A summary of healer issues

[Allegor]

But I like the shielding/regen stances, the other two have simialr skills and oh yeah, they removed most of the other defining aspects already so that seems to be a long shot.

Unpopular(?) opinion but outside Seraph, Noct AST feels to me more of a barrier healer than SCH. Gutting the cards was a huge blow and if they ever remove Noct too then the job is as dead to me as BLU.

[Deceptus]

Unpopular(?) opinion but outside Seraph, Noct AST feels to me more of a barrier healer than SCH. Gutting the cards was a huge blow and if they ever remove Noct too then the job is as dead to me as BLU.

It all depends on the way the FFXIV devs want to go forward.

If they stick with the Shield /Regen healers: AST will have to lose one and the new healer will have to be the opposite.

If they ditch the Shield / Regen (IMHO should be buff / debuff based healers): They add a new healer and not much changes.

[AceofRains]

I finally have gotten around to picking up my other healers in Shadowbringer. The changes as the consensus seems to be is that they are off-putting to say it mildly. While there are some changes I do like, I agree that gutting the flourishing identity of these jobs really killed my excitement to be a healer. After reviewing OP’s suggestions upon many other threads, as well as brushing up on the healers my self, I feel more ready to give my own input. The change list I’m proposing would have to be done for the expansion. It would take role skills out of their own category and directly place them on a job so they can be selectively modified by traits. This should happen for all jobs. I placed a lot of emphasis on the DPS aspects of each of these jobs, and while you won’t necessarily stop having your bread and butter attack spell and DoT, you will have more decisions to weave in between, and more meaningful decisions over all.

Edits: To prove that Medica and Helios should be consolidated to thier aspected counterparts, I have neglected to use these spells at all while leveling. The fact is, I can do all the healing I need to without these spells, and I can get the job done without them. Additionally, to prove that Celestial Opposition should be returned to its original form, I have neglected to use this spell at all. There’s no reason to jam pack so many OGC raidwide heals into a kit, when the same effect can by achieved by spamming Aspected Helios or following up with Synastry and Lightspeed with little detriment to my MP.


White Mage - these changes to White Mage keep it in line with the pure healer archetype. With the addition of Protect and Shell and short duration defense boots, it serves to mitigate damage as well. It still retains the great amount of healing options it has, but can now choose to use some of those offensively without the Tactical commitment featured in Scholar. This is also something of a callback to being able to damage undead enemies with heals. This is a job for people who like the basic healing concept.

-Repose upgrades to Break, inflicting Petrify instead of Sleep.
-Medica upgrades to Medica II
-Esuna upgrades to Esuna II, allowing for raid-wide debuff removals.
-Fluid Aura now can either damage or heal, depending on the target.
-Fluid Aura upgrades to Tetragrammaton
-Tetragrammaton can be used to damage or heal a single target.
-Enemies and allies hit by Assize will now spread Aero or Dia to all other nearby enemies, or Regen to all nearby allies.
-Protect and Shell return, briefly increase physical or magical defense respectively.
-Cure now upgrades to Cure II.
-Dispell now removes a beneficial effect from an enemy.

Level 90 Additions
Holy II - Increase Potency
Cure IV - Upgrade Cure III, now also damages nearby enemies.
Sacred Prism - Changes the next use of Protect, Shell, or Divine Benison into an AoE.

Scholar - These changes not only bring Scholar back to what it should be as a DPS orientated healer, but shift the power window of the fairy to be dependent on the Fae Gauge. This is a job for people who want to make commitment to offensive or defense decisions.

-Rescue upgrades to Lifesaver and will additionally grant a Barrier.
-Leeches upgrades from Esuna and grants a stack of Aetherflow and increases the Fairy Gauge when removing a negative effect.
-Selene is a DPS Fairy
-Embrace: Basic heal.
-Whispering Dusk: DoT AoE
-Fey Dreamdust: AoE Sleep, less duration than Repose.
-Fey Wind Fey Circle: Localized AoE Party Haste (Like Ley Lines, but rather Fey Lines)
-Aetherpact is now free of cost and only forces a fairy to focus the unionized target.
Fairy’s are now instant Summoned like Summoner.
All Fey actions now require cost to Fey Gauge. Aetherflow Actions grant 20 points per use.
-Seraphic Illumination now grants 10% Magic Damage reduction.
Seraph will always summon as a healing Fairy.

Level 90 Additions
Dissipation: Tabula Rasa - Changes Ruin II and Physic into Kaustra and Embrava Respectively depending on if Eos or Selene was dissipated.
-Embrava: High potency Regen and Haste, no cast time.
-Kaustra: Higher potency than Broil, no cast time.
Chain Stratagem: Distribution - Spread Biolysis to all nearby enemies when using Chain Stratagem.
Sacred Soil: High Ground - Increases damage dealt by Art of War while inside of Sacred Soil.
Enhanced Aetherflow - Allows for a 4th Stack of Aetherflow.

