Healer role design change?

[Semirhage]

The solution to anyone with common sense is 'buff WHM to be as good as AST and SCH'. SE's 'solution' was to kneecap SCH and AST down to WHM, because WHM is the 'face of healing' and if that's bland as hell, everything needs to be bland as hell to match

I'm always gonna butt heads with you here, but that's the most never going to happen thing of all the things that will never happen. Square has made it clear that WHM's "identity" is The Boring One That Sucks. If you bring back Stormblood healers, AST and SCH will simply resume their collective status as the Overpowered Ones Who Are The Best At Everything. "Bringing WHM up" in Stormblood's paradigm is waaaay more than potencies. The other two could mitigate in several different ways. And had a bunch of free burst heals and regens. And party damage buffs. AOE Esuna. MP refresh. Excellent personal damage. WHM was missing entire categories of personal capability that the other two had in spades, plus they could handily cover the vanilla blandness that WHM brought to the table.

I'd love a well-designed WHM that had actual utility. But as we've seen, Square would rather destroy the entire role than give WHM so much as a fecking raidbuff. "They just need to bring WHM up a bit" is what was bandied about the forums a lot back in Stormblood. It was also not even close to true given how OP AST/SCH was.

[ForsakenRoe]

"Bringing WHM up" in Stormblood's paradigm is waaaay more than potencies. The other two could mitigate in several different ways. And had a bunch of free burst heals and regens. And party damage buffs. AOE Esuna. MP refresh. Excellent personal damage. WHM was missing entire categories of personal capability that the other two had in spades, plus they could handily cover the vanilla blandness that WHM brought to the table.

Remember, the idea isn't 'revert to 4.0 wholesale', it's 'take inspiration from design of 4.0 re: rotations, while keeping the improvements on QOL/useability that 5/6.0 brought, ie Lilies, Divination being a predictable raidbuff (better for balancing/less damage swing), etc'. Going back to 4.0 wholesale would mean, for example, removing Art of War (to mirror Miasma 2) and Energy Drain, and nobody wants to have that happen again. I'm going to assume SE would leave AST as the current 'Diurnal only' now that we have SGE, even if I got my way and had 4.0 style design come back for the 'HW three'. As such, to address each of the things that made SCH/AST OP and WHM 'not good and also very bad in SB':

Mit: Either add Protect as a 60s CD that mirrors CU on AST (upgrading to PI at later levels to save hotbar space), or drop Temperance to a 1min CD, shortening it's duration a little (to 15s) if needed.

Free burst healing/regens: Lilies being reworked addresses this somewhat. AST gets an average of 600p of healing every 20s via rotating it's current OGCDs (CO/CU/Star). WHM gets 400 per 20s, with it going to 600 with PI. We have to remember, SB's version of PI was not good either, and has since been made more useable. It also has Asylum for 900p total. Lilybell is the big thing that can be looked at IMO. A 3min CD that gives 1000p for instant detonation, up to 2000p if all 5 stacks are popped 'properly' as it were. But it's direct competitor is Macrocosmos, capable of deleting certain mechanics (though I imagine they're going to be very wary of how they design hp-to-1 style mechs going forward because of it). I think if they change Lilybell to be a 120s CD with 4 stacks, or a 90s with 3 stacks (and delete the penalty for early detonation), the skill would feel so much better to use. Macro remains with the niche of 'it can delete mechanics sometimes' and Lilybell gains a niche of 'it's up twice as often'. You'd be able to rotate, every 45s, between Asylum and a 3stack Lilybell, for 2100 potency per 90s before even touching Lilies. Lilybell would also have a seperate 'niche' of sorts, of the versatility of choosing how to do it's healing. You can pop it upfront for burst, you can leave it to get even distribution of pulses (ie for a DOT). Macro doesn't have that, you choose when it gives you the burst of healing, but you can't split that burst up into smaller amounts, meaning less agency in the healing it provides

