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

[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

[Shurrikhan]

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)

Issue 1: It's overpowered AF, increasing the single-target free healing of the healer already with the greatest HPS by at least some 125% at typical crit levels. This devalues SGE's healing optimizations under present (very low) healing requirements while making it nigh impossible to increasing healing requirements without forcing people towards SGE for having, for instance, nearly 3x WHM's free ST healing and some 1.5x its free total healing.

The issue with increasing Toxicon's damage --e.g., to damage neutrality-- isn't that it would necessarily reduce offensive skill expression but that it'd simply be flat overpowered (over 10k more free and wholly sustainable heal potency per minute being enough to devalue virtually all other healing optimization that would otherwise be rewarded/differentiating if healing requirements were increased).

In optimized play, SGE already produces about 5% more HPS than SCH (2nd place), 18% more than AST, and almost a quarter more than WHM. Now imagine that with a spammable DPS-neutral (i.e., "free of opportunity cost") Eukrasian Diagnosis, itself worth 840 (normal) to 1710 (crit at 50% bonus) potency. SGE regenerates ~99.5% of its MP per minute, allowing SGE to sustain without MP loss over time 11 EuDiag GCDs for 10110 extra healing potency per minute even at just a 9% rate. Given Toxicon, that leaves only 2 GCDs per minute for anything other than the shield and its recuperation... which then get spent on EuDosis. You've effectively replaced Dosis spam with just a (flexible) 1-2 combo of EuDiag-Toxicon spam. It's still plenty spammy, it just also broke any sense of balance among the role.

____________________________

Issue 2: It would reduce GCD healing choice (given increased enough healing requirements that GCD heals would be used) for self and cohealer.

Moreover, now you essentially lose all other GCD healing options, leaving AoEs to your cohealer for whom the relative costs are lower while you in turn take over all ST healing needs. Your co-healer pair's full range of GCD healing... is then reduced to Medica II and Eukrasian Diagnosis.

Let's assume again that we increase the healing requirements, because we certainly can do so at least a good third or so without overtaxing healers (though such still leaves too much downtime for the current state of filler-DoT-CD/spender to be a sufficiently compelling loop for most skilled players). You'll have then heavily reduced the variety available to the healing itself, greatly narrowing/dumbing that down whenever a SGE is present.

[Renathras]

If you make Toxikon DPS neutral you need to give it a cooldown. Otherwise you'd have unlimited DPS neutral healing.

Nah, it'd be limited by MP. The shields cost quite a bit of MP. Besides which, if it was the Job's functional rotation, this wouldn't be a problem. Let's be real, we already have effectively unlimited DPS neutral healing via all the oGCDs we have in the game. Everyone who brags about how they cleared an entire dungeon or fight with just oGCD heals? They just expressed they had, for that encounter's healing requirement, "unlimited DPS neutral healing". So this is already a thing. We might as well enshrine it and make it more interesting.

Issue 1: It's overpowered AF

It really isn't. SGE is already over powered due to the oGCDs it already has. The healing costs MP, so it ultimately isn't free, and this would be more akin to SB SCH's Miasma 2 optimization. As for the optimized play argument - that sounds to me like an argument for reducing SGE's oGCD healing power (what it heals with now), not for limiting Toxicon.

Also keep in mind, for what it's worth, that you'll be reducing Kardia healing by using GCD heals still. While not huge, that is cutting the direct heal of Eu Prog/Diag by effectively 170 potency. And remember, unlike SCH, that's not pet potency.

Issue 2: It would reduce GCD healing choice (given increased enough healing requirements that GCD heals would be used) for self and cohealer.

Respectfully disagree. SGE already has very limited GCD healing options. Pneuma is once per 2 minutes, so the only other options it has are Cure 1, Adlo, Medica 1, and Succor. The only thing that would be reduced is that Cure 1 and Medica 1 would be less used in favor of Adlo and Succor...but this is ALREADY the way things are. How often are SGE's using Diagnosis right now? AT THE WORST, it simply enshrines what's already happening in the game right now. It doesn't make it any worse. Pneuma would still be worth using, and non-Eukrasia Diagnosis and Prognosis would still mostly be for niche emergency situations. So nothing changes. Note that the damage neutrality here would mean that Eukrasia Prognosis WOULD STILL BE USED for AOE situations, so no, it wouldn't force all AOE healing to the other healer in the party.

