Pure/Barrier Split is a failure

[ForsakenRoe]

As the title says, I hate the split. It's not worked. SCH/SGE is a completely viable comp even for early progression, is often safer due to having more mitigations, and have enough burst healing between them to cover the lack of 'pure healer' output levels. By contrast, WHM AST barely functions as a comp, even in BIS when a fight is learned, due to the sheer amount of mitigation required, and the lack of mitigation between the two (CU once a minute, Temp once per 2min, Neutral Sect as the only source of AOE shielding)

To go along with the ancient thread I made like a year ago where I outlined a possible idea of a 'spectrum' of Pure vs Barrier, rather than the current 'you are a Pure, or you are a Barrier', recently I had an idea of sorts on how to accomplish such a thing. As outlined then, and again now, SCH/SGE is a valid comp. It can function in even the hardest content (and is sometimes the best choice). WHM/AST and SCH/SGE, in any combination of one Pure/one Barrier, functions as a valid comp, as it's the 'intended by developer' setup. The only problem comp is WHM/AST due to it's mit issue, and if that were rectified then the 'spectrum' paradigm would work

In that old thread, I outlined an idea for WHM where it would gain several new skills, including an actual DPS rotation of sorts, a new gauge to 'manage', and important to the topic of this thread, two new shielding Lily spenders, Afflatus Sanctuary and Bastion. With this, WHM would have the shielding half of 'Barrier Healer duty' covered. On the flipside, it has very little in the 'mitigation' department, with only Temperance.

So what if AST were to be the 'mitigator' in this situation?

All we would need is some new traits to change how some existing AST skills function, and AST could have the %mit side of Barrier healing down. This could be done either by adding the traits to the skills as they are (so the skill has it's current and new effect simultaneously) or by bringing back the old Diurnal/Nocturnal pre-pull choice. I'd personally vote for Nocturnal Sect, as it allows Neutral to justify it's existence, it doesn't screw up the old Sect lore, and it's just a nice thing to have, for the player to feel they have some 'agency'.

Example effects:

Collective Unconscious

Under Diurnal, applies it's regen for 15s, and mit for 5s, unless channelled.

Under Nocturnal, this could be reversed (as was the case in SHB), where the mit is 15s and the regen is 5s unless channelled. In SHB, the mit was also 20s

Earthly Star

Under Diurnal, heals for X, after 10s grows to the bigger star and heals for Y.

Under Nocturnal, applies 10% damage down to anyone standing in the star's field as it charges, but the star heals for less pure healing potency upon detonation (example numbers, 400p instead of the current small-star's 540p), and does not grow to 'big mode' (instead staying small, and detonating after 20 seconds)

Horoscope

Under Diurnal, provides a buff to allies that heals for 200p upon reactivation or expiration of the buff (10s duration). Using Helios or Asp.Helios empowers this buff, causing it to last an additional 30s, and heal for 400p when it's effect activates.

Under Nocturnal, the buff is replaced with 'grants 5% damage mitigation' while it is active, and causes no healing upon expiration. Helios/Asp.Helios would still be able to extend it's duration, meaning a 30s duration for this mitigation tool. It is for this reason that it is only 5% mitigation, instead of 10%

Celestial Opposition

Under Diurnal, heals for 200p, plus 500p over 15s as a regen.

Under Nocturnal, heals for 200p, plus applies a 5% damage mitigation effect for 15s.
ALT: heals for 200p, and applies a shield of 300p (would prefer the former, due to reasoning explained below)

With this, AST's only source of shields would be the single target Celestial Intersection, and Neutral Sect, leaving the 'shielding' part of the WHM AST comp almost entirely in the hands of the WHM. On the other hand, with only Temperance in their kit, WHM would be almost entirely reliant on the AST for the '% mitigation' side of Barrier healing. While playing with a SCH/SGE, the two would be able to just play as they do now, focusing on pure healing throughput and letting the SCH/SGE do mitigative things.

Additionally, if that is somehow not enough mitigation to work with, AST could even get Disable back

[Aravell]

I want to also point out that a Nocturnal Sect AST and SCH comp has always worked ever since they buffed the base shield from Aspected Helios. It functioned much the same as the current SGE+SCH comps, the Noct AST casts Aspected Helios if it's needed and the SCH Deploys if there's big damage.

The only comp that has consistently never worked out is Diurnal Sect AST and WHM. In this design of mitigation being king, WHM really does feel massively lacking in the mitigation/shield department. At least AST has Neutral Sect and Collective Unconscious to fall back on.

[IDontPetLalas]

I will just be concise I say that it sucked to lose Nocturnal sect. Not because I was typically in Nocturnal sect, but because I lost the flexibility to use it and when I did choose to do so it was effective and consequently felt satisfying.

I like Forsaken's proposal, AST needs more changes but as AST is going to have a rework, I will just say that I would be happy if some of the changes aligned with those above.

[Absurdity]

The only comp that has consistently never worked out is Diurnal Sect AST and WHM. In this design of mitigation being king, WHM really does feel massively lacking in the mitigation/shield department. At least AST has Neutral Sect and Collective Unconscious to fall back on.

I remember it somewhat working in Alphascape (though probably not at minimum ilvl) because it didn't have the same spike damage that it does now where not mitigating an aoe just has your non-tank players drop dead instantly. I would like to check healer logs from Stormblood to confirm but unfortunately those are archived on fflogs.

