Building a better healer post 1.18

[Tibian]

TLDR List:

1. Less aggro on cures
2. More direct active moves
3. Longer buff durations
4. Slight MP reduction on cures
5. Stats that matter (coming 1.19)

Building a better healer post 1.18 patch

Just a slight bit of background information on where I am coming from. I have primarily been a healer my entire MMO career which has spanned over several different MMO's over several years. I've played plenty of MMO's as a healer to know what works and what doesn't.

I waited until this long to post anything mainly because I was worried about how the impressions of the patch would affect balance issues with such direct changes. For instance, initially everyone was up in arms over the fact that SP was nerfed. The math states however that nearly every two resets someone who does a full set of 8 leves will gain a level, taking roughly 3-4 months to get to 50. I find that appropriate (if not a bit boring and stale currently due to the failure and monotony of levequests and transportation). I digress, however with sufficient time alloted to experiment and test out the dungeons and the new content and mechanics, I feel it is appropriate to fully write out and document how I feel a healer in XIV should play.

This thread will probably be incredibly thorough and if you don't have the time to read it, i put the TLDR version up that covers the highlights. I appreciate any feedback and discussion to help make healers more exciting and functional.

Finally, to give you a standpoint as to where I am as far as healing goes. I have a 50 Thaumaturge and a 38 Conjurer at the time of writing this post.

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Enmity and Aggro Generation

The 1.18 patch has ushered in a bit more tactical and strategic play for healing. I am glad that this change has come, but some things need to be tweaked. Cures now generate enormous amount of aggro and enmity. Too much in fact. I cannot help but feel slightly discouraged and reminisce about how terrible the FF XI healing system worked. 1 Cure should not pull aggro immediately at the start of any fight.
A simple answer to this would be to use stoneskin, find a better tank with more abilities, or rank down moves. I will discuss all three.

Stoneskin method: Stoneskin is really just a buffer for heals. Increasing the amount of damage absorbed by stoneskin is not an appropriate fix to fixing enmity. Not only would it imbalance mage solo play, but it would just become a fest of spamming stoneskin instead of heals by different mages. Thus, buffing stoneskin is not a good option and it should remain as it is now: simply a buffer for heals.

Finding a better/more competent tank: I appreciate this concept but it is not the best option either. If someone only has one rank 50 "tank job" available, they should be permitted to generate enough hate to at least keep hate at the start of the fight when cures go out. Currently I feel like this isn't possible and a better solution would be to once again, lower the amount of enmity generated on cures. I can find that in dire situations, I can pull myself from green to red in almost no time just with cures in only a few spell casts. Finally, finding a tank with say, two appropriate tanking jobs leveled will only create more of the same snobbish and masochistic requirements that Final Fantasy XI was famously known for. Its best to simply leave it to reducing the amount of hate on cures.

Aggro reducing abilities: I have both Silhouette and Elemental Shroud, unfortunately they seem to do nothing (like many of the other skills in the game). So unless these skills are made better to actually dump an entire color of aggro -- I probably won't be that impressed with them. With that being said, I am planning on more experimental time with them shortly in the future. These skills definitely need to dump more aggro though and would create an active move to use during each battle in addition to cures.

Rank down your cures! I appreciated the ranking down of abilities for MP and hate reduction in other games. Do I think it is appropriate in XIV? Yes and no. Here is why I have mixed feelings about this. Ranking down cures clearly creates strategic play; unfortunately not only does it take up valuable bar space but it also creates the same spell being used over and over again in the same fashion and it becomes nothing more than mindless spam -- similar to what we were trying to get away from pre 1.18. For the time being, ranking down cures is fine and I have continued to do it through this patch, but this needs to move toward and be eliminated via my next topic: more active abilities.

In summary for this section: the aggro and enmity generated simply needs to be reduced by all healer abilities. Not drastically, but a sufficiently small decrease (especially for the beginning of major battles) would go a long way.

