Healing is going to become a secondary role to dps

[Selvokaz]

Let's just be honest healing isn't what it used to be, it's not as necessary in a decent group, and almost every class has some way to mitigate damage or can more easily avoid damage than some others. Going forward (cause I tried to explain it in another thread but people couldn't see past pretty pictures) that healer will either go more caster with fewer healing options, or more of a support tank role, with the latter being something akin to a ranged tank who holds the 2nd highest enmity and durability in a 4 man group making them the obvious all-rounder when the tank drops for whatever reason. If they go the caster route more non-offensive skills will be condensed down or out right removed from the game.

Example, look at White Mage, it starts off as an elemental mage using water, earth, and wind, the holy aspect doesn't come in until after you unlock the job and do a certain job quest that's supposed to teach you its first holy attack, Holy if I recall correctly, however eventually Stone becomes Glare a single target holy attack or white light attack, if you count the number of traits between each healing job you can visually see the oldest to newest jobs, with newer ones having far fewer traits, so basically White mage SHOULD eventually just remove the progressing Stone Traits (4 of them, and just have Glare right out of the gate, with us eventually getting Glare 2 which never existed from what we can see, and Holy 2 which also never existed, then the already implemented Glare 3 and Holy 3.,

What would White Mage/Conjurer be after such a rework, while trying to keep to its original lore story, the aspect of what a conjurer and white mage is, would and should probably just change into the caster who uses the life energy of the world (not a focus on elements in the sense of water, stone, wind etc etc) but rather life energy of all things especially those living within the 12's wood, and eventually the entire world, hence holy and glare are just all-encompassing magicks that rep Life, both as a offensive form of magic as well as a defensive form of magic. Many people have said we don't need to have so many cure buttons, 3 GCD heals and maybe 3 OGCD heals should be more than enough if all have respectable recast times. So what else should the white mage and by extension the other healers have in the place of all those no longer needed heals, simply put skills that are unique to their class/job.


1.) White Mage the essential Caster Healer, besides their healing spells, they should feel like the pure casters of the healing group, as its in their name White "MAGE" they are the real spellcasters of the group of healing jobs, they should thus have spells that cover the gauntlet of things Black "Mage" doesn't do, Reducing Damage to party members with things like Protect and Shell which should reduce Physical and Magical attacks respectively, so what if the other healers don't get those spells, they should have their own unique abilities that offer support in other ways, a few status effect spells like Sleep or Repose in this make sense as well again they are the casters, I can easily see Repose being a OGCD and Sleep being the AOE version that is a GCD, that's 4 spells new spells that are White Mage exclusive (Sleep being shared with Black Mage and the other dps mages I guess) Misery should just be a OGCD, no need to make it more complicated, one thing all the healers should share is a string of OGCD offensive spells, a AOE one, a Single Target one, and one that applies a status effect as well as a 2nd DOT, in this sense Repose would be the status effect / 2nd DoT think of it as a holy DOT with a sleep effect. They could keep everything else, in White mage and flesh it out with more actual spells

[Selvokaz]

2.) Scholar Okay it has been a while since I played Scholar, but honestly, a full rework of the class does seem in order, let's kill the Pet Fairy altogether, I was never a big fan of it once it stopped being the primary healing mechanic in the job and we were expected to be the real healer instead of directing it to heal more.

I don't particularly see why they are transforming into angels, but whatever, what I would have done and think they should go back to is the battle strategist approach, combining elements of the Mathematician to the jobs overall Academic Scholars feel, using "Equations" in the place of Spells to create their various effects and let's not beat around the bush they will have offensive Attacks, Equations that produce mental attacks (magic damage) As for the healing aspect of it, just remove what the Fairy did and rebrand the abilities and give them directly to the Scholar naming them after military medical jargon that those who know will recognize or not, so it feels like it ties back to its Marine Job story, the job can keep everything else it has, broil ruin, and all that and add like I mentioned a few new Equations or Solutions that fill in the void of what other unique job skills does it offer, My suggestion is that Equations are Attacks, and Solutions are beneficial party heals and buffs, Solution 1 could be a party wide vit buff that increases Vit and all the benefits therein, Solution 2 could effect the MDef stat, Solution 3 the PhyDEf stat, while the Equations could reduce the damage of Enemies, with Equation one being an attack that does damage and reduces the enemies physical damage, and Equation 2 doing the same but against magic attacks, etc etc.

[Selvokaz]

AST oh boy, i want more time to think about this one, but by the gods above, just make it a damn card-based fortune teller job and be done with it, I get the whole Astrology concept being in the name but the design aspect doesn't really work since either aspect could be its entirely own job. So what I would do is just be more focused. Cards = Attacks, Astrology readings = Healing. drop all these world-specific card names BS like Ewer, Spire, Arrow, Balance, etc etc, these new cards the 6 of them would be like how GNB has combinations, you just rotate through the 6 cards each dealing unaspected damage with a rider negative effect on the enemy, these are all single targets, you can just rapid fire them off if you want but the recast time on each card is like 10 seconds, so it takes a full 60 seconds to get back all cards, each card has its own effect on the hit enemy, ranging from stats downs like attack, and defense, (I'm assuming enemies don't have str, dex and so on), hp down (or just really big damage when used against boss monsters Death Card?), slow, a DoT, and a 6th one that is yet to be determined. Get rid of Gravity and Malefic don't fit the theme of the job anyway, replace both with Minor and Major Arcana with minor being the replacement of Malefic, and Major being the replacement for Gravity, style the graphics of the attacks to rep both and done with that aspect of the job, you now have 6 OGCD attacks plus 1 dot potentially 2, and a GCD ST attack and AOE attack, that's 9 attack buttons on a healer, though 6 of them are regulated to 1 button that can be rapid fired. The Astrology aspect could stay and like i said be regulated to the healing spells, call them Readings, or use Star names you only need a few of them, but i feel this party of the job is already in place i don't really have an issue with the healing side of AST.

