Some Ideas for Healers

[EllieShadeflare]

Hiya! Healing is a role that I had enjoyed back in HW and ARR, though a bit of... issues have made me somewhat hesitant to return to the role, if only due to some of the more... Infuriating aspects of the role. Examples being,

Cross Role: Why did Largesse and Esuna have to waste slots? It seems like a bad decision all around, other than SCH getting Esuna to help out in earlier dungeons. What's the point of Break? It's nearly useless since almost nothing is vulnerable to Heavy outside of PvP and world encounters. And while I appreciate the changes to Healer DPS, why is Cleric Stance so disappointing? 5%, while useful, is still not worth wasting a slot for.

White Mage: ...All things considered, I don't have much to complain about White Mage. I'd like Lillies to have more of a presence and for their theme of "pure healer" to be better applied, but I'm glad we're far closer to the lesson the original 1-30 Conjurer story gave us.

Scholar: What have you doooooone. This job was, while overpowered, structurally sound. All that needed to be done was to boost the potencies of the other healers to come close but now? Scholar is almost a bad joke among healers, due to all but its aetherflow mechanics becoming a joke. With our fairies only providing 66% of that their tooltips say they do, plus the further decrease of potencies, they heal only slightly better than a Regen. Adloquium has a much higher MP cost than Astrologian's equivalent for a weaker barrier and a cost time. Our identity of "mitigation + fairy to match the other healers" is now lost in favor for "waste aetherflow for decent heals!" and I feel that is a pretty skeevy move.

Astrologian: How times have changed. At first, AST was the worst healer ever introduced, being a Jack of all Trades, and a true Master of None. After the buffs given to it, it lost Master of None in its title, and could now stand up alongside WHM and SCH. In the last few patches of the 3.x saga, it gained the ability to overshadow WHM through its improved power... but mostly because WHM didn't have much to offer in lategame other than progression. But now? Astrologian has become a full-fledged Master of ALL. And I am disturbed because it actually borders on invalidating the other healers, with only White Mage having a fighting chance due to its high MP efficiency. Let's go over the problems with AST!

• Deceptively Massive Potency This one is a little weird to define, but I'm willing to do so as needed. The potencies for Benefic, Benefic II and Helios are the following: 400, 650 and 300. These are what they were back in HW, and have stayed that way. However, as of Stormblood, a change has occurred that has fundamentally overpowered these abilities. This change being that Diurnal Sect and Nocturnal Sect both have increase healing potencies. The former has a 10%, and the latter 15%. How does this affect those potencies? Well, a bit of math can show you. Benefic becomes 440/445, Benefic II becomes 715/747, and Helios becomes 330/345. Notice anything wrong yet? With the exception of Benefic, these numbers not only are comparable to the "pure healer," White Mage, but in fact surpass them. I understand the necessity for the increased potency of Nocturnal Sect, to get more use out of their barriers, but making it so that both sects objectively heal better than an equivalently geared WHITE MAGE seems, at the very least, unacceptable.
• Role Invalidation And now we come to the Sects' major effect, giving Regen/Barriers. With HW, their effects didn't exactly match their counterparts, with the exception of Nocturnal Aspected Benefic (which I will be calling Nocturnal Benefic (and its regen counterpart, Diurnal Benefic) for simplicity) being a 250 (275?) heal with a 170% barrier. This gives the ability a total of 742, including healing, smaller than a crit'd Adloquium (900) but larger than your standard Adloquium (600). In SB, however, it was decided that the ability would just have a flat potency of 200, and Nocturnal Benefic would have a 250% barrier. Combine this with the increase to potency by 15% (making it 230) and this means the barrier is a 575 barrier, for a total of 805 potency. This dangerously encroaches on the potency of a fully crit'd Adloquim, and is quite frankly unacceptable. Adding a 10% to the Diurnal Sect didn't help, as the formerly lower potency of the AST's Regens, are almost fully comparable to WHM.
• Golden Boy Syndrome It seems that there's few things the AST can do wrong. It can heal competently and better than a WHM, it can mitigate like a SCH's wet dream, its damage is tolerable, it has a wide variety of buffs with its only real balancing factor being RNG, and the only healer that has easy access to its oGCDs like AST does is WHM.

Yikes! A lot of problems, many of which are Astrologian related! Don't worry though, I have a plan by suggestions!