Astrologian - Astrologian has been given back its unique card effects as well as Royal road and Spread. Creative strategies with a 3 Card Spread make for a more compelling AST experience. They also will be more involved with managing the duration of status effects. This is a job for people who like to make the most of the hand they’re dealt.

-Repose upgrades to Stasis inflicting Petrify instead of Sleep.
-Helios upgrades into Aspected Helios
-Revert Celestial Opposition to a Stun and gives it timer refresh to AST specific debuffs and buffs.
-Horoscope grants the effect of Horoscope and dishes everyone out a Random arcana. It is no longer modified by Helios, but still reactivates for an AoE heal. Any card replaced during the effect of horoscope will also heal.
-Exhalted Dertriment upgrades from Esuna and now increases the duration of beneficial effects when removing a negative effect.
-Remove Undraw, return Royal Road
-Remove Play, return Spread
-Gravity now inflicts Heavy.

Solar Lord Balance - Determination - RR Duration
Solar Lady Bole - Defense - RR AoE
Celestial Lady Spire - Direct Hit - RR Duration
Celestial Lord Spear - Critical Hit - RR AoE
Lunar Lord Arrow - Skill Speed - RR Duration
Lunar Lady Ewer - Spell Speed - RR AoE

Lord and Lady retain the same effect as now where one directly increases damage of melee and the other increases damage of ranged.

Level 90 Additions
Enhanced Benefics - Upgrade Benefic to Benefic III and Benefic II to Benefic IV
The Knave - 50% chance the Lord or Lady will instead appear as the Knave, increasing damage dealt to an enemy by 5%. The Knave can not appear again for 120 seconds.
Gravity II - Increases the potency of Gravity.
Constellation (Stella) - Sends a damaging chain between all enemies afflicted by Combust and refreshes the DoT.

[Deceptus]

I think something that also needs to be discussed is Dot Damage.

Right now they're sitting about 2x as potent as our filler spell, where IMHO it should be at least 4-5X as potent. Classically, in RPGs and MMO's the point of dots is they're supposed to be cheaper than filler spells and more effective with the tradeoff of having their damage spread out, not upfront.

This isn't really the case in FFXIV. Playing well, you can easily get 8-10 filler casts off (more if you're a WHM with POM). Having a DoT be only 2x the damage of a filler just seems really low to me.

[Sindal]

Interesting takes.

I'd honestly move that 'dia/aero spread' to the current Fluid Aura. The water makes an bubble explosion with the aero marker to spread it out . That'll atleast give it a use right now instead of making it meld with tetra, which seems a bit awkward?

Assize, as amazing as it is, does so much as it is, adding 'spreads Dots and Hot' to it's list of Big damage/Big Heal and Mp for free would probably see it nerfed some other way.

[AceofRains]

Interesting takes.

I'd honestly move that 'dia/aero spread' to the current Fluid Aura. The water makes an bubble explosion with the aero marker to spread it out . That'll atleast give it a use right now instead of making it meld with tetra, which seems a bit awkward?

Assize, as amazing as it is, does so much as it is, adding 'spreads Dots and Hot' to it's list of Big damage/Big Heal and Mp for free would probably see it nerfed some other way.

I do like Assize and I could see a nerf to the raw potency with this, but I also think it would be well worth it overall. I would rather merge Fluid Aura and Tetra because not only are thier action icons really similar, but both are already single target abilities in the first place. Tetra would pretty much be revised to be like a Holy Water kinda deal.

[Brandedblade]

(The Scholar Suggestions)

Leeches is a good idea, rewarding the downtime from cleansing debuffs with extra resources would make it feel way less bad when you are doing mechanics that need to be cleansed.

Rescue trait feels more like fun flavor then anything else, but I've no complaints otherwise.

While I do agree that making Selene and Eos distinct again would be great. I can't help but feel that this model wouldn't encourage healthy play. I can already see all the bad scholars exclusively using Selene at the detriment of the group even if the really good Scholars are swapping them back and forth like bosses. While skill ceiling is absolutely something that should be a thing I can't help but fear this system would just create toxicity. at the bare minimum I would keep Embrace as the filler spam for both faeries so you always have some passive healing going out.

However, all that I said would be contingent on whether or not the actions are shared in their cooldown, if the actions are all seperate then I can see the system working, But i disagree with the offensive fairy having an "auto-attack" because of the situations where a bad scholar would stay exclusively in Selene.

Is there going to be a trade-off of some sort to Aetherpact? Like locking you out of controlling your faerie for X seconds? or is just going to be a toggled on demand powerful regen? That alone sounds too powerful to me.

Since I see no mention of it? is this system going to come with more ways of generating fae guage to offset the fact that more abilities have a cost and that there's more of them you want to use?

No complaints about Seraph, turning it into a powerful mitigation cooldown sounds like a natural progression. If you really wanted to be silly and overkill, have Seraph be an upgrade to Fae Illumination that more or less makes the Seraphic Illumination an "aura" that lasts as long as the Seraph is out.