Right now, the situation is that SGE's try to avoid GCD healing ENTIRELY. How is "You'll be encouraged to only use 3 of your 5 GCD heals!" so much worse than "You're currently encouraged to use NONE of your GCD heals other than the 1 per 2 minute one"?

[ty_taurus]

Nah, it'd be limited by MP. The shields cost quite a bit of MP. Besides which, if it was the Job's functional rotation, this wouldn't be a problem. Let's be real, we already have effectively unlimited DPS neutral healing via all the oGCDs we have in the game. Everyone who brags about how they cleared an entire dungeon or fight with just oGCD heals? They just expressed they had, for that encounter's healing requirement, "unlimited DPS neutral healing". So this is already a thing. We might as well enshrine it and make it more interesting.

Both Eukrasian Diagnosis and Eukrasian Prognosis are 900 MP, but Toxikon costs no MP. Dosis > Dosis = 800 MP while Eukrasian D/P > Toxikon = 900 MP. The MP difference is very negligible when it's constantly providing you with a no DPS cost attack spell.

[Renathras]

Both Eukrasian Diagnosis and Eukrasian Prognosis are 900 MP, but Toxikon costs no MP. Dosis > Dosis = 800 MP while Eukrasian D/P > Toxikon = 900 MP. The MP difference is very negligible when it's constantly providing you with a no DPS cost attack spell.

Eh yeah, that's fair.

Doesn't change the other part of my argument, though, that this is no worse than the current situation where we have infinite DPS neutral free healing via oGCDs. So at worst, this is, again, no worse than what we have currently.

But this is another "forest for the trees" tangent situation/derail.

[Shurrikhan]

Nah, it'd be limited by MP. The shields cost quite a bit of MP.

EuDiag>Toxi costs only 50 MP/GCD over Dosis. If you spammed it as often as possible short of overcapping Addersting, it'd cost only 1200 more MP per minute than using no healing spells at all.

Respectfully disagree. SGE already has very limited GCD healing options.

Something already being limited is not an excuse to limit it further, nor a mitigating factor to those further limitations' relative costs on gameplay. It's usually the opposite.

The only thing that would be reduced is that Cure 1 and Medica 1 would be less used in favor of Adlo and Succor...but this is ALREADY the way things are.

You know full well that's not the case in any serious content. The effect isn't just that you use the blatantly superior options that exist now, but you'd use almost only ever the blatantly better-still option that you'd have just recreated, because healers operate as a pair.

If one healer can freely spam ST healing but not AoE healing and the other has can freely spam neither, then the one with the relative advantage in ST will take up that much more ST duty and pass along that much more AoE healing to be done to the other. The only exception to this is where both healers somehow need to AoE GCD heal within the very same single GCD of time after impact for the raid to survive (i.e., basically never, even with increased healing requirements), instead of being capable of the more efficient combined action wherein the healer less penalized, relatively speaking, for AoE GCD healing does all the necessary AoE GCD healing.

If you make Eukrasian Diagnosis free and nothing else, you'll see more use of EuDiag and less (if any) of anything else.

Inb4 "But you defended people using GCDs when necessary even when it's a loss, so why wouldn't people still use the other GCD options!" Why? Because the others wouldn't be necessary outside of the aforementioned incredibly rare situations. You will thereby have reduced the number of competitive choices by overpowering the single choice among many.

Eukrasian Prognosis can also generate Addersting when its barrier on you breaks, so SGE would also have unlimited DPS neutral AoE healing.

It'd be bottlenecked by incoming AoEs, whereas EuDiag can far more reliably get you to 3 of the 4 suggested maximum Addersting stacks, but yes, my saying that Ren's suggestion would only give SGE more than double its free ST healing and some double WHM's total free healing in practice was technically lowballing its overall power increase.

