Dawntrail Healers need a rework

[Renathras]

The word "CAN'T"

No, but that's not relevant.

Okay, you...missed what I actually was asking you since I was actually curious about it - why WHM = PLD not WHM = WAR?

Having asked that (and hoping you address it - I also started a threat to discuss damage rotations):

Which people/encounters/content are we talking about?

Medica 2 spam can handle...a lot. I mean a lot a lot. So without actually requiring any higher skill, the Cyan bar goes a long way. And are we talking about MSQ content or Savage content? If Savages, then the Cyan bar is irrelevant since Savage healers should be in Magenta anyway AND adding more DPS buttons also pushes into Magenta since at that point you have to deal with Savage damage and mechanics (already a higher level) as well as Enrage, meaning engaging with the DPS kit isn't optional. So which content and which healers are we talking about?

Secondary:

Assuming for the sake of argument WAR is an acceptable "lower bound", what would WHM (or any healer, but WHM makes the most sense to me, personally) need to be equal to that lower bound? Again, me personally looking at it, Dia is harder to manage than Storm's Eye since you can track it on multiple things, it's harder to track than a self-buff, and and it can't be stacked (so even overwriting 6 seconds is suboptimal where doing so with Storm's Eye may not be). But Storm's Eye requires a BIT (5 seconds) of prep time with the 1-2. So this is more of a side-grade than anything. Outside of that, WAR has a 3 stack oGCD (Onslaught), and Fell Cleave/Primal Rend vs Solace/Rapture/Misery, which aren't exactly comparable, but are probably somewhat close considering giving WHM a GCD damage burst would require turning Solace/Rapture into oGCDs otherwise they'd have their healing strongly curtailed during their bust (that Cyan bar you mentioned), so the current Lily vs Beast Gauge comparison there is probably pretty comparable.

So turning Dia into a self-buff combo action and giving WHM a 1-2-3 combo...would that be sufficient to make WHM comparable to WAR and thus sufficient to meet the "lower bound" acceptable bar?

I would put White Mage at a 1, or maybe a 0.5 if we're allowed to use decimals. I genuinely do not understand how you would look at a 30 second DoT, a 40 second cooldown, and the ability to use Afflatus Misery during buff windows as a 5 or 6. How high does the scale go? Where would you put Ninja? a 27/10? Like, I'm not trying to rag on your abilities or anything, but I would probably consider Ninja to be the hardest job to master (maybe others can disagree with me on that), but there's no way Ninja could only be 4-5 points higher than White Mage on the complexity scale. Comparatively speaking, that is "stratospheric," at least in relation to the healers.

...hence my point: Scales are subjective.

We're probably also talking about different things.

For me, a 1 would be "autoattack, the class". The floor is a class where it plays itself (Vanilla WoW Hunter; literally you'd autoattack and...that's what you did for entire boss encounters). You can't really have a lower skill floor than "don't do anything after initiating combat". So that's the absolute bottom end (1 or 0, depending on how we set up the scale). And my scale includes everything about the Job, so for healers, it isn't just the damage side, it's also the healing side. Healing plans add complexity, skills with delayed effects or that involve tracking things add complexity, etc.

My scale's probably also semi-exponential (like the Richter scale), though not quite in that same way (since there's hypothetically not a cap on "most complex possible", so a scale needs to be "semi-infinite" sorta).

I'd rate NIN similar to AST, personally. Mainly due to the burst APM and all the stuff to juggle, though NIN...is hard to measure since the burst is really high up there but the maintenance rotation outside of burst is basically identical to WAR's (self-upkeep buff, gauge burn to prevent overcapping, it just has a Mudra use or two alongside that).

And it also comes down to how you measure difficulty. For example, I measure 1-2-3 (non-branching) as functionally equivalent to 1-1-1, and I consider a 30 sec DoT more complex than a 30 sec upkeep buff (can be on more than one target, harder to visually track on my screen), especially compared to a stackable (up to 60 sec) self-buff. Whereas, from your perspective, the 1-2-3 is more interative and more complex (maybe?), and you probably don't consider Dia to be more complex than Storm's Eye whereas I do.