Next topic: Active abilities! There need to be abilities that we can use that encourage diversity and uniqueness in different situations. Currently we really only have cure, stoneskin, and siphon MP. Yes we can remove status effects, but currently these situations are limited and even then due to the terrible range/aoe limitations of both conjurer and thaumaturge they don't work nearly as well as they should. We need more status enhancing effects that work 100% of the time. Absorb acc/def/atk/eva spells are not cutting it. Furthermore, the fact that these spells can be resisted at a high rate basically makes them completely useless and simply a mana drain that could be spent on other more important aspects of the battle. These are unique spells, but they need a lot of work to be functional. A cast is better spent doing damage, putting on a damage over time spell, or even a cure.

The Final Fantasy series has a gambit of wonderful spells that can be added and used in this situation. Here are a few spells that I'd like to highlight that would be wonderful additions.

• Faith
• Bravery
• Haste
• Regen (without sacrifice)
• Bubble
• Esuna (would be a much better option rather than separating curing debuffs into 3 or 4 different spells.)
• Mighty Guard
• White Wind (kind of works like Curaga now.. just figured I'd mention it)
• Refresh

In addition to these classic spells, (which are not limited to those simply mentioned above) you could create more spells that are a bit more functional. For instance a spell that could be cast directly on the tank to convert a % of damage of incoming hits to mana directly to the caster. Another spell could decrease all damage incoming by half for a very short duration of time with a large cooldown. Short duration spells (roughly 30 seconds to 1 minute) like this should be rather potent and used only for dynamic and situational purposes, however this should not be the case for protect and shell -- which goes into my next topic.

Longer buff durations

Increasing durations of certain buffs is something I've seen the dev team talk about back and forth on the forum comments. I'd just like to state that I know very few healers who enjoy spamming protect/shell every 4 minutes and 25 seconds. The duration needs to be increased to at least 25 minutes -- ideally an hour though.
These buffs are simply meant to be staples of the caster classes. Honestly, sometimes I don't even see them being used because the damage reduction isn't as significant as it probably should be. Furthermore, these spells don't even last for the full duration of some fights. They need to be increased in both duration and effect. I understand that the dev team wants "longer duration moves to be less effective" but the current level that protect and shell work (if they even work at all) is just slightly ridiculous.

MP Consumption:
I feel MP consumption is nearly where it should be. However -- I do feel it is slightly more expensive than it should be. As I mentioned earlier, ranking down heals isn't really an appropriate situation for XIV. Regardless, MP consumption for heals (sacrifice and cure) both need to be reduced by roughly 15-20%. This means that both rank 3 heals are roughly about 100 MP. 10-20% on paper may seem like a LOT, but in reality its only decreasing MP costs by roughly 15-30 MP.

Finally, my last section of improving and making a better healer is for stats.

Stats that matter on both gear, and in allotment:

I understand stats are going through revisions, so I am simply stating that the current stat allotment pools are not conducive to enhancing healing. I'll wait to comment on this in 1.19 when the stat revisions take place.

Thank you for taking the time to read, and I hope this helps create a better healer in the future for everyone to experience.

[Estellios]

I just want to point out that Stoneskin is a viable enmity tool at the start of a fight, since generally in the middle of a fight it's too long of a cast time to deal with. Damage absorbed by Stoneskin is damage you don't have to heal, and the time it takes for the enemy to break it down is more time for your tank to build enmity through damage and abilities, especially with Shock Spikes. A Roaming Soul'd Sacrifice before engaging is also useful for a similar reason.

[Tibian]

I just want to point out that Stoneskin is a viable enmity tool at the start of a fight, since generally in the middle of a fight it's too long of a cast time to deal with. Damage absorbed by Stoneskin is damage you don't have to heal, and the time it takes for the enemy to break it down is more time for your tank to build enmity through damage and abilities, especially with Shock Spikes. A Roaming Soul'd Sacrifice before engaging is also useful for a similar reason.

Correct, im not implying stoneskin isn't a good tactic to use at the start of the fight. Its a very useful spell

[Rhowan]

Bump, good read. Definitely should increase buff timers, 5 min protect/shell is pretty obnoxious with current content. Healer threat is still definitely an issue and this should be addressed immediately.

