For those who main/semi-main a DPS (e.g. DNC, RDM) but like Healers...

[Renathras]

I've already gone on record saying WHM isn't for me as in I don't like its simplicity. My point in bringing up your changes is that, even with them, they wouldn't make me want to retry WHM - which is something I want to do, simple or not.

Right, but that's my point, I think; you aren't going to be interested in WHM unless we completely change it to where it won't appeal to people who like it. And you already have AST, they do not. I mean, consider the (somewhat likely?) reverse case - that AST is changed to be simple like WHM next expansion in 7.0. We all suspect this already. That would make AST appeal more to players like me...but how will you feel if it happens? And this isn't theoretical since we both know it very well may. You're probably not going to be happy if the one healer you really enjoy is changed to where you don't enjoy it so that it will appeal to other people, right?

That's how I feel with the insistence of changing WHM.

On the other hand, we could make proposals to AST that make it where it's a bit simpler but you still like it, but those changes wouldn't make someone like me want to try it out, yeah? But you could say to me then "Yes, but you have WHM, please don't take AST from me".

[QUOTE=ASkellington;6324905]Dia stacking is a worse decision simply because Dia is set and forget as is."

That's the point. ALL of the Healer DoTs are the same. They SHOULD all be different. And stacking to 60 is, AT WORST, no less good than current Dia. At best, it adds flexibility and some potential skill expression. But I've already argued this one to death so won't do it again. Likewise the Holy change is for people that like White Mage (not just FFXIV) lore and that Holy be a highly powerful spell.

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Excog: The change is to remove Lustrate while retaining its general functionality. If you don't like it, we could just remove Lustrate and leave Excog as it is...but now what are you going to use as your AF dump since ED is on Faerie Gauge? Exactly.

Deploy: Charges don't help since they still have the same CD. Note that Deploy right now is made to match Recitation in CD so they can be used in tandem. This is intentional since it's designed to make SCH powerful while still being a big CD that requires some brainpower and timing to use correctly (skill expression \o/). So it would need its CD halved, but then people could just use it for a lot more frequent shield spreading, which could cause balance issues. I suspect that's why they won't do it. I get you like the PvP kit, but there's a reason for some PvP changes not applying to PvE. Broil 4 again reduces the single button spam (Art) in AOE. Again, this change was suggested explicitly to address players here complaining they just hit the same button over and over again.

Esuna traits: There's rarely any time a heal is completely unnecessary, and if it costs the same MP, there's no downside. There's no time you cast an Esuna where you think "Man, I REALLY don't want a free 10k or so of heal to go with this". Even the cases you don't need it, the only reason to complain is if you parse and worry about that overhealing number. And it wouldn't be relevant if that was the way to cleanse debuffs since all the healers would work that way. AND it wouldn't matter anyway since you never cleanse debuffs in high end content anymore to where this would even be an issue. Besides, "Slap a HoT" is no different in practice, though I guess we could have that as one of the Healer specific variants (didn't I suggest so? I think I did, but maybe not...)

Aetherpact/Collective: I was referring to the fact you never channel the full duration. You rarely do with Aetherpact, either (if you're worried about unnecessary healing, as you indicated above). You either stop it before its duration, you interrupt it with another Faerie Ability, or you forget about it and leave it on to where it only stops once the gauge is consumed (which lets other weaker party members get lower on health that you then have to expend more oGCDs to correct for if there's other damage going out). So it's net loss in all cases anyway. The toggle would be nice if not tied to a gauge and if it didn't conflict and cancel with other abilities.

Selene/Cards: No, Cards are nothing but balance because of Balance fishing. The other cards were useful, people just didn't want them. That's a bit different to Selene who was legitimately useless in a lot of cases and worst than Eos in most ways that mattered.

Energy Drain being decoupled... - is what the people want. And is the reason for the Excog change that you seem adamant at opposing, so that can be a useful AF dump if needed. So SCH WOULD have something to spend stacks on that isn't ED. Right now, it doesn't because of CDs. Soil has a CD, Excog has a CD, and Indom/Lustrate aren't useful if no one needs healing (Excog is almost always useful since the Tank if no one else will be taking damage within the next 45 sec and probably won't be at 100% health when it goes off, and Soil is always useful unless literally no one is taking literally any damage for a full 15 seconds).

"WHM has its roots and CNJ, it should retain them" - nah, it really shouldn't. CNJ is more of a Druid, White Mage in FF lore generally isn't. Even the Amdapori weren't. We don't see the Amdapori casting earth and water and air magics, we see them casting things like Banish and Holy. The Amdapori corpse in City of Amdapor (Hard) doesn't cast Stone or Aero. They will cast Cure and they will cast Holy as an damage spell (AOE). I couldn't get one to cast anything else smacking it with my autoattack or standing around letting it act under its own devices.