Scales are subjective.

That was, you might recall...my point.

.

10 - BLM, MNK
9 - NIN, DRG, AST
8 - SAM, BRD, DRK
7 - GNB, MCH, RDM, SCH
6 - RPR, SGE
5 - DNC, PLD, WHM
4 - SMN, WAR
3 - N/A
2 - N/A
1 - N/A

Though...I suppose I need to really lay out in thought what makes each number what it is. Again, with 1 being "rightclick and leave the room", the absolute floor, what is above that and how much for each one... But, it's all subjective.

I suppose I should try formalizing the system. Hm. Maybe something like:

1: Absolute floor of "cannot fail, don't even have to play". Vanilla WoW Hunters in Molten Core auto-attack.
2: Have to actually press buttons, but there's no real failure state provided you are actually hitting things. "FCFS" ("first come, first served", or "use things as they come off CD") Ret Paladin from Wrath of the Lich King.
3: Has failure/suboptimal states, but the punishment is effectively nonexistent, no real choices. EW SMN if it didn't have Energy Drain or Ifrit.
4: Like above, but actually has some choices for optimization, even if they're very minor. Additionally, may "part time" track additional things (party buff utility, healing, threat): EW SMN, WAR, possibly WHM
5: Like above, but has either additional things to track or extra role responsibilities to track or a more complex rotation or situational/proc alterations to rotation or etc: DNC, PLD, probably WHM
6: Like above, but has more than one of those things, and/or a more rigid, less flexible rotation, more tight timings, or more indirect actions: RPR, SGE
7: Like above, but has additional complexity or speed, more esoteric/nuanced optimizations, and a tighter rotation/gameplay with a bit of jank/clunk that must be overcome: GNB, MCH, RDM, SCH
8: Like above, but likely has even more things to track, more clunk to overcome, and some niche and possibly counterintuitive optimizations to maximize performance: SAM, BRD, DRK
9: Much more technical, often with very high APM phases, easy to drift, very punishing on death, and penalty for failure is high: NIN, AST, DRG
10: Highly technical, optimizations are unintuitive or even counterintuitive, very punishing on death, have many openers, reopeners, and rotation possibilities to memorize and optimize around: BLM, MNK

I think that's pretty fair. There's a little room for wiggle here and there (like SMN is borderline a 3, and probably would be if it didn't have Ifrit or holding Energy Drains for 2 min burst windows; WHM is borderline 4 instead of 5 but I feel like the DoT pushes it over into a 5 - if it was a self-buff or didn't have that, it'd easily be a 4; MCH has a lot in common with the 9s, but it just feels overall easier to execute in practice, even if it otherwise shares a lot of their characteristics; etc etc)

I suppose if I added 0 and put the "Vanila WoW auto-attack Hunter in Molten Core there", it would slightly open up the middle, and have some things scoot down (the ones on the borders mentioned above, perhaps), but the list is subjective to begin with, even with a more formalized categorization schema.

Some are just always going to be subjective. Like I find GNB easier to play than DRK (and found it easier to play than pre-6.3 PLD), but others find it very difficult to play. So some things really are just the individual. (For my part, it was always easy for me to tell where I was in my rotation due to how rigid the rotation is, but to some people, that rigidity is what made it hard to play...)

[Katish]

...

I like the ideas for what their worth, I just wish the devs could be inspired with redesigning healing with similar aspects especially the knockback portion of shields...but as you brought up other nonhealer classes, would require a redesign of not only healers but maybe removal of shields from other nonhealer classes. It's not the quantity of skills that matter but quality with answering new mechanics or adding something that the kit didn't already offer (definitely need heal skills pruned and reimagined).

As for whm, yeah,,,I am not sure why it is in the state it is...SGE can outheal where it matters and do more dps(?) I am trying to figure what makes whm the pure healer when comparing the two and what it actually brings to the table. Alas, this is what homogenizing does (because the healers are too similar that they can all be compared 1 to 1).

