My Take on Healers and what I would like done to them

[RegularEggs]

I assume you meant making Draw a GCD and letting Play & Minor Arcana stay as oGCD. This is still terrible in design because it forces the AST to lose out on Divination by trading their DPS because Divination (which is the DPS buff on the entire party) is locked behind 3 Draws. At every scenario, an AST will lose DPS to give rDPS and that's not a risk-reward play, but a punishment to ASTs in general due to the way the buffs currently work. There is also the matter with SCH's aetherflow & WHM's Thin air being a oGCD. In both instances, SCH and WHM do not have to pay a cost to get mana back. That is not the case for ASTs at all.

is that inherently bad for gameplay though? I don't like the idea that all healers are turning into green dps and would like some unique gameplay that may at times sacrifice personal dps in favor for the classes that are meant to dps. Not only that i lower the Draw recast cooldown, i made it more frequent within the Divination window. Allowing for even more minor arcana plays in essence boosting more rDPS. In it's current iteration you only get 3 Plays, and 1 minor Arcana in a divination window vs what would amount to 3 Plays and 3 minor arcana. I'm no math expert, but having more buffs out and more frequently would amount to more DPS.

You seem to be misunderstanding how GCD and oGCD tradeoffs work. Earthly star being a 150 DPS potency (100 potency base) vs a GCD malefic IV being a 250 DPS potency. It's better to continue to GCD DPS than to use Earthly Star as an oGCD DPS as oGCDs are free (manaless) and doesn't consume a GCD (in this case trading a 150 DPS potency for a 250 DPS potency if you use GCD healing). Earthly Star having such a high Healing potency is exactly why an AST shouldn't be using it to substitute for a DPS GCD since it can make up for more than a GCD heal. It doesn't matter if ASTs have better burst healing consuming with GCDs - when optimizing and getting better at healing, healers should be minimizing the usage of GCDs to heal while minimizing overhealing as much as possible and they manage this by using oGCDs to both reduce the amount of healing required and reduce the amount of mana spent with healing GCDs. In the proposed example, ASTs have to consume 2 GCDs (Horoscope being a GCD in your example with a 900 MP cost) and Aspected Helios (900 to 1000 MP) to bring everyone to full. Besides the ridiculous amount of overhealing those potencies have on paper and how an AST just spent ~1800 MP over 5 seconds, you can get something that can push everyone's HP to near full with just one oGCD. That means a healer can free 2 GCDs for DPSing (400 MP total). This number only increases with every usage of Earthly Star during the encounter. Not to mention, if for every Earthly Star, the AST has to trade 1800 MP to bring everyone to full HP, then it doesn't matter if the DPS is doing terribly that AST shouldn't be drawing a DPS card. It forces the AST to pull another GCD card to manage their MP, and that's another GCD DPS potency lost. The purpose of Earthly Star having increased potency is exactly because ASTs are supposed to read in the future and plan ahead - they planned ahead by 20 seconds minimum and can change plans on the fly if they choose to detonate it early.

In my proposed changes I guess i did forget to mention that Horoscope would no longer require the Aspecte helios to gain its powered effect. Instead, the shield breaking would act as that catalyst. Essentialy Horoscope would move from being Plenary Indulgence to being a unique 800 potency spell. I was just stating that in it's current iteration you get more from that single GCD combo. But also the changes I suggest would also only support what you are trying to combat. It would be a more potent heal, thus require it to be used as such.

[AnotherPerson]

is that inherently bad for gameplay though? I don't like the idea that all healers are turning into green dps and would like some unique gameplay that may at times sacrifice personal dps in favor for the classes that are meant to dps. Not only that i lower the Draw recast cooldown, i made it more frequent within the Divination window. Allowing for even more minor arcana plays in essence boosting more rDPS. In it's current iteration you only get 3 Plays, and 1 minor Arcana in a divination window vs what would amount to 3 Plays and 3 minor arcana. I'm no math expert, but having more buffs out and more frequently would amount to more DPS.

