Suggestion about Cleric Stance

[Mibgestalt]

Assisting killing something is not healing. Your role isn't "Support", your role is "Healer". Let's stop trying to give excuses for a game where you can put a HoT on your tank and DPS, because that'a NOT healing at all.

I mean... it's fine design when the content isn't designed around a gear level 40 higher than the minimum. I'm sure if you went into Neverreap or Fractal, or one of the new EX dungeons, or even Alex normal with a group at minimum item level you'd be able to heal all you like. But obviously healing gets less demanding as people get more and more geared. It's just that there's a limited amount of healing that can be done, whereas possible rate of DPS is basically infinite.

[RedHerb]

How about you go ahead and y'know... change to Summoner?

Healers should be required to heal. SQEX should increase the healing necessity on all instances. If you rolled a healer to deal damage, you're the one who should git gud.

I rolled a healer to support my party. Dropping DPS to make the tank or DDs job easier is what I call support.

Edit: It's what separates the okay healers that do what's required of them from the amazing healers that can go above an beyond thanks to knowing their skills set.

[Anova]

I am wondering if this is just a group of players who don't want to get penalized as much for not using cleric stance.

Keep in mind Cleric stance came out in patch 1.20, when conjurers could still equip Fire, thunder, and other 1.0 abilities that scaled off INT or other attributes. So the arguments that this was a relic feature are valid, but I think the benefit of switching between dps and healing is something unique and only possible in FFXIV's thoughtful and more measured pace. You certainly couldn't do this in a game like Wildstar or Secret World where the combat speed is a lot faster.

So this is a hypothetical scenario and I'd like people to weigh in their thoughts on it. Does it ruin the game, make the game better, or something else?

In the next patch, SE decides to make MND contribute to healer damage and healing. They do not remove cleric stance, but instead keep the +10% damage and -20% healing buff. The only difference is that it doesn't switch INT and MND any more. The DPS in cleric stance doesn't change; the CD, animation, and everything else is the same. The only effect is that healers deal more damage outside of cleric stance.

It is a bit of a compromise. The result is that healers who don't use CS aren't crippled in to doing no damage with it and can do their damage rotation between heals. More experienced healers however will probably want the damage boost, even if it costs healing power, especially if they're pushing content and meeting dps checks.

Is it babying casuals? Would it make healers who use CS any less effective? Would it make players feel better learning to use DPS spells and rotations first without cleric stance so they can learn when to put cleric stance on? Would it make players feel more comfortable healing in cleric stance if they weren't crippled with the MND penalty (as easy as popping an emergency divine seal, rouse, or synastry to offset the heal penalty when a healer messes up)?

[Ghishlain]

So this is a hypothetical scenario and I'd like people to weigh in their thoughts on it. Does it ruin the game, make the game better, or something else?

It certainly makes the game better in my mind. The game as a whole is quite slow paced compared to other MMOs. We, as healers, have high impact heals in a game where outgoing damage is relatively low short of a few instances of "ERRRRRM, WOT?". Being able to freely move between using these high impact heals to contributing a fair amount of DPS makes the game more interesting for me to play.

In the next patch, SE decides to make MND contribute to healer damage and healing. They do not remove cleric stance, but instead keep the +10% damage and -20% healing buff. The only difference is that it doesn't switch INT and MND any more. The DPS in cleric stance doesn't change; the CD, animation, and everything else is the same. The only effect is that healers deal more damage outside of cleric stance.

It is a bit of a compromise. The result is that healers who don't use CS aren't crippled in to doing no damage with it and can do their damage rotation between heals. More experienced healers however will probably want the damage boost, even if it costs healing power, especially if they're pushing content and meeting dps checks.

Is it babying casuals? Would it make healers who use CS any less effective? Would it make players feel better learning to use DPS spells and rotations first without cleric stance so they can learn when to put cleric stance on? Would it make players feel more comfortable healing in cleric stance if they weren't crippled with the MND penalty (as easy as popping an emergency divine seal, rouse, or synastry to offset the heal penalty when a healer messes up)?

I wouldn't say its babying. I think the players who are adamant about not DPSing will not DPS even if this change was enacted. It feels like they're just using Cleric Stance as a scapegoat to prevent wanting to DPS because of the "it's too difficult to stance dance" argument. If you remove the necessity to Cleric Stance, the difference is you get to heal GCD --> DPS GCD --> heal GCD --> DPS GCD instead of heal GCD --> DPS GCD --> DPS GCD --> heal GCD. There isn't a big difference in the actual timing but I guess one could argue there's a bit less thought behind it too.