[Connor]

edit:


When they first announced the split, my thinking was that SCH would have everything like Feint, Addle, Disable, Eye4Eye, etc, and be an absolute machine of buffing and debuffing for it's mitigation. Like, 'mitigate this 120% raidwide to a manageable level' would be 90% the SCH/SGE's job. Instead we have them able to outHPS the 'pure healers' because mitigation is just 'better' in like, almost every situation

Haste would be fine for a BLM, and I've heard Monk can play some bizarro SKS build, as long as you understand Optimal Drift and can keep Demolish lined up with ROF correctly using it

Yeah, it definitely would’ve made sense. They already had the groundwork for Scholar to be ‘focused on buffing/mitigation’ as opposed to directly healing the target, but were like ‘Naa let’s throw that out the window and give it a bunch of super powerful burst heals on top of the shielding’ lol. But at least it has that one raid buff lol

As for WHM I don’t play it as much as Scholar but I do agree that having it go for the ‘direct, simplistic healer’ approach doesn’t feel like it does the job justice. When you take FF as a whole, White Mage is basically the ‘grandfather’ of every subsequent ‘healing oriented class’. Even going back as far as FF3 it’s spell list was primarily that of a versatile support caster. Healing was there, sure, but there was also all the fun/silly debuffs like Mini and Toad, Aero and Aeroga for damage, Haste / Protect / Shell / Berserk for buffs, even status ailments for control like Silence, Paralyze and Slow.

I feel like truly doing justice of what an FF White Mage is, means incorporating that versatility into its toolkit. As a sort of ‘antecedent’ to the other healers, it makes sense that it would come out with abilities that are similar to those used by other healers. What would differentiate White Mages in such a scenario would be the unique way they’re able to combine various abilities that otherwise wouldn’t be possible without a specific healer comp.

Which I think ultimately results not only in White Mage being a more satisfying class to play, but also one that fits much more with the whole ‘OG power healer’ identity it’s meant to have. Basically, White Mages should be able to have an answer to a much wider range of problems than just ‘we need healing’ lol, as there’s always been much more to the job than just ‘it could heal good’. Plus in the FFXIV lore they’re supposedly capable of literal miracles and practically creating life out of nothing (besides ambient aether which didn’t end well lol), yet when you play one you’re just throwing around little light balls and healing too much

[Shurrikhan]

Even still without nerfing the length of Mitigative abilities this sort of change would still benefit the shield healers more than the regen healers

With 14’s slow GCD and messy NetCode I can’t really think of any way to make regen healers more useful than shield healers

In the present state of things, yes, but that present state doesn't have even a theoretical context in which "pure" healers like WHM could pull ahead. Barrier healers like SGE not only have more unique value and are less bottlenecked but have greater total sustain output, too.

Regardless of the damage intake profile, those with fewer features (i.e., "pure" healers, especially WHM) will need some sort of compensatory advantage elsewhere, such as in practical sustain output, for pure healers to be competitive in any healing context beyond healing requirements being a joke (and much of any healer pair's combined kit excessive).

[ForsakenRoe]

examples of the versatility of 'white magic' from previous games

Consider also, that in FFX and even in the very original FF1, the very first game of the series (and probably others), White Magic included 'Nul-Element' spells. Literal shielding against certain elements. The over-focus on 'it has big powerful heal Cure3' has really hamstrung the class's growth over the years, I fear. Instead of giving it new options like Nul-Element inspired protective moves, instead we have most of it's additions being something that is 'Cure3 again but with a twist'. So many of it's moves compete with each other for the same 'niche' that some are literal copypastes in terms of potency, like Rapture/Medica, or Tetra/Cure2/Solace. And those that aren't, are just 'replacing the Cure3', not working alongside it, such as Asylum (wow we could Cure3 here, or we could use Asylum and just wait for that to tick people up) or Lilybell (wow we could spam Medica 1 here, or we could let the plant do it for us (it's even the same 400p per pulse as Medica is))

Some of the listed buffs got moved over to Time Magic later, like Haste and Slow. Silence and Paralyze would be... not so useful in the current game (just look at Repose), Berserk would be a flat damage increase so that's kinda boring too. I think they were on the right track with SHB. Making it the 'I do the most damage' healer, but now SGE has kinda taken that too since Dosis is 20p stronger than Glare. So, my new stance for WHM would be this: where every other healer can heal damage neutrally by using OGCDs, WHM should have more systems like Lilies, where they can build up and stockpile 'refund damage tools' like Misery, and then just blow everything in raidbuffs for an obscene damage payouts. Make WHM the 'I focus on GCD healing tools, which have massive compiled damage refunds to cause my burst window to B U R S T' healer.