In my proposed changes I guess i did forget to mention that Horoscope would no longer require the Aspecte helios to gain its powered effect. Instead, the shield breaking would act as that catalyst. Essentialy Horoscope would move from being Plenary Indulgence to being a unique 800 potency spell. I was just stating that in it's current iteration you get more from that single GCD combo. But also the changes I suggest would also only support what you are trying to combat. It would be a more potent heal, thus require it to be used as such.

A healer that focuses on giving buffs is actually a good idea. However, the way the idea was implemented is bad. Healers are not 'turning into green dps', they were always green dps. That's due to the way encounter design works for every expansion. A good healer that is effective at their job will be able to both balance healing and DPSing. That's how optimized healer gameplay and how healers improve their gameplay works up to current content. A healer that isn't DPSing is not using their toolkit fully and is thus seen as under performing. Healers who choose not to DPS and stand there doing nothing are also not following the basics of good healer gameplay of ABC - Always Be Casting. Since Savage and Ultimate exists as endgame content, it can be seen that good healers gameplay revolves on DPSing and minimizing overhealing for maximum contribution in a battle. Sure, for majority of the game's content, healers don't need to DPS, but that also applies to DPS and tanks who don't need use their full DPS rotations in order to get through the fight. However, is it heavily frowned upon? Yeah, because it's basically people trying to justify less work on their job. FFXIV healers aren't traditional healers from other MMOs that only heal and that's not going to be easily changed unless SE wants to rework encounter design starting from ARR. What you're suggesting simply just doesn't work with the current game from both a balance standpoint and from a gameplay standpoint. Rather than say the changes are something I'm trying to combat your plans, it's better to say you're trying to go against how healer gameplay was designed for multiple expansions, and it should come as no surprise such changes would be met with much opposition.

Not only that i lower the Draw recast cooldown, i made it more frequent within the Divination window. Allowing for even more minor arcana plays in essence boosting more rDPS. In it's current iteration you only get 3 Plays, and 1 minor Arcana in a divination window vs what would amount to 3 Plays and 3 minor arcana. I'm no math expert, but having more buffs out and more frequently would amount to more DPS.

More cards doesn't mean more overall DPS if the cards are tied to the GCD. Card rDPS is heavily reliant on the ones putting the numbers and how their rotation is doing. If a DPS is doing terribly, a 6% DPS increase will not amount to much and can be even less than the healer's GCD. Making more cards but also reliant on the GCD just means more GCDs on a lower DPS potency scale because the AST is trading off a Malefic for a 6% DPS increase rather than getting a Malefic DPS + a 6% card buff in a GCD window. In fact, that's no longer a buff. That's a significant nerf in comparison to what the current AST gameplay is like.

tl;dr :
Current AST on the GCD: Malefic 250 potency + 6% DPS buff (of variable efficiency)
Proposed AST gameplay on the GCD: 6% DPS buff (of variable efficiency)

Current AST on the GCD with Divination: 3 * (Malefic 250 potency + 6% DPS buff ) + Divination = 750 Potency + 18% DPS buff + [Divination]
Proposed AST gameplay on the GCD with Divination: 3 * (6% DPS buff) + Divination = 18% DPS buff + [Divination]

Essentialy Horoscope would move from being Plenary Indulgence to being a unique 800 potency spell.

So instead of Cure / Cure II clones from WHM, ASTs have ... planetary Indulgence clone on the GCD? I thought ASTs were avoiding being a WHM clone, not turn a WHM's skills into AST's GCD. If that passes, I'm sure some WHMs out there would complain.

[Jaelommiss]

Optimal play for every single one of these proposals would involve ignoring a significant portion of the toolkit. Every single class you proposed would change useful abilities to "take this off my hotbar and pretend it doesn't exist" trash.

