#FFXIVHEALERSTRIKE

[Connor]

Didn’t they say there was an ability cap on jobs? How are they going to add a bunch of dps skills that are enough to create a ‘damage rotation’ without also gutting the healing toolkit to make room for them? And if they do then who decides what we lose? Are healers gonna lose a bunch of oGCDs? Lose their gcd heals (most players would absolutely love that lol)?

Like assuming Scholar gets Miasma and a third DoT what do they replace? Protraction? Excogitation? Seraphism? Lustrate? Physick? Honestly I like Protraction but apparently you’re not a ‘real scholar’ if you don’t want it immediately deleted for another gcd dot lol.

[Supersnow845]

Didn’t they say there was an ability cap on jobs? How are they going to add a bunch of dps skills that are enough to create a ‘damage rotation’ without also gutting the healing toolkit to make room for them? And if they do then who decides what we lose? Are healers gonna lose a bunch of oGCDs? Lose their gcd heals (most players would absolutely love that lol)?

Like assuming Scholar gets Miasma and a third DoT what do they replace? Protraction? Excogitation? Seraphism? Lustrate? Physick? Honestly I like Protraction but apparently you’re not a ‘real scholar’ if you don’t want it immediately deleted for another gcd dot lol.

SCH has bloat that could go decently effectively

Fey blessing doesn’t need to exist in its current form, protraction could be baked into recitation as a “protraction ready” when you apply a skill that is buffed with recitation to a single player. Physick has long lost its single tiny niche case of why you’d ever use it over just using adlo, fey union could be slightly reworked to just put it back on the pet GCD alongside embrace and movement buttons so you can put it on the pet hotbar,

Getting a little more saucy whispering dawn and illumination could be a single button (not my favourite but others have suggested it). Aetherflow could either a) transform into a new DOT or damaging ability similar to baneful impact or otherwise combine it optionally with energy drain

That’s just a few suggestions, SCH’s buttons all have a decent purpose individually but there is definitely options where 2 seperate oGCD’s could just be one button

[LynxDubh]

Didn’t they say there was an ability cap on jobs? How are they going to add a bunch of dps skills that are enough to create a ‘damage rotation’ without also gutting the healing toolkit to make room for them? And if they do then who decides what we lose? Are healers gonna lose a bunch of oGCDs? Lose their gcd heals (most players would absolutely love that lol)?

Like assuming Scholar gets Miasma and a third DoT what do they replace? Protraction? Excogitation? Seraphism? Lustrate? Physick? Honestly I like Protraction but apparently you’re not a ‘real scholar’ if you don’t want it immediately deleted for another gcd dot lol.

To list off a few that could go from endgame spreads:

WHM - Cure I and Aquaveil can be absorbed into Cure II and Divine Benison respectively. Medica converting to Medica II or Cure III is one I've heard as well, but I'm iffy on that one personally.

SCH - See SuperSnow's post above. Also, they could Overwrite Summon Fey with Summon Seraph, it might be a pain for certain macros that let you change your summon glam, but it's an option.

AST - Benefic I, Horoscope, and Synastry (as much as I would personally hate it if this one was lost) could all safely go. And Celestial Opposition could be reworked if needed. I'd hope we'd get buff management back if we were to replace anything on AST though Like Time Dilation and Opposition's old effect.

SGE - Pepsis (the vestigial twin of Emergency Tactics). Other than that SGE is much better on buttons and would only need some tweeks like adding something to make Psyche more interesting.

[OliviaLugria]

Whm: Cure I -> Cure II -> Solace(option, if available). Medica I -> Medica II -> Medica III -> Rapture (optional, if available). Combine Aquaveil + Benison. Remove Plenary Indulgence. Remove Regen. Remove Cure III. Remove Thin Air.

I'm indulging a bit more with removing skills. But this does remove 9 buttons from whitemage. Pvp whitemage use to have regen effects on rapture and Solace so can put those back on to keep that part of the identity. Give targeting to medica series of spells and make them all upfront potency so Cure III's function isn't lost. Increase mp regained from assize to account for thin air loss. Indulgence could be baked into Asylum or Bell or just become a Trait, you're usally only healing once a minute anyways with this fight design.

[ForsakenRoe]

Didn’t they say there was an ability cap on jobs? How are they going to add a bunch of dps skills that are enough to create a ‘damage rotation’ without also gutting the healing toolkit to make room for them? And if they do then who decides what we lose? Are healers gonna lose a bunch of oGCDs? Lose their gcd heals (most players would absolutely love that lol)?

Like assuming Scholar gets Miasma and a third DoT what do they replace? Protraction? Excogitation? Seraphism? Lustrate? Physick? Honestly I like Protraction but apparently you’re not a ‘real scholar’ if you don’t want it immediately deleted for another gcd dot lol.

