Technically, why does RDM's Vercure heal more than SMN's Physick?

[LilimoLimomo]

I've known that RDM's Vercure is a much more capable heal than SMN's Physick for years, but the other day I realized I didn't quite know why, so I figured I'd dive into RDM's abilities and traits to find out why. I was expecting to find something like a trait with the description, "Makes healing magic 1000% more potent", but after looking through all of both SMN and RDM's abilities, I found nothing like that. They seem to both have the same boosts to healing magic (30% via traits) and Vercure is even 350 potency compared to Physick's 400 potency. My SMN and RDM have comparable Mind values — which the UI explains is the stat governing healing magic — and the same goes with secondary stats; in fact, my RDM is less geared so their other stats are lower than my SMN's. And yet, their heals do 10-15x as much.

Is there an in-game, technical explanation that explains what is happening mechanically to give RDM much stronger heals? To be clear, I'm asking about game systems, not lore! Thanks!

[SaberMaxwell]

RDM's vercure scales off of INT while SMN's scales off of MND.

The devs will tell you SCH jank is why SMN physick scales off of MND but at this point its vestigial.

[Rongway]

RDM's vercure scales off of INT while SMN's scales off of MND.

That's all it is.

You won't notice it at low levels because caster gear is shared with healers until just before Lv50, so casters have the same amount of mind as healers from Lv01 to Lv45-Lv49. But when SMN starts wearing exclusively caster gear the power of Physick immediately drops to almost nothing because all their mind points over naked base mind disappear.

[LilimoLimomo]

RDM's vercure scales off of INT while SMN's scales off of MND.

I had heard this might be the case. Is there anything in the game itself that would clue a player into this? Or is this just one of those things that you can only learn by going outside the game (from someone who datamined, a developer who explained that's the way it is, etc)?

[Shurrikhan]

I had heard this might be the case. Is there anything in the game itself that would clue a player into this? Or is this just one of those things that you can only learn by going outside the game (from someone who datamined, a developer who explained that's the way it is, etc)?

The latter. Like figuring out how much your secondary stats actually do, how periodic potency even works (in terms of total potency), what skills can and cannot be queued, and so much else...

[Arohk]

Because the game Devs don't care to fix it, even after reworking Summoner they didnt bother.
It scales of Mind because it is a left over ability from Arcanist.

[Cabalabob]

I had heard this might be the case. Is there anything in the game itself that would clue a player into this? Or is this just one of those things that you can only learn by going outside the game (from someone who datamined, a developer who explained that's the way it is, etc)?

Basically in ARR your spells and abilities actually scaled off appropriate stats. Attack magic scaled off INT, healing magic scaled off MND, melee skills scaled off STR and ranged skills scaled off DEX.

As time went on they phased all of that out. NIN was added and scaled off DEX instead of STR, PLD and DRK got attack spells that scaled off STR instead of INT, healers were updated so their attack magic scaled off MND instead of INT and when RDM was added vercure scaled off INT instead of MND.

Physick is now the last remnant of the old system where a skill scaled off something other than the jobs main stat (even though the SMN version of physick is now a completely separate skill from the SCH version so there’s no reason for it to be that way).

This topic comes up pretty much every expansion, people asking for it to be scaled off INT, people asking for it to be upgraded into a new skill via a trait, or people just asking for it to be outright removed.

I believe the last time the devs talked about it was when RDM was added, people asked in the Q&A if “now that RDM exists and has an INT based cure, can SMN be updated so physick scales off INT too?”. Dev response was essentially “we don’t want to give something to SMN just because RDM has it”.

[Supersnow845]

Just for reference this is also how cleric stance used to work on healers

Your mind stat was the stat healing skills scaled off, your damage spells scaled off int, by default healer gear only have mind, so you healed for the normal amount but your damage spells were about as potent as a SMN spamming physick, then cleric stance would swap your mind and int stats while active, so now your heals did nothing but your DPS skills did the normal amount of damage they were supposed to

[Iscah]

You won't notice it at low levels because caster gear is shared with healers until just before Lv50, so casters have the same amount of mind as healers from Lv01 to Lv45-Lv49. But when SMN starts wearing exclusively caster gear the power of Physick immediately drops to almost nothing because all their mind points over naked base mind disappear.

This makes me think of Bozja's upscaling of gear stats – I've heard that it's efficient for WHMs to take a wand and shield in there as it gets boosted to level 80 stats despite being underpowered in any other situation.

Does the same apply to SMN gear? Can they wear something with mind stat on it and get boosted up to have a working Physick?

Probably moot due to Lost Cure, but still.

[Supersnow845]

This makes me think of Bozja's upscaling of gear stats – I've heard that it's efficient for WHMs to take a wand and shield in there as it gets boosted to level 80 stats despite being underpowered in any other situation.

Does the same apply to SMN gear? Can they wear something with mind stat on it and get boosted up to have a working Physick?

Probably moot due to Lost Cure, but still.

No

The difference the shield makes is absolutely tiny (like fractions of a percent)

Outside of the haste gear from CLL and DRS all classes are scaled to a particular stat set; not based on gear