Spell request for Scholar [Dev]

[Ghishlain]

In that case, make Summon cross classable <- I hope you realise the problem with this.

Also: A raid group taking white mage only for proshell? Are you for real?

I am for real~ I swear, I'm not Akiza =p

You don't take a WHM only for Proshell, that was a strong and intentional hyperbole on my part just to invoke a reaction. As a healer main who plays both classes, I understand what the WHM tool kit brings to any raid and want to slap at SCH fanboy who thinks otherwise.

With that being said, I want to see Proshell being cross classed for class balancing come 3.0, and here's my rational behind it:

2.4-2.5 Raiding Meta
There are two healing slots, and two healers. WHM/SCH is the ideal combination for several reasons. (1) Their spells and abilities have high synergy. One handles raid heals, other can do single target heal. One has raw heals, the other has mitigation tools. etc etc. (2) You want to avoid stacking any singular class due the restrictions if has on limit break [this is a bit weaker reason, but valid]. Because you'll always wants WHM/SCH, the idea of "not having a WHM" will never dawn because of how the current raid meta is. Therefore, Proshell will always be readily available for any end game raid outside of a select niche of compositions.

Potential 3.0 Raid Meta
We have now introduced AST to the mix. There are now THREE healer choices for TWO raid slots. My assumptions on the 3.0 raid meta is based on current Final Coil meta (up to Turn 12) and the current skill sets of WHM and SCH, and knowing nothing about AST. The goal is to balance all three healing classes so they can be chosen for any scenario of raiding.

If neither SCH nor AST brings a 30min Shell-like buff to the party that stacks with Protect, WHM will be a favoured staple for any progressing raid because it effectively adds more eHP to the raid via higher mitigation.

I feel my rational for wanting Proshell as a true crossclass is quite justified.

Let's look at Final Coil
Heat Lightning, Cyclonic Torrent, Nerve Cloud, Flames of Rebirth, Flames of Unforgiveness, I imagine the explosion on Brand swap, are all magical in nature. There's no way SCH currently has the tools to provide a MDEF buff to every single instance an attack comes out. AST might, but I'm going under the assumption they cannot until we see otherwise. WHM provides a direct and free mitigation bonus to these attacks in the form of Proshell. Alternatively, this means more eHP.

Now, having not done T13 yet, I hear T13 is a HUUUUUUUUUGE HP check. What happens if you can't stack more HP? Then you add mitigation tools. Proshell provides, once again, a free mitigation tool that is applied once at the beginning of the fight and left there to do its business for the duration of the fight. This in turn provides a eHP boost to your party at no cost to the healer in the middle of the fight.

A healer's job is to prevent death and make sure the others can keep doing what they do best - smashing the baddie into the ground. Tell me, would you forgo a pseudo-permanent defensive shield for your raid, while you're progressing? If the HP checks remain the same as they are now, you'll want to stack as much HP / eHP abilities as possible to survive those checks. If 3.0 raids follow this trend, it'll be important for progression groups to level as many bonuses as they can for their group and Proshell will remain invaluable for that in the grand scheme of things.

This is why I feel it's important for Proshell to be distributed to ALL classes - to encourage healer balance. Without it, I feel raid groups will lean towards a WHM + other healer composition because Proshell is a free mitigation tool, which is the icing on the WHM toolkit cake.

Again, this wall of text assumes nothing about the AST abilities and takes assumptions on the current FCoB meta. My thought process may very well change once we see the 3.0 spell and ability list for all healers released.

[EDIT]
P.S. I enjoyed watching your banter with Akiza on the DPS forums, lol. Someone does have to do it eventually >.>;

[Risvertasashi]

As a more practical consideration, I've yet to ever see a trait become cross-classable.

I'd accept giving up proshell exclusivity in return for SCH-equivalent E4E and Virus+Fever, but realistically? No, I don't think they're going to cross class it. Far more likely is AST will have mitigation in some form. SCH, being a job all about mitigation, it's hard to not see that toolkit getting further added to. But proshell cross class? Extremely unlikely, from my standpoint anyway. And... don't forget SE is moving away from the class system.

[Lyrica_Ashtine]

Well, your assumptions may be correct. But on the contrary it may not be correct. Simply for the fact we know nothing what's coming in 3.0 and whether it'll follow the same rhythm or not. It can go both ways really

Pattern indicating that White Mage will always have a spot
If you'd look at past raid content, starting from BCoB to FCoB you'll notice a certain trend that there's more and more AoE healing necessary. With BCoB inexperienced White Mages struggle handling the healing game for Turn 5. It's easily to work around the infirmity debuff if you know how. But it's quite a hindrance for those who are progressing through the content. It's been mentioned before in another topic that double scholars were "a thing" a while back for Turn 5 - or BCoB in general. I admittedly have done that too for Turn 5, simply because it was easier to deal with while being undergeared.

With the introduction of SCoB, the need for White Mages became more apparent. Turn 6 and 8 had significantly more AoE healing required than in BCoB. While progressing you needed every single bit of mitigation for Turn 9 Gigaflare transition.

Now that we're at FCoB, the presence of a white mage is highly desired. Most of the players are still progressing in it.

I mentioned progression a lot. Once the entire party is overgeared anything is solo-healable. Remember the 3-healer meta for Titan hard mode?

Pattern indication that White Mages may not have a spot
One word: Balance. Square-Enix has been tuning classes here and there so any content can be done with any party setup. If a third healer is to be introduced, it should be possible to clear content with any combination of the three. Be it astrologian + scholar, scholar + white mage or white mage + astrologian.

There's also another thing whether they're keeping the armory system or not in 3.0. The new jobs don't have a base class, after all. An indication of base classes being abolished, perhaps? I have no idea!

