G-give it Back T---T; !! (Scholar Edition)

[ForsakenRoe]

This total rejection of even the smallest inch time and time again is getting exhausting. Roe's White Mage suggestion that deals 97% of the total potential damage when someone chooses to instead Glare spam will cause people to die to enrages, adding a new gauge element to White Mage's flower cane is too overwhelming, any use of additional cooldowns, resources, or DoTs is somehow all the same and would ruin a healer, having a simplistic branching combo is too many choices... It's all getting out of hand. These are not torture, they are normal expectations of MMO design.

This is what I'm trying to work out about the stance. Like, if we got a SGE that has it's 'optional complexity' entirely folded into Kardia and Augmentation effect optimizations, with E.Prognosis remaining as 'the panic button/option for more casual players to fall back on', is that acceptable? The DPS rotation wouldn't necessarily need to change at all, as where 'optimizing SCH' for example would be 'have perfect uptime on DOTs, replace Aetherflow heals with other stuff to get more Energy Drains' etc, damage button related methods to optimize, then SGE's 'optimization' would be in reverse: You can easily optimize the damage kit, as it's as barebones as it is now. But the process of taking E.Prognosis casts out of your cast timeline, the thing we think is the 'first step to optimizing a healer', would instead become the final barrier. I think it'd be interesting, at least, especially if the output of the Kardia kit is balanced in such a way that it's not actually 100% possible to get to 'zero GCDs spent on healing'. So you'd have to suck it up and use at least one, somewhere, and then the question is 'where does that one GCD go'.

I remember seeing a vid from Momo about how he and his coheal got the combined rank 1 for O12S, with a total of 4 GCDs spent on heals between the two of them. I don't remember thinking 'lol still 4 to go idiots', I remember being mindboggled at their tech. Using a Super-Potion because they had a fast enough killtime to only have 2 potions anyway, or 'use a Succor for this raidwide, then Deploy the same Succor off the fairy (who is not hit by raidwides, but does get Succor for some reason)

The question is, if the OPTIONAL complexity of SGE goes up on the healing side of things, with a reliable fallback for the causal players in case of emergency (Prognosis being 0 MP cost for example), and the damage kit is the same as now, does that work for the 4 healers thing, because my understanding is 'no, because there is a way for the skilled players to make the less skilled players look bad at the game by comparison'. Everything about the '4 healers' thing seems (to me) to be an attempt to make less skilled players get the same results as skilled players, not by improving the performance of the 'skill floor' level of gameplay, but by hamstringing the 'skill ceiling' level of gameplay so it can't get too far ahead. Happy to be proven wrong

It's all getting out of hand. These are not torture, they are normal expectations of MMO design.

On the topic of hands though... AST sure does 'torture' my hands, doing that opener over and over for reclears /s

[Shurrikhan]

This is what I'm trying to work out about the stance. Like, if we got a SGE that has it's 'optional complexity' entirely folded into Kardia and Augmentation effect optimizations, with E.Prognosis remaining as 'the panic button/option for more casual players to fall back on', is that acceptable?

Slightly tangential, but... how much would be impacted if, say, players again had to level some other classes to unlock the "jump to lv70" jobs, etc., such that those trying SGE would already have had some experience with healing? Or at least... forced some minor degree of training (perhaps increased if that's their first healer)?

Would we still need to give each healer a "baby's first healer" way out?

I'm all for accessible floors, but it seems likely to be a redundant requirement to have every healer rely on an "out" via the most obvious means possible.

Just a thought.

On the topic of hands though... AST sure does 'torture' my hands, doing that opener over and over for reclears /s

I feel like AST is the counterexample to any/every claim that XIV has wholly sufficient controller control schemes.

One related idea, from another thread:

How about, say, Compass / Party-Wheel Targeting?

Steps:

1. Un-neuter macros and allow [st] / [soft] / [softtarget] as targeting options for abilities. Additionally, allow targeting procedures (such as [on-release], [@cursor], [@mouseover], [@UI, etc.] to be attached directly to skills via the Actions and Traits Pane.
2. Allow players to simultaneously hold a Soft Target and "Hard" Target, perhaps with a UI component added for said Soft Target.
   
