Healer Suggestions Megathread

[Renathras]

Nor did I say you did.

Uh...

I agree that a Healer 1-2-3 combo isn't the way to go, but...

A Verstone/Verfire Ready proc isn't consumed by the Verstone/Verfire spell being interrupted,...

Can you show me where in my post I said that Verstone/Verfire Ready procs are consumed by Verstone/Verfire being interrupted?

.

Or were you just saying, while quoting me, that it doesn't consume a Ready when interrupted...for...reasons? I already knew this, and I didn't say anything otherwise. So if you weren't saying that to me - presumably thinking I didn't know this OR that I said in the prior post that they did consume it (which I did not) - why did you write those words and who were you talking to with t hem?

That's the reason for my confusion here, since there'd be no reason I can think of to say it unless you thought I was saying it.

Ready procs aren't a combo system in the normal sense. As I said, RDM doesn't have a combo to speak of outside of its melee combo. "Ready" procs aren't really combos in the normal sense. Contrast SMN's Ifrit 1-2 vs RDM's Dualcast or Ready procs. They're pretty different in how they work.

[Shurrikhan]

I feel like, in general, 1-2-3 doesn't work with cast times. Note that no Job that exists with a 1-2-3 does so with the buttons having cast times and being subject to interruption.

Uh...

There are two relevant forms of "interruption" regarding casted combo actions.

Combo-interruption:

There are effectively no real differences between actions "unlocked" by a prior skill in a particular sequence or "comboed" from a prior skill in a particular sequence. Both "combo" actions and "unlocked" actions follow wholly arbitrary rules for what wastes that unlock.

Dualcast, Raijuu, and Crimson Cyclone both affect only the next GCD, whether we call them "combos" or not, while Gnashing Fang's combo can permit other skills to be woven for up to 30-[1 GCD] seconds, so long as one doesn't use any of 5 particular other actions, even while other combos have wasted their unlocks from the use of any GCD actions not specifically whitelisted (yes, this originally included even Limit Break).

The categorical gameplay difference is, at most, whether they either (A) take up space on the Status Effects bar or (B) waste buttons on holding the later actions separately from what actions they effectively replace (thereby creating a finger-trap out of all but one of those buttons at a time once the sequence has started); all else depends on the particular unlocked action.

Whether you call it a 'unlocked' action that may or may not be wasted by actions other than the one intended, or a 'combo' action that may or may not be wasted by actions other than the one intended, there is still no categorical difference between how they would function on a Caster as compared to a Ranger, Tank, or Melee.

Cast-interruption:

While combos could previously be cancelled by starting any combo-interrupting action, never has an unlocked action (be it a "combo" or an "unlock") been wasted by an incomplete attempt of that action itself, which would be the only concern unique to Casters or the combo action carrying a cast-time.

As such, again, it would be no less feasible to have a combo action on a Caster than on any other role. The cast times are completely irrelevant to whether a combo action would be viable.

Is this clear now?

[Shurrikhan]

Wind
- Grants [Wind]
- Slightly reduced damage
- Base cast time of 2.5s, gradually decreases to 1.5s
- Grants a lily on entering stance
([Earth] effect: Nullifies damage penalty)
([Holy] effect: Reduces lily charge time on every cast of the filler)?

It's just a general framework of an idea at the moment, I haven't had time to flesh it out, just wanted to see what people would think about the idea of stance swap gameplay.



The idea if for it to be accessible at any time, there would be no cooldown, you'd just use the stance that you need at the moment according to what you need done. I added the lily generation because I ran out of ideas, WHM as it is now is very limited in systems that could have interactions with buffs. All in all, this is just a rough framework, there's not really any numbers behind it because I haven't had time to crunch the numbers. Would still be interested in your thoughts on the framework though.

Again, you cannot then let a CD-less oGCD instantly grant a resource that would otherwise take 20 seconds to charge unless the damage to be gained from staying in your Earth stance would somehow outperform having nigh-infinite damage-neutral healing GCDs / 12800-52000 extra free healing potency per minute.

You'll need to give some approximation of the time it takes to reach the full effect of each stance's advantage for me to have any idea as to how frequent these swaps would likely be optimal for a given output in a given context.