Party damage buffs: WHM got a solid showing in SHB when it's personal damage was so strong that it was not only outstripping party buffs, but also some of the tanks, this is again a numbers thing. I don't think giving WHM a raidbuff changes anything in either direction. SAM exists fine and has no raidbuff, yeh it drops from it's top spot as everyone gets gear sometimes, and other times not. BLM is the same, often hanging around in the top 3 without having a raidbuff. Just requires SE to be good at tuning numbers which.. yeh, could be an issue I guess. Definitely not possible with 4.0 AST (as it was then), but with something like what I've put in that other thread (ST cards with roughly equal contribution to damage, Divination as the raidwide buff, thereby making it's damage output 'predictable' from a balance perspective), it should be possible to balance WHM against it a lot easier compared to the insanely swing-y damage of a 4.0 AST

AOE Esuna: Doesn't exist anymore, but if it were to come back I'd imagine it'd be on WHM if anyone (as a lily spender), since SCH has Expedient now as a 'cool weird utility thing'. If AOE Esuna came back on SCH, I dunno what I'd do for WHM. The first thing that comes to mind is a Raise skill that has a long CD (like, 5+ min), but raises the target with no weakness (or if they have weakness, doesn't turn it into brink of death). People would complain that 'my utility only good for prog' but I could say the same about something like Neutral Sect, you don't actually 'want' to use it because it only works on GCD heals

MP refresh: Addressed with Thin Air and the damage-neutral-Misery change, we now save 1600MP per min due to prep/firing a Misery. Every time they reduce Assize's CD it helps a little too. SB WHM's MP economy was not great, and HW was even worse, but now it's been helped a lot. If needs be, we can have a trait added somewhere that says that Thin Air affects the next 3 spells instead of one. If they added my ideas we'd be getting +500 each time we casted the big AOE heal I made too (the one that grants you a Quake/Tornado/Flood cast) but hey, a quick-and-dirty fix can be to just increase Assize's restore amount

Excellent personal damage: Personal-damage wise WHM is on the right track in relation to AST and SCH, its higher than them (in personal damage) which, since it has no raidbuff, is where it should be. But this is once again a case of 'can SE balance a non-raidbuff class versus one that has raidbuffs', and it's doubly precarious because AST is so heavy into raidbuffing in terms of it's identity, it's like comparing DNC and MCH. SHB shows they're capable, whether intentional or by fluke, of making WHM be competitive even without having it's own raidbuff

If you were to ask me 'do you believe its possible to have SB style design, and for the healers to be well balanced against each other?' I'd say 'yes it is absolutely possible'. If you asked 'do you believe it's possible for SE to achieve this', I'd hesitate before answering, and I'm not sure which way I'd answer it. I want to believe that if they put their mind to it and decided 'this is the way we are going with healers', they'd get the numbers right. The problem is that they don't want to go that way designwise, else they'd never have done the SHB changes in the first place

6.2k characters i done did a Ren

[ty_taurus]

Mit: Either add Protect as a 60s CD that mirrors CU on AST (upgrading to PI at later levels to save hotbar space), or drop Temperance to a 1min CD, shortening it's duration a little (to 15s) if needed.

In general, I've started to develop the preference of really cutting total actions down in favor of making the actions that stay more frequent. For example, I really like Haima and Panhaima. I think they're interesting, but I'd rather see them become 60 second cooldowns instead, and I'd be happy to remove tools like some or all of the -choles in order to justify that much accessibility. So I'd much rather see something like Temperance drop to 60 seconds or less even if that means reducing the effects somewhat. Adding charges also helps. For example, why does Scholar need both Indomitability and Fey Blessing? Why does it need Whispering Dawn and Sacred Soil and Fey Illumination?

I want to see each kit curated down to the most interesting unique tools, and use that extra space to add ways to interact with those tools more. For example, why not cut Asylum and Plenary Indulgence completely and make Liturgy a permanent object you place. Every time you hit Liturgy with an AoE heal, you can activate it to trigger an OGCD AoE heal, and it can store up to 5 charges this way? One action releases all charges at once for HP burst recovery, another grants you a buff that automatically consumes a single charge to heal a smaller amount when you take damage (mimicking the current Liturgy effect), and maybe you have a third action--a DPS spell that causes all charges to hit enemies with a damage down effect for added mitigation, or something o that effect? This could also resolve the Assize problem. Instead of Assize healing additionally, it adds a charge to your Liturgy. Maybe you can spend your charges to either heal, or

[ForsakenRoe]

For example, why does Scholar need both Indomitability and Fey Blessing? Why does it need Whispering Dawn and Sacred Soil and Fey Illumination?