...which is to say, in the lore, WHMs aren't really CNJs. Conjury is a weakened version/form of White Magic, filtered through the Elementals. That is, it's power loaned to people by the Elementals, it isn't White Magic in its pure form, the Amdapori version would be. Likewise, what WHM has is a pure form of White Magic, unfiltered. Honestly, imo, WHM should never have HAD Stone or Aero in the first place. In most games, those are Black Magic, more rarely Blue Magic (or simply unavailable). Aero, for example:

White Magic in...: FF3
Black Magic in...: FF11, FF12, (also FF14 1.0 it was a THM spell), Mystic Quest, 4 Heroes of Light, Dissidia (used by Shantotto as well as Gabranth), Opera Omnia (again, Shantotto), Brave Exvius
Blue Magic in...: FF5, FF9
And is a Bishop and Sage ability in Tactics Advance.
...and if you want to expand a bit, Sora and Donald (both more Red Mages) in Kingdom Hearts can use their versions of Aero.

It's hardly a staple of White Magic, at any rate.

Similar story with Stone, though much less limited, it's been associated with White Mage in exactly one game in the series/expanded Square catalogue as far as I can tell, which is JUST FFXIV. Even in FF11, it was a Black Magic spell, and the one Black Mages started the game with as the lowest level elemental magic. To drive this point home, btw, Geomancers, Red Mages, Scholars (which, recall, had a "Black Mage stance", so to speak), and even Dark Knights could learn and use it, but WHITE Mages could not.

And in 1.0 - which IS still (mostly) canon - CNJ used all six elements, making them far more akin to Red Mages than to White Mages. It wasn't until 1.20 (not long before the game's end) that it became a Stone/Aero mage. Interestingly, both Stone 1/2 and Aero 1/2 became combo actions of the 1 then 2 of the element, with Stone 2's increasing damage and Aero 2's increasing accuracy, with the 2s being AOE when NOT used in the combo and converted to single target in the combo, if https://finalfantasy.fandom.com/wiki...IV_version_1.0) is to be believed. Meaning RDM's Aero2 is more loyal to 1.20s than WHM's in 2.0+ have ever been. (Would have been kinda interesting if Aero 3 had worked that way...)

So Stone/Aero are actually the ones that don't make sense based on the lore.

And you may doubt all you want - I always wanted WHM to be a holy caster and not a druid. It's one of the reasons I've long thought Geomancer should be added to the game as a healer, since it would actually MAKE SENSE for it to use earth, wind, and water magics (and possibly ice and lightning and fire...) where WHM doing so never did make sense.

...not to mention we have a Job in the game right now that DOES use earth and wind magic - Red Mage. Which is a complicated lore weirdness itself, though it makes some sense (it's a CNJ + THM + GLD/ROG, more or less, not a White Mage + Black Mage, since it was designed to not interfere with the aetherial balance of the world by using its own personal aether rather than that of the environment like BLM and WHM do.)

Prior to ShB launching there was absolutely no unified will to turn WHM into a disco ball, people were fine with its current (at the time) aesthetic

Again, there WERE people who wanted it at the time. Most had just given up and were jaded about it, like you guys are with healing overall.

...

Legitimately, plan to read this one later, but just wanted to poke a few things really quick:

1) Your sarcasm should have been directed at Askellington for the "sacrifice" comment, then. This is the kind of thing I mean when I point out you guys always dogpile and attack me and not each other. He was the one that introduced that language to the conversation, I adopted it to counter him, then you attacked me for the language instead of him.

2) Political example - No, it's not like that at all. It's like if 25% of people want to fund police, fire, health, and post respectively, but want their chosen one to get all the funds, and someone says "Why don't we just give each one 25% of the budget?"

3) It's odd that RDM uses high end White and Black Magic more faithfully than BLM or WHM. Though I will note that BLM at least DID use Flare as a high damage ability for a while, and does at several breakpoints while leveling. Found out (reading the above link) that Burst used to be a high end Lightning aspect spell belonging to pre-1.20 CNJ. Go figure.

4) Energy Drain - That as the reason people argued it had to be returned both times it was removed. While people here argue about skill expression, the overall community that wanted it thinks (or at least says they think) it's because of needing an AF dump. Which is why any SCH proposals I make have an AF dump that is just healing/mitigation related (either a barrier or Excog, for example). So yes, that's my take as well. And as for Bane - as noted, that's something I already dislike about ED. Why would I want more of it?

So you are not against raising the skill ceiling, but only if there are differences in the between how actions work between jobs?

Hm...somewhat, yes. Not sure that's exactly right, but it's a start.

Why shouldn't a healer be like that? E.g. WHM or SGE?

Why WHM or SGE? AST and SCH are already that, so why not have them perform that duty that they're already performing?

The way I read and understand your 1 out of 4 proposal is that one job should work like you can do basic actions and always heal the party as necessary while the other three are given the permission to evolve and have a versatile kits that don't always work well.

Not really, no.

Every Job will evolve to fit in with the combat system as it changes. If it doesn't change, then it's not really relevant. Evolve does not mean increase in complexity, though. It means shift to suit the environment.

DPS and tanks(?) have to.

That's...questionable. I think a better way of saying it is SOME Jobs have to. Most of the Tanks don't need to use half their kit for most content, just like Healers, and a number of DPS have things in their kits they also don't need to use.