Proposed Cross Role Changes:
Removed Esuna: Sort of. White Mage will get back Esuna, Scholar will get Leeches (or better yet, give it as a base action for Arcanist as a new form of utility to be shared with Summoner!) and Astrologian will regain Exalted Detriment. More on those later.

Removed Largesse: This will coincide with giving White Mage back Divine Seal as a unique "bonus heal" button of its own, giving Scholar back its potencies with its fairies, and to accommodate Astrologian's already high potencies.

Removed Break: Seriously, what was the point of this ability?

The effects of Cleric Stance has changed. Potency gain of Cleric Stance increased from 5% to 10%. I'm pretty sure there's no arguments here.

New Role Action: Condemn: Decreases damage dealt by targeted foe by 5% for 15s. Cooldown: 60s. This would be a useful choice to aid in learning bosses.

New Role Action: Stillness: Causes target party member to not suffer the effect of KO for 5s. Cooldown: 180s. This is designed as a "last resort" ability, to save the tank from a wipe.

New Role Action: Wall: Nullifies a single attack dealt upon the target party member for 10s. Cooldown: 90s. Increased mitigation potential.

Proposed White Mage Changes:
New? Skill Added: Level 12: Esuna Removes a single detrimental effect from target.

New? Skill Added: Level 34: Divine Seal Increases healing magic potency by 20%. Duration: 20s, Cooldown: 90s

New Trait: Level 44: Esuna Mastery: Esuna now removes all detrimental effects from a target. This can encourage some encounters to take White Mage, particularly in places involving lots of status effects (Such as Morbol infested areas).

New Trait: Level 54: Protect Mastery: Protect now applies Shell as an additional effect, decreasing physical and magical damage taken. Duration: 30s. Mitigation. Besides, the game has proven that traits can affect Cross Role (See: Red Mage when they use Drain or Break, they can in fact Dual Cast those spells).

The effects of Secret of the Lilly has been changed. Change effect from
"Adds a Lily to your Healing Gauge upon the execution of Cure or Cure II on self or a party member while in combat. Lilies will lower the recast time for Asylum, Assize, Divine Benison, or Tetragrammaton by a percentage corresponding to the number of Lilies stacked at time of action execution (at which time the Lilies are removed).
1 Lily: 4%
2 Lilies: 10%
3 Lilies: 20%" to

"Adds a Lily to your Healing Gauge upon the execution of Cure, Regen or Cure II on self or a party member while in combat. Lilies will lower the recast time for Divine Seal, Presence of Mind, Benediction, Thin Air, Asylum, Assize, Divine Benison, or Tetragrammaton by a percentage corresponding to the number of Lilies stacked at time of action execution (at which time the Lilies are removed).
1 Lily: 10%
2 Lilies: 20%
3 Lilies: 30%" This is mostly to give a bigger impact to the Lilies, as the berth of skills that can be applied with it is now increased. Also, adds in Regen for the sake of ensuring it gets use.

Nitpick: Divine Benison's name and animation are changed to that of Stoneskin's.

Proposed Scholar Changes:
Eos and Selene now match their stated potencies when compared to the Scholar.

Increase potency of Lustrate to 700.

New? Skill Added: Level 12: Leeches Removes a single detrimental effect from target.

New Skill Added: Level 34: Physick II Cure Potency: 600 Additional Effect: 25% chance of guaranteeing a Critical Hit on Adloquium. This effect is guaranteed when under the effects of Enhanced Physick II. A heal to provide something regarding single target when you lack your fairy, Aetherflow stacks or Deployment Tactics. Also, makes Adloquium a bit more reliable.

New Trait: Level 30: Physick Mastery: Adds the following Additional Effect to Physick: 25% chance to apply an additional Aetherflow stack.

New Trait: Level 34: Physick Mastery II: Adds the following Additional Effect to Physick: 25% chance to apply effect to self: Enhanced Physick II

New Trait: Level 40: Leeches Mastery: Leeches now adds a 50 potency Regen to the target for 9s. Something to aid in their healing.

New Trait: Level 56: Enhanced Eye for an Eye: Decreases cooldown for Eye for an Eye to 120s. Allows for better synergy with Deployment Tactics. Besides, the game has proven that traits can affect Cross Role (See: Red Mage when they use Drain or Break, they can in fact Dual Cast those spells).