I've suggested my suggestion, of a gauge that builds from damage and can be used to fill the gaps between Lilies when they aren't generating fast enough to keep up (rare as that is), and being able to throw Misery, Tornado, Quake, Flood all into a raidbuff window because you played your healing 'right' would feel really cool, I'd imagine. In fact, a 'perfect' window under my tyrannical reign would be Tornado, Misery, Quake, Flood, Quake, Tornado, Flood, since you'd be able to stock up to two charges of each of the elemental spells. And for those that don't care about raidbuff windows/prefer to use the heal for actually healing, being able to wreak elemental havoc would still feel cool because unlike the twinkly lights of Glare and Dia, these skills would have punch in their animations and sound design

[Renathras]

What is an acceptable solution would be increased frequency to increase pressure. What we're lacking right now is something that pressures our healing kit, a single heavy raidwide that overkills us by 10% without mit that has a bleed every minute does not pressure our massive healing kit since we can just burn 2 things on every raidwide since they're so sparse. I think there is a place for these heavy raidwides with bleeds attached, but they also need to have moderate pressure damage throughout the fight. We could also use what we got in Barbariccia EX...

Mostly agreed until that last line. I'd say Zeromus Ex. Zeromus has pretty consistent damage instead of large spaces of nothing. There are areas where, in other fights this expansion, there'd be damage, then a mechanic, solving the mechanic meaning no damage, then a cast bar, then the next damage after that. In Zeromus' case, I didn't notice a lot of that. Most of the time I was thinking "In other fights, I'd have 30 seconds...oh, look, damage! Healed that. Oh look! Another wave of damage! Alright, I see a cast bar, better heal this up...and there's the next mechanic with some more damage!! \o/"

I said it in that thread, but I think Zeromus Ex hit the sweet spot. The damage is pretty consistent, so you're healing people routinely every 10-15 sec (instead of 30-45 like a lot of EW fights), and the mechanics are frequent enough that if you don't heal people, they'll die, so you can't just sit on the damage for half a minute, you actually do need to address it somewhat expeditiously. But unlike Barb, Zeromus also has periods where damage is still coming in, but you have time to stand and cast, so it allows for both GCD and oGCD healing, something Barb missed the mark on.

Zeromus is easily my #1 fight for this expansion.

.

Regarding the rest of the topic:

I absolutely agree the "Pure/Barrier" split was stupid and needs to be reverted.

The Barrier healers, in theory, could be designed to do slightly less eHP of healing overall (because mitigation is more effective), but designed where their mit + weaker heals ~= the pure healer's direct healing. Again, being a little weaker to reflect that mitigation is superior.

E.g. suppose SCH had a 50% mitigation and a 400 potency heal, WHM would have a 900 potency heal (with the same MP cost as SCH's combo there, so WHM is more efficient in terms of HPM) in place of that. SCH cuts damage taken by half, and heals 80% of the remainder vs WHM healing 220% of what SCH is healing for, but lacking the mitigation. In a game with good encounter design, these two would both be viable and would be complementary.

...but FFXIV doesn't have good encounter design, and when damage hits for 101+% of players' health pools, this no longer works since the barrier healer is required. Which COULD work if this was just for high end encounters (where a party is expected to have one of each)...provided their healing is insufficient for the damage. That is, SCH + SGE would have 800 potency of healing, and the damage needs to be great enough to require 900, otherwise WHM/AST wouldn't be brought. And this is BEFORE we get to the fact AST is a 1/2 barrier healer anyway between Collective Unconscious every 60 sec and Nocturnal Sect every 120.