WHM
WHM's weaving and mobility spells are sparse enough. Anything that decreases that exacerbates the problem. Making Afflatus spells have a cast time eliminates one of their biggest benefits.
Cure I/II serve no function with Afflatus Solace being higher potency and generating a Lily 100% of the time. Throwing these in the trash as soon as possible. Toss Regen in there while we're at it, because it costs four times as much damage to use Regen as it does to use Solace.
Medica/Afflatus Rapture generating a Lily makes Medica II 100% obsolete. Each cast costs 75 Potency compared to 300 potency for Medica II. They have higher burst healing, too.
Increasing Cure III's potency by 50 for no reason is making a change for its own sake. Waste of design space and developer resources.
Splitting Misery into single target and aoe versions achieves nothing apart from button bloat.
Your changes to Divine Benison turn it from a bit of free healing to a near-worthless waste of a button. Making it instant would make it helpful for weaving or movement, but costing a full GCD (300 potency) makes it far more costly that clipping or dropping casts to move (unless the movement is longer than 2.5 secs).

Additional note: the current Lily system (ie. placing them on a CD) gives skilled healers a strong tool if they can manage the resource properly. Lilies provide movement, weaving, and incredibly cheap healing at the cost of a finite resource. Other healing spells hold their value for when Lilies run out. The more efficiently a WHM heals, the less they need to pay full cost to heal. Your implementation would cut out the mobility and weaving rewards that Lilies provide, introduce unlimited "participation award" damage refunds, and render several defining WHM abilities obsolete.

Optimal play: Dia, then Glare Spam. Use Afflatus Solace for single target healing. Use Afflatus Rapture for aoe healing. Hold Afflatus Misery and Bloom for movement and weaving or to prevent overcapping. Lucid Dreaming, Thin Air, Assize, Asylum, Tetra, Benediction all used as current.

I didn't think WHM gameplay could be made any more mind-shatteringly boring, but you managed it. Well done.


SCH
Before anything else, doubling shield potency is going to seriously alter how mitigation and surviving lethal damage mechanics will need to be designed. Either SCH is going to be able to solo mitigate everything, or AST will be incapable of providing sufficient shields.

Gaining aetherflow from shields breaking isn't a terrible idea, though the system as a whole is a mess. Optimal play will involve using Adlo or Succor once every 90 secs to be able to use Biolysis every time dots need refreshing. That frees up one Broil II per 30 secs. Placing every aetherflow ability on the GCD means that every one of them will be avoided as much as possible. Energy Drain doesn't restore the MP it takes to create a single aetherflow stack. Lustrate heals less than Adlo (400 vs 300+750 shield). Deployment Tactics takes two GCDs to spread a 562.5 potency shield compared to Succor's 450 potency in one GCD. Overcapping on aetherflow doesn't matter at all because spending it is a mistake in almost all cases.

Fey Blessing uses the same GCD as Succor for a weaker heal. Only use case will be for intense healing checks where the SCH needs Succor > Fey Blessing > Succor because of the delay on shields becoming active after being applied.

Your changes to faerie gauge will lead to it only ever being used for two things: Whispering Dawn and Aetherpact. Using it for Aetherpact is horribly suboptimal, but will save a lot of hassle.
Summon Seraph will take 150 secs worth of aetherflow generation to use. Not worth anywhere near five Whispering Dawns.
Fey Illumination's damage mitigation is worth far less than Whispering Dawn.
Consolation is in the same boat as Fey Illumination. Simply not worth passing up a 700 potency hot.

Embrace is where we see just how poorly thought out this system is. If we assume it'll be weaved 20 times per minute then the SCH needs to devote 60 APM to target their ally, hit Embrace, then retarget the boss. AST needs to do this three times during Sleeve Draw and people hate it. I guarantee that almost every SCH will stop using their faerie or change to a new class if this is implemented. This is the worst instance of UX design I have seen in my life. Aetherpact gains value solely because Embrace is so terrible.

Optimal Play: Miasma > Bio > Aetherpact > Broil + Embrace spam > Biolysis at 30 secs. Repeat, replacing one Broil with an Adlo or Succor every 90 secs. Set up a keyboard macro for Broil > Target of Target > Embrace > Target of Target. Whispering Dawn for everything else. Lustrate self during downtime to build Faerie Gauge if excess aetherflow has been generated.