With Tabula Rasa, i can't help but feel in most cases people would only dissipate Selene, I see no reason for Embrava AND Kaustra to be available regardless of the faerie eaten. especially assuming it's locking you out of both. The spells themselves are fine tho, Kaustra being a free weave slot for the extra aetherflow you have makes it quite solid as an offensive option, and Embrava being a solid emergency heal seems to compliment one another very well.

Attaching the Biolysis spread to Chain feels weird to me. Personally I would attach the spread to Art of War, with Art of War dealing increased potency to the targets afflicted. That way it's more readily available between packs. The damage potency increase combined with Sacred Soil would either compliment or be unnecessary with this change depending on the numbers.

[AceofRains]

feedback

Wow thank you, I actually have had similar criticisms of my own suggestions. I really appreciate the feedback.
-Rescue: I wasn’t sure here what other role spell would be good to upgrade. While I thought it a good idea that WHM and AST get a petrify, I had a hard time thematically justifying it on SCH. My other idea was that Rescue would also provide a Barrier in case the rescue attempt doesn’t work out. I’ve had moments where the pull didn’t pull all the way to safe and they still took the hit- so perhaps that might go over a little better.

Embrace/Spurn: Yeah I also agree here. I’m a Scholar main, so switching Fairy’s while keeping people alive would be no big deal to me but I can see where the baddies would fail miserably.

Fairy Gauge: It might be better to have Aetherflow actions add 20 to the gauge rather than 10. This could offset some of that trouble. At that point it would take 5 uses to put you at a full gauge, which you’ll likely be spending in between. Yes, the Fey actions here would not share cooldowns. If not this kind of change, using Leeches or Chain Stratagem could also add to the gauge. Maybe getting a second stack or so after an Excogition proc. Overall I have never really liked Aetherpact and figure an alternative for the Gauge would lead to more satisfying gameplay.

Aetherpact: Definitely in favor of a trade off here. Despite being very successful as a Scholar I almost never use Aetherpact. I barely even notice it’s more potent regeneration to be honest. I think it’s a great way to force the fairy to target something specific instead of targeting the lowest health person. The high potency regeneration is barely worth using in my opinion. Many times I clear instances without ever once using this skill and a gauge sitting at 100 the whole time.

Chain Strategem: I think making a secondary effect of Bane for CS would be perfect. It’s not necessarily wasted in situations where there’s only one target, and since they’re both of the Analysis thematic, it makes sense. You also won’t be able to Spread on every mob pull, so you still will have times where you manually apply Biolysis, which I think is more than acceptable. Many times when AoEing, you do have a main target that will take the brunt of the damage or is the center of attention and has more health, naturally this is the enemy you want to include Biolysis first and CS-Bane off of it.

Dissipation/Tabula Rasa: I feel like I was on the right track here if level 90 can make Dissipation a little better, but I did have a hard time coming up with something better for Embrava. I was trying to avoid copy-pasting XI, but a Regen and Speed boost might actually apply better here.
Sacred Soil/High Ground: Again something I kinda feel the right track for but a little uncertain. I do tend to throw out SS and use AoW inside it anyways so it felt like a natural bonus for doing something I’d do anyways. It’s basically a potency upgrade for the AoE spell for 90 cap.

[Semirhage]

I think something that also needs to be discussed is Dot Damage.

Right now they're sitting about 2x as potent as our filler spell, where IMHO it should be at least 4-5X as potent. Classically, in RPGs and MMO's the point of dots is they're supposed to be cheaper than filler spells and more effective with the tradeoff of having their damage spread out, not upfront.

This isn't really the case in FFXIV. Playing well, you can easily get 8-10 filler casts off (more if you're a WHM with POM). Having a DoT be only 2x the damage of a filler just seems really low to me.

That's related to one of the worries I had about healers going into 5.0. We were fast approaching the point where healer dots (most noticeably with Miasma since it was the only one unadjusted since ARR) were going the way of the dodo without attention. As main spam spells gained potency, we were fast approaching a point where old dots' total potency was *less* than the nuke, and they'd be dead spells.

"Thankfully" Square noticed this approaching concern, so they deleted half the damage kits and didn't replace them with anything. Problem solved!

[Brandedblade]

Chain Strategem: I think making a secondary effect of Bane for CS would be perfect. It’s not necessarily wasted in situations where there’s only one target, and since they’re both of the Analysis thematic, it makes sense. You also won’t be able to Spread on every mob pull, so you still will have times where you manually apply Biolysis, which I think is more than acceptable. Many times when AoEing, you do have a main target that will take the brunt of the damage or is the center of attention and has more health, naturally this is the enemy you want to include Biolysis first and CS-Bane off of it.

I get your concept for Chain is to make it more useable in large trash packs, however I'm thinking of it more from the perspective that a dot spread should always be relatively accessible for situations where you're killing the mobs faster then chain's cooldown. Perhaps something akin too "Chain now additionally increases the chance the enemies within 10 yalms of the target receive critical hits by 5-10%" would work for that?