Right now, it the gameplay implications fork with whether or not you hugely buff Earth's damage bonus as it goes from a 2.5s cast time to 3s cast time.

If it does, you'll be slated to force people to double-weave Wind and Earth stance each oGCD gap (assuming near-zero latency and no Spell Speed, so they can fit both animations into each 1.5s GCD gap) so long as the healing to be produced by those free Lilies wouldn't be excessive, and to otherwise stay in Earth stance while just using Lily heals for mobility.

If it doesn't, you'll be pushed to always swap out of Earth before it exceeds a 2.5s cast time, because that would be a DPS loss to have to spend 120% of a GCD on a less than proportionate damage increase relative to the buff present alongside the 2.5s cast time.


In either case, you're still looking at one dominant stance (Earth), a backup (Wind, which has better synergy with Earth than does Holy, unless you force even heals / Solace & Rapture to be long casts under Earth), and a backup to the backup (Holy). It wouldn't likely feel like a compelling system between the three, at least insofar as your framework has progressed so far.

[ForsakenRoe]

Stop settling for DPS neutral skills. They're literally and functionally worthless. Skill's damage potency should always be worth more than your main functioning skill <Dosis>. The gain from applying a barrier should be enough of an opportunity cost to offset using that skill in early. Otherwise, it just means the healing effectiveness of the skill wasn't big enough that people wouldn't be using it other than for DPS. That just implies the skill is fundamentally worthless as a DPS action and it's just all fluff to hide the fact that it's another way to package an oGCD tool.

The point of the example isn't the damage neutrality, it's both the 'CD reduces when you fulfill X condition', and that it wouldn't be a choice between just Dosis and this, but instead there'd presumably be some other, similar 'chargetime' skills (maybe 4 or 5), such that the gameplay would be choosing between filler damage skills, not based on their potencies (because that is instantly 'solved', the higher potency is the only correct choice), but based on their additional Kardia effects. Also, the only thing set in stone would be the Dosis potency equivalence (so you don't get degenerate gameplay like 'hold healing tools for burst window because they're a 10p gain'), every other value like CDR, recast, range or effect/potency of effect, are all placeholder

RDM's Veraero/Verthunder are equal potency. Why do we use one or the other? Because of the additional effect of generating mana, requiring the player to analyze the current battle-state and make decisions based on that. I would hope for something similar with an idea like this. If party needs healing, use the pooled up 'aoe Kardia heal' GCDs, if tank needs a shield for TB, use the aforementioned example skill to give them a bit of shielding, etc. We have to make decisions based on 'what is the best 'healing tool' to use at this moment', so I feel like it's only common sense that SGE, the supposed 'damage-healer', would have the same decision-making regarding it's damage skills, or at least, how they interact with Kardia. The alternative is to give said skill (or any such additions) as an OGCD, in which case, nothing really changes, the gameplay remains in the current state it's in, we don't need to think about 'what GCD to use next', as it's just Dosis every time still. Just, now we also have a shielding OGCD to weave sometimes

any GCD actions not specifically whitelisted (yes, this originally included even Limit Break).

Sprint still breaks Dualcast on RDM. It's been 5 years, how has this not been fixed yet

edit: even potions break Dualcast what is this game

[Shurrikhan]

Sprint still breaks Dualcast on RDM. It's been 5 years, how has this not been fixed yet

edit: even potions break Dualcast what is this game

Aye. Le sigh.

Which gets back to the crux of it. Every unlocked action, be it a "combo" or not, contains an arbitrary assortment of actions which will not waste its opportunity. "Combo" actions have as much differences from each other in that regard as do non-"combo" unlocked actions. (And there's no reason to think that "combos" permissible actions would suddenly become more limited, cohesive, or anything else just from being on a Caster.)

P.S. When was the last time you heard people referring to Wheeling Thrust and Fang and Claw as anything but combo actions? Raiton->Raijuu, meanwhile, is functionally identical to Crimson Cyclone->Strike, yet only one of those is classified as a "combo".

The point of the example isn't the damage neutrality, it's both the 'CD reduces when you fulfill X condition', and that it wouldn't be a choice between just Dosis and this, but instead there'd presumably be some other, similar 'chargetime' skills (maybe 4 or 5), such that the gameplay would be choosing between filler damage skills, not based on their potencies (because that is instantly 'solved', the higher potency is the only correct choice), but based on their additional Kardia effects.