Proposed Astrologian Changes:

Add effect to Diurnal Sect: "Reduces spell cast time and recast time, and auto-attack delay by 5%"

Change effect of Nocturnal Sect from "Increases healing magic potency by 15%" to "Increases healing magic potency by 10% and increases Critical Hit chance by 5%" These two updates are for identity purposes... alongside... this:

Increases cooldown of Diurnal and Nocturnal Sect to 30s, but allows the removal and swapping of these abilities in combat. Diurnal Aspected Helios and Diurnal Aspected Benefic may not stack with the effects of their Nocturnal Sect counterparts from the same caster. Multiple player casts of Diurnal Aspected Benefic and Diurnal Aspected Helios may now stack.

Reduce percentage of barrier given by Aspected Benefic to 150%. No additional percentage is given to Aspected Helios. No additional percentage is needed for Aspected Helios because you're already healing more than what Succor would do anyway.

New? Skill Added: Level 12: Exalted Detriment Removes a single detrimental effect from target.

New Trait: Level 46: Truly Exalted Detriment: Adds a barrier defending the target from another detrimental effect. Stacks with Warden's Paeon. To further hammer in the role of Support.

New Trait: Level 60: Condemnation of the Crone: Doubles the effect of Condemn. More support. Besides, the game has proven that traits can affect Cross Role (See: Red Mage when they use Drain or Break, they can in fact Dual Cast those spells).

[Trunks]

theme of "pure healer"

This crops up a lot and is bewildering. 5 abilities out of ~27 are damaging (and 2 offer healing-related benefits). The Job has a single shield which is only used after you cast a heal. What detracts from its "pure healer" status is what you said next: AST's equivalents inexplicably have more potency.

WHM becomes less rewarding the more you progress. The better geared and more familiar you are with a fight, the more you weave in DPS. Its DD mechanics are boring. This is where Lilies ought to come in*. Encounter design is also an issue: WHM's toolkit would make more sense if fights dealt damage persistently, not in sporadic bursts. Attrition would favor WHM's HOTs and superior MP economy.

Also I feel Medica II should be renamed Regen II so its function is clearer.

*e.g., Stone or Aero could consume a Lily for more damage; consuming then reduces CD on dual-purpose abilities like PoM and Assize.

[Tridus]

Hiya! Healing is a role that I had enjoyed back in HW and ARR, though a bit of... issues have made me somewhat hesitant to return to the role, if only due to some of the more... Infuriating aspects of the role.

Like how the only discussion amongst healers is about DPS? Sorry, forum humor...

Cross Role: Why did Largesse and Esuna have to waste slots? It seems like a bad decision all around, other than SCH getting Esuna to help out in earlier dungeons. What's the point of Break? It's nearly useless since almost nothing is vulnerable to Heavy outside of PvP and world encounters. And while I appreciate the changes to Healer DPS, why is Cleric Stance so disappointing? 5%, while useful, is still not worth wasting a slot for.

The role skill situation needs looking at for sure, given that on a fight that requires Esuna we have what... one, maybe two actual choices (if you skip Largesse)? And that's with using the Protect swap macro. I mean, are you really going to not take Swiftcast and Lucid Dreaming? They're not optional. The whole thing feels more like a "we didn't want to duplicate all these skills" system rather than one with actual choices.

White Mage: ...All things considered, I don't have much to complain about White Mage. I'd like Lillies to have more of a presence and for their theme of "pure healer" to be better applied, but I'm glad we're far closer to the lesson the original 1-30 Conjurer story gave us.

I don't know what "pure healer" means, but the current WHM offers high HPS, high DPS, lots of tools for healing, and no utility. That seems pretty close. Plus it's just plain fun to play.

Scholar: Scholar is almost a bad joke among healers, due to all but its aetherflow mechanics becoming a joke.

It is? I mean, I find it clunky, but I *always* found it clunky even when it was god mode. It could use some QoL changes, but healer balance right now in terms of who is clearing the content is pretty good. I certainly don't groan and think "ugh I gotta carry this guy" when I see a SCH in DF.

Astrologian: And I am disturbed because it actually borders on invalidating the other healers, with only White Mage having a fighting chance due to its high MP efficiency. Let's go over the problems with AST!