This point should be a valid point in theory, but it falls apart when we see SE give zero regard to it when it comes to adding new healing buttons. 'The hotbars are too bloated, there's no room for more damage buttons' we say, but SE still manages to give us Seraphism, or Psyche AND Philosophia. There are, as others have mentioned, ways to consolidate some of the less used actions to free up some room. The way I'd do it (shown in this thread yes I'm linking it again), sees the button additions as low as like, 2 or 3 new buttons. But this was written before DT, and the addition of more buttons to our kit (eg I didn't know SE was going to give us Aetherial Shift on WHM):

WHM: Cure1 upgrades to Cure2, Medica1 upgrades to Medica2/3. New action Water/Banish added as a damage button, and a Gauge spender healing move 'Blessing of the Elementals' added. Quake Flood and Tornado added, but replace Glare/Dia/Banish. So we're equal on buttons used. If there's enough room to add something more, I'd add a Lily spender that applies a barrier to the party (Graniteskin/Afflatus Sanctuary), and maybe a single target version (Stoneskin/Afflatus Bastion). At max, my WHM design adds 2 buttons, but it can be as low as '0 added buttons' if we take only the 'damage rotation' part

SCH: Physick upgrades to Adloquium. Emergency Tactics replaced by 'Strategy: Emergency', a 'stance' type action. 'Strategy: Defensive' replaces whichever Strategy is currently active. New actions would be ShadowFlare, Miasma(lysis) and 'Strategy: Offensive'. To save on hotbar space, Ruin 2 could become Miasmalysis, and/or Art of War could become Shadowflare while you're using Strategy: Offensive. Doing so could reduce the 'buttons added' to just one. Bane would also be readded to aid in spreading your DOTs, but as an upgrade to Energy Drain rather than a separate button. Also, having the Fairy summon itself automatically when you swap to the Job could be another 'saved' button, because why the heck would you want to be on SCH and *not* have Lily summoned?

AST: It's hard to say with AST now that they've done the 'card rework' for DT. The idea is the 'least solid' of the four now because of that IMO. At the very least, I'd have Benefic1 upgrade to Benefic2, Helios upgrade to Aspected Helios. Beyond that, Astral/Umbral Draw, Play1/2/3, would be replaced with 'Play Major Arcana, Play Minor Arcana, Redraw, Royal Road'. Drawing cards would be automatic, and a second card of each Arcana set would be stored if the timer 'overcaps'. Cards would be used more often, with a Major being drawn every 30s, and a Minor every 15s. Additionally, Royal Road would consume a Minor Arcana to buff the next played Major Arcana, rather than the HW/SB design of 'burning a Major to buff a Major'. With the removal of Astrodyne, this AST and DT AST would be equal on button count. If I could get one more button to use, I'd spend it on adding a GCD AOE barrier move, 'Aspected Selena', for parity with WHM's ability to apply barriers via Afflatus Sanctuary. Also, can we please do something with Synastry SE?

SGE: An overhaul to how we interact with Kardia, by reworking Krasis and Zoe to behave like Soteria, augmenting Kardia for 4 hits in various ways. Toxikon/Addersting would be reworked to be a 0-100 gauge, and Toxikon itself would be used to enter a 'Hypercharge/Enshroud' window of fast attacks (ending with Pneuma as the finisher). Pneuma's damage portion would replace Toxikon on the bars during this burst window, and the healing portion would be made a separate OGCD (with 900p since Zoe is reworked). For additional buttons, Pankardia would be added at a much lower level (Philosophia isn't it), and two new damage buttons, 'Neuralgia/Myasthenia' would be added. The 'burst window' would be to alternate these actions, Neuralgia and Myasthenia twice each, before finishing with Pneuma. If we need additional button space (I think SGE is quite empty as it is due to Eukrasia), Pepsis could be removed, but I'd prefer to rework that into something interesting if possible. Also, combine Druochole and Taurochole. Total buttons added would be 3, with potential to lower that by combining some actions

In an ideal world IMO, we could also look into ways to increase MP regen via our gameplay (eg the amount we get from Assize, Cards, Aetherflow etc, or having more 'free' casts in our rotation, or having less/no MP cost on filler damage spells (something I'd have on my SGE)), and/or our natural MP regen, and/or the effect Piety has on it, and that'd allow us to consider removing Lucid Dreaming from all of the healers too, saving another button.

What we need SE to do, designwise, is 'minmax' our added buttons. Minimise the amount of additional buttons, but maximise the potential 'effect on our gameplay' that each of those buttons has. The current healer kits are the perfect example of doing the exact opposite of this, IMO. Let's take SGE's additions in DT, and compare them to my asks of WHM (because the button count is the same, at 2). This will sound very egotistical, but bear with me.

