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.

[Canadane]

He's saying they don't want jobs to be the same.
And here you are asking to same them up.

[Llugen]

I think the bigger issue is that SMN has physick and it's useless. Their goal was to remove button bloat, so instead of removing physick from SMN, they removed sustain, the healing skill that ACTUALLY worked.


When they reimplemented it, I was grateful (as were many), but what they should have done is have it be a SMN trait that upgrades Physick to Sustain. Boom, done. SMN doesn't need the ability to heal like RDM, but it DOES need the ability to maintain its own pet (particularly Titan-Egi). Which thankfully it has, but this is just my insight.


When I saw that they removed Sustain but KEPT Physick in the preliminary 4.0 patch notes, I thought to myself "there's just no way... they must have increased Physick's healing on the SMN's own Egi... or something", but sure enough, SE never fails to disappoint.

[Remedi]

Imho they should find a way to separate the jobs since any changes made to base arcanist abilities will have repercussion to the other job and it has been a problem since release.
I know it's hard but if they have scrapped the idea of branching jobs they should address this problem especially since from their words they are starting to not beign bogged down by the remnant of 1.0 anymore

[ValentineSnow]

He's saying they don't want jobs to be the same.
And here you are asking to same them up.

I only read the TLDR and can already tell that's the exact opposite of what they're saying. physick should always have been INT based from release, it's not about making it the same as RDM it's about making it the way it should always have been before RDM even existed. RDM only gets brought up because it shows that all the excuses people think of as to why physick isn't INT based, like balance, are BS because RDM can do it and there's no issue.

[Cynfael]

In the context of SMN, if Physick is the question, the answer is no.

Balance and bloat issues aside, should any source of SMN healing be INT-based? Yes.

Should SMN have a fully functional single-target heal that isn't specifically pet-oriented? I believe not.

I'd rather that Physick be removed from ACN and be coded as a SCH Job action, then replaced for SMN with a different pet or party defensive support action. Given how important it is in this game for DPS Jobs to maximize DPS uptime (and how little benefit there is in the idea of them doing anything else since tanks primarily manage enmity and healers are extremely powerful), I dislike that SE creates a sort of noobtrap by filling DPS action slots with targetable GCD heals. Even RDM's Vercure, being fully functional, is of extremely marginal use at best and creates aggravation and wastes time at worst.

Further, when RDM uses Vercure while enemies are targetable, they sacrifice a decent chunk of offensive potency; SMN, while unable to use Physick for "free," is less punished since much of their damage is sourced from ticking DoTs and from their pet.

As far as lore goes, I don't understand why it comes up so frequently as a point of contention. There's nothing about FFXIV that says that it needs to follow the precedent set by any or all previous FF games (ironically in this case, FFXIV SMN is a fairly unique creation that flies in the face of most every other incarnation of FF Summoner), and the setting is such an outrageous mix of high fantasy and science-fantasy that anything can be explained. It's not difficult at all to imagine dark, neutral, or otherwise non-holy/white magic healing in a setting where white magic can be used a tool of mass destruction and void/black magic is the favored tool of characters who prefer not to stay dead when you kill them.

[Aomine1992]

SMN doesn’t need the heal, lol RDM doesn’t even need it but it does follow the lore of the class which was being a hybrid of both WHM and BLM...

Stop asking for these jobs to be identical lol

[Rongway]

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.

RDM should absolutely have Vercure because RDM is RDM. However, in a party, RDM should only ever need to cast Vercure as a Dualcast trigger, never as a heal. Neither job should ever have to heal anyone in group content, and if they do, it means something has gone horribly, horribly wrong, and the situation is outside the realm of intended play and balance considerations. So my argument will consider this from a solo perspective.

SMN's low powered Physick is not a problem, because they got Sustain back. But Sustain isn't that great because the pets themselves are so muted and useless. If you "need" more than Sustain to keep a tank pet alive, the tank pet isn't tanky enough. If you need Physick to keep yourself alive, the tank pet isn't tanky enough.

In a perfect world, a DD pet would be squishier but deal enough damage to kill a level-appropriate enemy before either the pet or master died; and a tank pet would be able to survive against level-appropriate enemies and generate enough enmity to keep level-appropriate enemies off the master.

That the tank pet isn't so great at either of those things is a side effect of how non-petcentric SMN is. 99% of SMN button presses make the SMN do something. I won't argue that they should have to push any fewer buttons than other jobs, but more of those button presses need to make the pet do something instead. The SMN himself should be generating much less enmity and damage, while the pet is a whirlwind of force. If 75-85% of the SMNs actions commanded the pet to do something; and if the SMN himself mostly stood back and supported the pet; and if the pets' stats were rebalanced for the appropriate level of survivability; then we'd be addressing the real problems with SMN as SMN.

Unfortunately, this late in the development/life cycle of the game, SE committing the resources to a fix of this magnitude seems unlikely.


tl;dr: SMN doesn't need a better Physick; they just need to be real SMNs.

[Kurando]

Although I do miss the usefulness Physick had back in ARR content, it did practically become unnecessary in the expansions that followed. I'd be lying if I said I didn't want Physick to now be based on INT instead of MND, but going forward it might be in better interests to just have a trait to evolve it in to something more useful whether it be a pet enhancing action or some kind of ally/party utility.

We also do need to consider that if Physick was updated to effect INT, we'll have people complaining that BLM has no healing/rezzing actions whilst the other two casters do, and then it'll just be whiny threads of wanting to them to have fair access.

[Karshan]

As long as no one bullies me in raid for not using it and prefering my primary role, you can base Physick on whatever stat you deem relevant.

"Meh, should have physick the tank after that TB" - Not my job (and yes it's different than healers heal/DPS strawman, cause it means not only lost GCDs but also lost focus on a rotation more complex to keep up than healers' DPS)

I personally think you shouldn't though, and Vercure, to me, is a mistake the way it is (not in solo where it's nice, but out of place in a raid environment with a role trinity)