Soil's for mit, idk why they added the regen in SHB. I thought it was dumb at the time too. For Indom/Blessing, I've said ages ago that I'd probably remove Blessing, and rework Deploy so that the Fairy does a copy of the skill you use, from a list. Indom would make the fairy do Fey Indom (functionally equivalent to Blessing atm), Deploy Adlo would be a double ST shield on one target for super mit on a tankbuster, Deploy Succor would be current Adlo-Deploy, bigger partywide shielding, and Deploy Excog would be for 'I really don't want this tank to get instaslapped by an auto and die after this TB' I guess

As for a merged Illum/WDawn, I think you are describing Physis2, but jokes aside, yeh I'm not a massive fan of Fey Illumination's existence either, I'd rather have lost it in the prune than Rouse for example

[Aravell]

Rework Deploy so that the Fairy does a copy of the skill you use, from a list. Indom would make the fairy do Fey Indom (functionally equivalent to Blessing atm), Deploy Adlo would be a double ST shield on one target for super mit on a tankbuster, Deploy Succor would be current Adlo-Deploy, bigger partywide shielding, and Deploy Excog would be for 'I really don't want this tank to get instaslapped by an auto and die after this TB' I guess

This system would actually be very interesting on SGE. Imagine if:
- Dosis is a straight heal on Kardia target
- Eukrasian Dosis is a regen on Kardia target
- Dyskrasia pulses an AoE heal out from Kardia target
- Phlegma places a shield on Kardia target
- Pneuma pulses an AoE shield out from Kardia target

[ty_taurus]

Soil's for mit, idk why they added the regen in SHB. I thought it was dumb at the time too. For Indom/Blessing, I've said ages ago that I'd probably remove Blessing, and rework Deploy so that the Fairy does a copy of the skill you use, from a list. Indom would make the fairy do Fey Indom (functionally equivalent to Blessing atm), Deploy Adlo would be a double ST shield on one target for super mit on a tankbuster, Deploy Succor would be current Adlo-Deploy, bigger partywide shielding, and Deploy Excog would be for 'I really don't want this tank to get instaslapped by an auto and die after this TB' I guess

As for a merged Illum/WDawn, I think you are describing Physis2, but jokes aside, yeh I'm not a massive fan of Fey Illumination's existence either, I'd rather have lost it in the prune than Rouse for example

I'd rather see Whispering Dawn upgrade into Fey Blessing, and/or have that replace Indomitability as your OGCD AoE heal. I also don't see the point in having both Physis II and Kerachole. I get that Physis II has the healing increased effect, but I'd rather rework how you access that rather than have two slightly different OGCD regens. And that's kinda my point with Soil/WD/Illumination... they all bleed together.

This system would actually be very interesting on SGE. Imagine if:
- Dosis is a straight heal on Kardia target
- Eukrasian Dosis is a regen on Kardia target
- Dyskrasia pulses an AoE heal out from Kardia target
- Phlegma places a shield on Kardia target
- Pneuma pulses an AoE shield out from Kardia target

I'd want more choice involved with Kardia. That kind of change just makes the regens and barriers consequences of doing your rotation. I've actually started thinking more along the lines of something like:

Dosis - Deals 330 Potency. No MP Cost. No Kardia Effect
New Spell - Deals 330 Potency. 800 MP Cost. Heals your Kardia target with a potency of 250.

In the past, my concepts of a Sage rework included other similar concepts. Namely Polydipsia which replaces Soteria: a DPS spell that applies 4 stacks of Soteria to your Kardia target, doubling the Kardia effects granted by other spells, or Eukrasian Polydipsia which instead grants 2 stacks of Therapeia to your Kardia target which blasts the Kardia effects of other spells to all allies nearby them.