Riveting. I really love how you made almost every tool compete for either GCDs or faerie gauge so we can find the optimal action in 30 secs of reading and thoroughly ignore everything else.


AST
Draw is GCD. Using that card must provide at least as much rdps as is lost from not casting Malefic. Play is also GCD. Cards need to be worth two Malefics just to break even. Cards must never be played on a tank or healer because they won't give any damage. RNG damage mitigation and healing boosts are worthless. A 6% damage bonus for 15 secs is worth 18k damage if applied to someone dealing 20k dps. In other words, less damage than a malefic when put on a high performing dps. Even in the spikiest of cases it'll never be worth giving up two malefics. Minor Arcana is equally useless. So AST doesn't want to play cards at all. Off to a great start.

Earthly Star loses damage for no reason and becomes aoe Benediction. Current Earthly Star is great because optimal use involves figuring out how to get the maximum healing from it when using it as close to on CD a possible. Now it's just a delayed heal with an insane buff. For reference, fully healing a healer requires around 2200 Potency of healing. Tanks are closer to 3600 potency. At least WHM won't be the only healer to cheese Living Dead now.

Changes to Benefic and Benefic II are fine, I guess. Benefic I will be ignored entirely, but that's nothing new.
Turning Essential Dignity into a GCD and giving it less potency than Benefic II makes it entirely obsolete.
Horoscope's change is interesting, but there's no need to make it GCD. 800 Potency is enormous. Helios and Aspected Helios are obsolete and can be removed.
Sleeve Draw helps reduce Draw's GCD impact. It may be worth using cards on some classes during their burst windows, but if they're not dramatically better geared or at the top of their field it's still a dps loss compared to Malefic spam. Would need to review logs extensively to determine when it's worth using.

Cards might pay back their Malefic cost if they are only used to prepare the next Divination, but it would require significantly above average players in the party.

Optimal Play: Combust > Malefic spam. Celestial Intersection for single target healing. Benefic II after that. Earthly Star + Celestial Opposition + Collective Unconscious for aoe healing. Horoscope if that's not enough. Play cards during down time unless you've reviewed logs and found times that Sleeve Draw aligns with other players' burst windows but not party buffs. Ignore cards in 4-man content unless they can be used between pulls.


Conclusion
With respect, have you ever actually played a healer? Your changes do nothing to fix any of the problems that healer jobs currently suffer from, fly in the face of encounter design, and introduce optimal gameplay that involves ignoring up to half of a job's abilities. I'm not one to praise how the devs handled healers in ShB, but that looks like the product of a Mensa think tank compared to your suggestions. I sincerely hope these changes never get implemented.

In case this is anything other than a high-effort troll attempt (you got me if it is), the problems with healers isn't their GCD healing and they don't need more of it. GCD healing is somewhat bland and isn't interconnected at all, but that's largely made up for with the vast array of oGCD healing that's available. The root of the problem is the lack of meaningful downtime activities. Moving oGCDs to the GCD can partially help overcome that if all of the GCDs are unique and fill their own niche, but your implementation has far too many trap abilities for it to work. The fundamental flaw in your suggestions is ignoring the opportunity cost the the GCD presents. I'd like to see meaningful GCD healing. I'd like to see Play put on the GCD. But if the lost Glare/Broil/Malefic isn't considered when making that change then it cannot be implemented well.

[RegularEggs]

snip

A lot of great flaws to point out in my design. Though nothing I think tweaking numbers to can't fix. I do appreciate the effort of thinking in line of my design and throwing out optimal play. It really helps with pointing out some design flaws. Of course I wasn't suggesting these changes would fix the issue at hand of having nothing to do during downtime, but rather branch out the healers to have their own identity. And if SE is to continue their ideology of "healer's don't need to DPS," then at least provide some incentive or reward for actually healing. Is the inherent mechanic of damage refund that looked down upon? Because all of my proposed changes follow that similar guideline and if it's that bad for gameplay, why?

