Dawntrail Healers need a rework

[TheDustyOne]

While I get the reasoning for removing MP costs on healing spells and moving them to the oGCDs instead, something about it seems... off to me, but I can't fully put my finger on why. It just feels like another way of trying to foolproof the design, and every time something is foolproofed, the world makes a bigger fool. I'll do my best to explain why I feel this way.

It doesn't really change the overall depth of the jobs, as high level play is still centered around ignoring the GCDs as much as possible, and so our reward for good healing is still Glaroilificosis spam. Half of our kit is still sitting there gathering dust while the other half invalidates its existence, the half that gets used is just determined based on player skill and knowledge.

It also has the side effect of telling new players "this is free, why would you ever use Tetra when Cure II is there?" This builds a bad habit that I feel is already a problem when you have people arguing for Cure over Cure II, and swapping the MP costs around would only bolster that habit. Healing in general feels like it should have some limitation attached beyond just suboptimal damage, otherwise you could unintentionally teach players that Cure III spam is the best strategy for clearing consistently, which only widens the gap between clearing casual content and entry into harder content.

Maybe I'm just talking out of my ass, I'm just wary of it.

One thing that could probably be done if we're concerned about new players being punished with MP loss on death is maybe have it so death doesn't nuke our MP away? The dead healer can then have their MP regenerate and be able to continue healing when they resurrect. Jobs that rely on MP for their rotations already felt extra punishing on death, so I feel like that'd be a good change overall.

[Supersnow845]

Honestly if they went the route of invalidating MP to try to encourage positive play removing it off glare would probably be the better option. Combining that with baking lucid dreaming into natural regen so you don’t play the lucid roulette when you die would do a lot more than trying to make GCD healing free because all that does is encourage GCD healing for low skill players while changing nothing for high skilled players unless you made oGCD’s so expensive you physically couldn’t maintain them which is messy at best

[ForsakenRoe]

A potential other solution for the MP stuff that I've posted about before somewhere, would be to rework Piety and Tenacity to have equal damage contribution as what Det currently gives. Then, assuming SE can actually balance things correctly (big ask, I know), there would emerge two distinct builds: a Crit/DH focused build, as we use now, which would be balanced to have higher highs but lower lows, essentially the 'I wanna risk it to push for a higher parse, knowing that I'm at the mercy of RNG for it' build, and a second, more steady build, where damage variance is much lower: Spellspeed/Piety focused. The Piety would grant enough MP regen to offset the additional spend-per-minute of the Spellspeed, AST already does this because Astrodyne gives it enough bonus MP income that it needs that SPS to even spend it all fast enough, even with base Piety. So we know that the idea works for the SPS/MP-income interaction for the kit, all that needs to be done is incentivizing the Piety side of the equation by having it grant some damage. Plus, said build would allow for certain healers to have interesting interactions within their kits, thanks to the extra speed. A hypothetical example would be what I suggested for WHM, where it builds a gauge by doing damage to spend on a powerful healing tool. Being able to spend more GCDs means getting gauge faster, meaning more access to that heal. Alternatively, for an actually-existing example (bland as it currently is), SGE's Kardia would be proc'd more often with faster GCDs. Now, if SGE had more Kardia interplay in it's kit, eg making it AOE, or converting it to a stacking shield, we can see how a faster GCD would quickly become very desireable, potentially

If it were up to me, I'd also split Crit into it's two halves, make DHit be DPS only (so it's the DPS version of Ten/Pie, role-locked) and then delete DET cos it's bland and boring, which would leave us with:

Tank - Crit Strength, Crit Rate, Tenacity, Skillspeed
Healer - Crit Strength, Crit Rate, Piety, Spellspeed
DPS - Crit Strength, Crit Rate, Direct Hit Rate, Speed (both kinds)

[TheDustyOne]

I'd opt to instead remove Piety and Tenacity and put those effects into Det based on your current role.

I'd still choose to remove DHit over Det, as boring as Det is, simply because we'd still have Crit as the lucky hit mechanic. It feels redundant having 2 of them that can also stack, and it makes the RNG of the high potency attacks feel really really bad if they neither crit nor direct hit. Having just Crit Chance and Crit Power is enough for that, and Det can be the boring-but-reliable damage increase that also has a role-mechanic attached for tanks/healers. Removing DHit and splitting Crit would do a hell of a lot for damage RNG, as one can focus on chance to lessen that RNG, or focus on power to heighten it if they really, really want.

Also just merge SkS/SpS already, there's no reason to split them outside punishing DRK and PLD.