[Aravell]

...and if you don't want snide jabs at your character, maybe you shouldn't make snide jabs at mine FIRST?

If you seriously think this was a jab at you, you actually didn't read any of the posts that came before. You said I never pitched the SGE idea, I gave you evidence that I mentioned the same thing, then you try and hit me with the technicality of "tHaT wAsN't A qUeStIoN".

You know what? I'm done. You've been nothing but petty and dismissive to me after some perceived slight when I've been nothing but measured and reasonable with you. You're so tiring to converse with, you just attack me for no reason and you view things that aren't even an attack on you as an attack. Have it your way, I'm not returning to this conversation.

[Renathras]

If you seriously think this was a jab at you, you actually didn't read any of the posts that came before. You said I never pitched the SGE idea, I gave you evidence that I mentioned the same thing, then you try and hit me with the technicality of "tHaT wAsN't A qUeStIoN".

You know what? I'm done. You've been nothing but petty and dismissive to me after some perceived slight when I've been nothing but measured and reasonable with you. You're so tiring to converse with, you just attack me for no reason and you view things that aren't even an attack on you as an attack. Have it your way, I'm not returning to this conversation.

Oh my god.

/facepalm

grumblegrumblegrumble...

EDIT: You know what though? I'm just going to delete the post. Because I really DON'T want to be a dick about things, even when it's defending myself from someone lying about me.

But god, this BS is so...TIRING.

So, hyperbole?

Things being connected isn't how hyperbole is defined.

But it's what's happened. No apology, people upvoting her "spirited exit" post, supporting (a) a lie and (b) victim blaming...no one saying "Yes, that was a lie about Ren" or defending me, your post being a retort to my defense rather than supportive, yeah...

Though if you can, show me where it's happened. I can think of exactly 3 times someone has come to my defense in any of these many many conversations, and exactly one time someone apologized. More often, people either continue to lie, refuse to show evidence, and if I can prove the lie where it leaves no doubt, attack me more and stomp off trying to make me out as the bad guy for clearing my name. And, every time, they get supported and I get attacked MORE. I'm damned no matter what I do at this point.

[Shurrikhan]

When I say people here just want to attack me, refuse to see when their attacks are unfounded, never apologize if they get it wrong, and never support me or stick up for me even when I've been unfairly attacked; this is the kind of crap I'm talking about.

So, hyperbole?

Nothing else quite connects those circumstances to reality, individually or collectively.

If you're offended by others not reaching the standards you'd like, maybe start by reaching them yourself?

You frequently treat disagreement with you as if such could only come idiocy or moral flaw, and concurrence with some part of your ideas as some sort of seed of cognitive or moral redemption. Neither is the case.

If people are failing to be convinced, it is more likely because you are not convincing than it is some agenda against your personhood. Yes, if you mess up enough times, that will predispose people towards further scrutiny against similar claims in later interactions, too, but that is hardly unnatural or conspiratorial and can likewise be corrected with time.

____________________________

This is a summary of my more recent, humble take on a SGE rework:

• Barriers: Barriers applied E. Diagosis or E. Prognosis no longer grant Addersting upon breaking. All barriers applied by spells now restore 400 of your MP when they break.
• Dosis: Adjust potency. Costs no MP. Kardia effect is removed.
• Eukrasian Dosis: Duration is reduced to 15 seconds. Kardia effect is removed. Grants 1 Addersting.
• Dyskrasia > Paroxysm: Becomes ranged instead of point-blank. Potency is the same as Dosis with dropoff. Costs 800 MP; refunds the MP when hitting multiple enemies. Kardia effect is removed. (AoE spam and single target mobility spell)
• Eukrasian Paroxysm *New*: Applies a weaker DoT in an AoE. Does not stack with Eukrasian Dosis; only for AoE DoT application. No Kardia effect.
• Phlegma: Cooldown is reduced to 20 seconds. Kardia effect is removed.
• Toxikon: Potency stays the same as Dosis'. Becomes OGCD.
• Ekkokardia *New*: Same potency as Dosis (AoE). Costs 800 MP. Restores HP to your Kardia target with 400 potency.
• Eukrasian Ekkokardia: Same as Ekkokardia, but instead applies a 300 potency barrier to your Kardia target.
• Pneuma: Potency is increased. Cooldown is reduced to 55 seconds. Kardia effect is removed. Burst healing is removed. Applies Zoe to all nearby allies instead, increasing the HP restored to them from your healing spells. Enables 1 cast of Soma.
• Soma *New*: Replaces Ekkokardia on the hotbar for 1 cast. Point-blank AoE the size of Dancer dances that is the same potency as Dosis and grants healing and a barrier to all party members in range.