Basically, your DPS rotation is about making choices with your Kardia healing, and using Dosis when you don't need to heal.

[Renathras]

In general, I've started to develop the preference of really cutting total actions down in favor of making the actions that stay more frequent. For example, I really like Haima and Panhaima. I think they're interesting, but I'd rather see them become 60 second cooldowns instead, and I'd be happy to remove tools like some or all of the -choles in order to justify that much accessibility.

Kind of agree with this (whole paragraph). I was thinking earlier this evening how much I like Emergency Tactics.

...no, wait, hear me out, please.

What I like about it is how FREQUENT it is. It's a modifier ability, which means it allows other abilities (Succor and Adlo) to pull double duty, like Eukrasia. Unlike Eukrasia, though, it's limited by a CD. But it's not a really heavily punishing one. I think it was 20 or 30 seconds originally, but it's 15 now. I was thinking how I like Plenary, but it's only once per minute, which tends to mean I think of other things to use first. The CD is in that weird place where it's JUST long enough to be out of mind, but not long enough to be a major or clutch ability.

Contrast, also, PvP abilities. Other than LBs themselves, abilities with CDs are usually either 15 sec or 20 sec CDs, meaning they're up all the time. Short CDs like that result in buttons that feel somewhat impactful, because they can't be spammed, but still accessible and go-to since they're still frequently available.

.

As for the SGE discussion:

My ideal for SGE at this point - I'd never touch it, but I know some people really want this - would be to remove (almost) all of its healing. Give it a DPS rotation on par with SMN's/RDM's (without the melee bit) and boost its Kardia to be serious healing. Give it a few oGCDs for mitigation (Kerachole, for example), and some emergency heal for when Kardia isn't cutting it (Durochole, for example), and that's it. Its main use oGCDs would be things like boosting Kardia with Soteria, a Synastry/Beacon of Light second short duration Kardia, and an AOE Kardia. Performing its DPS rotation correctly combined with proper Kardia targeting/hot-swapping/use of the extra Kardia oGCDs would be what leads to proper healing performance.

Right now, SGE can debateably outheal a pure Healer depending on how you look at it and consider eHP, and that aside, given the lowish healing requirements in this game, SGE can do ample overhealing. Its oGCD heals are ridiculously powerful and accessible. It has better Regen healing than WHM (or even AST, I think), and can access them on the oGCD, unlike WHM's Regen and Medica 2, which are DPS losses to use. Asylum on a 90 sec CD is WHM's only oGCD regen, while SGE has two (four if you count Panhamia/Hamia, though those are more akin to Lilybell), Physis with a 60 sec CD and Kerochole with a 30 sec (which unlike SCH, doesn't compete with Energy Drain so can be used freely). And right now, it doesn't have the "heals by doing damage" feel. Kardia feels like (and functionally is) Eos' Embrace while SGE's bulk healing is done with its oGCDs.

[ty_taurus]

Kind of agree with this (whole paragraph). I was thinking earlier this evening how much I like Emergency Tactics.

...no, wait, hear me out, please.

I don't see anything wrong with liking Emergency Tactics. In concept, I think it's great also. It's just that, now more than ever, it's heavily power-crept. Ironically, it was already seeing power creep in HW when it was added because Indom was also added and is a considerably stronger healing tool that also has a short cooldown. ET would've really shined during ARR though. And that leads me to a different point... We keep getting new healing cooldowns each expansion, but healing requirements don't increase to compensate for this added healing, so what ends up happening is old healing actions start getting power-crept out, and you end up with "dead" buttons that aren't being used anymore.

Contrast, also, PvP abilities.

The think to keep in mind about PVP though is that PVP gameplay is a different experience. In PVP, combat is experienced in brief skirmishes that you constantly jump in and out of, with the fights themselves being unpredictable. Meanwhile, the standard PVE experience is about enduring long, drawn-out encounters with a learnable pattern. So it makes sense why PVP cooldowns are that much shorter. Now don't get me wrong, as I said above, I think we could trim a lot of fat by taking the most interesting healing cooldowns and making those more often accessible while cutting the less interesting ones, but I think it's an important distinction to acknowledge when talking about job design in this game.