Would you be willing to do a sort of situation mock-up for this when you have things concrete enough for that to feel worthwhile?

[ForsakenRoe]

Would you be willing to do a sort of situation mock-up for this when you have things concrete enough for that to feel worthwhile?

Had a more detailed response, but accidentally refreshed and lost it, so this shortened version will have to do. TLDR, I think Ty's SGE example (where rather than gating non-Dosis GCDs by CD, and having those CDs reduce by casting Dosis, they're gated by MP and Dosis is free) is similar enough in execution to get to what I'm thinking of. Beyond that, I don't actually think it's necessarily a good idea to have main healing tools be gated behind CDR triggered by damage, as it creates unreliability in whether something is up or not at a given moment (so one pull you have Lilybell for Harrowing Hell, the next you don't and you wipe because of it). Rather, if anything would be best tied to this CDR idea on healers specifically, I believe it's best to keep it as the 'sustain' of the job. For example, on WHM and AST, that'd be things like Essential, Tetra, Intersection and Benison. They aren't going to make or break the raid getting killed, but they do help keep the tank alive. On SGE, it'd be via Kardia effects, on SCH, idk I guess making the fairy cast something other than Embrace? eg, Broil makes the fairy cast Embrace, Meltdown causes the fairy to cast (Embrace but it's a shield), Biolysis is (small ST regen effect of like 40p per tick for 30s), I dunno

As I was positing before my post got eaten by my own stupidity, it'd be great (and more likely the route SE would choose) if, for this idea where we shorten CDs on skills by using other skills, that the idea was instead given to a DPS job (who does not need to worry about keeping their allies alive in any way). If only there were a job in previous FF games that manipulated time in some way, like hastening how fast their allies get their next turn, eh?

I could do a mockup if it really requires it, but I don't know how good I am at 'starting from scratch' with designs. You may have noticed, but all of my ideas have been very much rooted in 'what do we currently have, and how can we tweak it with the smallest amount of change overall (to save on dev time), while still having a large positive impact on the gameplay loop of the job'. Also I'd probably do it for Time Mage DPS, rather than on a healer, since I feel like it'd be less constrained by things like the above 'what if CDR doesn't reduce enough and you die because healing tools are still on CD'

edit: Here, a Time Mage design, ironically a bit chronologically displaced because it'd probably fit better with an earlier version of the game like SB, due to it's relative lack of buttons. As expected, I'm not good at starting from zero with designs. I don't trust myself to get a healer one I'd be satisfied with, I'd keep tweaking and tweaking and never post it, 'perfection is the enemy of good' and all that, I'm not even fully happy with this one but I'm forcing myself to just throw it out before I mentally trap myself with it

Remember, two gauges: Matter and Antimatter. Misbalancing the gauges causes Annihilation to deal less damage (particles are left over with no opposite to annihilate with). I'm thinking the skill does, say, 10p per 1/1 gauge spent (total 1000 if both are full), and imbalance means doing 5p per leftover gauge (so as an example, being at 97/70 would mean 70x10, for 700, and then 17x5 leftover, for 85, totaling 785p). If the two gauges ever get misaligned by more than 30 (so like RDM), the smaller singularity will be consumed by the larger, causing a Gravitational Collapse, which locks the gauges in place and can be cast from the same button bind as Annihilation, dealing some consolation damage (less though, it's the Celestial Revolution of the class)

Singularity: generates two Singularities, one Matter, one Antimatter, to begin the 'buildup phase'. Akin to HW Enochian. 5s CD so if you mess up, you can immediately start a new one

Redshift: filler, builds whichever gauge is lower, extends dot by 1s

Entropy: DOT, 12s duration, builds Antimatter

Degradation: 24s cd/2 charges, reduced by 2 per dot tick, builds Antimatter

Solar Flare: 9s CD/2 charges, builds Matter

Nova: 60s CD, reduced by 5 per cast of Solar Flare, builds Matter

Annihilation: consumes all of both Matter/Antimatter gauges, deals huge damage scaling based on gauges at time of cast
Gravitational Collapse: consumes all of both gauges, deals big damage (but not as much as Annihilation)