I know that I maybe in the minority of this, but I actually don't mind the idea of healers having to heal. I know that in the current state of the game, healer's having to dps is a widely debated topic, and losing DPS seems to be the main issue of the changes I proposed. I am not asking to completely overhaul the idea of DPSing, but rather reward us for healing or doing our job effectively.

WHM
I still stand by my opinion that casters should remain as a caster. But let's think about it from the other perspective. If more spells became streamlined to instant cast GCDs, then you simply become a bard with healing spells. You lose your identity as a caster. You're not supposed to be mobile.
I did note that Cure 1/Cure 2 would see no play in high-end content. Much like every other tier 1 basic healing spell (Physick and Benefic). It was more of a revamp while still accommodating for lower level content where MP management is much more demanding.
Much like how Medica 2 is in it's current state vs Medica? This change will give incentive to use Afflatus: Rapture over Medica 2 while still having warranting situational uses of Medica 2 for multiple incoming damage sources, e.g Tumult.
Of course this was a minor buff, but imo can definitely be beefed up some more. It just becomes a question of whether the situation at hand warrants it. But in nearly all savage raids, most groups stay nearly within breathing distance of each other and at that point Cure 3 has always outshined Medica. With the proposed changes, it becomes a question of do I need the beefier heal that comes with Cure 3, or can greed the incoming damage and slide by with a Rapture that will in turn give me resources. But then maybe with a beefier Cure 3, it would then in turn have healers play riskier to get the most usage of the healing potency. It's a slippery slope.
Your opinion on splitting Misery is right. If Bloom was buffed up to say 750 potency to give a nice finisher for dungeon pulls, it would probably warrant some use. But I'm not opposed to just scrapping the idea altogether and keeping it the way it is.
Honestly, I almost didn't even want to include the Divine Benison changes because I too thought it would result in a pointless change. But maybe we can make it more appealing by tacking the damage mitigation on it for 10s instead of the situation where the shield breaks. This would help in mitigating tank busters but at the same time serves as a useful filler tool to just throw on the tank for mobility, much like how Regen works now if you don't have a lily, misery, or need to refresh Dia. Though that will make Regen a tad useless which in it's current state already is outside of pulls.

Your optimal play is literally the exact same optimal play of the current WHM rotation. All my changes proposed was to reward the players for having to spend that time healing with those damage refunds. Yes, losing the mobility to fit the aesthetic of a caster is inherently clunky in the state of the game but I like the idea that WHM are the heavier casters of the group, and if BLM can do it, im sure WHM should be no different. I guess I wouldn't mind if all healers had a "Ruin II" to help with mobility but that only serves to homogenize all the healers even more. Not to mention, I don't think WHM needs to have a complex toolkit to handle every situation or have a high skill ceiling. As i stated before, WHM should be the gateway to into the role, opting out for simpler gameplay while teaching the fundamentals of managing offensive with defense.


SCH
Now i figured my proposed changes for SCH would probably cause the most uproar since it's a complete overhaul of the way current Scholars work. Yes, i get it. You scholars love your damage spells and don't want anything to do with changes unless it's more dps. Instead I wanted to allow Scholars to continue to DPS while giving incentive to shield as well and rewarding them for it when done properly, much like the damage refund system provided with lilies. The changes to shield strength WOULD change some encounter designs, which as i understand is why Catalyze was nerfed. But my iteration of the shield strength with the increase to MP cost was to account for that. In it's current state, a crit Adlo of 20k heal at 250% shield would effectively be worth around 50k in shield vs my proposal of 200% shield resulting in only 40k single target shield. The way shields operate (at 125% strength non-adlo crit) now would effectively be too weak for the proposal of "breaking shields to gain resource."