   
3. Allow for a "Party Wheel", with a fair few sub-options. This places a radial display at the bottom of your screen that allow you to select, via joystick or D-PAD (but using Top, Top-and-Right, Right, etc., instead of having to list-cycle), the target of your next soft-targeted ability from a wheel of party members. What else is displayed in your Party Wheel is highly configurable, but let's say there's at least contextual display of icons (e.g., cleansable effects, who all has shield HP greater than what you could produce with a non-crit, and highlighting Melee DPS and, in a more subdued color, your tank when drawing a Melee Card) and compact option for HP display either as a compact bar, section divider bar, or as a background.
   
   Optional center section (no D-PAD selection / no joystick nudge) into which you can place self, hard target, focus target, or a trickle-down through them in custom order (casting Malefic with hard target > self > focus would cast it on the Focus; casting Asp. Benefic with hard target > self > focus would cast on self if target isn't friendly; etc.).
   
   
4. [OPTIONAL]No longer require a target to be set before beginning a cast and give the option to swap to new targets mid-cast if/when applicable (yes, this greatly helps prehealing against random-target mechanics, but that doesn't seem so awful).
5. [OPTIONAL]Allow for a "prevent movement while holding button on casted actions" option, so that people can use their movement key to aim while they cast.

Simpler version: Allow players to hit a button that temporarily allows DPAD to select party members directly, with each among P1-P8 having a cardinal or semi-cardinal direction.

[ForsakenRoe]

Slightly tangential, but... how much would be impacted if, say, players again had to level some other classes to unlock the "jump to lv70" jobs, etc., such that those trying SGE would already have had some experience with healing? Or at least... forced some minor degree of training (perhaps increased if that's their first healer)?

Isn't that what the solo instance in the job quest right after unlocking the job is meant to be for? Whether said solo instance actually teaches the player effectively is a different question

Simpler version: Allow players to hit a button that temporarily allows DPAD to select party members directly, with each among P1-P8 having a cardinal or semi-cardinal direction.

I'd do it with Right Stick, dpads can be weird with intercardinals sometimes (I find it especially weird with the Xbox dpad). Letting go of the 'activation' button while holding a direction selects that party member, letting go while holding no direction on the stick (neutral position) cancels the retarget command. So it'd be, for example, 'hold R2, move right stick to up-left to select that player, let go of R2', or some such. Sounds convoluted to explain but in execution it'd be pretty fluid, I think. For M/KB, it can bring up a menu where your mouse cursor is, and you just drag your mouse in the direction you choose to select. Or just don't cos M/KB can select party members way more directly via the list, whichever

[Aravell]

The question is, if the OPTIONAL complexity of SGE goes up on the healing side of things, with a reliable fallback for the causal players in case of emergency (Prognosis being 0 MP cost for example), and the damage kit is the same as now, does that work for the 4 healers thing

I've pitched the same thing and asked this exact question before in another thread. He never gave me an answer, maybe he'll give you one.

Anyway, I have a 4 healers model of my own:
WHM - Powerhouse turret that can outdamage a tank if allowed to
SCH - DoT, fairy and resource management, should be the ultimate spreadsheet job
AST - Bring back a focus on buff management so large that we don't even realise we only have Combust and Malefic
SGE - Give more healing interactions with the damage kit through Eukrasia/Kardia or any such new abilities, become a dps healer not in the sense of having a lot of dps tools, but in the sense of doing your healing through dps

And there you have it, 4 different styles of healer with different complexity considerations, WHM (movement), SCH (resources), AST (buff management), SGE (healing considerations), and none of them are "Help, I tripped over the skill ceiling".

[Renathras]

Every job in the game needs...