Philosophia doesn't really change anything about how we heal. With a 3min CD, it's up so rarely that it's quite easy to just not use it. In the few instances where I do find myself using it (eg Enrage checks, Ion Cannon in M4S, etc), it's cool, but it doesn't change how I was handling that mechanic. If Ion Cannon existed in EW, or heck even in SHB, I would still do what I do now to deal with it. Philosophia is a 'win more' button IMO, where it just reinforces what you were already going to do to handle the mechanic (by increasing the healing of E.Prog by 150p effectively). Then, Psyche. Literally just 'press it on CD', no thought needed, 60s CD so it aligns with burst every time, etc.

By contrast, let's look at what I'm asking for WHM. At max level, Banish would be 370p with a 15s CD, compared to Glare3's 330p. This difference in potency is small enough that casting Glare instead of Banish is going to have zero effect on whether you clear or not. Additionally, because the 'average potency lost per GCD Banish is delayed' is about 6.6p, it allows for the player to purposely hold it, to use it for mobility, turning what would normally be a 330p loss for that 'mobility GCD' into a massive gain comparatively. I'd also change Dia to a 12s duration, such that A: it feels more 'bursty', B: it's used more often (so we have less Glare casts) and C: because it's used more often, that results in more instant-casts in the rotation (aids mobility).

Then, we look at the other button I'd add, Blessing of the Elementals. We add a 0-100 gauge, charged by casting non-Lily spells (healing GCDs charge it much faster). Glare is 1 point, Dia is 1 point each time it deals damage (both on cast and DOT for a total of 5 for its full duration), Banish is 5 points (because of the CD). Overall, this gives an estimated gauge gain of about 55 per minute, assuming you're casting zero 'bad' Healing GCDs. Spending 50 gauge on BOTE has two effects, A: it's a strong AOE healing action, and B: it grants a new gauge element, 'Elemental Petals'. When you have an Elemental Petal, the corresponding action on the hotbar (Glare/Dia/Banish) upgrades to Quake, Tornado, and Flood. The potencies of these Ultimate Elemental spells are balanced such that casting one of each is equal to 4 Glares, effectively making the gauge spender damage neutral. By adding a gauge gain rate to Holy, and making Quake/Flood/Tornado AOE, then we can also increase our 'dungeon trash button count' from one, all the way up to FIVE.

But wait, it gets better! We are all aware of how optimized WHM gameplay has us purposely 'waste' Lilies, so that we can put Misery into the 2min window, right? With this design, the same would be possible with Quake/Tornado/Flood. By wrangling the healing CD rotation correctly, a player would be able to turn their POM window into: POM, Flood, Tornado, Misery, Quake, Glare4, Flood, Tornado, Glare4, Glare4. And the best part is, the only hardcast in that entire window is the Quake, and it can be swapped with any of the Glare4s as needed! But at the same time, that 'optimization', of trying to put these actions in the raidbuff window, would be completely optional, just like how 'put Misery in raidbuffs' is completely optional right now. The difference in potency is so low that it would make no difference in hitting the enrage timer (if it would make/break the check, your party has bigger issues than 'healer didn't do the optimization thing'), and in parties that have few/no raidbuffs (eg VPR SAM MCH BLM) there's nothing to even line those 'refund' actions up with

And this by adding just two buttons to WHM. Two buttons, which can be made 'zero' by consolidating old trash buttons like Cure1 and Medica1 into their stronger counterparts (which we still want to avoid using, but not as much)

Also, in the designs I linked, I made a conscious effort to do something SE doesn't anymore: Make the early game feel like you're getting abilities at a good rate. For example, why does WHM need to get the Lily Gauge at 52? So I added Stoneskin at 30, as soon as you pick up the job. Temperance at 80? Give us Divine Seal, and the '20% increased Magic potency' effect, at 40. Give us a lower potency version of Misery, earlier on in levelling (I figure it'd make for a good level 60 capstone, with Tetra moved lower). Give us Protect as a 60s CD that lets us mit for the party (like AST can with the funny bubble), that upgrades to Plenary Indulgence later. Make the healers feel like they've got something to work with at level 50, rather than backloading so much of their kit

So yeh, whenever someone asks me 'where would we fit the new damage buttons???' I have to laugh a bit, because yeh, with SE's current design path there's not really much room. But that doesn't mean it's not possible with a different design route. We managed to have Bio, Miasma, Shadowflare, Miasma2, Broil AND Bane on Stormblood Scholar, and the game didn't explode. Clearly, something changed since then, and I'd hazard a guess that it's all the extra Healing actions that we don't need thrown at us. Like, I get it, we're 'healers', but can we at least have a better balance? WoW healers have to heal more often, have higher HPS demands placed on them, and they STILL get to have more damage buttons, alongside utility actions like interrupts, dispelling buffs from enemies, CCs like knockbacks/stuns/'incapacitates'