If by "evolving existing abilities" means "adding effects" (for example, if Plenary Indulgence got a partywide 5% or 10% damage reduction effect for the 10 sec duration), then yes, I agree.

Just so you know. I have nothing against you, but I'm trying to understand why you're so adamant about this.

Because I don't like DPSing and DPS rotations. Never have. I like healing, and I will do simple DPS actions if there's no healing needed. The only time I like damage rotations is on a damage dealer, and if that's something that can be done along with healing. I don't generally derive enjoyment from DPS rotations, and the more complex they are, the less I'm likely to enjoy them.

I don't want Healers turned into "DPS, but uses oGCD heals". I'd MUCH rather be using GCD heals, and honestly think that oGCD heals should be removed from the game. This is, in fact, how FFXIV was originally, both in the 1.X sense and in ARR. Odd as it sounds, BLU (in particular) or RDM (in a more loose sense, if you're actively using it for healing and only dealing damage when no one's taken any damage) being used as healers is closer to FFXIV original healing than any of the healers that exist today.

Adding a DPS rotation to Healers is the worst idea I’ve ever heard. No other job needs to pay close attention to and often quickly target different members of the party to apply heals or Esuna. Whatever “endgame” content you are grinding on right now apparently has a bunch of instant kill mechanics, but as someone who still runs leveling roulette, there is already enough for healers to keep up with. As if pressing three buttons in sequence is somehow better than pressing one button…. lol nah.

100% agreed.

For my part, I don't even have opposition to them making SOME Healers have more of a DPS rotational function (SCH did in ARR), but they shouldn't all, so that people that don't enjoy that don't get forced into that gameplay they don't enjoy. If I wanted to play a DPS that occasionally heals, I'd play RDM. (And I do play RDM...when that's what I want to do).

Right, but I'd argue that readding Fluid Aura (which still exists in the game files), swapping it from 'ability' to 'spell' so it's a GCD, and then bumping it's potency to be <current stone/glare potency + 30> would also be 'easy to implement', and would be a more interesting way to solve the issue. 123 123 123 ad nauseam is going to have it's novelty wear off pretty fast, at which point it'll just feel like the current 1111111 issue. But having things with standalone timers like above, allows for more design room.

Note that I basically proposed this in my WHM suggestion - making Assize a 30 sec GCD (possibly with 2 charges, but I'm fine either way), as it would do just that. We could honestly make it a 15 sec GCD and cut the potency and healing in half. Assize may have been meant to be an Indom equivalent when introduced, but it's used as a DPS ability at this point in time, so do that. Bonus points: You aren't (re)adding another button, so no bloat. And it's not like smacking Assize on CD every 45 seconds is interesting or "skill"; using it to break up the 111 spam would be a more productive use of the button overall.

As for the 1-2-3; I still think a Dualcast/Ready system would make more sense.

It sounds like the real issue is they handed out those self-heals to all of the tanks (except DRK) and set the mob dps so laughably low that healers have nothing interesting to do unless somebody screws up, which isn’t likely to happen in those encounters.

Still, adding a 123 rotation is a bad idea. That’s my only point, that a 123 rotation is not the solution to this issue, redesigning the fights so that the healers have to heal is.

Agreed with this. It masks the "healers are bored since there's not enough healing needed", it doesn't fix that problem. And let's be real, people complaining about pushing Glare 84 times for 75% of their button presses are ALSO going to complain if it's Stone/Aero/Water 28 times each for 75% overall (25% each) of their button presses. That will be novel for all of one month (one tier tops) before people are asking for more and complaining about that, too.

Though for the record...I don't think Ruin 2 and Ruin 1 are interchangeable other than sorta Crystal Tower. 2 does less damage, it's just more useful for moving.

I do get you, though - too much button bloat means you just can't have everything on your bars. It's why I constantly talk about 32 abilities and how a Job should have 29 or so on average (with Sprint, LB, and potion for high end content or mount for normal play, that's 32 total, or two crossbar sets that you can swap between with a bumper tap on controller). Some having more is fine, others less. The idea that every Job needs more than 30 abilities is just silly.

Blue healer really makes the current 4 healers such a joke fest. While it may not outshine the normal dps classes it gives you a flow of what you want from a healer.

BLU healer plays mostly like ARR WHM with some caveats. A pair of DoTs, some random damage CD, a dozen spells you never use, and 6 or so GCD heals and shields.

If the current 'bis loadout' for BLU was added as three new jobs, BLU-Tank, BLU-Healer, and BLU-DPS, and they could queue into current content as 'unlimited job', I'd be maining BLU-Healer. The main loop of BLU for damage, after you do your burst, is already 'put up a 30s DOT, then spam one filler move' so it's not like that aspect of healer gameplay would be lost

A bit ironic, that.

The "so much better than healers" gameplay is...basically what the Healer Jobs are right now, just the heals are GCDs.

Kinda supports what I said - remove all oGCD heals from the game. The abilities can exist, just they have to be GCDs. That would change how people view this in a heartbeat.