Possible alteration to Cleric Stance

[Rhode]

Current:

"Swaps current INT and MND attribute ratings, while increasing damage dealt by attack magic by 10% and reducing spell-based HP restoration by 20%. Effect ends upon reuse. Cannot be used in PvP areas."

Requested:

"Swaps current INT and MND attribute ratings, while increasing damage dealt by attack magic by 5%, reducing spell-based HP restoration by 25%, and greatly increasing accuracy. Effect ends upon reuse. Cannot be used in PvP areas."

Greatly could be about 200% (for now), and then 225%, then 250%, as item level increases.

Eg, base accuracy for White Mage that is i210 is 400. 400 x 200% = 800, which is more than enough for A8S I believe.

[Tanathya]

Don't reduce the damage dealt. Keep it at a 10%.

[Lambdafish]

Shield oath: increases chance to hit by 5%

You mean something like that? The only downside I can see is that it would promote bad healers who stay in cleric stance, but that isn't really a downside.

[AeraLure]

Why? It would negate the need to meld. A few ACC melds and you can hit fairly well in most content. I actually like that the choice is there to specialize in DPS or pure heal, a little bit of a hybrid, or build two sets to swap. Changing Cleric Stance to add ACC sort of negates any need for an ACC meld and its back to all healers being identical. If anything, I'd rather it get even a bit harder to hit and there be an ACC buff from some job in support. A lot of stats and builds int he game are just too straightforwardly simple already.

[Niroken]

Why? It would negate the need to meld. A few ACC melds and you can hit fairly well in most content. I actually like that the choice is there to specialize in DPS or pure heal, a little bit of a hybrid, or build two sets to swap. Changing Cleric Stance to add ACC sort of negates any need for an ACC meld and its back to all healers being identical. If anything, I'd rather it get even a bit harder to hit and there be an ACC buff from some job in support. A lot of stats and builds int he game are just too straightforwardly simple already.

So what makes Healers so special that they are required to have two sets gear while other classes do not? Tanks now do not need to have both STR and VIT accessories for some reason.

[Ghishlain]

If you're gonna give Healer's such a large boost in accuracy in Cleric Stance you might as well just remove Accuracy as a stat for the entire game if you're going to do this. I disagree with this proposal for that very reason.

[Rhode]

If you're gonna give Healer's such a large boost in accuracy in Cleric Stance you might as well just remove Accuracy as a stat for the entire game if you're going to do this. I disagree with this proposal for that very reason.

That's the reason I made them hit for a bit less.

Healers should at least get a native +200 accuracy or something of the like, because melding accuracy is annoying since none of our gear has it.

[Shurrikhan]

If you're gonna give Healer's such a large boost in accuracy in Cleric Stance you might as well just remove Accuracy as a stat for the entire game if you're going to do this. I disagree with this proposal for that very reason.

I might have to agree with the proposal just for the fallout that would ensue, then.

@Niroken

Technically every job already has two sets of BiS for that very reason. You have your true full weight set, for low-acc content, and then you have your secondary stat-sapped raiding set... to somehow reduce damage output in a way that they couldn't simply tune the fight for?

[Ghishlain]

That's the reason I made them hit for a bit less.

Healers should at least get a native +200 accuracy or something of the like, because melding accuracy is annoying since none of our gear has it.

Again, if you're going to propose such an EXTREME measure, you might as well remove the Accuracy stat entirely. Why should Healers, a Role by design to keep your party alive, have a free pass to DPS on any content they desire while all other DPS and Tanks jobs have to optimize for that stat.

I don't mind if Cleric Stance gets an Accuracy boost, but an Accuracy boost of this magnitude is far from any form, shape, or semblance of balance whatsoever.

I'd rather Cleric Stance has a scaling Accuracy based on your ilvl that is small yet noticeable. Say maybe +10 Accuracy for every 20 ilvls above 150.

I might have to agree with the proposal just for the fallout that would ensue, then.

I got a feeling the only reason S-E keeps Accuracy as a stat is to keep Healer DPS in check. If they removed Accuracy as a stat, my gut intuition tells me they'd end up removing Cleric Stance in 4- and 8- player DFs at the very same time. Call me pessimistic but I just got a feeling.

[Shurrikhan]

I got a feeling the only reason S-E keeps Accuracy as a stat is to keep Healer DPS in check. If they removed Accuracy as a stat, my gut intuition tells me they'd end up removing Cleric Stance in 4- and 8- player DFs at the very same time. Call me pessimistic but I just got a feeling.

My only real question there is what comparison do they have for whether Healer dps is "in check". Is it combined HPS-DPS output compared, in which case they've almost always exceeded DPS, or even HPS/Mitigation-DPS output, in which they'll now likely outdo tanks in casual fights? By either of those comparisons, it's not exactly "in check" right now, not that I especially mind this. After all, DPS is unlimited, where as healing and mitigation quickly max out as soon as fights lose their challenge, making it unlikely that a DPS would lose their spot to a bonus healers in virtually any content, even if healers were given bonus accuracy enough via Cleric Stance to need only half as much melding as they would now for 'rain-proofing'.

To be clear, I'm not a fan of removing accuracy entirely, I'd just like to see the amounts needed reduced, and to see less of a gap between "raid" content and all other content types. It makes no sense that the larger the enemy gets, the harder he is to hit.

I'd rather see the requirement reduced, especially the base from zero bonus accuracy to back-cap, so that it stands at least as much an optional stat for hitting from the flank and front, at least for melee dps, as it does a stat dump. Have its relative cost increase a bit, as it does now, but such that it's still no more than maybe 8-12% of our overall secondary stat expenditure, down from some 18-22%, and likely decreasing that proportion a bit with further ilvls.

An additional option would be to increase magic accuracy requirements to be equal to flank-cap for melee, at which point their average expenses are equal, but that's just to keep caster stats from gradually scaling ahead of physicals' now that a larger portion of accuracy only affects flank>frontal capping, in other words now that the optional range is a larger portion, rather than relatively small compared to the base (zero to back). In the first case, Cleric Stance and Rain of Death could each cover one step out is the progression of Zero Accuracy > Halfway > Back/Caster Cap > Flank Cap > Frontal Cap, guaranteeing healer hits with Rain of Death without allowing others to bypass accuracy requirements outright, while in the second, Zero > Half > Back > Flank/Caster > Frontal, Cleric Stance would get you 25% of the way, and could either give another 25%, nearly guaranteeing healer hits, or 50%, guaranteeing hits for healers and nearly for no-acc casters. While it's true that this would give a lot of free stat to healers, at present, no one else has to consume nearly every materia slot they have just to reach cap. Moreover, with such changes the overall value of accuracy will have been reduced. At that point it's really not much different from when accuracy was included for free on i100-130 gear.

inb4 "Why keep accuracy as a stat sink at all?"
Mostly so that Rain of Death and other evasion reducers still have a place, and to keep that optionality from being either too expensive or too trivial a cost, especially if caster cap remains equal to back cap. I mean, ideally it'd be a much more analog stat, where excess still contributes in some way, but as it functions now in gameplay I feel that roughly equal halves are perfect, especially with an adjusted caster cap.