But don't forget though: The reason why raid parties bring in a White Mage and Scholar combo isn't solely for building limit breaks or for the mind bonus. It's simply because a White Mage is potentially a better main healer and scholar a potentially better supportive healer. If we were to bring two of the same classes who are both a main healer or supportive healer, this will lead to:
1: A shitton of overhealing (white mage + white mage)
2: Really awkward healing game and a lot of stack burns on lustrate because both healers are in Cleric's stance (scholar + scholar)

Simply due to the clash of healing roles in mind and assumption. I think it's safe to assume that this "theory", about main- and supportive healers, will stay even after Astrologian is introduced. After all: Astrologian may have more DPS/buffing potential than Scholars, which pushes scholars towards the main healer role and Scholars taking over the supportive role if they're paired up. Or Astrologians may have a toolkit more suitable for main healing. Who knows, it's really what the playerbase makes out of it.

Fun fact: In Final Fantasy XI Samurai and Ninja were introduced simultaneously. Samurai was designed as a tanking class and Ninja as a DPS class. Interestingly enough the playerbase flipped it around and made the Samurai the DPS class and Ninja the tank class. Astrologian may even be used as a tank in 3.0! (although unlikely)

[Risvertasashi]

There's also another thing whether they're keeping the armory system or not in 3.0. The new jobs don't have a base class, after all. An indication of base classes being abolished, perhaps? I have no idea!

Just to quickly add... So the class system was basically grandfathered in from 1.x. In early 1.x, there were no jobs. They were later added, with increased specialization in a role for the benefit of a party but at the cost of solo capability/versatility that classes had.

This was grandfathered into 2.0. A bit unnecessary since each job can solo just fine. Moreover, the devs in interviews have expressed malcontent with it, especially the way it worked out for ACN->SMN/SCH, for example. With the absence of new classes and the ability to play jobs from level 1 in Heavensward, I think it's safe to say their direction is to move away from classes.

Don't mistake this for the armory system, however. That is, by all indications, here to stay and not practical to remove.

[Ghishlain]

Indeed, everything being discussed is upon pure conjecture and speculation. I particularly enjoy this because its fun to speculate without going overboard *glares at other parts of the forum* It'll be fun to see how AST fits into the grand scheme of things once 3.0 is released and I'll definitely be leveling it after I get WHM + SCH to 60.

To answer the comment about proshell trait being cross classed, the easiest solution is remove the trait from proshell, make protect into proshell, and find something else to trait on CNJ (maybe something to enhance Stone II =D ). I can see that working if they go with what I suggested.

I personally don't expect the cross class system to be removes at this juncture. While the new jobs are jobs, I feel they will follow current hierarchy of having two sub jobs they can draw abilities from, one every ten levels. I can see a complication in the future where they will need to reevaluate which jobs can draw from other jobs as the job pool becomes more diverse.

Funny XI was brought up as I am familiar with that story. I was a WHM only in XI but there was so much you could on WHM that it was a blast. Finding things outside the box for XI was thrilling and exhilarating. I particular enjoyed finding as many things to solo as possible on WHM. Shame the rigidness of XIV prevents that to a degree.

[EDIT] Also, I apologize that my initial comment about Proshell was ambiguous, I was writing from my phone and wanted to keep the dialogue short and curt. Didn't mean to offend anyone, lol.

[Risvertasashi]

Well, nothing's impossible, but I think it's a lot more likely (with the expansion/level cap increase) they'll add something new instead of making one of WHM's signature things cross class. I'll also fall back on the argument that SCHs have tons of magic attack mitigation already... 30%, then add in Fever and adlo/succor. It just seems unlikely they'll buff* an area where SCH is already so strong.

*Above and beyond whatever new toys SCH is getting in the expansion, anyway.

And... I don't really have anywhere else to go with my viewpoint so I'll probably stop here unless something new comes up.

edit (Also, I was referring to XIV 1.0, not XI...)

[Lyrica_Ashtine]

Well, I suppose I should have called it "job system" rather than "Armoury". Armoury features the equiping a weapon = become a class thing after all.

There's also a thing about cross classing. With the level cap increased by 10 levels, that means we get 2 more cross class skills to pick from. At one point the additional slots are going to be either OP or useless. Just an assumption, but I do believe additional cross class skills will just be there "because it's there".

Let's take Black Mage for example. 5 slots and they get to pick from: Ruin, Physick, Virus, Eye for an Eye, Raging Strikes, Hawk's Eye, Quelling Strikes.
The three new classes are Astrologian (healer), Machinist (ranged physical DPS) and Dark Knight (tank). The main reason Black Mages get to cross class abilities from Archer is because you have to level archer in order to become a Black Mage - Which may also change upon arrival of new classes, however. Unless they get to get abilities from Astrologian or Machinist, Black Mages won't get anything new to fill those two slots with. If this is the case: What else are they supposed to cross class? Ruin? (lol)

Of course with the level cap increased by 10 also means a mix of 5 new abilities, spells or traits. Additionally 2 more abilities from the job quests. That is, if we keep getting new ones every 5 levels like now. All together, that's at least 4 abilities and a mix of 5 abilities, spells and traits.

That's pretty much the whole reason why I'm suspecting they're going to change the system. But it comes down to mere suspicions and they may just very well break off from the pattern as we know now. We'll know when 3.0 hits :P

edit: I suppose having 5 more abilities/spells/traits also means potential cross class stuff too. But the nothing-to-cross-class-so-I'll-cross-class-ruin! still stands x)

[Ghishlain]

In terms of Armory adjustments / cross-classes, I'm personally expecting them to eventually re-work which jobs each class/job will be able to grab abilities from or even add a third job they can pool abilities from eventually so the old classes/jobs can get abilities from new jobs.