I also figured as much that Broil would be the main issue at hand. Comparing GCD usage and gain from other GCD would have to ultimately outweigh Broil, hence why I nerfed it to only 200.
I did not take into consideration the cost of gaining an Aether vs expending one so, yes that was a huge flaw design on my behalf. So instead, I would also apply the affect of generating an additional 500 MP from expending Aethers to accomodate the high MP costs.
I would then buff ED's damage to 300 to warrant it's usage over Broil and increase the MP return to 2000.
For Lustrate, the proposed changes would actually have Adlo do 300 + 600 Shield with the nerf to shield strength which is still stronger than the proposed changes to lustrate. I think the 2nd effect would just be too weak so we can make it a potent heal and instead have it heal and erect a shield at 100% of the damage dealt. Essentially 800 vs 900 adlo but you get the added affect of dealing 400 potency. This shield will NOT genereate AF stacks to avoid infinite farming.
Edit: And also, Deployment Tactic can revert to the 120s oGCD it currently is. Just with the iteration of the proposed changes, the Adlo crit shields would still be too pwoerful so I would suggest a slight shield reduction to not break the game.

Fey Blessing was intended to remain weak for more optimal uses in low-level content/4-man. While Succor on paper is better in potency with it's shield, the shield also does not last as long and in theory should be prepped before an aoe to get the most out of it. A shield that expires is as worthless as a regen overhealing. Did you just succor after an aoe and now there's so much downtime that the shield wore off that warrants another use of Succor to just regain HP? Thats why Fey Blessing serves as the filler heal only spell in Scholar's kit to help in those situations.

Notably, I did retract my statement on making Eos and Selene being manually controlled. I've since learned that the APM would just cause more headache and have been informed that it was an issue of the past. It can remain the auto-heal turret it currently is. I would still keep Aetherpact's new skill since it essentially functions the same way that it does right now serving as a regen effect but would cost way less resource. I would also reduce the duration to just around 12s.
As for having only two useful spells is rather to the eye of the beholder, but arguably I would say it's even worse in it's current state having no uses of the faerie gauge. Of course to the people who only care about DPS, the dmg mitgation that comes with illumination is not important. It's a defensive mitagation tool for a reason.
As for whispering dawn, I can agree that is a tad bit powerful for a cost that is essentially free, so we can keep it's 60s cooldown. With ways to generate AF that would in turn generate Faerie gauge, there's not a lot ways to expend your Faerie gauge. Of course I can come sit here and come up with new spells, but I'm not going to try to come up with unique new spells and focus on melding the kit we already have into it's own identity.
Since the Fey spells will continue to keep their cooldown, we can have Seraph refresh those abilities upon summoning but the affects will not stack but rather overwrite them. Much like higanabana and Kaeshi: Higanabana.

So here's the current optimal play for Scholar: Broil > Bioloysis > AF > ED > Broil > Broil > Ruin 2 > ED > Broil > Broil > Ruin 2 > ED > Broil spam > reset bioloysis at 30s > Repeat
See how that's worse gameplay then the gameplay you provided with my changes. Ofc that is with the removal of Embrace spam and not taking into account for healing. Instead your gameplan is changed from waiting from AF to come off cooldown to finding ways to generate AF stacks to then unleash more powerful attacks at your disposal whether thats ED for a slightly weaker potency but provides the MP management tool you need or Lustrate, the higher potency spell that will in turn grant you one free oGCD "Adlo" cast."


AST
Again, I've since rectrated from the idea of having both be GCDs. I would instead like Draw to be a GCD and keep Play as an oGCD. This balances things out and would mean you're only spending 1 GCD to boost mitigation and or healing potency.
Instead I am going to tweak the numbers to better benefit sub-par players as well.
The damage buff increase from DPS would then be buffed to 10% and mitagation/healing to 15%.
Minor arcana would increase the numbers to 15% and 20% respectively.
In addition, Divination would be a raid buff of vary strength from 3%, 5%, 10%, to put more emphasis of finding the 3 seals.
Of course, I'm no math genius but that would equate to about 75% dmg boost + 10% Divination (3 plays and 3 minor arcana) vs the current 26% dmg boost + 6% divination (3 play + 1 minor arcana). If that's correct that would be a 53% increase in dmg output. And again, these numbers can always be tweaked, the important thing is to grasp the general idea of having to deal damage by instead buffing others. A more support oriented role.
Edit: I can understand the argument that anything but DPS is irrelevant and worthless in the grand scheme of things, but if DPS is so sought out, why give cards to tanks and healers in the first place. At least in these situational scenarios it would warrant some utility.

