#FFXIVHEALERSTRIKE

[ForsakenRoe]

I've been trying to imagine this every which way and I still can't really find any significant appeal to building so much around Aetherblight, specifically, when I imagine it out relative to other options that would likely be mostly mutually exclusive with it.

The main issue with trying to increase healing requirements, is that we have an upper cap on how much damage an attack against us can do: our Max HP level. Aetherblight application doesn't do 'actual damage', and so it removes the constraint the devs have, of 'this attack can only do damage up to, but not exceeding, the player's Max HP (or a bit more, once you factor in mitigation)'. You could have an attack do 5x your entire HP bar (yes this is an extreme example), and as long as that 'damage' is Aetherblight rather than real HP damage, it can work because Esuna clears it all instantly. Or perhaps you can apply a barrier and negate its application, making the OGCD ST barriers (Benison, Intersection) a lot more useful for Tankbusters

Part of the idea of 'it can be removed with Esuna' is, as you surmise, to make Esuna a more relevant aspect of our gameplay. But it also offers ways for those players who panic, or who haven't got the resources to handle the healing required, to still resolve the mechanic. I acknowledge that '5x your HP bar' is a hyperbolic amount for the purpose of explaining 'decoupling maximum damage possible vs max HP of player', but imagine a lower amount, like say, 40k out of our 160k HP pool. Say that amount applies to all 8 players in a raid, it's probably not worth it to Esuna all 8 individually, so you'd heal through it. Conversely, if you have only two players affected for a larger amount like 100k (say, a tankbuster), maybe one cast of Esuna from each healer is better to use. But if you DO have tools available to you (eg you're a WHM and have Benediction ready), maybe what originally looked like 'I'll have to Esuna this', isn't quite as set in stone as first thought.

It has to be remembered though, that our goal is to reduce how many GCDs we spend on not-damage, to be as close to zero as possible. Casting Esuna constantly like that is going to result in a lot of 'wasted GCDs', and I'd expect that getting a feel for 'when to heal through the effect' vs 'when to Esuna it' would become an aspect of the 'mastery of the role'. Like how we learn a fight, and learn 'I can swap this Succor out for another Broil, and make the mit check by using XYZ CDs here in place of the Succor', this would be 'I can heal through this one with XYZ CDs, so I don't have to Esuna these 3 people'

It even opens design space for certain abilities to interact with Aetherblight in special ways. Benediction is an obvious one to have 'instantly removes all Aetherblight', but you could have things like AST's Essential Dignity say something like 'If the target is afflicted with Aetherblight, they are considered to be below 30% HP regardless of their current HP value', so that ED's scaling is always set to maximum effect to tackle the debuff faster. Maybe SGE's Kardia healing is twice as strong against Aetherblight, because of their medical knowledge. Maybe Emergency Tactics on SCH makes healing spells be a guaranteed Crit when they're used against Aetherblight, or Excogitation instantly detonates on someone if/when they receive Aetherblight. Maybe Macrocosmos could consider the application of Aetherblight to be 'damage', such that being afflicted with 200k of it (hyperbolic example again) means Macrocosmos would remove 100k instantly, etc. Hell, you could even have 'negative interactions' for abilities, like maybe DRK has some skills that self-apply Aetherblight, but they can prevent the application via TBN. Or maybe PLD's Cover applies all the damage (and I guess Aetherblight) that you Cover, as Aetherblight instead of real damage (so instead of taking a 150k TB twice for 300k and dying, you'd be able to take it and get 150k damage, 150k Aetherblight and live), increasing Cover's versatility, and being able to take someone else's Aetherblight onto yourself as a PLD (with the selfhealing of Confiteor combo/HolySpirit/Holy Sheltron) could open up interesting strategies for some groups.

Basically, I think it could result in a lot of potential design space being opened up for the devs to explore, as they seem to be struggling to find things to add to the healers that aren't just 'another HPS dump action' or 'another mitigation tool on a long CD'. I don't think AB is the only solution per se, but I don't think that reducing incoming damage and outgoing healing at the same time would be a good alternative, especially as it'd require taking a hammer to things like Shake it Off, or Nascent Flash's offhealing capabilities for such a change to have enough of an effect. I expect it'd just be perceived as a nerf. Rather than reducing how much sheer HPS we can throw out via something like Medica 3 (1175 total potency now) Seraphism (with ET, Accession heals for 672p per GCD, so more than a Cure3 for 60% the MP cost), or the Overheal Plant (2000p, if all 5 stacks are consumed via damage instances), I think it'd be better to play into it, and have systems that make use of that incredibly high HPS, and interactions within the kit, so that we feel powerful in what we do, but also that power is challenged by the content, rather than reducing our power, and the challenge the content presents, in order to avoid having to make a new system