So a couple things:

1) What Jobs NEED is an audience and to be at least somewhat suited to the playerbase - that is, to be fun. What that is varies from person to person, so each Job in the game should appeal to a swath of people. There may be some overlap with others, but the idea is to cover as many general preferences as possible so everyone has something they kinda like. Like we have BLM for people that like complex Caster Jobs with fight knowledge optimization. There are some other Jobs for people that like Casters, people that like complex, and people that like fight optimization, but they aren't all BLM with different animations. And there are also Jobs that appeal to people who don't like Casters, don't like fight knowledge optimization, and don't like complexity, or that like some but not all of those things.

2) Healing can - and even has been earlier in FFXIV's history - the neutral state, and has been in other MMOs. Very clearly, it's POSSIBLE to design a game that way, and this one once was. Whether you think it's likely or preferable or not is a worthwhile discussion, but it's very much in the realm of possible.

3) Healer #4 does exist - you're moving the goalposts. "No one thins this state is the best possible state of healers". Where did I say "best possible state"? I said "Some people like things as they are". At least don't shift the goalposts dishonestly. There are legitimately some players do NOT want to see things change. And also, no, I don't prefer to never press my DPS spell at all. And I've said this enough times by now, I'm somewhat shocked you still are wrong in your belief of my position...

4) Not everyone likes "set up and execute" Jobs. I know you do, but I generally don't. The only times I do is if it feels good to execute, which is a pretty moving target and requires it to be optimal. For example, I like Recitation Adlo Deploy. But it's always suboptimal and not damage neutral, thus I dislike it. In short, you didn't make a Job for people like me. You made a Job for people like you who are stand-ins for what you think people like me are/should be.

Love that my semi-sarcastic implication of...

Well...

A) Poe's law.

B) Oh, I'm sorry. I thought you were posting/arguing in good faith and assumed so. Should I assume bad faith posts from you as the standard going forward instead?

C) Ah, I see, instead of getting the point, you'd rather argue about how I made the point. Pretty sure that's one (or multiple) logical fallacies...

D) The "4 healers thing" is compatible with that; the only things it's not compatible with are (a) if every Job is the same (either as we are now or moving to all be a different same) and (b) doesn't have options for the people who dislike the kit/all have the same general playstyle and focus. You seem not to understand what the 4 Healers Model is, despite me explaining it, including in simple terms, so many times... Also, "5 Healers Model" would just mean "the new Job isn't identical to any of the existing Jobs", which should be the expectation, yes. Should it not?

E) Agree with your response to Ty, I think, though I'd note that different players like different things. There are some that loved SB SCH and some that hated it and played AST and WHM because they hated it. Again, the goal should be to make the healer Jobs different. Because different players like different things.

F) Not entirely untrue on the redesign argument, though...though that doesn't explain all of #4, only some. In my case, as I've said before, I genuinely believe WHM in EW is the best iteration of the Job in FFXIV's history. It's the first time the Job has ever not been hostile to new players (Cleric), MP functional (instead of incarnations that literally cannot do long encounters without running out of MP), doesn't have incredibly stupid systems like SB Lilies (remember when you had to cast Cure 1/2 on people to generate them? AND TO interact with Plenary?!). ShB was nearly the same, and I did like its Thin Air better, but Lilies are now actually damage neutral and WHM in EW is really just ShB's WHM with iterative improvement. I don't believe that of SCH and AST (SGE is obviously just the one), but I absolutely believe that of WHM. But also, that 6.0 WHM was in a bad way, and so don't entirely trust changes to be...good. Especially when we already have a thing that works really well and I find really fun to play. I'd personally make a few changes, but minor ones. But I like it as it is vs all the alternatives, and so am happy with it staying as such.

I completely glossed over that actually. Yeah, that is an absolutely insane comparison.

Good GOD you guys are terrible. FINE I'll come up with a different example, gee-zus! You wonder why I get annoyed with you. This kind of BS is why. Especially since we ARE talking about effectively killing off Jobs. But whatever:

Imagine you offer someone sushi and they tell you they don't like raw food. So you offer them sushi and salad, not understanding they didn't say they don't like raw SEAFOOD, but RAW FOODS in general.