You saw a lot of this at 4.0, but when they took the nerfbat to The Balance, it helped a lot. AST is certainly good, but I just don't think this idea that they're invalidating everyone else is backed up by what's happening in game right now.

Removed Esuna: Sort of. White Mage will get back Esuna, Scholar will get Leeches (or better yet, give it as a base action for Arcanist as a new form of utility to be shared with Summoner!) and Astrologian will regain Exalted Detriment. More on those later.

Considering Esuna is the second most likely thing to be swapped in and out constantly (after Protect), sure.

New Role Action: Condemn: Decreases damage dealt by targeted foe by 5% for 15s. Cooldown: 60s. This would be a useful choice to aid in learning bosses.

Two healers can keep that up half of the time, the entire fight. That won't be a "useful choice". It will be must take, all the time, for anyone doing endgame content. It's also stepping on the toes of DPS, who already have abilities to do this (Feint and Addle).

New Role Action: Stillness: Causes target party member to not suffer the effect of KO for 5s. Cooldown: 180s. This is designed as a "last resort" ability, to save the tank from a wipe.

The ability to do this was super fun in WoW, but I suspect it'd be another "you should really take that all the time" ability.

New Role Action: Wall: Nullifies a single attack dealt upon the target party member for 10s. Cooldown: 90s. Increased mitigation potential.

Sure, could save a DPS from stupid. Probably with a longer cooldown.

New Trait: Level 54: Protect Mastery: Protect now applies Shell as an additional effect, decreasing physical and magical damage taken. Duration: 30s. Mitigation. Besides, the game has proven that traits can affect Cross Role (See: Red Mage when they use Drain or Break, they can in fact Dual Cast those spells).

WHM already had a better Protect in ARR, and it was changed in HW so everyone got the same thing because it put groups without a WHM at a disadvantage.

New Skill Added: Level 34: Physick II Cure Potency: 600 Additional Effect: 25% chance of guaranteeing a Critical Hit on Adloquium. This effect is guaranteed when under the effects of Enhanced Physick II. A heal to provide something regarding single target when you lack your fairy, Aetherflow stacks or Deployment Tactics. Also, makes Adloquium a bit more reliable.

Every time someone tries to make it easier to get Crit Aldo, I feel the need to point out that the randomness of it is why they can make the crit so powerful. Make it more reliable, and the inevitable unintended consequence is that the crit effect on Aldo will get nerfed into the ground.

New Trait: Level 30: Physick Mastery: Adds the following Additional Effect to Physick: 25% chance to apply an additional Aetherflow stack.

New Trait: Level 34: Physick Mastery II: Adds the following Additional Effect to Physick: 25% chance to apply effect to self: Enhanced Physick II

New Trait: Level 40: Leeches Mastery: Leeches now adds a 50 potency Regen to the target for 9s. Something to aid in their healing.

Honestly, all this seems like it'll gut the identity of SCH and make it play a whole lot more like WHM only also with a fairy.

New Trait: Level 56: Enhanced Eye for an Eye: Decreases cooldown for Eye for an Eye to 120s. Allows for better synergy with Deployment Tactics. Besides, the game has proven that traits can affect Cross Role (See: Red Mage when they use Drain or Break, they can in fact Dual Cast those spells).

Or they could just lower the cooldown for everyone to solve this, but either way. It's clunky right now for SCH, for sure.

Increases cooldown of Diurnal and Nocturnal Sect to 30s, but allows the removal and swapping of these abilities in combat. Diurnal Aspected Helios and Diurnal Aspected Benefic may not stack with the effects of their Nocturnal Sect counterparts from the same caster. Multiple player casts of Diurnal Aspected Benefic and Diurnal Aspected Helios may now stack.

Do we really want stance dancing healers? This doesn't strike me as a problem right now.


There's some neat ideas in there, but honestly I find a lot of it would simply upend the balance of things, which right now is in a decent spot.

[Ilyrian]

Give WHM and SCH some kind of unique party buff - or a choice out of two or something similar.
Buff SCH throughput slightly.
Leave AST as it is.

[technole]

You never desperately needed Esuna/Leeches in early SCH days, because you had Adlo. You know, a shield that a poison could eat up. Then you had Fey Caress for party-wide dispell.