As for the SGE discussion:

I have something similar on the suggestions megathread (page 14 if you're curious) Though I would still have at least your standard two direct heals just so that you can heal without a target. Diagnosis and Prognosis do have uses during phase changes or boss transitions. There's some elements from other sage concepts I've shared before, but it's a more streamlined. It was inspired from thoughts I'd had from the earlier conversation.

[ForsakenRoe]

I don't see anything wrong with liking Emergency Tactics. In concept, I think it's great also. It's just that, now more than ever, it's heavily power-crept. Ironically, it was already seeing power creep in HW when it was added because Indom was also added and is a considerably stronger healing tool that also has a short cooldown. ET would've really shined during ARR though.

ET would still have a place, I think, if it weren't just 'the next ONE spell has it's shield converted into raw healing'. Dusty's Black/White Grimoires idea made the most sense to me, have ET's effect as one of the stances you can be in, 'shield mode heals' be the opposite stance. I'd even add more to that and make it so that if you're in the 'shielding' Grimoire mode, your pure heal tools ie Indom are converted to do shielding, at a lower effectiveness (ie, 200p shield vs 400p pure healing), to incentivize... actually shielding, on a shield-focused healer, crazy I know

I don't necessarily 'hate' ET, I just put it in the same category as Pepsis: it's there, it exists, it's learned at level 58, it could be so much more than it is

If anything, I'd probably put the cast times on the big-trucking-hits, minus Misery? So, to me, at the very least, Quake, Flood, Tornado absolutely should have cast times (possibly a full GCD's), though I'd then want to see some timing-flexibility on them (if that wasn't in the mockup; can't easily go and check right now from on my phone).

Yeh I left those hard hits as 'the same cast time as their lower counterparts', so Quake was 1.5s, the other two instantcast. I think having them change to have a different cast time from their base form is not ideal in terms of fluidity (ie, you need to heal on the move cos mechanic, you press the heal, empower spells, now you can't cast that Banish because it's suddenly got a cast time), so maybe just having Banish/Flood be a 2.0s cast (slightly longer than Glare, but it does hit harder) might be enough, that'd put the count up to 13/24 GCDs having cast times, so just over half. Or maybe having Banish have a cast time, but the upgraded forms all being instantcast, things 'empowering and gaining instantcast property' is a lot less wonky for gameplay than 'thing empowers and suddenly gains a cast time you're forced to respect'

I'll just leave it as is, with the excuse of 'hey, if only 8/24, literally one third, of the GCDs ask the player to stand still, that makes the design super-casual-friendly, which means it fits way better with what SE's looking for'. I don't exactly associate 'healer role' with 'the class is glued to the floor', since in 'the other game' it's mostly only Priest and Shaman that get glued to the floor, iirc. If we needed a class in this game that is the token 'I cannot move even one pixel' healer class, I'd nominate it be SGE, because it has Icarus, in a similar fashion to BLM's refusal to move, and it having Aetherial Manipulation. Also if it's damage contributed to it's healing in a more robust design than 'teehee 170p on one guy', it'd stand to reason that it would want to stand still and deal damage constantly with as few interruptions as possible

[Shurrikhan]

...

Personally, I'd kinda like to see something similar-ish to the SMN route, wherein each gives a chain of utility-including available actions that one can use or just skip past.

For instance, let's say you've got Quake as a long cast, Flood as a charge-up (hold cast for up to 1 GCD's time), and Tornado as a channel that can be held for up to 1 GCD (operating in 20% of GCD ticks).

Quake would apply Resonance, causing your ST attacks to deal 100 potency also to all other enemies nearby.

Flood would change your heals from casts to charge-ups, dealing their full potency even if the cast is cancelled early by movement but dealing 200 more potency if cast at their normal times.

Tornado would grant Vortex for a duration based on channel time, causing your DoT to be usable over direct damage (ST filler) for a bit.

From there, Banish would probably be a 1.5s cast time.

Something like that.

(I don't remember what "BotE" was.)