A question for SCH mains and enjoyers

[ForsakenRoe]

Honestly, instead of removing the Gauge cost, they could have just removed the CD. 30 Gauge is still pretty hefty, so that would be a natural limiter of at most 1 per minute (~1.3 if you count Dissipation used on CD), so it'd be the same as it is right now in practice. I find far more times I'd like a kick of AOE healing than I find I need focused slightly-better-Embrace.

I would complain in your example, though, as that would make it like SMN's "press AF then spam ED on CD", which is just dumb. (Well, optimal SMN uses them during 2 mins, but you get the point). If ED is the only spender, that's stupid. I much prefer AF to be for Lustrate/Indom/Excog/Soil. Just dump Energy Drain. Hell, even in Ty's survey, one of the most requested changes for SCH was "decouple Energy Drain from Aetherflow", not "make Energy Drain the only thing Aetherflow is useful for and make it fuel a second Aetherflow gauge that does the actual healing". I don't recall ANYone suggesting that, actually.

SCH's role is Healer. It's primary resource should be based on healing, not damage. You guys somehow have this exactly backwards, I think.

As I said in my suggestion thread on SCH changes, make ED work on Faerie Gauge. I find way more time I'm capped on gauge and need to spend it than times I find myself capped on AF since I routinely use it on Excog and Soil. Actual healing buttons. Let me burn gauge on ED - the gauge I'm ACTUALLY capped on all the time and need a spender for.

- I don't remember Blessing ever being 30. I remember it costing 10 though, which is why even then it felt very 'ehh?' with the cost, since you'd always have 10 spare.

- Think about the reason people said 'decouple ED from AF'. It's so that the conflict between 'heals' and 'damage' is broken. If AF is ONLY spent on ED, then that desire, that heals and damage no longer compete for the resource, is met. Again, we don't need 'spend AF' to be the generator for Fey Gauge, either, it could be generated from anything else. Embrace casts, DOT ticks, Broil casts, whatever SE feels is relevant. I'd make it Embrace casts just because it's a reliable, steady income of gauge, in the same way PLD is 'steady and predictable' because it's tied to autoattacks, but unlike PLD's autos, Embrace happens during downtime too.

- ASTs role is healer. 7 of it's 8 cards it can play are damage related. WAR/DRK/GNB are all tanks, their gauges are all based on 'do damage' (and no, 'but threat generation!' is not a valid reason in current year). I think that where WHM has 'healing turns into damage', having a class that is 'damage turns into healing' isn't that farfetched. Of course, I would prefer it be Sage as a more direct version (ie, dealing damage directly causes healing), but having 'deal damage generates resource to spend on healing' can work. Downtime might be a bit odd if ED were the only source though, hence the other suggestions like Embrace casts.

- Moving ED to fairy gauge instead of AF doesn't solve the issue. It just changes it from 'you don't want to use Soil, because you'd rather ED' to 'you use Soil whenever tf, likely in bad timings, because you need to spend the AF to get the gauge for ED', while also having 'you don't want to use Union, because you'd rather use ED'. Instead of making Union more incentivized, it'd kill it even further

Even White Mage's Lilies, while not being nearly enough to satisfy many of White Mage's critics on its own, was still a solid step forward for the job.

WHM's criticism comes because the SHB Lily fix came alongside a slew of changes that dumbed the class down, like removing Aero 3. If the changes in SHB had been 'Stone > Glare, Aero2 > Dia (potency up, not duration), Divine Seal > Temperance' and the Lily fixes, WHM would be regarded now as 'quite a banger of a job' I think

[Rein_eon_Osborne]

I wouldn't call Aetherpact/Fey piss Union (and the entire fae gauge itself) to be 'useless', but it's certainly lackluster. Another button that uses fae gauge would be nice; my personal wish is to let them play more into the 'totem healing' aspect more such as that pulsing fey blessing, and other utility perhaps.

My favorite moment to use Union is when I need to hardcast raise somebody but doesn't want to leave the tank (or any low health party member) unchecked: Fey Union > switch target to hardraise. Protraction also snapshots Union ticks at the moment of cast, so it's very possible to leave whichever target with an on-going 0.91*330p regen/tick for as long as the gauge allows.

- I don't remember Blessing ever being 30. I remember it costing 10 though, which is why even then it felt very 'ehh?' with the cost, since you'd always have 10 spare.[...]

Blessing in ShB was a two minute cooldown costing 10p fae gauge. Even then, the cost was negligible too. And considering the opener involved at least burning 3 AFs for whatever, you are right about having always 10p to spare.

I remember when people were speculating what new buttons 6.0 would bring us, I was hoping that they would work on more into the gauge. Sadly that's not what the dev had envisioned lmao. :sadhorn:

[vetch]

- ASTs role is healer. 7 of it's 8 cards it can play are damage related. WAR/DRK/GNB are all tanks, their gauges are all based on 'do damage' (and no, 'but threat generation!' is not a valid reason in current year). I think that where WHM has 'healing turns into damage', having a class that is 'damage turns into healing' isn't that farfetched. Of course, I would prefer it be Sage as a more direct version (ie, dealing damage directly causes healing), but having 'deal damage generates resource to spend on healing' can work. Downtime might be a bit odd if ED were the only source though, hence the other suggestions like Embrace casts.

Having all of SCH's aetherflow be damage oGCDs would be boring. Having all of AST's cards be vanilla damage buffs is boring now. Choosing between healing and damage, judging the situation and guessing how few defensive aetherflow you can get away with, is one of the few things that makes SCH more fun than other healers, just as managing the RNG used to make AST more fun.

Taking choices away so people don't have to think, asking less and less of players, cutting holes in the jobs so bad players can't make wrong decisions in the first place, it is BORING. It's aiming at mediocrity. It's more of the same bad design philosophy that has been wrecking healers for five years. And bad players will still find ways to be bad. All you've done is amputate mid-level gameplay by taking away the soft-skills that mid-level players work to master.