You think you've offered them something to meet their needs, but you haven't, because you aren't actually listening to them, and/or you think you know better. But then you say you're offering them a thing that they'll like and seem confused when they say it is not what they like. And that's if we're just considering 2 groups of people.

Stop getting so locked onto a tree that you ignore someone explaining the forest to you. Both of you. It's like the Centaurs in Harry Potter when asked any question of importance:

<look up at the sky>
"The stars are very pretty tonight, aren't they?"

Someone inclined to believe others act in bad faith MIGHT be inclined to think you do it intentionally to avoid getting the actual point, which is obvious to you and something against which you have no defense... <_<

But consider what that thing is. It's not "I want more to heal" but literally just "No one should be allowed more downtime agency than I, personally, want to optimize."

Except it's not.

That would be if I was demanding ALL FOUR HEALER JOBS be the exact same so there's nothing that others can do during downtime. Which it's not since I'm not asking for that.

"But for this one Job..!" BUT YOU'RE DEMANDING YOUR CHANGES FOR ALL FOUR. So no, YOU are doing that, I am the one NOT doing that.

NO ONE is saying YOU are not allowed to optimize things or have more/different downtime gameplay. All I'm asking is that YOU not get to force YOUR preferred downtime solution ON ME. You're literally doing the thing you're accusing me of doing while I'm the one person NOT doing that.

The question is, if the OPTIONAL complexity of SGE goes up on the healing side of things, with a reliable fallback for the causal players in case of emergency (Prognosis being 0 MP cost for example), and the damage kit is the same as now, does that work for the 4 healers thing,

Yes, it is. As long as it's not something that all 4 healer Jobs are doing and as long as there's an option left (one of the other Jobs) for people that like current healer design better.

because my understanding is 'no, because there is a way for the skilled players to make the less skilled players look bad at the game by comparison'.

This is because you DON'T understand the 4 Healers Model, despite me explaining it - including to you specifically - multiple times. You keep preferring your caricature of it to the reality because that caricature is something you can easily defeat. It's a strawman fallacy that you, for whatever reason, don't want to give up. The 4 Healers Model has LITERALLY NOTHING to do with "skilled players" making others "look bad at the game". NOTHING. That is, in exactly NO WAY, a part or component of it. Never has been. And I've even told you this before, I think. Directly.

I've pitched the same thing and asked this exact question before in another thread. He never gave me an answer, maybe he'll give you one.

I just did.

And I've answered this question before. You'll have to point me to that exact thread, but someone (I thought it was you) accused me of not answering before and I directly answered (I already had, but I made it far more explicit and direct), and it was just ignored.

You can't ignore when someone answers something or has answered it over and over again and accuse them of refusing to do so when they literally have.

And there you have it, 4 different styles of healer with different complexity considerations, WHM (movement), SCH (resources), AST (buff management), SGE (healing considerations), and none of them are "Help, I tripped over the skill ceiling".

And which of those is someone who likes healers right now going to like?

Because I find none of them likeable.

I don't care for BLM, so I'd hate WHM that is "BLM but healer". I generally dislike resource Jobs, but especially if the resources seem tacked on or highly limiting how much you can engage with the fun abilities of the kit. Buff management can be interesting, but isn't my preference (in EQ terms, I prefer a Cleric to a Bard or Enchanter, I guess). And SGE sounds less like "healing considerations" and more like "heals by doing damage Discipline Priest", which is fine for SGE to be and I support SGE becoming...but I wouldn't enjoy.

So which of your four healers is for people like me? Right now, seems none of them.

Meanwhile, my suggestion is for 3 for people like you and 1 for people like me.

.

It's fine for there to be some you like. And some you don't like. It's not fine to take away all of them from people who like what they are right now.

[Aravell]

And I've answered this question before. You'll have to point me to that exact thread, but someone (I thought it was you) accused me of not answering before and I directly answered (I already had, but I made it far more explicit and direct), and it was just ignored.

You can't ignore when someone answers something or has answered it over and over again and accuse them of refusing to do so when they literally have.

