Uncle Acid on Healing Reduction, Job Balancing, QoL Changes, and More! (Feast)

[Meero]

Let me start by talking about how healing reduction works in PvP: it doesn't reduce ability healing or shields—divine benison, adlo, etc., so it is extremely underwhelming. I think this is a smart way to buff SMN because of how much they miasma. Let us look at DRK combo: they do not even use power slash in PvP because souleater value is absurd compared to power slash. DRK was the most balanced tank in the game, but it got a TBN nerf. Power Slash combo as a whole is bad; reworking healing reduction would at least make it worth a little more. It would be a way to slightly increase the skill cap indirectly by giving people more useful options to use—rage of halone on a healer is pretty useless too (not that PLD needs a buff, but if PLD needs a nerf, it could be nerfed in other ways). Cometeor debuff is just WAY better than terminal velocity debuff, and yes, I know that ranged LB is more burst, but cometeor radius is also bigger—consider also that cometeor debuff is 15s, and that tank LB is only 10s now! The tooltips for these say they reduce healing magic potency, so are abilities not healing magic?

For healing increases such as the PvP trait increased healing potency, it at least says it only increases spell-based healing. Now I personally think things like this trait should also increase shields and ability healing potency but then have its percentage reduced to 3% or so instead of 5% to keep it from being too much. Something I would like to point out is that increased spell-based healing and dmg up traits are not increasing SMN bahamut dmg or SCH fairy embrace healing, yet at the same time things like disable or rage of halone do not reduce these untargetable pets' potencies. So I say since SMN is in a weak spot, why not just make it so dmg increases for the SMN affect their pet, but leave it so dmg decreases to the SMN do not reduce bahamut dmg. This change might also make it worth it for SCH to consider using healing trait. SCH is really falling behind in healing to this random, uncoordinated DRG PvE pressure, the WAR vs WAR meta, and the dmg increases last patch. WAR tank stance also doesn't increase ability healing which is bad for SCH because lustrate is its core.

Let's move on to AST: it used to have really niche mitigation by being able to drop a 30s bole, and disable used to reduce LB dmg. They made this change to disable without including it in patch notes, why? Was it so busted that AST could disable LB? It was a thing better players could do, and now that's gone. Was 30s bole busted? I won't address that question, but here is what I will: I believe it's not worth it to use bole now but believe it's better to convert it. I would say I convert about 85% of my boles to lady of crowns. There is still a time I use bole for sure, so don't get me wrong. With what I just said, what good mitigation does AST have now though? 15s ED is unforgiving especially against DRG, so you won't be binding much now.

[Meero]

For NA/EU region at least, I think it is currently WHM>SCH>AST, but I think this also holds true for JP although WHM may be just a tiny bit less effective there. Mind you, you must be able to play scholar very effectively for it to become better than AST. The healer role in itself is indeed not lacking when it comes to carry potential in solo q, but it's only good if the healers are as close to each other when it comes to balancing as possible, and if one is to be better than the other, it should be the one with the highest skill cap, as it should be with every role in my opinion. To me, it is absolutely miserable to play any other healer than WHM currently.

I mentioned 2 things that could buff SMN. The most respectable SMNs that have the most success tend to go muse, so one could only assume there is an MP issue. I'm sure SMN would love to have the best of both worlds and have their MP buffed in some way and be able to run recup/safeguard just like everyone else these days. I do not think SMN dots are overpowered. 1500 mana for each dot is pretty costly, and just look at the potencies of them. Compare miasma to higanbana . I think the animation of akh morn should be as quick as deathflare, but do you know what I think the main issue with SMN is? It has no utility anymore. Tribind was extremely underpowered and laughable. It has no team support, CC, or versatility at all. You can't even set up your own caster LB reliably without assistance from your team unless you position it well. SMN is a very risky job because it has no utility and a survivability issue, relying mostly on perfect positioning, and then you have wither that just puts you right in the pit.

Yet the issue I just mentioned with SMN is an issue with the state of the game, period. There are only so many things anyone can do now with the little amount of buttons we have, and the difference between good and bad players is still getting less and less with each patch that comes out. Why was slidecasting + jumping after a casted LB gutted? That's so petty. Why do melee no longer have to make the decision to put up combo debuff and use their brain if they want their LB dmg increased if it's worth it? Why can a DRK only press his TBN every 15s now instead of 10? Why in a game of 10 buttons are CDs getting increased, why are things so linear, and why are we removing options from good players? If you want to see a beautifully designed spell, look at foul! Now look at leg graze from MCH, ouch. Why is increasing damage the only solution to balancing the game? This is how you increase skill: let disable reduce healing potency too, let leg graze be able to bind if a certain condition is met, let MNK be able to wind tackle to a party member too. Now I am not suggesting the aforementioned changes per se, but I am only trying to get at a point here.

[Meero]

Now it can be very hard to balance a game like this, absolutely, and there is so much debate between people on how to balance jobs and the details. There will always be a meta. The job of the developers is to just do the best they can and keep the game well-designed, fun, and everchanging. Job adjustments currently only feel like a temporary solution to a huge problem, and the huge problem is what I said in my paragraph above. PvP should have less standalone buttons than PvE because we have more useful macros and quick chat available to us in PvP, but we should NOT have this little amount either. Give us something, please. Everyone in the community is crying for it. If it's 5 buttons or 2, just something... why did PvE get 5 buttons in 4.4 but not us?

