Cross-Class - System = Is it Cancer?

[GMERC]

Making protect a white Mage only ability is just plain stupid, whm has the strongest heals out of the 3 healer jobs and not giving sch and ast protect puts them at a disadvantage. Yes they each have some skills to buff def on a limited short timer but that won't make a difference when their heals are generally weaker, sch without the fairy couldn't heal to save their life if the fairy gets killed which I have seen happen.

It's almost like every healer should have its own perks to it, of which White Mage, frankly, has none. And don't say Curaga. But hey, you know what definitely isn't "just plain stupid" for only one healer to have? {The Balance}!

[Skeltal-Bons]

Finally, you and I have something we can agree on.

Protect is basically a non-skill skill, and I recently made a post about this on another message board.



A buff that you're never expected to not have doesn't need to exist, period. It should be changed into more active mitigation of some kind, and it should just become something White Mages handle as their own unique mechanic.

Isn't being a Gladiator/White mage hybrid the whole point of Paladin.
Because that's how it's always been, Paladin has always been about being a tank with medium-level white magic.
And protect itself falls into the same category, it's always been a buff you slap on at the start of boss battles and forget about.

[AmalonStar]

It isn't about something being difficult, it's about something being completely pointless. Protect in its current state is completely pointless.

So the fact that protect gives a def buff to lower dmg taken is pointless you say?

I would think it lowering the dmg taken would save on the amount of healing you would need to do not to mention saving mp.

[GMERC]

So the fact that protect gives a def buff to lower dmg taken is pointless you say?

I would think it lowering the dmg taken would save on the amount of healing you would need to do not to mention saving mp.

Protect doesn't lower damage taken, because you literally never have a party that doesn't have at least one player who can cast the exact same Protect as every other player who has Protect. Fights are designed around always having Protect, the only time you don't is if you die. In other words, the current state of Protect isn't actually mitigating anything at all.

[Gemina]

5% mitigation that doesn't need to be updated until after 30min? Sounds good.

You understand that the 5% mitigation is for every hit that is taken? Not just by the tank, but everyone? If you put the numbers together and look at the CDs and MP it takes to recover the difference, protect all of a sudden makes more sense. Those who would like to use regen to counter this argument should realize that regen is more effective when protect is up.

Protect is overrated in early content, and underestimated in later content. Trust me, your healer will always appreciate allowing them to get protect up, but it honestly isn't that hard to cast during battle. The loss of a gcd sucks, but it is just one and can be managed. That said, let your healer f**king cast protect.

[AmalonStar]

It's almost like every healer should have its own perks to it, of which White Mage, frankly, has none. And don't say Curaga. But hey, you know what definitely isn't "just plain stupid" for only one healer to have? {The Balance}!

Whm has the strongest regen capabilities and strongest raw heals, not to mention I do believe they also have the strongest single target dps out the the healers. Whm has it's own perks and uniqueness compared to the other 2 healing jobs.

[GMERC]

Whm has the strongest regen capabilities and strongest raw heals, not to mention I do believe they also have the strongest single target dps out the the healers. Whm has it's own perks and uniqueness compared to the other 2 healing jobs.

If you actually genuinely believe the relatively inconsequential numerical advantages WHM has make up for what AST or SCH bring to the table (which WHM has no real answers for), and ESPECIALLY if you believe the current relative homogenization of the healers we have is at all an ideal or acceptable design going forward and isn't something we should want changed for the better, I think we're definitely done talking here.

{Have a safe journey.}

[AmalonStar]

If you actually genuinely believe the relatively inconsequential numerical advantages WHM has make up for what AST or SCH bring to the table (which WHM has no real answers for), and ESPECIALLY if you believe the current relative homogenization of the healers we have is at all an ideal or acceptable design going forward and isn't something we should want changed for the better, I think we're definitely done talking here.

{Have a safe journey.}

It seems to me that you really under estimate what a whm is capable of, maybe you should try looking at it with an open mind rather than a closed one.

[Allyrion]

I like Protect. It is a flavor ability but I like it for that. It's like the party buff or Monk's Fist of Fire, which could be baked into the job. It definitely in the most passive end of the spectrum excepting the party buff, but I think passive modifiers interacting with active ones make for a fuller game. It's basically just a preparatory step like eating food, that serves for the experience rather than being an engaging ability.

It doesn't need to be more than that, and I highly doubt that the devs are limited in making engaging traits/ability mechanics because it's there. We should have both passive and active mechanics. I do agree we need more of the latter, just not at the expense of one ability that's become a nice staple.

In fact, Protect being a 30 min invisible buff but having an active animation whenever anyone with it gets hit - that's one of my favorite little detail in the game. So I hope that remains as it is while the button bloat cutting happens elsewhere.

I also happen to hope they add more active mitigation mechanics to both tanks and healers, making their main role a lot more engaging.

[Klamor]

snip

Do people like you actively avoid reading what you're replying to? I don't mean read it as in seeing the words on your screen, but actually READ it and take in the information contained in the words.

He's saying that every encounter in the game is designed around the point that you have healers in your party (except open world, purely solo content, which is almost never a topic of conversation when considering skill effectiveness or usefulness). Having healers in your party when doing stuff that protect is actually designed around means that you'll never not have the buff active unless you die, which you shouldn't be doing anyway. So, because literally everything at that level (dungeons, trials, raids, etc.) expects you to have this particular buff, it loses any usefulness unless you just happen to be retarded enough to think you shouldn't cast it on the party.

Simply put, they could design mobs to deal 5% less damage and remove protect, and except for the fact that we've been casting protect for years now, no one would be any the wiser of it. A redesign of making protect a spell like stoneskin is equally asinine simply because stoneskin already exists and is already useful in an active capacity.

For someone that comments about having an open mind, yours is pretty closed.