No, you actually did not answer me, I checked the thread for days after I asked the question, it just devolved into an argument about whether or not SGE is "damage-focused". It was in the "healers want complex dps" thread. But at least you answered Roe, so that's good enough.

And which of those is someone who likes healers right now going to like?

Because I find none of them likeable.

SGE would. I only mentioned increasing healing complexity, which you expressed you'd be ok with, I didn't say a thing about changing the dps portion, so you'd still be spamming Dosis like now.

[Renathras]

No, you actually did not answer me, I checked the thread for days after I asked the question, it just devolved into an argument about whether or not SGE is "damage-focused". It was in the "healers want complex dps" thread. But at least you answered Roe, so that's good enough.
...
SGE would. I only mentioned increasing healing complexity, which you expressed you'd be ok with, I didn't say a thing about changing the dps portion, so you'd still be spamming Dosis like now.

Searching through that entire thread, haven't found it.

I DID find where I kinda stuck up for you. You didn't even acknowledge that, though. You instead kind of justified other people accusing me OF it and then didn't acknowledge my stepping in to your defense. But whatever.

We also got into a conversation where you were saying that no one thinks of people that liked pre-5.0 healers, and I pointed out that I do and consistantly advocate for them (the entire reason I suggest returning SCH and AST both to their SB kits), and you eventually seem to have grudgingly acknowledged I wasn't doing that but still felt it was a solid defense against me...not...doing that. For reasons. Though you did say after that that you weren't opposing my position outright and thought leaving SGE alone would be fine but that you thought people wouldn't agree with it since it was "because it's what SE calls the dps healer", which, of course, everyone else in the thread took me replying to you using the phrase "more damaged focus" as license to dogpile on me (funny how little it takes for people to decide to dogpile on me and derail threads, almost like they're looking for any excuse they can get...) and the thread went sideways.

I can't find, though, anywhere you asked me about the optional complexity of SGE going up. Was this the post you were referring to?

Maybe you skipped over when I said it, but I said I'm amiable to your solution if SGE is left as is, because SGE was designed in EW, it has never known any past iteration that people fell in love with, so no one is actually losing out on anything. So I never actually opposed your solution, I'm not someone you have to convince. If we can't have a skill ceiling on every healer, I can settle with keeping SGE as it is, I'm not ok with throwing WHM under the bus once again given their history of being bad.

You'll have massive trouble convincing everyone else to leave SGE as is though, because it's what SE calls the dps healer, also the lore behind it is that it's very complex. Not that SE cares about the lore anymore, given that the lv30 AST quest still says The Bole has a protective effect.

If so, I replied to it, rather quickly:

It is a conundrum. I think the disagreement there stems from SGE being more damage focused (as you point out) and about WHM being thrown under the bus. Far as I'm concerned, WHM post-6.1 is honestly the best it's ever been. ARR would be but for Cleric Stance being such a disaster, but it's runner up due to the fact it wasn't a big deal at the time anyway. It would be weird for the "dps focused" healer Job to be the least DPS rotation of them, but it would still be a passable solution.

Of course, the problem still remains that if people won't allow for that, then WHM would be the other logical choice.

So where did you ask me Roe's question and I not answer?

.

Now, if you hold the position you did IN THAT THREAD (not here) that SGE remains AS IT IS TODAY: Then yes, that would satisfy the 4 Healers Model. And I even said so right there in that quote:

It would be weird for the "dps focused" healer Job to be the least DPS rotation of them, but it would still be a passable solution.

"passable solution" here meaning "Yes, that would work".

.

For the record:

I like all the healers right now EXCEPT for AST, since I don't like it's APM insanity and hyperweaving, especially since I prefer more hard GCD focus, which is why I like WHM that is its opposite. I don't care much for SCH's Energy Drain using AF and a bit heavy on the button bloat, but I like the Job in a more general sense for the most part. I like WHM as it is now a lot, and like SGE mostly as it is now as probably my second favorite. I'd like it if it was a bit different in a few ways, but it's close enough for me to like it. (I REALLY wish Toxicon was damage neutral, though. That and Plegma being near melee range really bug me for some reason...)

