Bring back 18% Stoneskin

[FoxyAreku]

Yeah never did understand why they nerfed this to begin with. Even at 18% it was sub-par to use in combat.

[winsock]

I don't necessarily care about 18% SS, but I don't like how WHM isn't as unique as it once was and would appreciate a little more diversity between WHM and DAST.

The card system taken out of the equation, WHM and DAST share a pretty similar playstyle compared to the large amounts of diversity we typically see in ffxiv classes.

[Llynd]

True but that is SE... Ast never should've Come at the bases. Whm/ sch was already the dream team.
I do agree that whm isn't particulary unique, quite boring too. But this is how SE want it to be...
Just like i'd like scholar to be more dps-oriented, this will never happens. At the end, all three healers will look the same...

[SaitoHikari]

Crackpot theory: Instead of trying to differentiate WHM and DAST in terms of support utility (in which AST clearly has more by this point), they're gonna give WHMs a new ability that temporarily equalizes their INT and MND stats under Cleric Stance instead of swapping both.

(And then it'll ignite a thread where WHMs call each other out for not DPSing or using that ability period)

To be honest, it is a bit silly that Protect, Stoneskin, and Cleric Stance do exactly the same thing for all three healers, when none of the other cross class skills really behave that way (all the others usually get traits to improve them for the class they originally belong to, like Super Virus for Arcanist, Raging Strikes having its CD cut by 1/3rd for Archers, and Blood for Blood having a damage increase and less of a damage taken penalty for Lancers).

[JackFross]

In fairness, they USED TO have that rather significantly embedded in Protect. Only WHM used to have MDEF + with Protect - everyone else just had physical defense boost. They changed that (and Stoneskin from being 10% cc / 18% CNJ) because it caused a situation where WHM was necessary in all situations. When adding a third healer, this became an issue - so they changed it.

The problem is - unlike other cross-class skills where this is the case (Blood for Blood, Raging Strikes, Virus, etc), we're looking at a necessary skill for any group (Protect) and a skill that scales with health too drastically for it to be realistically balanced. They shortened the cast time for CNJ instead, making it so a good WHM with their head on their shoulders can use it pretty effectively to shield a tank buster or a prey target or what have you, rather than needing to be faster than light at it.

Stoneskin losing 18% to 10% is a casualty of the same trend that caused Lustrate to change to 650 potency rather than 20% health. With health scaling so high, those percentages were becoming unwieldy in comparison to the number-based heals.


Also important to note - Blood for Blood was 20% / 25% not 10% / 25% until the Bard nerfs in 2.x. They nerfed B4B across the board to 10% (and kept 30% for DRG/LNC) to nerf BRD in the bum.

So like - while those traits are all well and good, when you're looking at a core mechanic of the GAME, like Protect or Cleric Stance, you can't let one healer be special if you ever want the other healers to be worth anything.

[SaitoHikari]

Yeah, I completely agree. Hence the new ability suggestion that cancels out Cleric Stance's MND swapping/penalty temporarily for WHMs only.

To be honest I barely even realize quick Stoneskin is even a thing. The other two healers typically have better things to do than to use Stoneskin (at least mid-fight) for the trait to make any real difference. But there really isn't anything that can be suggested for the holy trinity of CNJ cross class skills trait-wise that wouldn't break healer balance all over again.

[_slowpoke_]

give WHMs a new ability that temporarily equalizes their INT and MND stats under Cleric Stance instead of swapping both.

Why do people keep asking for something like this? Cleric's CD is FIVE seconds. That's TWO GCDs, i.e. the bare minimum you should plan ahead for at all times. If you need an ability to negate Cleric's only disadvantage, we already have that, it's called Benediction.

[SaitoHikari]

Once again, it's just a minor suggestion to give WHMs something different for their cross class skills compared to the other two healers that get to use the same skills with mostly the same effects. There's pretty much no denying that Diurnal AST is WHM with cards and it's leaving a rather awful taste in my mouth design-wise. I played another game that had a similar situation between two of their healer classes, and the devs let the balance go out of control for about a year to the point where the population of the older healer class COMPLETELY DIED for that time period. It clearly won't be as bad here, but still.

(Alternatively, I don't know why the devs won't just let AST swap Diurnal/Noct mid-fight too. Noct's barriers are laughable but the boost to healing potency would be useful for the non-aspected healing skills (assuming it actually works that way), though it'd obviously have to be toned down if D/N dancing is a thing. Would be better than Noct pretty much being NEVER used because Scholar happens to be mandatory in every raid party. Although this might not even be necessary...

On the topic of the three healers, this came from the latest famitsu interview:

https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...yoship_622016/

Scroll down a bit.

Q: And other jobs?
A: There will be slight adjustments made to barriers for astrologians.
Q: It seems astrologians are making a bit of a debut lately in Midas.
A: Even at present, an astrologian that is both in Diurnal Sect and is properly handling the card mechanic is quite powerful. We will be increasing the ease with which cards are handled just a little bit more. The main issue is Nocturnal Sect, so we'll be putting in slight adjustments to it. Going forward, it's our intention to prevent extreme situations where any one healer job is deemed necessary in a party composition.
Q: So equality will be a major topic?
A: Party composition-wise, we'd like to make it easier for the astrologian + white mage combination to function. Scholars are already very strong because they have faeries, so it's quite difficult to approach this problem. As for whether balancing adjustments are in order or not, we analyze balance between all jobs with every patch; at the very least, players can be assured of that.

Also talks about healer accuracy later.)