[Kreyd]

To go along with the ancient thread I made like a year ago where I outlined a possible idea of a 'spectrum' of Pure vs Barrier, rather than the current 'you are a Pure, or you are a Barrier'...

Honestly I like this idea of a healing 'spectrum' you are mentioning. Not only would it make comps more flexible, it could also possibly give each healer an own unique identity again. My personal take on this would be: (from more pure heal to more shield oriented)

WHM - focus on HoT management.
SCH - abilities summon small entities of fairies who heal allied by themself for a short period before vanishing again.
AST - 'reactive' healer where abilities leave buffs on allies that heal them when they fall under X% of max hp or after a time period (like GNB's heart of corundum or SCH's excog).
SGE - mostly focussed on actual barriers.

[IceBlueNinja]

I want to also point out that a Nocturnal Sect AST and SCH comp has always worked ever since they buffed the base shield from Aspected Helios. It functioned much the same as the current SGE+SCH comps, the Noct AST casts Aspected Helios if it's needed and the SCH Deploys if there's big damage.

The only comp that has consistently never worked out is Diurnal Sect AST and WHM. In this design of mitigation being king, WHM really does feel massively lacking in the mitigation/shield department. At least AST has Neutral Sect and Collective Unconscious to fall back on.

Noct stance celestial opp even work with sch crit alco spread and did not overwrite spread crit alco but now am lost because noct ast was spit on ALOT by many people here (not saying your one of them) but some of those said people now want it back lol. Noct ast was powerful when use properly and tbh it was beating sch in shielding in content below lvl shadow bringers because you had aspected helios+celestial opp from lvl 60 to stack a big chunky party shield and sch do not have access to recitation unless its a shadow bringer content so you had to pray you get a crit alco normally then spread it which would be wasting mp.

[Supersnow845]

The simple problem is that the shields have too much pure healing and the regens do not have the mitigation to compensate and the game rewards mitigation over healing

The only time healing is more useful is white hole mechanics and after kefka square seems scared of using white hole mechanics (to be fair since they can be influenced by crit healing they aren’t exactly my favourite)

Square needs to find a way to fix the fact that pure shield healing (as in functionally have no pure healing like noct AST) is god awful in dungeons and overpowered in raids, up until now the way they fixed this was to make shield healers regen healers by proxy (pnuema, critdom anyone) so you wouldn’t run into the “trying to dungeon heal with noct AST problem”

The shield healers need to be nerfed (as much as I hate it as a shield healer main), there is no reason why SCH/SGE should be the best/second best comp (depending on how well you can scale AST’s buffs) while WHM/AST is in the toilet, either they both need to be in the toilet or they both need to be roughly equally viable

[IceBlueNinja]

You could stack cosolation with the rest of the shields too. Noct astro wasn't bad but the fight design didn't need shielding/mits if the entire group was contributing to them, and we were already seeing fights not need almost any healing outside of our free tools (there were times when noct AST + SCH was meta to cheese mechanics). People preferred diurnal astro because regens were more efficient at healingm especially in PF settings.

IIRC, noct AST's oGCD toolkit was also *very strong* in dungeons because celestial intersection was almost a 1K potency heal.

It was much better than people remember it to be (or perceived it to be). A lot more people are also asking for noct AST because SE took away that playstyle and replaced it with SGE which is more similar to SCH.

Yeah I agree with you there maybe rework garbage pepsis to be like celestial noct opp that grants an instant shield without doing overwrite, but remember too sage can use holos/hami/panham and not over write sch crit alco shield either. Also yes in light party content noct ast was busted lol.

[ToodlesElNoodles]

A controversial take, but i think SGE’s GCD shield should be removed.

My main reason is that the SGE’s design makes it into a mitigative regen healer. It shrinks damage (layered shields and flat mitigations) and then outregens it (or refunds the shield as a heal).

The Refund Shield -> Healing is a uniquely SGE thing.

Instead, I think their Eukrasia Diagnosis/Prognosis should work similar to SAM’s 3rd Eye. Gives a damage reduction (say 2-3%) and if it mitigates damage, a regen is then placed.

You can even Pepsis the unused buff and also let it trigger the regen.

Less issue with SCH and SGE shield contention, but not overly broken if they stack their mitigation together. And keeps SGE unique to their style.

Or just let every healer be able to do Pure/Shield healing at this point.

[Sylvain]

I mean, if SCH+SGE works just fine (altough it does require a bit more mapping than your regular SCH/SGE + AST/WHM) and AST+WHM doesn't, because AST+WHM don't have enough mitigation and SCH+SGE have enough raw healing, then imo the simplest solution would be to increase the direct healing requirement of every tier of savage so that SCH/SGE cannot do it. (Unless they can afford to spend **several** gcd heal on prognosis and emergency+adlo.

And to promote AST+WHM (assuming they want everycomp to be viable) they'd need to reduce RB which can OS your party as up to 1 per 2mins, so that AST+WHM can use Neutral+Wings on those uber RB.

Another thing could also to heavily increase damage on tanks as to make Regen gcd more competitive (and thus reduce SGE+SCH strength). A good example was P7S, the double autoattack + TB were extremely taxing for double barrier healers.

If anything increasing the overall healing requirement wouldn't hurt, it is way too low at mostly every level. Beside P8S-part2 with the ice/fire mechanic and the insane DoT on 2 players, nothing felt extremely challenging in term of "raw healing requried". The only challenge was to have enough mitigation to not be oblitarated by half the RB.