Now let's move on to one final thing, and it's something all of us can agree on, and these are the best kind of changes that can be made to the game: changes that everyone will love, quality of life changes:
• We need to be able to see timers for party and enemy frame status effects
• Give us an option to sort how roles appear on enemy feast frame just like there is for party
• Make it so *Focus Attack* quick chat countdown shows up on enemy frame and replaces the marker on it for that duration, as it does for target frame
• Make it so we can see 10 status effects on focus frame too
• Give us some filtering options for flying/pop-up text because some of us don't want the clutter of seeing things like dmg & healing, rotational combos such as yukikaze/demolish/chaos thrust/etc. Some of us only want to see CDs popped.
• More window size options because when you resize, it goes 90%, 100%, 110%, 120% to 140%
• For some reason, you can knockback someone with invincibility buff after they rez, so either remove the buff or fix this issue
• Fix some tooltips like purify because in the English language, it doesn't do what it says it does
• SCH fairy is very hard to see, so why not show a buff on them when they have it summoned? This is useful information to the scholar's teammates, but it's especially useful for the enemy team to have some kind of counterplay to scholar if they have good awareness, but do keep in mind SCH is in a fragile state currently. For perfectionist purposes, SMN could have a status effect for bahamut too

And for my closing paragraph, I will say that I believe this new map is way too cluttered because of how narrow it is. In my opinion, a well-designed arena is square, circular, or a wider rectangle with a few, possibly thick, pillars and also walls and such but should not have too many. Most people do not take bolt anymore because of how much of a cluster this new map is, and if the map were more how I said it ought to be, well it just might be a step toward making it so there is more of a consideration of bolt and not sg/recup every game. Do keep these frequent changes coming, but do not make the wrong kind of changes, thank you.

[Etrius]

Good, lets hope that newbie healers actually read the forums.

[BloodRubyXII]

This is the most beautiful read of this decade, agreed on all points. SE will think AST is fine because of the high representation - the case is really more it's the easiest to do well with. Unless you get consistent spread pressure incoming (which is rare) - barely will you ever not convert a bole.

And 1500 mana per a dot is ridiculous, as a SMN main, for what that dot does. A weak healing debuff and very little damage, serving as little more than to feed fester. I chose to play melee this season not because I wanted to; but because NIN is actually useful unlike SMN.

[Meero]

Let's look at SCH: it was the most busted class this xpac prefairy nerf, and postfairy nerf, it was still overpowered until right about now where it's falling off a bit. Even for SCH, there are a couple buttons that pretty much go unused at high-level play—chain stratagem and physick. Aura blast is 60s CD, and a button like muse is very scripted on how you should be using it each game. This obviously does not mean that SCH was weak, but rather I think this is poor design, and it was overtuned in the rest of its kit relatively. I have never met a person who has disagreed with improving the quality of what little buttons we have and adding a couple more. It will NOT take away from the importance of team strategy and tactics in the feast, just as having as many buttons in PvE does not take away from the importance of it there and having good players in your group.

I think the developer team is lacking someone with good vision and who knows what an objectively good change is—one that everybody wants. Enliven and muse do nothing for some jobs, yet they are an option to pick. If another additional replaced it for jobs that cannot use it and bolt was given to everybody, we now all have 1 button. It's that easy. It's very awkward being without bolt, yet of course it's worth it in feast for the most part. No wonder melee is a nightmare to play in FL if bolt is a must. You cannot stay in fights very long with just recup or sg alone, and some melee like MNK and DRG are lacking in impactful or reliable survivability, and they do not have even 1 type of CC compared to NIN and SAM. Once again, it does not mean they can't be overtuned in other areas—NIN is pretty eh after all. Even autos were removed from melee.

Also being able to see how much damage players can withstand before a shield breaks on them would be a very welcomed QoL change.

[snipski]

Id say Healers still have the most carry potenial of all the jobs specially WHM this season, id even say WHM is above Astro right now, since they have more shields, fluid aura and assize buff was so good.
There is not a single Scholar on Chaos datacenter so it's kinda hard to compare that job here i know JP uses it alot. That is also a reason Summoner dont work well on Chaos because having a summooner against a WHM sucks ass because they have regen + assize aoe heals to negate their aoe dmg potential all together. Summoner on JP centers still doing well ive heard.

The melee jobs are pretty well balanced, Sam is prolly the strongest since they can do good burst without relying on the dot to much, Monk and Dragoon has 500 more hp then Sam/Nin. They all work well in the hands of a good player.

As for Tanks, Warrior seem strong this season because they can use holmgang so frequently now shutting down the Melee, Paladin and Drk are strong still but most ppl go with War right now on Chaos.

As for Ranged im not sure whats good or bad actually they seem to do well with either.

Safeguard is also to mandatory and strong , i would love being able to run Conc + Bolt on melee but you cant because you need that Safeguard :|

[Etrius]

DRK TBN is now laughable.

[Astrophysx]

I think the developer team is lacking someone with good vision and who knows what an objectively good change is—one that everybody wants.

Sorry to put you on the spot...

Anyway, I know this suggestion may sound crazy... but I think the devs should consider consulting with Uncle Acid. I feel he would make a perfect candidate as an advisor to the dev team in regards to PvP in FFXIV.

[Stormfur]

There are a lot of folks I'd think they could consult with to improve PVP.