Personally, I suspect SE, if they did any major changes at all, probably WOULD leave WHM and SGE both as they are now ("why mess with a good thing"; WHM is generally well liked right now and WHM and SGE are generally speaking the most played healer Jobs) while changing SCH and AST. We're likely to see what direction they plan to go with healers with the AST rework, so really there's little point discussing things until we see the preview of what that looks like, probably in the third Fanfest/Media Tour or thereabouts, as that's when we saw new SMN back before EW.

From there, we'll have a better idea of what they seem to want healers to become (if SGE somehow didn't tell us that already) and how extensive they're willing to make changes and what direction they're willing to make changes towards/into.

[Aravell]

I DID find where I kinda stuck up for you. You didn't even acknowledge that, though.

I'll ignore the snide jab at my character so we can get to the actual discussion. I will note though that the argument that happened actually had nothing to do with anything I said, Shurrikhan summarised my points perfectly, maybe you skipped over it.

I can't find, though, anywhere you asked me about the optional complexity of SGE going up. Was this the post you were referring to?

It wasn't a reply to you, but a reply to Roe, as you can see though, I did ask the same question.

In regards to SGE, I personally want to see the Kardia side of their kit get expanded upon instead of the damage side. As SGE is designed in EW and there's no previous iteration that was lost, I think it's fine to keep their damage kit simple and intuitive. But the dev team should look into expanding the Kardia side and allow multiple different manipulations, that way, SGE can actually claim the title of "DPS healer" without actually making the damage kit any more complex than it is now because they use DPS to do healing.

I'm not sure if Ren's idea of keeping the job as is will allow for the Kardia usage to be expanded upon while keeping the damage kit as it is (Maybe fix Toxikon). But if it does allow that, then there'd be no complaints from me. Having the skill ceiling be on the healing side suits me just fine as well.

[Renathras]

So, one healer has to have it's complexity completely untouched, both on the damage and healing side of things, and if that is the case, then the other three can be turned into what you would probably describe as 'unrecognizeable messes of overly convoluted rubbish' or something similar. As long as one remains untouched. Have I got that right?

No, but that's close enough to work with.

Absolute stasis is not required, but not shifting the gameplay focus to something else. e.g. a rotation or DoT management or gauge management or to a focus on dps and so on and so forth are all major shifts to something else. For example...

...5.0-6.0 to 6.1's WHM Lily shift wasn't a bad thing, as it didn't LARGELY alter gameplay from how the general playerbase was using it (high end raiders were avoiding using Rapture/Solace like the plague, but the general payerbase was not), so it didn't really alter gameplay much for most people, making it a minor but effective tweak that also helped high end encounter issues with WHM MP and was arguably an oversight missed in the 6.0 upgrade in the first place since Glare had upgraded. Glare, Dia, and Holy upgrades and more potency/new visuals were fine. Benison getting another charge was fine. Even Aquaveil being added since it was kinda just another form of Benison. And "overheal weed" doesn't really change the gameplay of the Job at all, partly due to how rare (longish CD) and niche (multi-wave attacks that also hit the WHM) it is, and partly due to it kind of being covered by other parts of the kit (it's basically a long CD oGCD souped up Medica 2 that can be detonated early into a Cure 3).

Despite having a change to Misery (damage neutral), this really only reinforced how many people were already engaging with the kit, and the other changes, which were a second charge of Benison (more or less used the same way in double tankbuster situations or as a spare shield for random who stepped in the bad), faster Lily generation (which again just increased how people were already engaging with the kit), Aquaveil (which again was just another variation on the Benison theme), and Lilybell (which has low engagement in general and is just a more powerful oGCD version of Medica 2/Cure 3), and the Assize CD reduction (which didn't change how Assize is still generally "use on CD"); oh, and that trait that increased healing of GCD spells - all this didn't change how the Job plays at all, they just enhanced how it was already being played.

Adding a new "elemental" rotation, an elemental gauge, a retribution gauge, a 1-2-3 rotation, more DoTs, and/or a burst phase rotation, would all NOT be how the Job is currently played, many of which would be upending and changing how it's played on a fundamental level, and likely decreasing how the Job is intuitively picked up and played by people now, and so would not fit this definition.

