Healer Mitigation skills - will you guys miss them?

[Knoahl]

Hey,

One thing I've noticed in Shadowbringers and since Stormblood is we are like losing a lot of our Damage reduction skills like:

-Virus and supervirus passive
-Eye for an Eye and enhanced Eye for an eye
-Protect and proshell passive
-Fey Covenant
-Bole
-Shadowflare (the attack slow on it)
-Blind on Ruin 2 (was made useless by flash anyways but still)
-Stoneskin and enhanced stoneskin
-Disable

There might be more, these are off the top of my head, I think sacred soil once upon a time reduced more damage too... its a shame as we have like one of these 10% damage reductions per healer now as opposed to multiple.

How do you feel about them, will you miss them?

[dezzmont]

Healers having mitigation is sorta interesting but a weird design because mitigation exists to assist the healer in reducing the need to cast heals. It makes more sense as a benefit to a non-healer job(or the benefit of a very specific healer job) than for a healer to have mitigation themselves in my opinion, as the difference between healing twice and mitigating once then healing is insubstantial. Like you can do some interesting things with healers having access to mitigation but in general its weird if every healer can mitigate the main heal target themselves.

Lets not call protect a mitigation skill by the by. Protect was a non-mechanic that had no purpose existing. It was a spell every healer had and was able to cast at any time that lasts an entire duty and doesn't interact with any other mechanic in the game, giving a totally passive benefit that doesn't interact with jobs in any way. It was surreal it still existed and definitely should have been gone a while ago.

[Knoahl]

Interesting points Dez! Originally it is what seperated Scholar and White Mage, making them work so well together, it also helped them feel more unique.

I agree protect isn't one like a proactive one and more of a blanket buff, I think the version in PvP could become a nice lily spell which maybe a nice addition to WHM... but we got that with the wings now so it's not really needed at this point but still could be a nice addition.

It does further highlight there want to make all healers to be the "main healer" and share the responsibility. So now between healers they have 20% party damage mitigation between them, and the tanks have the rest of what we used to have with deployable mitigation, and dps have the rest.

The issue with this is healing may just be more stressful if say your tank pulls huge and your dps/tanks don't use such utility, we will see however. But I feel it will be very noticeable perhaps.

[althenawhm]

tank pulls huge and your dps/tanks don't use such utility

Well, Temperance, Sacred Soil, and even Holy can help take the damage off of big pulls.
But, Collective Unconscious kinda sucks for pulls, RIP AST.

[Zyneste]

WHM is getting mitigation through temperance.

Pretty much every skill except the bole and Fey cov, died going into SB.

I'll always miss Virus on SCH the most though.

[dezzmont]

I have the feeling the goal was to make healers not so much heal more as much as play more reactively, which is something most healers in most MMOs enjoy, because it makes you feel like a real healer rather than a nurse constantly patching people up. If you aren't constantly DPSing, and aren't constantly healing, but instead trying to balance mana expendature with how much incoming damage each individual party member is taking, healing becomes actual content rather than something you demonstrate skill with by doing less.

Mitigation hurts this reactive play despite needing to be done ahead of time, at least if the mitigation lasts more than a few seconds, because it dramatically increases the time to the next required burst heal on the tank, making healing a much more lazy affair. There are things you can do with it (Like having it assist in triage heals, Paladin healers in WoW were interesting because they baked mitigation into every heal making a fantastic buddy for any of their other healers. A paladin made healing as a shaman with good AOE, druid with good regen, and priest with good burst all feel very different. Regen is stronger with mitigation, Weak AOE heals with mitigation create interesting tactical dilemas, and burst heal with mitigation makes a single target really hard to kill!) but I definitely find it sorta a weird mechanic for FFXIV healing because it makes it even more passive than it already is. FFXIV healing is very forgiving resources wise (You can full burst heal your MT like some odd 12 times before running dry on mana using your fancy class heals, which is a LOT), so mitigation is less a resource saver or emergency stopgap to stop a wipe and more just something to let you DPS more. While I have nothing against healer DPS I think it is fair a lot of people don't like that skillful healer play is minimizing heal time to maximize DPS uptime. I suspect we will see a lot more erratic damage spreads to keep healers more on their toes, switching targets a lot, and that the mana changes will make DPS spells super forgiving mana wise but make rationing heals more important.

It isn't an accident I think that tanks are getting less mitigation skills overall so that healing is more 'stable' most of the time, with mitigation being mostly the OT's value add to the team.

I also suspect if they find they like this iteration of healers our 4th healer will be a mitigation healer, sorta akin to a WoW paladin. Having one healer really focused on mitigation over raw heal numbers gives that healer a unique identity, compared to every healer just having mitigation naturally which makes mitigation more an efficiency tool.

But, Collective Unconscious kinda sucks for pulls, RIP AST.

Astro already has really good zero-time heals in the form of ED and ES. And with them still totally cornering the rDPS market on healers I doubt they are going anywhere. Plus, Essential Dignity is probably THE most fun healing spell in the game. Absolutely a delight and blast.

[Knoahl]

but instead trying to balance mana expendature with how much incoming damage each individual party member is taking, healing becomes actual content rather than something you demonstrate skill with by doing less.

If mana efficiency is they key to this expansions healing, which it does look like it's the direction it's going down with removal of MP utility and the Piety changes, it may well be a nice new direction, it just depends if piety scales to a point where we end up with enough MP regen to the point we can just carelessly cast, I doubt it but it's a possibility it could be a thing in later patches in Shb. Maybe by then they'll have refined the new direction they are going in though.

[Shurrikhan]

Some, yes -- others no.

For instance: Disable, Bole, and Virus? Yes. Eye for an Eye and Fey Covenant (because of how they worked)? Not a bit.

I'll miss having mitigation, for sure. I just think what we had was mostly abysmal. I'm pissed at the changes, yet will scarcely need a glance back at any here but Bole.

[Urthdigger]

Yes and no. On the one hand, I miss having more options, who wouldn't? But on the other hand, I do prefer having the short term mitigation like Virus and Feint be the job of the DPS so they actually have some responsibilities, and because I'll likely be shielding. I love seeing the whole party come together to help survive a tankbuster.

Give me back Eye for an Eye though. And Stoneskin II while you're at it.

[MaraD_]

I like defensive roles, and wish healers handled both healing and mitigation. So I will miss them.
(I play tanks as well as healers, to try and get the enjoyment of both, but instead get 2 roles which feel underwhelming and only half the role I want.)
Id be fine losing offense for the ability to be both fully. AST and SCH were the closest, and still werent quite what I want, AND had other elements I hate)
PLD from FFXI was the closest, using heals to stay alive, and to keep mitigation up, or used at the right moments.
It had little to no offensive abilities, which can suck, but im fine with, if it actually has what I want.