally more or less likely to have non-choices; that simply comes down to the designs of the particular talents, themselves (dependencies, and therefore bundling; contextual power, given content type or surrounding balance factors; and raw power).
• Keeping players from their most degenerative instincts (my damage over raid damage; a far less reliable by slightly higher ceiling over a fairly reliable one nearly as high; avoiding all utility/eHP/etc. in favor of pure throughput) often requires force / actual lock-outs, even if they may be more subtly disguised.
• For one system to cover all content, you kind of need content that doesn't arbitrary rotating parts of itself (CC axed from or effectively useless in PvE, for instance, or involved damage rotations being so contextually hard to pull off as to be useless in PvP).

[ty_taurus]

What I'd actually love to see for 7.0 and for progression beyond level 100 would be to introduce a reimagined take on FFX's Sphere Grid.



To summarize, in FFX, you do not gain levels; you gain sphere levels. Sphere levels move you around a board that has long linear routes that eventually meet at certain "intersections" and is well-liked for being a very satisfying and tangible take on level progression; however, it runs into a few issues. For pretty much the entire game, you're on a locked route normally and don't really get to take alternate paths until the post game in which you pretty much just grind your characters until they max out the sphere grid because that's basically a requirement for most of the post game bosses.

But I'd like to take that concept and instead create individualized boards for each job where several nodes are used to gain additional stats, adopting a similar system we've seen before with relic weapons where, at a certain stage, you start customizing the stats you put into them. A certain number of nodes are preset, like your main damage stat, and a certain amount of critical hit, determination, etc. but you have empty nodes that you can insert specific stats, and this is where spell speed and attack speed could perhaps merge into 1 stat and predominantly be established here rather than on your gear. Or something to that nature. You'd also have ability and trait nodes. It's possible that you might have a choice between certain action and trait nodes, but I think at most a system like this would probably just offer the choice of substats and nothing else. The reason being is because it starts sounding awfully similar to the role action system of Stormblood which was very quickly abandoned as the problem was there were right choices and wrong choices. No healer ever took Break for example, and Lucid Dreaming was required. The fact that it was a choice at all was a trap to anyone who didn't take it. The most choice you got was not taking Esuna except in fights that needed it because it does nothing for you in most encounters, and taking off Protect after casting it since Protect would last for the entire fight anyway.

[GrimGale]

I've said it before, but the different jobs themselves effectively are your skill trees seeing as you can swap between them freely as long as you level them.

I strongly disagree with this- Jobs should be more than just mechanics. They are lore, flavour, aesthetics. Specially in a game where everything boils down to "I press this and enemy HP bar go down" and sometimes "I press this and I move there"

And while the game seems to want me to consider SCH and SGE two flavours of Shield healer, I refuse to believe I should treat them as two different flavours of the same class.

Talent trees are meant to allow player expression within a class. To tilt the general identity of a job that appeals to you to a gameplay that you prefer, within its idenity.

[Shurrikhan]

I strongly disagree with this- Jobs are more than just mechanics. They are lore, flavour, aesthetics.

So is the difference between, say, Fire, Frost, and Arcane on a Mage. Different schools of magic, often with different/unique legendary items, that play quite differently, with unique advantages and a completely different flavor each... on the same class.

All but 1 slot's worth of gear is shared between each healer. They are, for all intents and purposes, specializations of the same class.

Now, I'd be all for removing template-based design and Role Actions, but... until then... if anything, each healer job is closer to each other in gameplay than most specializations/masteries of the same class would be in another MMO.

What I'd actually love to see for 7.0 and for progression beyond level 100 would be to introduce a reimagined take on FFX's Sphere Grid.

Unless heavily reimagined (to the point it no longer fits the original name, form, or function), I would really dislike that, tbh.

Without that, the Sphere Grid is basically just the Additional Attributes system from ARR/HW, but with choice almost only insofar as the order you unlock them, rather than the actual final result on one's character.