[Selvokaz]

I don't feel i like Sage enough as a concept as it is to really commit on it, I just think with the name "SAGE" and the whole back story of it being kind of like mastery of both Black, Summoning, and White Magic, they should have done something akin to what was done in previous games, and made it the healer version of Red Mage, in that it outright has White Magic Spells, and Black Magic Spells and has a offensive aid/pet, it would have fallen more inline with Alphinaud's Opal Carbuncle, he could still being healing but if he decided to attack he'd be attacking, basically what red mage does but with a better focus on healing and still fit into the Healer Role category, i could see this making this job more popular as it would obviously being out performing the other healers as a DPS but to balance it it would cost more for them to do offensive spells like how it cost Red mage more to do healing and raise spells. So they could DPS burst big but they'd run out of magic and thus run the risk of not being able to use emergency heals should they not have any OGCD heals available.

[IDontPetLalas]

Well, this is interesting, I have a couple of suggestions. (1) Why not separate each pots into into it's own thread? It will be difficult otherwise to manage any feedback - however- that's up to you. (2) Regarding feedback- personally I don't see a need to rename skills , I don't see a need to remove some specific skills because they 'don't fit the theme" - examples are Gravity and Malefic, if I understood you correctly they would instead be tied to cards with a ten second recast (???). I hope I misunderstood that. I also thing that this is a possible approach "all the healers should share is a string of OGCD offensive spells, a AOE one, a Single Target one, and one that applies a status effect as well as a 2nd DOT,", in other words I would say that all healers should have additional offensive options, do all need a 2nd dot? Not necessarily.

Finally- I wouldn't "kill the Pet Fairy altogether" for SCH. That's my personal feeling, I do recall when we interacted with it differently - as well when it had even more issues.

[Selvokaz]

Well, this is interesting, I have a couple of suggestions. (1) Why not separate each pots into into it's own thread? It will be difficult otherwise to manage any feedback - however- that's up to you. (2) Regarding feedback- personally I don't see a need to rename skills , I don't see a need to remove some specific skills because they 'don't fit the theme" - examples are Gravity and Malefic, if I understood you correctly they would instead be tied to cards with a ten second recast (???). I hope I misunderstood that. I also thing that this is a possible approach "all the healers should share is a string of OGCD offensive spells, a AOE one, a Single Target one, and one that applies a status effect as well as a 2nd DOT,", in other words I would say that all healers should have additional offensive options, do all need a 2nd dot? Not necessarily.

Finally- I wouldn't "kill the Pet Fairy altogether" for SCH. That's my personal feeling, I do recall when we interacted with it differently - as well when it had even more issues.

No Malefic and Gravity would become Major and Minor Arcana respectively, Major being the Aoe and Minor being the Single Target, and they would otherwise work as normal, not a part of the 6 card rapid fire OGCD ability, they those two are GCD abilities usable at well as they are now and the renaming or rebranding of those skills is just to distinctly keep things neat, and tidy, Arcana/Cards are all attacks within the AST job, and all things related to the Stars are healing based abilities. Gravity and Malefic don't necessarily fall into those categories and hence the name change.

[Tunda]

I am always saying that healing shouldn't 100% healer fault..

Healer isn't a potion

Healer is a M A G E

50% healing 50% damage

[Selvokaz]

I hope Yoshi-P is serious about making the jobs more distinct going forward. That was the true aim of this thread. Something will always be shared between roles, but everything else about the jobs should feel distinctly different. Even if it means some jobs feel more meta than others, the difference should be minimal at best in regards to meta. For example, you might look at the rapid-fire Card throwing ogcd and think that feels like high dps, but it's also an MP-restoring mechanic for the AST, so it's not something they can solely rely on.

[Mihka]

ahem

Always Has Been

That aside, I don't really have the time to fully read and fairly respond to everything, but I appreciate people who put thought into their posts and this looks like it took a decent bit of thought, so I hope this gets a little more discussion on it. I did read through the Scholar part as that's the bit I care most about. Unfortunately it doesn't feel like you really suggested much tangible when you boil it down. I do not think Square ever want to go back to abilities primarily defending against physical or magical damage as a major design choice for any jobs, and tbh I don't think most encounters are really designed around it either, especially with them making Addle and Feint now half-useful against the incorrect damage type.

[Kimmay]

Get rid of Gravity and Malefic don't fit the theme of the job anyway,

The fact that you say this means that you don't know much about astrology, at all. Malefic is the opposite of Benefic, which is why one is a heal and the other an attack. Literally every ability Ast uses has a meaning in Astrology or Astronomy. Gravity is, as per the game's lore, is literally supposed to be a karma attack. Forcing thr target to feel the "weight" of all the harm they've caused. And surely you know the importance of gravity in Astronomy.