The 1.5s Glare/Broil

[Azurarok]

WHM/SCH's nuke being changed from 2.5s to 1.5s might be the one change I disliked the most since ShB. This single change did a lot of damage to healer job identity imo. All but WHM (barely) largely do their healing through oGCDs, while most GCDs are spent spamming the one nuke.

In ShB, WHM only had Dia and Lillies to create weave windows, while SCH had Bio and Ruin II. Afflatus Misery was also dps negative, so losing some personal dps due to casted heals, or using Ruin II, Lillies, or early refreshing dots to weave oGCDs and/or move was, at least in my experience, pretty normal.

Regardless, with how much running around the arena they've got us doing lately I think we need the mobility at the least. I just wish each job approached it in their own way instead of just copying AST's. WHM/SCH don't really need a weave window every GCD.

That said, what are yall's takes on it? I'm a little worried many folks wouldn't really want to let go of it now that it's been a thing for a full expac and seems to be staying for another.

My ideal would've been something like:

WHM - Have ways to stock up on instant cast resources not unlike BLM

AST - The 1.5s malefic as is.

SCH - Ruin II, maybe more aetherflow stacks if anything, for energy drain, which was meant to cover the damage lost from using it rather than the flat gain it usually is now. More dots would also help cover it too I believe? Having to balance dps/healing resources does sound right with the strategist job.

SGE - Very little cast times, play more like a physranged. Even without that, eukrasia also offers mobility without adding another weave window, so they really should expand on it more than they have.

[Iedarus]

Most healers are actually fine with the 1.5 second cast time since being able to weave heals at a moment's notice without eating a damage loss makes sense for the role. It's WHM that would benefit from the 2.5 second cast time. I proposed earlier for Dia to have a shorter duration and also proc Glare IV (on a separate button) charges and for POM to have a 60 second cd while giving three charges on use. Between this, Aetherial Shift, and Lily movement tech, WHM would remain approachable but with a drastically higher skill ceiling with all the movement tools it would now have.

Edit: I could definitely see SCH going back to the 2.5 second cast time too if they made it so you could command your fairy while channeling, again. It would make her feel more like a companion rather than an oGCD totem. It would also further cement the decision making playstyle of SCH by challenging you to figure out how to maximize Broil/Miasma uptime. You'd also have to make sure Ruin II + Baneful Impaction is a gain over Broil.

Another thing that would help this change is to turn Seraph into Rouse, but have it be a power up for the fairy that gives her the same attributes as Seraph; every Embrace gives a shield and Fey Union would also grant a shield per tick that equals an Embrace potency so it's not too broken but flows better. Have the button also unlock Fey Consolation which is just the same as Consolation. Or, if there's an issue with snapshot exploiting, just turn Seraph into Fey Consolation. Same cooldowns would suffice since the passive Seraphic Veil shields would no longer be there. This way, the Scholar can better command the fairy while fixing pet swap jank and giving them a better identity.

[Azurarok]

Most healers are actually fine with the 1.5 second cast time since being able to weave heals at a moment's notice without eating a damage loss makes sense for the role.

Kinda getting mixed messages between this and the rest of the post.

Edit: I could definitely see SCH going back to the 2.5 second cast time too if they made it so you could command your fairy while channeling, again.

Again? Was this something they used to be able to do?

[HyoMinPark]

I like my 1.5s cast time, and I don’t believe going back to 2.5s would do anything for the jobs as a whole. They need a lot more than a longer cast time to make them interesting. Likewise, it was far more than just dropping the single-target nuke from 2.5s to 1.5s that made both WHM and SCH a shadow of what they used to be.

Healers dislike spamming a single button. Not the fact that said button has a weave window. Even for a WHM that has primarily GCD healing, we still have oGCDs in the form of Asylum, Lilybell, Tetra, and Plenary that appreciate the weave window Glare offers versus the old way of having to clip Stone to use them. (WHM also has an Assize but that button has been a damage button ever since its CD timer was reduced from 60s to 45s.)

[Rithy255]

2.5 cast times were cool, removing it is just more homogenization that changes gameplay feel more then anything, it's fun when things have differences that are small on paper but actually feel meaningful

I think we should have white mage should go back to 2.5, obviously this isn't my full idea here, but I think what i liked about SHB white mage is positioning felt very similar to Black mage, where you had to know when to use movement tools and stuff ect.

This is why I think movement tools should become more important of course with current designs and I would want to introduce more onto white mage, glare 5 being once every 2 minutes is kind of bad and you want to use it during raid buffs anyway, so perhaps a proc of sorts would work or a spell that is instant but costs a lot more mana.