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To be fair, I honestly would be fine without customization if we could just have more distinct jobs. If we were to have it, though, I don't want it to feel like a tacked-on menu.

I'd much rather any progressible customization system simply be about establishing our character as a sum of its experiences and learnings: Level the character, with classes being horizontal progression that source available actions and traits.

For instance, let's classes give you actions and traits related to Weapon (related to weapon characteristics: Slashing/Blunt/Piercing, Invoking/Evoking), Tactic (related slightly to finer degrees of role), and Art (that of a Ronin being still fairly different from that of a Gladiator). Jobs would give only an Essence, which you could learn to leverage in quite a few different ways.

Equip the soulstone of a Dragoon, and the first thing you'll get out of it is the ability to expend MP to affect gravity, similar to a dragon. In the open world, you're bounding up cliff-faces while everyone else is taking switchbacks up, and you're reducing the weight of your flying mount to let its stamina last almost endlessly while all but Conjurers and maybe Bards are otherwise having to take occasional breaks. Add some invocation to that, and you've got yourself BotD and DS, complete with additional means of MP expenditure and regeneration as per a dragon. Add some Evocation, and you've got Geirskogul. Between the two: LotD, Nostrond, and Stardiver, etc.

But the fundamental portion, is just that: a draconic aura, offering what makes a dragon a dragon, but now to a humanoid. From there, build it up as you will. Hell, divert some AP from the norm and add some Arcanistry or Thaumaturgy to it, if you like, for to concentrate and store draconic energies (including, for party members to use, too) or to actually breathe fire, if you prefer.

Or heck, slap Soulfont (WHM Essence) atop your Ronin, for that matter. It won't be competitive for full party content, but it'd be annoying as all hell in WPvP and oddly effective and efficient in light party content of middling difficulty.

And integrate some actual class- and job-aligned horizontal progression. Let Bards go find more stories and songs, Dragoons hunt or grow close with new and different dragon flights. Let Monks cultivate through trial and meditation, either or both. Let Machinists actually customize some of their tech to be summoned in. Make gear and consumables more interesting (heck, you'd need that just to make Machinist make sense, even).

In short, if we're to have customization, it should be in a way that makes what jobs offer feel organic and intuitive, explorable and exploitable (not by some nefarious meaning of the word), and should let us feel like... ourselves, rather than just Machinist#46784.

[TheDustyOne]

Hey Dusty, can I tempt you into trying to make a talent tree for Healers as they are now? Not an elaborate tree but rather a simple one, like what Blizzard had for the last few expansions: 6 Rows, 3 Choices for each row, between passive effects and active abilities.

Not sure how well I'd do with making a build system honestly. I had a similar thought to Ty in that I thought of the Sphere Grid first for branching out the jobs. Although I'd go with something closer to the expert grid from the international/HD version, standard is way too linear and comes across as a needless replacement of regular levels.

One way I thought of having a skill tree was for it to be purely a leveling experience; by the time you reach lvl 90/100, you would have every skill available on the tree. With exception of maybe like a few "Master" skills or something that you can only choose one of every level cap. This keeps the jobs mostly in-tact and you're just choosing what kind of utility to bring or what finisher you want in your rotation. This makes the leveling experience more interesting and can allow people to unlock the 'fun' parts of the kit earlier than usual, it'd just be a nightmare to work with for synced content.

The big problem I think for me is I don't think I'd be all that creative with customizable trees. At most I can think of having branching paths to choose your preferred damage rotation, with certain utility being forced if you go down a particular path, (i.e. you're forced to take Chain Strategem if you become Broil Scholar). It's easy enough to calculate the potency-per-second gained if you're comparing damage with damage, so having us choose between the buff or DoT is fine, if a little uninteresting. The big thing is making sure any converging paths still kind-of synergize or that players can do a little of column A, a little column B, etc. and not feel punished for it.

