The Case for the Spear

[Fortune_Cookie]

in many of these situations, the Spear did make all the difference.

Out of interest, how do you determine that? How do even begin to work out the opportunity cost of holding the Spear? It may be that without a particular example in mind I'm overestimating the difficulty, but it really seems quite hard to me to be sure that one Spear made all the difference. (In particular, I think, because cooldowns in ffxiv are relatively weak compared to wow to begin with. An extra tranq can be massive; the value of an extra lightspeed just seems much more situational.)

If you watched that video I posted awhile ago of the 4-man Royal Menagerie [...]

Honestly, references to specific videos or scenarios always scream confirmation bias to me. However, to be fair, I don't have any objective data on the impact of Spear either. It's simply my opinion (no doubt based in large parts on bias and prejudice) that defensive healer mindsets are very often just down to confirmation bias (i.e. unwarranted, subjective emphasis on those occasions when holding a cooldown seemed to pay off).

On a separate note, can I say what a pleasant discussion this thread has been (in contrast to so many others). It just goes to show how hard it is (even in good faith) to accept that other people think differently

[AlphaSonic]

If all the cards are useful? When are you going to use Minor Arcana?

[NocturniaUzuki]

1. but if the poop and the fan never meet it's just an amazing ability being wasted.

2. Again this is all situational. On my primarily blind run of Bardam's the first time I don't think I used Bene once or Largresse in a boss fight because I was waiting to save the day with them. In those situations (reliable) cooldown reduction would be great. The majority of content being run though? No, you are better served rotating buffs and oGCD heals any day of the week and if you're doing that you will never burn enough cooldowns during a Spear to make it worthwhile.

I think this sums up what you said very nicely, and I agree. Actually, I did mention this in my OP, although it came and went pretty quickly considering it was literally a 5-page essay.

I fully agree that, if you are in a situation where the party is reliable, then the Spear is fairly useless, and you don't need to save your oGCD spells for emergencies. However, not every party is that reliable. Honestly, the niche that I play in is quite isolated. In the examples I give where the party has low mechanical competence - or to put it more bluntly, the party is just bad - then the healers are usually also just as bad as the rest of the party. If the healers in these examples are bad, then the examples fall apart because the healer is likely making enough mistakes themselves that they could have fixed the problems just by not making those mistakes. In some cases though, the examples do work. At the risk of sounding arrogant, the examples I gave are based on a situation where I (an experienced and reliable healer) am helping less experienced players in clearing something difficult. In other words, they're examples of having to carry the party. A lot of people tend to discount those situations because they think: "You shouldn't have to be carrying; if the party is bad, just get a new party." But I enjoy the challenge of carrying, I like helping people, and I would be lying if I said it didn't have anything to do with my ego. But even though my ego likes the compliments I get, I think the most important aspect for me is the challenge.

I will also say, though, that regular dungeons like Bardam's are quite different from trials. I rarely actually save my cooldowns in such dungeons because when it comes to mob clearing, DPS actually does equate to less danger. If the mobs die fast, the tank doesn't run out of cooldowns, nor does the healer. I usually run WHM in leveling dungeons and use my cooldowns to enable Holy Spam. Occasionally on the largest of large pulls, I find myself having to use my cooldowns exclusively for keeping the tank alive though.

[NocturniaUzuki]

Out of interest, how do you determine that? How do even begin to work out the opportunity cost of holding the Spear? It may be that without a particular example in mind I'm overestimating the difficulty, but it really seems quite hard to me to be sure that one Spear made all the difference. (In particular, I think, because cooldowns in ffxiv are relatively weak compared to wow to begin with. An extra tranq can be massive; the value of an extra lightspeed just seems much more situational.)

Well, the opportunity cost is a bit more estimated. I'm simply basing my view on two things:

First, a party wipe causes a huge loss of clear speed due to having to restart the entire fight. If I find myself regularly running into situations where using the Spear prevented a wipe, then it follows that I have been regularly saving large sums of time. Comparing that the the ~5-10% clear speed increase of using offensive cards, and it seems clear to me that preventing a wipe is better than just direct clear speed increase.

As for how I know the Spear prevented a wipe, that comes down to memory more often than a video. I think we can agree that we're able know whether we needed to use a skill to prevent a wipe. So when I look back at what happened over the course of the fight, even if it's only using my memory, and I know the following:

• I only use [skill] if I absolutely need to use it.
• I used [skill] while under the effect of the Spear.
• [Skill] came off cooldown just before I needed to use it again.

...then I think it's a reasonable deduction that Spear prevented a wipe.

And those sorts of situations seem to happen a lot to me. However, it's important to remember that I play in an uncommon niche of helping less experienced parties all the time.

Finally, I just like preventing wipes, and from the perspective of "just enjoying the raid" (remember, I am an Immaterial Goal Achiever, so I don't care about whether I do or don't get the rewards quickly). I would happily throw out large sums of DPS opportunity if it let me prevent a wipe.

[NocturniaUzuki]

If all the cards are useful? When are you going to use Minor Arcana?

Very rarely, actually. I don't see Minor Arcana as being very useful. Lady of Crowns has its moments, but Lord of Crowns is not really strong enough to warrant throwing away a card for it unless the card is 100% useless at the time you draw it. And since the card you get is random, I will almost always prioritize using the card instead of converting it. I mostly get Minor Arcana via Sleeve Draw (which I typically try to have on reduced cooldown quite often. I will also occasionally put a card into Minor Arcana if I can't use it. For example, if I have Spear held and have a RR effect already, and I draw Spire when nobody needs TP (which is most of the time), then I will put the Spire into Minor Arcana. The same goes for Ewer, though sometimes I will just use it on myself.