You're right the changes to Essential Diginity will make it obsolete. We can keep it as an oGCD.
I didn't lower the damage of Earthly star, just the initial heal. It shouldn't act as a last second heal, it should be preemptive and well placed, however arbitrary that may sound, thus should be rewarding to use. A 700 potency heal is honestly fine, I personally would just like it to do more.

While much like WHM, the Malefic one button spam is unavoidable here. However, the main goal is to give AST the identity of playing around their cards and constantly buffing their allies. Step away from the DPS light and focus on a more support oriented role. And if that means lower the potency of Malefic to let the cards shine a bit, then that's probably a path worth looking at.

TL;DR
Overall, really good feedback. I can see a lot of frustration with most of my proposed changes since nearly none of it really alleviates the issue of too much downtime. Instead my issue with healers really stemmed from the lack of identity. Sure all the healers perform fine the way they are, but they're homogenized.

With the proposed changes, I am not ignoring the tools provided to them. Sure the numbers need some tinkering but the general idea is there of working around your main specialty whether that shielding or cards. If you just want more oGCDs to spam while you hit your 1 button, then you might as well go play Bard. I would like healers to maintain their identity and be given some incentive and reward for using the healing kit provided to them. Would it be that detrimental to the game to lose a couple Glare/Broil/Malefic casts to give a more intuitive way of playing?

[YusiKha]

I like the idea that WHM are the heavier casters of the group, and if BLM can do it, im sure WHM should be no different.

Just wanted to highlight this - BLM is exceedingly mobile as a caster. Every 60s it has:
Triplecast, Swiftcast, 2 Sharpcasts, 2 Xenoglossy Stacks, Thundercloud Procs, Firestarter Procs.
That's a minimum of 8 instant GCDs per 60s. And current WHM only gets
Swiftcast, 2 Dia + 2 lilies + 0.666 Misery.

If you want WHM movement to be more like BLM, then you gotta add more movement, not remove it.

[Liam_Harper]

WHM
I still stand by my opinion that casters should remain as a caster. But let's think about it from the other perspective. If more spells became streamlined to instant cast GCDs, then you simply become a bard with healing spells. You lose your identity as a caster. You're not supposed to be mobile.

You do not become a Bard because lily heals are instant cast.

but I like the idea that WHM are the heavier casters of the group, and if BLM can do it, im sure WHM should be no different.

As pointed out above, BLM has a wide variety of mobility tools and instant casts to create weave windows. WhM has Dia, Lilies and Misery (I'd argue we don't have Swiftcast because we hold it for Raise on anything but log runs) and you're proposing to take lilies away, significantly reducing our weave windows down to just over 2 per minute compared to BLM's 8+.

If BLM is allowed to weave and instant cast and still be considered a caster, so should we. Being forced to clip oGcd's is horribly clunky gameplay, if anything we should have a few more weave windows and movement tools. It makes for smoother gameplay.

Benison on GcD is 100% a dead button.

I get the feeling you've never really played WhM (or Bard or BLM for that matter) at endgame and are throwing out theoretical ideas based on your impression of the class. Just my opinion, but hard no from me on your WhM changes.

[MorganG]

I appreciate the time you've taken to think over and write down your ideas! While I may not agree with all of them, I think the ideas behind them are pretty solid and you've done a good job considering these spells from a design/thematic perspective.

For me, personally, I think rewarding healers for healing is the best way to move forward. If the current design of healers in the game is to DPS as much as possible, and weave oGCD heals in between (except in emergencies), then using your healing tools should be rewarded with DPS tools.

But, that's neither here nor there. Thank you for taking the time to write down your thoughts, and I'm sorry some people are being a bit more defensive than is necessary. Healers, especially longtime healers, haven't been in the best place over the last year and some are starting to fray.