I can't say I expect the results to be great. I think the talent system where you make a choice between 3 skills or traits at certain levels makes sense to me for this game, since it keeps it relatively simple and the game just has to ask 1 question about how you as a player might tackle a problem upcoming content might ask of you. I'll use a random example, but let's take WHM as an example of a 'turret' healer similar to BLM as a turret dps. Movement is an issue, but we can give the player a choice in how they want to deal with movement as such:

1. A second charge on an instant-cast cooldown (Think Xenoglossy, it's a gain to have it on cooldown/loss to overcap).

2. An instant cast, high MP heal that charges the blood lily and/or procs a more powerful cast attack for later

3. A Lightspeed styled buff that reduces the cast time of your primary nuke for a few seconds.

These would most definitely have issues and aren't entirely balanced, but it provides a similar solution to the problem while interacting with the rest of the kit in different ways.

I'd still be content with not having skill trees, I just wish the jobs played a little more differently from each other, especially tanks and healers. I think having skill trees is probably best saved for future content like whatever Eureka 3.0 would end up being. I liked Roes idea of High Materia as well, although I'd make that be native to relic weapons and upgradeable artifact armour rather than attachable to any weapon.

[ty_taurus]

Unless heavily reimagined (to the point it no longer fits the original name, form, or function), I would really dislike that, tbh.

Without that, the Sphere Grid is basically just the Additional Attributes system from ARR/HW, but with choice almost only insofar as the order you unlock them, rather than the actual final result on one's character.

Actually the basis is more around Relic Weapon stat allocation. In terms of function, it probably would be quite different, but the premise I was going with is more based on the visual elements of using spheres and traveling along a path.

In terms of stat allocation, a part of this was finding a way for skill/spell speed to be something you build into a job rather than plaguing gear that no one but black mage really wants, and that way different jobs could perhaps reach different attack speed thresholds that actually don't desynch your rotations, but beyond that, other stats you could build into could be choices exclusively between utility stats. Things like MP regeneration for healers, increasing HP received when you're healed, increasing magic resistance, sprint cooldown reduction, etc. And maybe you could even make a selection of optional traits that fit into FFXIV's mold without difficulty. Something like a trait that increases your Piety by 30% of your Spell Speed or increases the effect that Determination has on healing actions by 50%.

[Shurrikhan]

Actually the basis is more around Relic Weapon stat allocation. In terms of function, it probably would be quite different, but the premise I was going with is more based on the visual elements of using spheres and traveling along a path.

I guess I just have to wonder what that offers over just a granular / non-nodal approach? The latter allows you to set exact amounts, and even to perhaps set threshold priorities.*

* By these, I'm referring to where stats will be allocated towards a particular function if they can meet it; otherwise, they move on to the next. For a simple example, with the breadth of competitive stats we see today (though you could obviously go far further if you care to reimagine XIV's stats):

1. 2.5% Haste
2. 20% Critical Hit
3. 5% Haste
4. Critical Hit

:: The last has no end-point; all leftover stats are simply dumped into it.

And, of course, there too you could simply break stats down categorically -- say, between Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary stats, which would allow you to set your broad, fine, and utility adjustments against only each other.

[TheDustyOne]

(though you could obviously go far further if you care to reimagine XIV's stats)

Slight tangent from me; but one thing I disliked was when ShB made Piety into an MP regen upgrade rather than increasing the MP cap itself. If I had my way, every job would be using MP in their rotation in some form, even if it's just another way of hiding a cooldown, and then having Piety be an all-classes stat that increases the cap, rather than just the regen (it would still be a 2% regen, so more MP per tick regardless). I'm sure people here could imagine a DRK stacking Piety for more Edge/Flood spam, or a BLM squeezing just one more Fire IV if they get 1000 more MP, or removing NIN mudra cooldowns and having it tied to MP instead. Like with speed currently, it would be another interesting way to alter ones rotation with stat choices. It'd be an absolute pig to balance, but dammit it sounds fun, and it would make MP regen buffs of the past far more relevant and can bring back more support variety.