Haste: 60s self CD, increases GCD speed of self and causes DOT to do it's effects twice on each 'server tick' (including damage)

Quicken: 2min self CD, temporarily increases CD reduction effects by 100%

Slow: party mit, staggers damage from 100% to 90% up front, and then 10% over 6s, split into 2 hits of 5% dealt as a DOT

Stop: party raidbuff, causes specific skills (raidbuffs, basically) to have duration increased by 5s

Syzygy: instantly generates 25 of both Matter and Antimatter


some random timespace themed OGCDs to throw in ala Fleche/Contre, like Comet, generating various amounts of Matter or Antimatter (or both). The CDs of these could potentially be reduced via gameplay too

maybe a targeted teleport mobility tool like shukuchi ('blueshift' lets you move faster in some way?)

and then some AOE-only stuff (one matter/one antimatter generator, which reduce the CD of 'bigger hit that generates both gauges') because SE loves to bloat our bars with 'AOE version of ST tool' and vice versa

maybe it'd be cool to have skills that also consume gauges, such that you'd want to 'skirt the line with overcapping', and use said tools to reduce/modulate your resource generation. The above OGCDs could also fulfill this

[primarisgoazrr]

I’m sure someone has mentioned it at least once, but I think it’s high time they let SCH and SGE stack barriers instead them overwriting each other. Like we can stack barriers with other jobs and all the regens can stack too. If applying 2 straight barriers is too op, then I’d even take a system where if SCH places their barrier first, then SGE’s barrier be applied at half potency while the SCH’s is still up and vice versa. Lol I guess I’m just tried of queuing in roulettes with SCH and constantly having my barriers overwritten because the SGE isn’t looking

[Supersnow845]

I’m sure someone has mentioned it at least once, but I think it’s high time they let SCH and SGE stack barriers instead them overwriting each other. Like we can stack barriers with other jobs and all the regens can stack too. If applying 2 straight barriers is too op, then I’d even take a system where if SCH places their barrier first, then SGE’s barrier be applied at half potency while the SCH’s is still up and vice versa. Lol I guess I’m just tried of queuing in roulettes with SCH and constantly having my barriers overwritten because the SGE isn’t looking

The two have enough mitigation already

In high end content the SCH is generally in charge of GCD shielding if it’s needed because of spreadlo, in any unplanned system just ask “hey are you gonna shield first or should I”, if they don’t reply then just do whatever they aren’t doing

[Calysto]

Simple barrier stacking solution : on/off stance ; if active, switch the crit barrier order.
that way you can have 2 barriers healers, and at most the equivalent of a crit barrier so not much cheeze
edit : If deployment only spread gavlanize (no matter the stance), no cheeze at al I guess

[Shurrikhan]

I could do a mockup if it really requires it, but I don't know how good I am at 'starting from scratch' with designs. You may have noticed, but all of my ideas have been very much rooted in 'what do we currently have, and how can we tweak it with the smallest amount of change overall (to save on dev time), while still having a large positive impact on the gameplay loop of the job'. Also I'd probably do it for Time Mage DPS, rather than on a healer, since I feel like it'd be less constrained by things like the above 'what if CDR doesn't reduce enough and you die because healing tools are still on CD'

<snip> I don't trust myself to get a healer one I'd be satisfied with, I'd keep tweaking and tweaking and never post it, 'perfection is the enemy of good' and all that, I'm not even fully happy with this one but I'm forcing myself to just throw it out before I mentally trap myself with it

Totally understandable. I've ended up stopping a good 90% of mock-ups myself by getting too involved in perfectionism or future-proofing / recontextualization. Especially on tanks and healers.

edit: Here, a Time Mage design, ironically a bit chronologically displaced because it'd probably fit better with an earlier version of the game like SB, due to it's relative lack of buttons.

Can't give much feedback of value on the mock-up so far, except to say that it seems to have at least as much going on at its base as most of the better jobs in-game already. Admittedly, it takes a ton of text to get to a clear picture of how things would play out on average, let alone how much breadth of gameplay they'd hold. So far, so good, though, I think.