What I'm seeing from this so far is mostly just that there is no longer any free Kardia healing... but you've also made it more potent, almost akin to a less "clunky" but more button-bloated take on damage-neutral but MP-spending GCD heals.

And while you've reduced SGE's free healing by stripping it of current Kardia and Pneuma healing... that still seems to largely run the same issues as Ren's ideas before, all while... not really feeling any more "dps healer"-esque, to be honest.

Insofar as I presently understand the result, I can't say I'm a fan.

Other, Smaller Critiques:

• I especially do not understand the purpose of EuDosis given its generating Addersting for a Dosis-potency oGCD Toxicon, since it'd then just be a superior Dosis... meaning it'd actually be spammable and thereby grant SGE unlimited mobility via Eukrasia.
  
  
• Paraoxym seems like button-bloat considering that it effectively just replaces Dosis (or EuDosis) in AoE but offers no value to ST.
  
  
• Barriers now refunding 400 MP upon breaking also seems like it would provide even less gameplay interaction than the existing Addersting. Is that mechanic even fitting now that you've given SGE access to DPS-neutral GCDs limited only by MP via Kardia and Ekkokardia?

[ty_taurus]

So, hyperbole?

Nothing else quite connects those circumstances to reality, individually or collectively.

If you're offended by others not reaching the standards you'd like, maybe start by reaching them yourself?

You frequently treat disagreement with you as if such could only come idiocy or moral flaw, and concurrence with some part of your ideas as some sort of seed of cognitive or moral redemption. Neither is the case.

If people are failing to be convinced, it is more likely because you are not convincing than it is some agenda against your personhood. Yes, if you mess up enough times, that will predispose people towards further scrutiny against similar claims in later interactions, too, but that is hardly unnatural or conspiratorial and can likewise be corrected with time.

____________________________



What I'm seeing from this so far is mostly just that there is no longer any free Kardia healing... but you've also made it more potent, almost akin to a less "clunky" but more button-bloated take on damage-neutral but MP-spending GCD heals.

And while you've reduced SGE's free healing by stripping it of current Kardia and Pneuma healing... that still seems to largely run the same issues as Ren's ideas before, all while... not really feeling any more "dps healer"-esque, to be honest.

Insofar as I presently understand the result, I can't say I'm a fan.

Other, Smaller Critiques:

• I especially do not understand the purpose of EuDosis given its generating Addersting for a Dosis-potency oGCD Toxicon, since it'd then just be a superior Dosis... meaning it'd actually be spammable and thereby grant SGE unlimited mobility via Eukrasia.
  
  
• Paraoxym seems like button-bloat considering that it effectively just replaces Dosis (or EuDosis) in AoE but offers no value to ST.
  
  
• Barriers now refunding 400 MP upon breaking also seems like it would provide even less gameplay interaction than the existing Addersting. Is that mechanic even fitting now that you've given SGE access to DPS-neutral GCDs limited only by MP via Kardia and Ekkokardia?

Sorry, I didn't go into all the specifics and realize there are details I left out that are important, but I'm gonna go hibernate cause my enthusiasm is in the negatives at the moment. Let's just call it garbage for now and if I decide to feel better about the game maybe I'll better clarify.