The Pure/Barrier split either has to go away OR the game has to actually be designed around it and the two sides balanced, which would mean SCH and SGE having their heals super nerfed, AST losing its barrier/mitigation powers (them being equal to WHM, not 3x WHM's), and AST/WHM healing efficiency improved drastically (particularly WHM's).

...while that COULD be better for the game long-term, it would require a lot of changes I don't think SE is ready to make. So the band-aid fix for now would be to reduce SCH and SGE's healing a bit and increase WHM's mitigation to be at least equal to AST's.

I’m with Roe in that I think the pure/barrier split can work if done correctly, but it requires SE to understand the difference between then, make content designed to pressure both pure and barrier healing mechanics (even 4 man content)

If you only mean Criterion, I agree.

If you mean 4 man MSQ, that makes no sense as an encounter requiring a barrier healer would be unclearable without one in the party...?

Unless you mean like what I was saying above that they be balanced to do the same rough total amount of healing?

Personally, I don't mind SCH/SGE or WHM/AST being possible (every combination being viable isn't a terrible idea), but the problem is when one of those is so vastly superior to the other...

It’s funny that they tried to split pure/shield healers into two distinct subcategories and failed pretty spectacularly by giving the pure healers shields and the shield healers a ton of regens/pure heals lol.

Even funnier is the fact there’s very clearly a much more straightforward way to split healers - using a distinction that already exists. Between personal dps healers (White / Sage) and ‘rDPS’ healers (Scholar, Astrologian).

They tried to create a healer dichotomy, failed, then completely ignored the fact they’ve already created an entirely different dichotomy that people can actually make sense of (unless 7.0 gives WHM and Sage a bunch of raid buffs which I highly doubt lol)

The worst part is, it was obvious it was going to fail even before they did it AND it doesn't make sense in terms of future-proofing.

They tried the same thing with "Main Tank/Off Tank" split for Tanks, and it failed so spectacularly, they went back on it before the expansion was even done. Then they try doing effectively the healer equivalent of that. And then they gave the barrier healers tons of healing and AST half-barriers. It made no sense.

And I think it was Misshapened Chair that said something to the general effect of: So you have the 2 pure and 2 barrier and that's why you got rid of my Nocturnal stance? So tell me this...if you ever decide to add another healer, what happens then? Now you have 2/3 or 3/2. Will you add healers in pairs from now on? Will you re-add nocturnal then for a barrier healer to offset a future pure healer? No matter how you look at it, this made no sense.

If they tried to double down on that dichotomy I seriously hope they try to make SCH’s buff more interesting than a boring disconnected button they press once every 2 minutes they can’t even spread with deployment

AST plays like trash but at least it’s buffs actually feel meaningful, delegating chain would literally change nothing about SCH

I know you don't want to talk to me, but on this, I completely agree with you.

Much as I don't like AST, it at least feels like a Healer with subjob of Buffer/Support. SCH kinda does in PvP (though more a support buffer/debuffer; I think it does the least healing of all 4 healers in PvP), but in terms of PvE, AST is the closest thing to an actual Support role. And this is with the Cards having a CD and being heavily offloaded in burst (where you only use a few outside of burst).

Honestly, SCH is one of the helaers that could probably benefit most by looking at its PvP kit. AST could a lot, too, but PvE SCH could take several pages from PvP SCH.

Lol, that's why true veterans

We were talking about "veteran healers" not "true veterans", and the latter term isn't even defined as "Minori, Nei, Fretty, Elia, Luna etc".

WoW druid, Everquest Shaman

WoW Druid was probably the closest case, but a lot of people didn't like it and didn't enjoy its playstyles - any of them. So no, it was not something everyone loved and could tailor exactly how they wanted to play it.

EQ Shaman isn't even close.

