FFXIV Healer Strike and the 'How would you fix it?' line

[Iedarus]

Looking at this again, the only change I'd make is how Strategy: Offense is used. As it stands now, it feels like you would simply swap to offense, unload your dots then drop offense. I would add a slight potency increase to Broil, Ruin II and AoW as well just as an added little minigame of how long you can stay in offense before you have to switch.

[ForsakenRoe]

Looking at this again, the only change I'd make is how Strategy: Offense is used. As it stands now, it feels like you would simply swap to offense, unload your dots then drop offense. I would add a slight potency increase to Broil, Ruin II and AoW as well just as an added little minigame of how long you can stay in offense before you have to switch.

I could write a whole load of text about my decisionmaking re: Strategies, but the tl;dr is 'it is purposely kept to only the DOTs, because if it affected Broil/AOW players who don't want to interact with the system (and would prefer to simply stay in Defense for a more 'stress-free' gameplay experience) would feel like they're 'forced' to interact with the system and they don't want that kind of complexity forced upon them'. You can see Striker earlier in this thread make reference to how he does not want to play with any stance-dance gameplay because he remembers how jank Cleric Stance was. I can't exactly say anything to convince him that these stances would be 'less jank', but the point is, even with Offense affecting only the DOTs, he felt that he would be 'forced' to interact with the Strategies. Adding Broil/AOW to the list would only compound that, and turn more players off from such a system. And that's... kinda the exact opposite of the goal I had in mind (that is, design healer kits that are welcoming to newer players, but also have depth for veterans to explore).

Consider Strategy: Offense less of a 'you want to stay in this as much as possible' and more something akin to... a Recitation for your DOTs, albeit much weaker and with no CD. Where you're thinking of 'camp in Offense, swap to Defense/Emergency to heal, then back to Offense', I intend for the exact opposite. You'd stay in Emergency/Defense for quite a lot of the fight, swapping to Offense only to refresh the DOT before swapping back. You ARE a Healer after all, so I'd argue that it makes a lot more sense to mostly be staying in a Healing-related Strategy for the majority of the fight (to react to sudden healing requirements faster), no? Plus, there's plenty of Strategy-Swapping optimization possible even without having Offense bound to your bars, as IIRC I didn't actually say that the barrier from Selene's Embrace was exclusive with Galvanize, did I? So, theoretically, you could be swapping between Defense and Emergency, just to balance 'healing via Embrace' with 'have fairy set up fairy-barriers on each of the 8 raid members in time for the next raidwide'. Just that alone would add optimization to the job I think. Do you let the fairy's barriers handle the damage, or do you need to top it up with a Galvanise of your own? And if so, where does it come from, a GCD like Succor, or Deploying a Defense-Excogitation? Or what about Defense-Indom? Do you need the Galvanise at all, or would a Deployed Protraction be enough? So many choices, so many ways to handle the situation

Sorry if this doesn't read well, very tired

[Iedarus]

Snip

That makes a lot of sense. I'd imagine with the 15 second duration of Shadowflare you'd be flipping back to it pretty frequently, anyway. I do like the examples you added and I hope that SE at least references this for 8.0.

[ForsakenRoe]

Something that could be considered is increasing the base potency of Shadowflare's cast from 120 to 170, and reducing the DOT from 40 to 30 per tick (so it's the same total damage). With this, it'd be 10p less than AOW to spam, but with Strategy: Offense, it'd be 10p more than AOW. And that'd allow for AOW to simply be replaced (or upgrade into via trait) with Shadowflare. The main reason I didn't do so in the original design post was because we'd simply swap from spamming one button (AOW) in AOE situations, to spamming another (Shadowflare) and I wanted to fix that a little. But also, the niche 2 target optimization opportunities AOW provides by being centered-on-self (eg P6 DSR) would be lost. Unless Shadowflare could target enemies OR allies, and simply centers the bubble on whoever is targeted, I suppose that could work, that way you'd retain the current AOW functionality by targeting yourself with it.

That makes a lot of sense. I'd imagine with the 15 second duration of Shadowflare you'd be flipping back to it pretty frequently, anyway. I do like the examples you added and I hope that SE at least references this for 8.0.

In total, per 2min cycle you'd have 4 Bio refreshes, 6 Miasma refreshes, and 8 Shadowflare refreshes, for a total of 18 GCDs out of 48 where you'd 'want' to be in Strategy: Offense. Some of these naturally line up with one another (eg every 2min window all three would want to be refreshed in sequence), so there'd be some situations where you'd want to 'stay' in Offense for more than a single GCD.

I would love if SE referenced any of this stuff for 8.0, they have full permission (as mentioned on each post). Even if they only take the DOT part (eg readding Miasma/Shadowflare, and having ED upgrade to Bane) that'd be a win in my book. It's funny, because the SCH is actually my 3rd 'favourite' of the four, if I could choose which one design SE implements (exactly as I envision), I'd have a hard time choosing between the WHM and SGE. I originally made the idea for WHM and did the other healers after seeing how I did with WHM, but the more I've worked on it, the more I've come to see what a missed opportunity Kardia is for SGE, and how much incredible potential it has to be a completely novel approach to how we heal in the game