Largesse is great as a cross-role, giving SCH access to it which is really good to use before Deploy. Second, it reverts the band-aid that they did to AST Synastry when they added the effect to it during Gordias Savage. Now you can use Synastry for what it was originally designed for instead of burning the skill for a different purpose.

Heavy was useful in Turn 5, A3S, A7S. That's not to say there will never be a return where healer heavy is incredibly useful in a raid again.

Surecast is used this savage tier because of Vacuum Wave, the O4 normal barely blasts you even half-way on the platform so it doesn't matter.
O4 Savage will blast you all the way across the platform. Being able to stand-still, use instant heal, and not have to sprint back into position to use another GCD heal is incredible.

[Anova]

Those are some interesting ideas.

I can see why SE might have wanted to simplify the use of Esuna into cross-roles (since all healers essentially had the same ability), but in the NA at least, it seems that the cross-roles were expected to be purely optional. The change to the cross-roles doesn't feel particularly different from previous patches (as there was a very obvious optimal set-up before, and all players ran the same 5 cross-class abilities). You only notice the difference when you switch to play a dps or tank class and realize they have a lot more choice now.

That said, esuna and heavy are useful when you actually need it, but like other role skills, unless you actually use it, it's a complete waste of space. I feel that SE has to take a look at exactly how they want role actions to fit into the gameplay and that they haven't put enough thought into it.

I haven't really sunk my teeth into SCH so I can't confidently comment on your exact proposals to buff it. I understand it was nerfed considerably in 4.0 but has been receiving buffs ever since (and will probably continue to receive tweaks for the next 2 years, like AST in 3.x).

As for the complaints about AST replacing other healers, I don't really get that feeling. Certainly, you could say that about SCH, who I agree is underpowered now. However, WHM is a lot more efficient with its damage and healing rotations than AST and plays extremely smoothly now, especially with the recent change to the confessions stacking and lily generation. I just haven't seen any 4-man content where a WHM is overwhelmingly more useful than a AST or vice-versa.

[Riyshn]

Two healers can keep that up half of the time, the entire fight. That won't be a "useful choice". It will be must take, all the time, for anyone doing endgame content. It's also stepping on the toes of DPS, who already have abilities to do this (Feint and Addle).


Do we really want stance dancing healers? This doesn't strike me as a problem right now.

RE: Addle/Faint, the argument could be made that these were originally a Healer skill anyway (Virus/Disable), and mitigation cooldowns like that really do make more sense on Healers and DPS.

And I think I would really like it if they allowed Sects to be swaped. Would allow AST to actually be the Jack of All Trades that it was designed to be, and would allow it's numbers to be lowered to something reasonable because they would no longer be compensating for the fact that AST could only ever have regens or shields. (Also I just personally find AST really boring, and if this was implimented in a way that was as fluid as how SCH made use of old Cleric, I might just switch mains.)

but in the NA at least, it seems that the cross-roles were expected to be purely optional.

It could have just been a bad translation, but the original tease for the role action system sounded a lot less like the cross-class system than what we ended up with. The way the made it sound was basically "You're a Lv15 tank? You have have Provoke." with no messing with limited slots involved.

[EllieShadeflare]

Give WHM and SCH some kind of unique party buff - or a choice out of two or something similar.
Buff SCH throughput slightly.
Leave AST as it is.

Astrologian is how NOT to buff a class, because its current design invalidates the other with the sheer increase of potency and utility versus other healers. The nerf to Balance didn't actually hurt AST all that much, especially after removing the final useless card in their deck.

I don't know what "pure healer" means, but the current WHM offers high HPS, high DPS, lots of tools for healing, and no utility. That seems pretty close. Plus it's just plain fun to play.

During the opening bits of Stormblood, in particular, the live letter about Stormblood Job changes, YoshiP had rambled on about White Mage becoming a "Pure Healer". Unfortunately, that role title holds no water when another job does its job better... which I'll get to.

It is? I mean, I find it clunky, but I *always* found it clunky even when it was god mode. It could use some QoL changes, but healer balance right now in terms of who is clearing the content is pretty good. I certainly don't groan and think "ugh I gotta carry this guy" when I see a SCH in DF.