So, the way I'd handle this is to look at SCH currently. It (and SGE) can 'burst heal', and have regens, but they have opportunity costs. Aetherflow/Addersgall costs, CDs, Pneuma's strong but it's a 2min CD. So, WHM should be the mirror to SCH, where it has some mit effects, but with an opportunity cost: Lilies. Just add Stoneskin (and an AOE version) as Lily spenders. This sounds like the dreaded 'homogenization' sure, but consider what we get from doing this: SCH can put mits and shields with it's OGCDs, and instead of having to top up with a wasteful GCD of Adlo/Succor, they can now rely on the coheal WHM to throw out a 'damage neutral' Stoneskin2. WHM now has a way to get value from what is normally 'overhealing to prep Misery', by using a shield instead of a wasteful heal.

That's honestly not a bad idea. Having Stoneskin/Divine Benison in place of Solace and an AOE "Protect/Pro-Shell/Aquaveil" in place of Rapture would make a lot of sense to me and be a cool idea.

[AmiableApkallu]

The Barrier healers, in theory, could be designed to do slightly less eHP of healing overall (because mitigation is more effective), but designed where their mit + weaker heals ~= the pure healer's direct healing. Again, being a little weaker to reflect that mitigation is superior.

My own take is that that design actually explains exactly why the "barrier/shield" healers have such good pure/burst heals in the first place: While it is appealing on paper, it runs into the oddity that is Duty Finder with 2 barrier/shield healers and a drop-to-1-HP-plus-doom-or-lots-of-incoming-damage mechanic -- mechanics where the mitigation and shields count for nothing up front, and may or may not be enough for what follows depending on how much HP has actually been restored.

(SE needs either to commit to the split, across all content, or to toss it in the trash. As things currently stand, we seem to be in some weird middle ground.)

[Sebazy]

WoW Druid was probably the closest case, but a lot of people didn't like it and didn't enjoy its playstyles - any of them.

And yet its playstyles were:

Melee Tank
Melee Stealth/DPS
Caster DPS
Healer

Not going to say that everyone liked it, but it covered almost every play style base except arguably Arms War, Enhance Shaman, Hunter *edit* oh and Warlock. I'd merrily wager that a significant chunk of people who didn't like it simply didn't give it a fair shot. PvP bias played a big part in likes/dislikes in WoW at least when I actively played it.

And as for Everquest Shaman not being close, why not?

I could tank and had pretty incredible agro generation if needed (Only an SK could reliably pull hate from me), I could DPS (Not amazingly, but I was no slouch and had more options for resisty/DS'd mobs than many), I could heal endlessly (I literally mean endlessly, no need to sit, no need to med, just Canni/Torpor away), my overworld mobility was top drawer (Self SoW, Invis, Invis vs undead, a multitude of travel clicks), I could pull (FD charges on a PoSky ring), I had surprisingly solid CC against anything that could be rooted/snared (Enough so to solo reserve and start clearing PoG for example, unlike druid I could merrily take a hit whilst positioning mobs, if it didn't death touch, it wasn't killing me ever). The only thing that really went against Shaman was that it was a VERY late bloomer compared to most other classes. Shaman didn't truely unlock it's full potential until the late 50s with Torpor, Malo etcetc. Most other jobs were functionally there around the 30-40 mark with the only other one that springs straight to mind being Ranger and it's bow AAs effectively redefining the class at the endgame.

I vividly remember the bards crying of RSI, Enchanters fed up of CC gameplay, clerics bemoaning the CH chain/modrod lifestyle and literally being the happiest people on the planet when I nabbed them for AA farms and let them melee/dps away for a change, SKs that pressed a button and then AFK'd until we had a wipe etcetc. I honestly don't ever remember a SHM moaning about their job post Torpor. What little I do remember was groans about partial slows in Planes and some gear whining here and there, but that was about it.

*Edit* The TLDR of that is that I could make an AA group and fill quite literally any role, meanwhile the Shaman turnover in my years between UK and ClubFu was low to non existent, a stark contrast to trying to keep the Enchanter and Bard mains from burning out.

Again, the key here is post torpor. I'm not denying that low level/under invested Shamangs wouldn't fall out of love with the job, but at that stage they simply weren't a Shaman.