[ForsakenRoe]

Either way round leads to the same result, Piety and Det being merged into one, the only difference is the name (based on which one gets to remain, and which one is effectively 'removed'). But I'd still argue to keep Piety/Tenacity and ditch Det, because of the unique names. Makes it easier to see how the stats affect the roles differently, and is more thematic to each of them than the 'catchall' stat, especially since we also have like 3 other 'catchall' stats to choose from. If we had a situation of the description for Det reading 'Increases your damage. If you're a tank, it also increases how tanky you are. If you're a healer, it increases your MP regen', I feel like that's a bit word-salad for the mouseover text of the stat description, compared to Piety and Tenacity remaining as they are on the statpage, and getting an additional 'Also increases damage dealt' line. Tenacity already has that line, it just needs to be increased to be equal to Det instead of being slightly behind it

Merging Speeds into one would make sense, and would open up the door for a potential magic-melee hybrid job who has a strong 50/50 mix of weaponskills and spells as their kit. Mystic knight perhaps

[Shurrikhan]

More of a pipedream here, but I'd rather keep just 3 secondary stats, strip offensive power from Tenacity, and move it, Piety, and some new stat into a separate Tertiary level of materia to compete basically only among itself for cheese stats (such as via Tenacity, Vigor, and Mobility -- to increase both mitigation types, MP and HP gen over time, and movement speed and Sprint frequency, respectively).

VIT, STR, DEX, INT, MND; Will, Speed, Break; Tenacity, Vigor, Mobility.

Would also really like to see Materia be independent from gear and set job-by-job, with no costs to swap (only to extend the pool, if that)... Allow us to set a target GCD speed, crit rate, etc., in ordered priority, with a dump stat chosen, etc., so we can have agency without the inconvenience of constant swapping of surrounding materia with each new gear piece.

(Or allow all jobs to use all stats, and let us actually overcap Vit, and have stats provide a bit more utility value on jobs for which those stats may have a lower scaling towards total power, as to give cheese/safety options at cost to output that way, though I imagine that could get a bit complicated for some despite the huge increase in actual customization and reduction in item bloat and gear grind during leveling that such could futureproof.)

[ty_taurus]

While I get the reasoning for removing MP costs on healing spells and moving them to the oGCDs instead, something about it seems... off to me, but I can't fully put my finger on why. It just feels like another way of trying to foolproof the design, and every time something is foolproofed, the world makes a bigger fool. I'll do my best to explain why I feel this way.

My point has been to make MP management about maintaining DPS uptime--using heals that are able to keep your momentum going at steeper MP costs. Reducing your base heals to 0 in that example provides a safety net so that you can't accidentally lock yourself out of the ability to heal, but poor management would force you to drop your uptime. This creates an environment that provides an opportunity of mastery without making the entire role inherently more punishing. It allows more skill ceiling while also actually lowering the skill floor, and that's what XIV seems to be about. They want the game to be very easy for anyone to pick up, and easy to pick up doesn't have to come at the cost of skill expression.

[Sebazy]

<snip>

Quickened Aetherflow was a good trait that SE overlooked

Abilities and traits that actively encourage and reward activity would be a good step in course correcting the current rot IMO.

[TheDustyOne]

I'd happily trade Dissipation in favour of Quickened Aetherflow again. It was satisfying to use Aetherflow abilities and watching that cooldown drop.

[Raikai]

More of a pipedream here, but I'd rather keep just 3 secondary stats, strip offensive power from Tenacity, and move it, Piety, and some new stat into a separate Tertiary level of materia to compete basically only among itself for cheese stats (such as via Tenacity, Vigor, and Mobility -- to increase both mitigation types, MP and HP gen over time, and movement speed and Sprint frequency, respectively).

VIT, STR, DEX, INT, MND; Will, Speed, Break; Tenacity, Vigor, Mobility.

Would also really like to see Materia be independent from gear and set job-by-job, with no costs to swap (only to extend the pool, if that)... Allow us to set a target GCD speed, crit rate, etc., in ordered priority, with a dump stat chosen, etc., so we can have agency without the inconvenience of constant swapping of surrounding materia with each new gear piece.

(Or allow all jobs to use all stats, and let us actually overcap Vit, and have stats provide a bit more utility value on jobs for which those stats may have a lower scaling towards total power, as to give cheese/safety options at cost to output that way, though I imagine that could get a bit complicated for some despite the huge increase in actual customization and reduction in item bloat and gear grind during leveling that such could futureproof.)

I'd love if half of the meldable stats were just dedicated to non-damage utility, you'd customize based on what you feel you'd need.

For some reason I can't see them giving up materia on gear, though, but would make a lot of sense if the weapons had more materia slots and we'd need less materia overall there. And then the utility substats would be just accessories with the rest of the gear without melding.