Regardless, in this scenario you presented, if one single GCD is going to wreck your group (and that can be possible), prepare for the big blow. If not, go DPS. It's similar to the current thought of "if group is gonna get wrecked in two GCDs", then don't activate Clerics and be prepared. Else DPS away.

In general, I hope S-E continues to let us have the option with healer DPS. If S-E wanted to remove healer DPS from the game, they would've found a way to disable Cleric Stance for any serious group content by now. If they wanted to force healer DPS into the game, they could force the DPS check so high that you will need the healer DPS on the majority of content (Savage is its own beast in this respect, but I have my own opinions about that). Since S-E has done neither of these, they're basically encouraging the option to DPS, not "you must" or "you mustn't".

[Reinha]

Cleric stance locks you out of healing for 5 seconds. Using a damage skill locks you out for 2.5 seconds. The point of CS is to teach healers to anticipate the situation further than just one global cooldown, and that kind of evaluation skills will be beneficial in other aspects of healing too (anticipating the need for healing cd's for example). It pushes you to learn a basic healing skill/mentality before you can start working on optimizing your dps. The complexity CS adds is not in vain, and that's why I think CS, INT and MND should continue working the way they do for healers.

I understand it can feel scary or unnecessary for some to have to toggle CS all the time, but mastering it is going to make you a better healer in the end. There is another side to the matter as well. Is your team enabling you to stance dance comfortably by only taking predictable damage and by having enough HP? If not, they have some things to improve too. A healer's job is very dependent on the team members' performance. Spike damage and low gear should be everyone's concern, not just the healer's. I think those problems should be addressed in other ways than nerfing healer complexity.

[Supersun]

This seems pretty intentional on SE's part. In fact the removal of Cleric's Stance is unnecessary to remove the need for it to DPS, rather they would just have to release mage gear with both Mind and Int on it again. Yet, while gear used to have both Int and Mind on them now they only have one or the other so I can't help but feel they made this decision intentionally.

[F_Maximillian]

Stance dancing makes this game's healer much more dynamic than alot of other healers in games. Over the years I've always been a multiclasser so naturally I know my way around the general healing role as well and there's few that allow you the opportunity to do more than spam 1-1-1-1-2-1-3-1-1-4-1-1-1 for the duration of the fight without even looking because there is no opportunity or reason to do anything else.

The option to be a pure healing healer is still there albeit you will most likely get called out by a decent chunk of the populace for it. Stance dancing as others have said requires forethought, properly gauging how much damage the tank receives in a certain timeframe and how quickly you can switch back and proceed to heal. For some people the ability to do some reasonable damage in addition to healing (which is the reason most healers pick them up to begin with) is what drives them to improve as healers. I truly wish the game doesn't go back to the days where healers can set up a 1-1-1-1-2-1-3-1-1-4-1-1-1 macro and afk for the duration of a fight. If it isn't broken don't fix it.

[Eisenhower]

Make all healer attacks dependent on MND, not INT stat, removing the need to dance in and out of cleric.

This basically removes the need for MND/INT as a stat entirely (pick one, the end result is the same) as well as a big layer of decision making for healers. Going in and out of Cleric Stance is a good risk-reward mechanic that highlights the importance of preparation and foresight - a player takes on extra tasks, increasing performance at the cost of greater risk for party members.

Though it can be argued that the MND/INT split is inconsequential to begin with, that's another discussion entirely.

[416to305]

Cleric Stance is what makes playing as a healer tolerable especially in low level stuff. If you're not going to DPS, then you're going to stand around doing nothing half the time. Cleric keeps things in line and makes it less boring, forcing you to time everything perfectly to get that damage in quickly and drop CS.

[ChazNatlo]

Honestly, I'm terrified every time I go into a fight as a healer. Switching to do damage scares me even more. I keep running into fights where the Tank's Health just evaporates. Good lord how can I do damage when the tank can be dead at a moment's notice. I've got to keep track of my party health, my position, Debuffs, which buffs are needed at any moment, all while managing a stance that actively hinders my ability to do my job so I can add a little more damage?

I love it. The fear keeps me sharp. It makes me notice these things, and it makes me feel absolutely fantastic when it all works out, because of that keen awareness of how everything can go wrong. Removing that threat of screwing up and not being able to heal at the wrong time would be as alien to me as removing enemy AOE attacks for me to dodge. ((That is not to say it would be the same thing. Obviously they are different beasts all together))

Also I use Cleric Stance to organize my Scholar's Cross Hot Bars, changing between a DPS hotbar and a Healing hotbar to with a CS macro called "Cleric's Dance" so if I have CS up I'm in the former hotbar, and if I have it down, I'm in the latter. If we dropped it, I'd just be switching between them the old fashioned way. Which is boring. Personal qualm with the idea, but I feel it is relevant.