Revisiting the physick question

[Cabalabob]

In live letter 37, the director was asked if any adjustments will be made to SMN’s physick to be INT based the same way vercure is on RDM.

Q: Red mage’s Vercure is affected by the intelligence attribute, but would it be possible to change summoner’s Physick so that the cure potency changes with intelligence?

A: Red mage was born from both white and black magic; however, summoner is different. Each of the jobs have their own roles. If all jobs were made equally, that would basically make every job the same. From a gaming perspective, I believe it would be more fun to have differences, so we carefully made adjustments so that the jobs do not become the same.

The director’s response seems to have been born from the belief that people only want INT based physick on SMN because RDM has it and he didn’t want to do it because he doesn’t want to give SMN something simply because RDM has it because that would just make the jobs the same. But I believe this is a misunderstanding of what exactly is being asked for.

SMN’s have wanted an INT based physick since before Heavensward. Even in 2.0 it was fairly weak but since our HP pools were fairly small it was still strong enough to not make a fuss over.

But with level 60 our HP pools and the HP of our pets, as well as the damage we were taking grew exponentially. Physick became a drop in the bucket, a monster auto attack was dealing more damage than we were healing with physick which was still healing around the same amount it was at 50. It was at this point that people started asking for an INT based physick.

There were 3 main arguments from the community against an INT based physick at this time.
1. It would be overpowered, a DPS with a potent heal would have an unfair advantage over other DPS especially one that can already raise people. Some... let’s call them radical, people even went so far as to claim SMNs would replace healers in raids with an INT based heal.
2. It would be impossible to make it INT based on SMN and BLM while being MND on SCH, since at the time there were no examples of spells or abilities that worked off different attributes on different jobs.
3. It doesn’t make sense for SMN to be able to use a MND based ability off of INT for no reason other than gameplay. (So basically lore argument).

Enter 4.0, all of these arguments were made invalid.
1. RDM came with the INT based vercure which was not only as powerful as physick, but could be dualcast. It even had veraise which it doesn’t need to swiftcast thanks to dualcast. We have yet to see RDMs replacing any healers in raids so overpowered argument is out.
2. SCH got the ability to use the normally INT based DPS spells on arcanist using MND, showing that it is possible to split the spells to work off different attributes on different jobs, so it is possible for physick to be made INT based when used by arcanist and SMN while still being MND on SCH.
3. Same as above, SCH can use INT based spells using MND, so grimoire, codex, it’s all books. There’s no lore reason why physick should be weaker on SMN than on SCH if bio and miasma are just as strong on SCH as on SMN.

And now since the director mentioned it in his answer, let’s look at it from a “gaming perspective”. Who needs a cure spell more? A nuking based DPS. Or a DPS with a tank pet whose main damage source is damage over time, oGCDs and a pet they need to keep alive? There is nothing fun about having this vestigial lump of a skill on our hotbars when it could be something extremely useful to our kit.

Lore wise, SMN rises from arcanist, a DPS with a cure spell in its basic kit, it’s not a SCH move, it’s arcanist, this is something our base class actively practices, something we’ve had since we started the class, there’s no reason SMN should not be proficient in its use any more than RDM is with vercure.

Historically in the series, there is also no reason for SMN not to be able to heal, SMNs have used both black and white magic in previous titles. Examples such as, child Rydia, Terra, Garnet and Yuna.

TL;DR: I think the director misunderstood the question as SMNs asking for something just because RDM has it, when actually SMN was asking for something they’ve been asking for all along, citing RDM as an example of somewhere showing that it can be done.