[Coildry]

I think I agree on everything.

[BruceyBruceyBangBang]

I believe Yoshida already said in one of his letters that they may have gone overboard on everything you pointed out. It would be great if they could say or feel they have got it right the first time, but they haven't and it's not something that is very unreasonable.

I think it's better to first release these extremes and adapt to them before they are balanced, personally. I know it is quite annoying to get used to at first, but it's really quite manageable as you marinate in this thick and bold new approach in MP and enmity management. I started to use abilities I kicked in the corner pre patch and started making Nerve Potions (-enmity) on my ALC to be an efficient main healer during dungeon runs. I quite like the new approach and while I do not totally agree with it 100% you cannot deny that it woke a bunch of players up and demanded they pay attention.

I'd say, along with you, that we should halt on further proficiency in healing when stats are revised. This would totally push healers in a new direction. Depending on how potent the new planned light allotment is, I'd assume.

[Tibian]

I think it's better to first release these extremes and adapt to them before they are balanced, personally. I know it is quite annoying to get used to at first, but it's really quite manageable as you marinate in this thick and bold new approach in MP and enmity management.

I agree which is why I waited a while to make this post. I didn't want to make any rash or hasty judgments since things change so drastically. I find most of the fixes welcome and are a good start to making a better healer.

I started to use abilities I kicked in the corner pre patch and started making Nerve Potions (-enmity) on my ALC to be an efficient main healer during dungeon runs. I quite like the new approach and while I do not totally agree with it 100% you cannot deny that it woke a bunch of players up and demanded they pay attention.

Using abilities from other classes is fine and should be supported. Supposedly the THM and CON moves drop hate -- unfortunately I don't think they do enough. After reading some more information where 1 hp = 1 hate from summer translation thread, I am going to guess that these moves drop hate equal to the amount of damage they produce... unfortunately that damage is like... 30. So definitely not appropriate or meaningful towards the entire fight. Furthermore, healers shouldn't be required to level up every other single class just to drop/manage hate. It needs to be functional with one class from the very start. I think the nerve potion is a great idea -- I haven't actually looked that much into consumables at this time but I am sure in the long run I will. I am glad you mentioned them I am all for using consumables during fights -- just don't want to get carried away.

I'd say, along with you, that we should halt on further proficiency in healing when stats are revised. This would totally push healers in a new direction. Depending on how potent the new planned light allotment is, I'd assume.

I'm not sure where you read this -- I just said I wouldn't comment on the stat portion of the factor until 1.19 since they are already changing it. I don't support halting proficiency at all. The current stat allocation is roughly equal to 1hp for every 2 mind. Thus my build gives me an extra 55 hp on heals. I don't hate this bonus, but I don't know if it is appropriate for the enmity generation build with 1 damage = 1 enmity. If that is the case I would assume (no real fact on this) that for healers the ratio is 1 HP healed = 1 hate generated. At any rate, I am just waiting to see what the 1.19 stat allocation bonuses will be for healing before I make any suggestions on it.

[Thalamant]

I've found myself hitting the button to put my weapon away in between casts just to get the tick of MP refresh while I queue up the next cure. While I do think the cures a bit too expensive, I've found this technique to really aid me with keeping my MP up. I imagine this will be moot in the coming weeks when they make it so we can cast without going into active mode, but I think its worth doing for now.

[Tibian]

I've found myself hitting the button to put my weapon away in between casts just to get the tick of MP refresh while I queue up the next cure. While I do think the cures a bit too expensive, I've found this technique to really aid me with keeping my MP up. I imagine this will be moot in the coming weeks when they make it so we can cast without going into active mode, but I think its worth doing for now.

I didn't mention this in the original post, but yes every healer should be doing this during the brief downtime that you get during the fights. It can also be used as hate management if other healers are available.

Its sort of a messy mechanic :S

[feint2021]

I didn't mention this in the original post, but yes every healer should be doing this during the brief downtime that you get during the fights. It can also be used as hate management if other healers are available.

Its sort of a messy mechanic :S

Have ethers helped?