A summary of healer issues

[Shurrikhan]

While this is also possible (its the same idea just roles reversed), I feel like it's harder to make the holy/light thematics look more 'powerful', given they've gone with this airy 'graceful' kind of vibe for the spells we have already.

That seems like an issue of insufficient shockwaves. /shrug

Glare doesn't really have 'punch' like the earth spells did, it's more 'wispy'. Same with Dia vs Aero, and especially Aero3.

Oh, it is, for sure. I just don't think that's the limit of the aesthetic. And even then, you're going to run into some conflict. First, if the previous spam was Stone IV, for instance, and you replace it with just 'wispy' it's still going to sound like it should hit for less. More importantly, though, why the heck would Stone IV be a spammed animation. It looks like it should punt enemies skyward via sudden creation of earthen pillars capable of breaking line of sight! At which point, you're really comparing Glare to whatever seems like it should be the filler, if only to allow the cooler animations to have effects befitting their appearance.

Though, all this is tangential; I'd be fine with either take. I just feel like the HolyLight theme could play on some established thematic aspects that have been budding from the start, especially if used as a sort of upgraded state that's temporarily unlocked via buffs.

[Recon1o6]

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With stone at least, I think we had too big of a gap between stone 2 and stone 3. We went from small ground spike to massive floating stellation of rock. Stone 4, though visually less impressive had the sound effect of that gorgeous crunch which made it feel more powerful.
So its not just visually, its sfx and as you say camera shake.

This is why glare 1 and glare 3 feel like glare 1 and glare 1.5, they are just too visually piddly, their sound is dainty and there's no tertiary attributes to make them feel stronger than rock pillar go crunch
Holy is an example of a strong light spell. I'm not just talking about the flashbang here, but the rest of it. It has an audible and visually notable charge up. Its a spell so strong it charges up after its cast. Then there's the sound when it blasts. At least for holy. Idk about holy 3 because I haven't touched whm since I quit none blu healing and I play with party fx limited.

I know why GCD healing is bad. What I want to know is why the people who don't care about chasing numbers on the funny number website feel bad for pressing their GCD heals. If you're not chasing numbers, why would you be upset at losing numbers? That's what I don't get.

As I just said. It means you've messed up your healing (abilities) and you're playing rubbish. Or your party is that bad. That's nothing to do with parse, that's "I've been wasting my good healing, now I got to use my crap stuff".
I'm a good healer, I should be dismissing the dps' booboos with a emet selch wave of my hand between my glare/malefic/broil/dosis, that feels good. Im such a good healer I don't need to cast to heal. If I wanted to cast a heal, then I have to take a big chunk of my mana out and that sucks because I can't rez the idiotic dps when they all ignored me and got cleaved to death.
My mana is valuable. I use that to give myself carpal tunnel or to pick up the poor bastard who got clipped by the tankbuster.

[ForsakenRoe]

sorry if this is a doublepost, I'm sure we can appreciate why

Though, all this is tangential; I'd be fine with either take. I just feel like the HolyLight theme could play on some established thematic aspects that have been budding from the start, especially if used as a sort of upgraded state that's temporarily unlocked via buffs.

Yes, there's ways to make light look cooler. Like, Chrono Trigger's got Luminaire and that is very visually spectacular, as an example. I get the feeling that swapping from 'light is the spammable' back to 'elements are the spammable, light is now the empowered version' would be more jarring than to just add elemental finishers at earlier levels that don't upgrade to light, and have light remain as the spams, so we level up from elements/big elements, to light/big elements.

As I put in another thread in general, the animations would be suitably flashy, specifically because they're so gated behind time/resource. Stone4 was a bit over the top in VFX compared to how often it's spammable, but I figured it was to mirror the VFX of things like Blizzard4 and Fire4 on it's foil, BLM. But I'll relink my thinking for the animations here since it's a more suitable location for them:

I've been thinking about what animations the player would do for a theoretical Quake, Tornado and Flood to make them 'feel powerful', and what would get people excited if they saw them in a job action trailer. So far my thinking is something like:

Quake: Raise left hand to sky during cast time, earth energy/aether swirling around fist. Upon cast completion, jump, punch floor, rocks/faultlines shoot out toward enemy, giant spikes of earth erupt from the ground and then explode into fragments. An example of what I'm imagining is the first attack of everyone's favorite fictional member of the US political system, Senator Armstrong. The big final 'spike' at the end can reuse the Dominion spikes in P8S, though I wouldn't object to a 'Blade of Valor' style one where many small ones appear first, then one massive one

Tornado: There's plenty of wind attack animations to reuse throughout the game, pick any that look like they are powerful enough to be worthy of the mantle of 'the most powerful of Wind Magicks'. Or recolor Tail Screw, or Charybdis. For player animation, just reuse Aero 3 (the cane spin), since Aero 3 was also a wind attack it stands to reason

Flood: Hand outstretched as if offering something to another, with water aether in palm. Massive sphere of water lands on enemy. Draw hand towards chest, crushing water aether in hand. At the same time as the 'crush', the big water droplet on the enemy condenses in under the pressure, then explodes violently in several directions because the pressure within got so high. Example of the player's movement would be, again an MGR reference, when you 'absorb electrolytes' (specifically the version at the timestamp, not the midair variants etc)

I reckon if those were shown in a job action trailer people'd be losing their mind like it's a Super Smash Bros character reveal. Well, some people at least

Im such a good healer I don't need to cast to heal.

This is an interesting aspect to consider. If we saw two SGEs in a trailer, one who's working overtime to heal people, and one who's using their nouliths in multiple ways, eg one is shooting enemies, one is drawing shields on someone as they charge in, and two are helping heal people in the back who are injured, multitasking all four at the same time... Which of the two SGEs is the 'better healer'? I'd argue it's the one that is keeping up with the healing, while also going on the offensive to prevent any more healing from being needed. Alternatively, healer 1 is focused on healing allies in a battle, healer 2 walks through the battlefield, healing allies as they pass automatically (the nouliths do it for them) but they don't stop walking, or look down or anything, they just keep walking. Healer 2 would probably 'look cooler' in a trailer setting, because they're clearly a very capable healer if they don't even need to focus on the task of healing, yet are able to perform it regardless. Imagine the WOL's a SGE in a trailer, and no matter how many attacks are thrown by how many enemies, the nouliths keep drawing shields, sniping at straggling enemies on the sides etc, and the WOL isn't even fazed by the attacks, nothing makes him flinch or slow down or anything. Everyone watching would be like 'wow he's so cool'

[Recon1o6]

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I am now reminded of meet the medic after reading this. Given how bloodthirsty healers in this game can be that seems appropriate

Actually medic's level of awesome and skill curve should be a core concept of what goes into a healer. It needs to be cool enough to draw new healers in, simple and approachable for the newbies to help out and clear, but has enough depth and synergy that makes masters of medic, or in this case sage/scholar/astro/white mage a force to be reckoned with.