Whenever I've tanked, I've noticed that SCH need some extra attention to keep me from dying, especially when going into SB content. Only having access to Physick as their only no-frills practical heal when out of Aetherflow hits the job hard, and Emergency Tactics has a cooldown for THE SAME PURPOSE.

You saw a lot of this at 4.0, but when they took the nerfbat to The Balance, it helped a lot. AST is certainly good, but I just don't think this idea that they're invalidating everyone else is backed up by what's happening in game right now.

So, the fact that they can heal far better than White Mage base potency wise, have far better barriers than Scholar, and have far more utility tools than the both of them doesn't have a chance at invalidating the others? I'm fairly certain the only reason you won't see Twin AST builds in Savage is only because of the PF-penalties for taking duplicate jobs.

Two healers can keep that up half of the time, the entire fight. That won't be a "useful choice". It will be must take, all the time, for anyone doing endgame content. It's also stepping on the toes of DPS, who already have abilities to do this (Feint and Addle).

Feint and Addle focus on STR and DEX and INT and MND respectively. This merely reduces damage outright. Multiple mitigation abilities CAN stack, and it's generally a good idea to do so.

The ability to do this was super fun in WoW, but I suspect it'd be another "you should really take that all the time" ability.

The complaint of "Must Take" doesn't make sense when healers already have a good choice of powerful abilities that forces some consideration. Before, you had (not including the abilities I removed) Protect, Lucid Dream, Eye for an Eye and Swiftcast. That's four slots on their own for very potent abilities. With the new abilities plus the changes to Cleric stance, it'll force players to choose abilities that may be more risky but provide high rewards.

WHM already had a better Protect in ARR, and it was changed in HW so everyone got the same thing because it put groups without a WHM at a disadvantage.

The trouble was that the other healers didn't have anyway to make up for this advantage. Decreasing the cooldown of Eye for an Eye wasn't exactly the best way of doing it. However, each job has its own variant on improving one of the Cross Role abilities.

Every time someone tries to make it easier to get Crit Aldo, I feel the need to point out that the randomness of it is why they can make the crit so powerful. Make it more reliable, and the inevitable unintended consequence is that the crit effect on Aldo will get nerfed into the ground.

That's fair, especially after I nerfed Nocturnal Benefic to the ground. Maybe Physick II should have a different additional effect

Honestly, all this seems like it'll gut the identity of SCH and make it play a whole lot more like WHM only also with a fairy.

Not... really? I made sure that Physick would better help with the Scholar's identity by making it synergize with what they have. Physick II is also a lower potency than its counterparts in Aetherflow and Deployment Tactics for this very reason, designed to be a stopgap. Leeches having a regen effect was the quickest way I could think of to further give SCH somewhat a fighting chance when out of Aetherflow and Dissipation

...also, I don't think white mage has barriers and only a single regen so I don't know what kinda white mage you're playing with

Or they could just lower the cooldown [of Eye for an Eye] for everyone to solve this, but either way. It's clunky right now for SCH, for sure.

This was designed to be a SCH advantage, and designed to synergize with Deployment Tactics. Considering that SCHs are the only one who currently have such an ability, I felt it would be a good idea to emphasize it.

Do we really want stance dancing healers? This doesn't strike me as a problem right now.

It may not be a problem, but it seems odd that they'd create a Jack of All Trades healer that couldn't actually be a Jack of All Trades healer in combat. Plus, it'd give some variety to their playstyle.

There's some neat ideas in there, but honestly I find a lot of it would simply upend the balance of things, which right now is in a decent spot.

As far as I can tell, the only disadvantage AST has is MP (but then they have Lucid Dream and Ewer to handle THAT) and a lack of damage spells (but who needs offense when you have the best heals in the game bar none?) and the only possible reason to take anyone as a second healer OTHER than AST is because the game will penalize your party for it.

[ManuelBravo]

The only things healers need to know;

Remember Healing is your priority, have common sense to move and interrupt when needed, know both your CD and your actions, and lastly speak up and contribute if people are making it hard on you. O.o/

If any other action is made and doesn't contribute to the above, it's a bad idea.

[EllieShadeflare]

I think the new ideas for another healer you have are great ideas. My only beef is SE can barely manage to balance the 3 healers it already has adding another one when depending on SE to properly balance stuff, scares me.

I didn't suggest a healer. I was suggesting improving the current ones.