So minor changes are fine, as long as they're minor and don't really alter the overall gameplay. If "overall gameplay" is what you man by the word "complexity" in this case, then that's an adequate enough definition.

It's funny how quick people are to call me snarky or say my attitude poisons the well of discussion, etc, but have no problem with the above being posted...

Remove the 'gain an Addersting when shield breaks' and replace with 'gain {buff name} when shield breaks, allowing the use of Phlegma without incurring it's cost or cooldown'. Not damage neutral, but it's 600 vs 660 and it allows the player to make interesting decisions re: using it for movement vs using it for raidbuffs to get extra damage from it

Honestly, I'd just boost Toxicon's damage. It's the most straightforward solution and it would even give SGEs a bit of a "rotation" of applying a shield to the tank and then throwing out Toxicons as they pop. Further, it would introduce skill expression (contrary to popular belief) as you'd be managing a resource to avoid overcapping and ideally have for burst windows (optimal burst at that point would be using two Plegmas and three Toxicons, 4 if you could time a shield to break during the burst window) but like Tanks with their gap closer, rewarding fight knowledge by knowing when to save one for movement after the burst, etc.

Not to mention this SEEMS to all the world how it's supposed to work. A lot of newbie SGEs (who haven't looked up guides, etc) run dungeons this way. Shield tank, DoT adds, Dyskrasia AOE spam until both packs are collected, Plegma x2, use Toxicon when pops, refresh shield on tank, back to Dyskrasia until next Toxicon. The kit SEEMS designed to work this way. It's intuitive to use this way. And it has optimization options in "Do I use all my Toxicons in the burst window, or do I save one for movement? If I use them all, will I have time to have a shield broken to get another before the next movement mechanic I need one for? Can I slidecast that mechanic successfully to higher risk higher reward my Toxicon use in burst? And if I don't use a Toxicon here, do I risk overcapping at this other point in the fight?" It actually makes the skill floor lower and the skill ceiling higher at the same time, something people SAY that they want, and does so making the base gameplay more intuitive; that is, this is the natural way people already pick up and approach playing SGE to begin with because it seems like what it's SUPPOSED to be doing to people.

As to WHM, the ShB issue was, as always, people try to avoid doing things that aren't optimal, even if they are optimal in a specific situation (e.g. people trying not to touch Cure 2 unless there's no other way but waiting too late and people die first). Making things damage neutral allows for optimization, just of a different kind (burst vs minimizing use), and frankly, we already are encouraged to damage so much anyway, something that breaks that up is better. This is why I think EW WHM is better than ShB WHM. Hell, remember when we did the analysis on the different versions of the healers to see which expansion was the most "Glarespamy"? Recall that SB WHM was more Stonespammy than EW WHM is Glarespammy? And the key reason for that is because of Lilies being damage neutral, which encourages their use rather than encourages people not to touch them, which was the problem in 5.X to an extent and really bad in 6.0, which resulted in the change. It was a good change, not a bad one.

If Toxicon was damage neutral, it would likewise breakup the Dosisspam since you'd be using both EuPrognosis AND Toxicon as frequent parts of the rotation, where right now, the former is generally avoided and the latter is used roughly 3-5 times per long fight (if there are times where shielding is felt absolutely necessary or during downtime/phase transitions/ultimate attacks...where you can actually get 3 all at once; but there's no point using them for anything other than movement since downtime gains are only EQUAL to using a Dosis instead of an actual gain.)

Summary:

1) Close enough. Though not entirely correct (some small changes over time are acceptable to the one we choose not to sacrifice to the DPS gods)
2) Damage neutral is the way to go for Toxicon and Lilies. It makes the rotation less X-spam and seems to be the intuitive way people approach the Jobs anyway.
3) Damage neutral abilities actually increase the skill ceiling while lowering the skill floor, a stated goal of the people arguing to change healers in the first place.

EDIT: Deleted