[AlphaSonic]

Very rarely, actually. I don't see Minor Arcana as being very useful. Lady of Crowns has its moments, but Lord of Crowns is not really strong enough to warrant throwing away a card for it unless the card is 100% useless at the time you draw it. And since the card you get is random, I will almost always prioritize using the card instead of converting it. I mostly get Minor Arcana via Sleeve Draw (which I typically try to have on reduced cooldown quite often. I will also occasionally put a card into Minor Arcana if I can't use it. For example, if I have Spear held and have a RR effect already, and I draw Spire when nobody needs TP (which is most of the time), then I will put the Spire into Minor Arcana. The same goes for Ewer, though sometimes I will just use it on myself.

Then Spear doesn't need to be useful, just use it as fodder for Minor Arcana.

[NocturniaUzuki]

@AlphaSonic

I feel like you missed the point. The point of the thread wasn't to suggest that Spear needed to be useful, but that it already is. So I'm often not putting it in Minor Arcana because it has greater value used elsewhere.

[MoroMurasaki]

I can see what you mean about carrying a party that wouldn't clear without such an experienced healer but personally even in those situations other cards seem preferable to Spear to me. An enhanced arrow on myself is like getting a mini lightspeed in, if an inexperienced tank is pulling big in a party with no AoE I would get in Noct stance, shield him and use Balance on myself to gravity spam the mobs down if my DPS are poor. Bole becomes more useful in that situation as well whether it is on the tank who is holding aggro but taking tons of damage or on myself/another party member who is "tanking" because that inexperienced tank can't hold their threat.

Basically the cards still have more use in the situation you describe when they are something other than Spear. They are flexible and hold real benefit even when used in non-traditional ways. The use of Spear is really hard to justify when it is taking the place of some of these other effects though I do agrre in a carry type situation Spear could potentially be more useful as it's original effect than as a Lady/Lord.

So yes, in this specific scenario I can see at least not Minor Arcana'ing a Spear.... But only as a last resort and even then only if I am going to be able to trigger several oGCD abilities.

It doesn't make the Spear good really, more a very underperforming party makes the alternatives worse which makes the huge disparity between the effectiveness of Spear and Balance/Arrow seem smaller.

Also I find it hard to swallow that you consistently find yourself in these vastly underskilled parties unless you are somehow searching them out in which case your play experience differs so much from the vast majority of AST's (and indeed players in general) that the relavence if your experience degenerates considerably. It's like a Dark Souls player giving Skyrim advice - yeah, they're both open world RPG's but the similarities end there.

[IanFrench]

The only time I would use the Spear is when I am just about to use my long GCD skills like CO, LD...to boost my heals or restore my MP. But I will use it when they are ready whether I have spear or not.
Balance, tree and ewer are the only three useful cards. The other cards are just for RR to give you a AOE balance.

[NocturniaUzuki]

I can see what you mean about carrying a party that wouldn't clear without such an experienced healer but personally even in those situations other cards seem preferable to Spear to me. An enhanced arrow on myself is like getting a mini lightspeed in, if an inexperienced tank is pulling big in a party with no AoE I would get in Noct stance, shield him and use Balance on myself to gravity spam the mobs down if my DPS are poor. Bole becomes more useful in that situation as well whether it is on the tank who is holding aggro but taking tons of damage or on myself/another party member who is "tanking" because that inexperienced tank can't hold their threat.

Basically the cards still have more use in the situation you describe when they are something other than Spear. They are flexible and hold real benefit even when used in non-traditional ways. The use of Spear is really hard to justify when it is taking the place of some of these other effects though I do agrre in a carry type situation Spear could potentially be more useful as it's original effect than as a Lady/Lord.

So yes, in this specific scenario I can see at least not Minor Arcana'ing a Spear.... But only as a last resort and even then only if I am going to be able to trigger several oGCD abilities.

It doesn't make the Spear good really, more a very underperforming party makes the alternatives worse which makes the huge disparity between the effectiveness of Spear and Balance/Arrow seem smaller.

Also I find it hard to swallow that you consistently find yourself in these vastly underskilled parties unless you are somehow searching them out in which case your play experience differs so much from the vast majority of AST's (and indeed players in general) that the relavence if your experience degenerates considerably. It's like a Dark Souls player giving Skyrim advice - yeah, they're both open world RPG's but the similarities end there.

Well first off, I don't typically use Spear in non-trial/raid dungeons. It's not necessary unless maybe if I have a tank that is doing full area pulls (max size), forcing me to use Spear just to have cooldowns back for the next pull. However, a tank that is doing pulls that large and can manage cooldowns well enough to actually pull it off isn't going to be stupid enough to not notice that the healer literally had to blow everything on the last pull.

I agree that the major cards have benefits in other ways. I often use Arrow on myself if I have it and happen to be a bit behind on healing. But using Arrow on myself isn't the same as specialized cooldowns. Bole is also something that helps in much the same way as Arrow. But those two cases are more like an alternative to Largesse than an alternative to the utility of Lightspeed, Swiftcast, or Synastry.

As for why I consistently find myself in these situations, you hit the nail on the head, more or less: I search them out. I intentionally join learning parties as an experienced player. Why? Because as a healer who doesn't care about material goals, it's more fun. I play the game to challenge myself. I also play healer because I like saving people, not because I want to repeatedly heal a perfect party at the same times every fight just to counteract the bare minimum raid damage. I host undersized challenge runs, but don't put heavy restrictions on them. Usually my only requirement is just a vague "know the fight". I don't boot people who aren't performing to par either. I just try my best to compensate. And if I can't, the party wipes a few times and disbands, but I still had my fun.