( https://eq.magelo.com/profile/9093 ) My old handbag Shaman for reference, I was originally a Barb but rerolled with Kunark for the extra regen and cool looks++

So yeah, why isn't Everquest Shaman close again?

[ty_taurus]

If you only mean Criterion, I agree.

If you mean 4 man MSQ, that makes no sense as an encounter requiring a barrier healer would be unclearable without one in the party...?

Unless you mean like what I was saying above that they be balanced to do the same rough total amount of healing?

Personally, I don't mind SCH/SGE or WHM/AST being possible (every combination being viable isn't a terrible idea), but the problem is when one of those is so vastly superior to the other...

For the record, let me just state that I'm not in direct support of pure/barrier. I just believe it's something that could be done well if handled correctly. But I did mean even regular dungeon bosses. But let me explain how you can make it work. Let's start by establish some simple White Mage and Scholar changes for the purposes of this example:

White Mage
- Afflatus Rhapsody: GCD AoE heal of 250 potency and removes a single detrimental effect from each party member. When a detrimental effect is removed this way, grants a 250 potency regen that lasts 12 seconds. Nourishes the Blood Lily.
- Stoneskin II: GCD AoE barrier with a potency of 300. Has a 2 second cast time and costs 1200 MP

Scholar
- Sacred Soil: OGCD AoE 400 potency barrier that lasts 30 seconds that also reduces damage taken by 10% for 15 seconds.
- Reverse: OGCD ability on yourself that costs 1000 MP and has a 10 second cooldown. Inverts the effects of healing penalties on your healing magic potency. (In other words, something like Infirmity which decreases healing received by 50% now increases healing received by 50%. This only applies to your healing spells, not your healing abilities).

Now that we have those examples as a reference point, let's imagine a few ways we could create some boss mechanics for a regular, 4-man dungeon:

Mechanic 1
- Reduces the party's HP to 1 and inflicts Necrosis for 15 seconds. Necrosis effect: Reduces incoming healing by 50% and reduces the target's HP to 0 when the effect duration expires. Effect can be cleansed with Esuna or can be cleansed by increasing the target's HP to 100%.

The White Mage player can immediately cleanse the Necrosis across the entire party and provide a potent regen at the same time to heal the party up all while nourishing the blood lily. The Scholar player must spend MP to use Reverse, then perhaps Emergency Tactics on Succor to heal the party up with GCDs. Or they can manually Esuna each Necrosis one-by-one.

Mechanic 2
- Casts a massive knockback that cannot be negated by Arm's Length/Surecast and will knock all party members into an electrified ground area that will stun them for 5 seconds and inflict a heavy DoT on the party for 15 seconds. This knockback is negated if the party is protected by a barrier.

The Scholar player can weave a Sacred Soil to guard the party from the knockback without dropping their DPS. The White Mage player will have to hard cast Stoneskin II to negate the knockback, losing a chunk of MP and DPS, or the team eats the knockback and they must out heal the DoT with their own regens.

Mechanic 3
- Casts a raidwide AoE that consumes either 99% of the target's current HP or 99% of the target's current barrier if the target is protected by a barrier; if the target is not protected by a barrier, they receive a Necrosis effect for 15 seconds.

In this example, we have a mechanic that allows the healers to approach the mechanic in either direction. Depending on how we want 4-man content to feel, we could either use mechanics 1 and 2 and force healers to respond to their weak side of healing, or we could go with mechanic 3 and create mechanics that can be resolved in multiple ways so that the pure healer and barrier healer can approach that same mechanic from different angles.

[Aravell]

So, the way I'd handle this is

While the idea itself seems interesting, it would also require Bob (SE) to stop stepping on the same rake (pure healer design) over and over again. The current design they have is unsustainable though, they have to either redesign the healers to play better within the subroles or remove the subroles entirely at this point, because there's a lot of overlap from every healer except WHM.

Side note: Ifrit's Vulcan Burst in UWU was never a shield/kb immunity check, you can survive it simply by being inside his hitbox. I've had enough shield healers forget to shield to know that.