I'd also want more dps options procs ect. on healers in addition to different cast times, so there could be a lot of creative ways to make healers feel different.

[Iedarus]

Kinda getting mixed messages between this and the rest of the post.


Again? Was this something they used to be able to do?

I'm just pointing out the benefits of both. Personally it would be nice to have SCH be a 2.5 second caster along with WHM to have a bit more variance between the four healers. Also I may have misremembered the fairy mechanic but it would still be an amazing QOL change if it happened.

[NobleWinter]

Fairy abilities were able to be triggered while casting other spells in ARR and Heavenward. We didn't have a weird oGCD that told our fairy to act back then. You could cast Ruin and tell the fairy to use Whispering Dawn and it happened when the fairy was done casting Embrace. It was a wonderful time even of the fairy had a lot more delay before each commanded action. It just ended up being a situation where you told the fairy to do things earlier. I would gladly go back cause the fairy felt alive as if it had to hear the command, get into position, finish what it was doing, and then start on your request.

[Exiled_Tonberry]

I don’t care for the 1.5s cast time, but honestly it proved too good on AST to not put on the other healers. In SB it was doing more DPS than every other healer just because of that change.

Do I think they could be more unique about it and make every healer handle mobility differently and still have comparable DPS power? Yes

Do I think they can achieve this? Hell no.

Have you seen healer balance? They all play the same and they STILL can’t get it right.

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

Fairy abilities were able to be triggered while casting other spells in ARR and Heavenward. We didn't have a weird oGCD that told our fairy to act back then. You could cast Ruin and tell the fairy to use Whispering Dawn and it happened when the fairy was done casting Embrace. It was a wonderful time even of the fairy had a lot more delay before each commanded action. It just ended up being a situation where you told the fairy to do things earlier. I would gladly go back cause the fairy felt alive as if it had to hear the command, get into position, finish what it was doing, and then start on your request.

Would like to confirm, this mechanic (using Faerie actions while hardcasting) stuck with us up to patch 4.58 Stormblood and was one of the most unique things to have, especially for Aetherpact management.

It was once again with Shadowbringers they axed the whole system, like they axed many great things about healer (and tank) toolkits. For as much as the expansion was great storywise, in retrospect it really was the beginning of the end for job design.

[Wildheaven182]

Most healers are actually fine with the 1.5 second cast time since being able to weave heals at a moment's notice without eating a damage loss makes sense for the role.

We don't play healer to dps. Even Yoshi-p (praise be to his name) says if you want to do a dps rotation, that's what dps is for. Why should we care about Glare uptime?
The 1.5 time isn't too big of a deal, it does lower the skill floor in a way that is actually probably good in terms of mobility and not unexpectedly dropping the tank from casting a dps spell right as every mitigation ability the tank used all at once wear off.

Though these are symptoms of the problems, not the problems themselves.
Mobility isn't the game's strong suit, so the universal dodge the aoe mechanic is inherently flawed because the game is immobile. Movement abilities are somewhat jank and only now being separated from doing damage so they can actually be used for mobility. Like Bard's jump back requiring you to be in close range, and the long cooldowns of mobility skills and most jobs dont have any for actual evasion. Pair this with ability creep, too many buttons to bind without a hundred dollar mouse. Unfortunately, dodge the aoe is sorta the default and only regular mechanic to the point where anything different feels like a gimmick. Also unfortunately, I don't think there's a lot that can be done about this as it's rooted in framework flaws and limitations from 1.0, but Square Enix's lack of creative development and inability to take risks doesn't help keep the game fresh.
At worst like in savage, it's just choreographed dancing. FFXIV is a puzzle game of working out the puzzle mechanics to determine where the safe place to stand is. And that's at level 80+. Before lvl 80 it's about as interesting as putting the square in the square hole.

We shouldn't *need* a 1.5 sec cast time on Glare because we should be gcd healing so often that healer damage is an afterthought. Second, we shouldn't need a 1.5 sec cast time because the game needs to explore and utilize mechanics and gameplay other than dont stand in bad. Sadly mana is not something that requires actually paying attention to anymore, and neither does aggro management.

Tanks would be more fun too if they weren't blue dps. Imagine if their main job was to keep enemies from attacking others, and you had to do more than walk up to the enemies first? Physically wall the enemies off, knock them back, slow them, stun them, taunt them, pull them back to you, ninja smokescreen, old shroud of saints.

Things other than pressing one button 90% of the time. But that would require creativity.