[Absurdity]

I do like the idea of the SCH getting control over their fairy back, this doesn't work with the current fairy AI however.


The reason it worked in SB was because the fairy was independent of you. You could press any fairy ability in the middle of a cast (let's take Broil or Adlo for example) and it would execute said ability often before your cast was finished. They completely butchered it with their fairy rework where the thing will wait until you finish the cast and then use it's ability while also putting you into a small animation lock, causing you to clip your GCD if you didn't use an instant cast. So they essentially made the fairy an oGCD which is absolutely terrible for controlling it manually.



I really liked being able to control Embrace at all times or have it cast Fey Illumination in the middle of my Succor cast so it would get the 10% buff when it finished, the current Fairy can't do that. I would even argue that manual control over Embrace is even more useful now with Seraph's Seraphic Veil applying a shield on it's single target heal. What should however not happen is that you're FORCED to use Embrace manually, that's just unnecessary micro management.

[elioaiko]

While I respect your thoughts and opinions on what you'd like to change, I don't agree with much of what you're saying on these changes.

I agree that WHM should be the heavy hitter healer/caster of the group, they should hit hard both healing and damage. However, the lillies right now only serve as a means of movement and weaving and rewarding you with Misery. Medica 2 still has its purposes and Cure 3 in certain situations.

Overall, WHM would be more of a turret than it is now. Movement and weaving is painful and punishing on WHM. Personally WHM would benefit from a Triplecast-like skill or make Misery equal to 4 Glares.

No comment on SCH since I don't play it too much anymore.

AST's cards being on the GCD would have to be really powerful to account for losing a Malefic, not to mention several. Also Star is not used for DPS purposes. Optimally, it is very much used for healing as its 60s CD makes it very versatile. The DPS part of it is so little that the healing aspect outweighs it.

I understand the desire for healers to use GCD healing more and more support added onto it, but the design of the game prevents it from such. Healers are green dps as much as tanks are blue dps. Most of SE's battle content circles around DPS and by enforcing healing and buffs through the GCD would only cripple healers further and create an even further divide in what's really wrong with them.

The problem is that there isn't enough healing to justify more GCD healing so having more of that would only serve to be untouched or really niche like Cure 3.

[AceofRains]

I really like the current iteration of Scholar. I would hate OP’s suggested changes at this point. I think that it’s in place where it more can be built on in the next expansion rather than trying to reinvent the wheel. I haven’t touched White Mage and Astrologian for different reasons. White Mage because it’s usually my last interest in healer and Astro because they ruined the card mechanic that made the job thrilling and skillful to play.

That being said, here’s what I’m looking for in Scholar going forward.

1) Bring back Selene as DPS orientated Fairy. Give our Fairies the Summoner treatment and make them instant cast. I used to like when there was another Scholar and we would each take responsibility of a different Fairy. I also like when I’m the only Scholar and I can skillfully swap between the two.

2) Upgrade Ruin II. I like to use it when on the move and attacking as well as to double-up when an enemy is about to die. I think a good “Upgrade” would be to give Scholar a trait that upgrades the spell to a higher potency while you’re under the effect of Aetherflow. Whether this should use a stack or not is debatable. Some people want another Aetherflow dump, I for one don’t need one. Opposite of Broil being hot themed, this spell would be cold themed. Someone in another thread explained that the Japanese naming for Broil basically refers to “Heated Argument”. Ruin II’s upgrade should refer to something like “Last Word” or “Cold Shutdown”. I called it “Climaspear” when I first thought of this concept.

3) Trait: Tactical Analysis - makes Biolysis effect everything around the enemy that is effected by Chain Stratagem. This is kind of a throwback to Bane, but performed in something of a “strategic” way.

4) Trait for shorter cast time on “Bread n’ Butter” healing spells like Physick and Adloquium. Playing a lot of Blue Mage, I can see from “Sonic Boom”, that having a short cast time on a simple spell will help to be able to throw out OGC spells without clipping at all.

5) Trait: High Ground - increases the potency or critical hit rate of Art of War when used inside Sacred Soil.