Thread: Healers and 6.0; What we can learn from AST and what I'd like to see going forward

Agree that clipping needs to be fixed.
Disagree that all healers should receive a 1.5 sec cast time on their main DPS GCD spell.

I don't want all the healers to play the same with a 1.5 sec cast time DPS spell. The reason why AST has that is because they also have cards in addition to their oGCD healing, so they need their weaving on every GCD to give a card at the best time for optimizing their card usage.

The way for WHM to have smooth gameplay is giving them weave windows - but this can be done by taking advantage of their GCD and MP economy by allowing their GCD healing to be treated as a more complicated oGCD heal. This can be done by 2 ways - one way is similar to misery where GCD healing abilities eventually pays the cost back with a strong DPS spell. The second is disabling their GCD DPS skill with a debuff for #X GCDs and giving the same DPS output that WHM could have done as a buff to another player for #X hits - like how Nin's Bunshin currently works - this frees up WHM to GCD heal and oGCD heal without DPS issues and gives them room to move around. The time locked away from DPSing also ensures MP is gained back and coupled with Thin Air + Assize, WHM's ridiculously strong MP economy will do just fine.

For SCH, Ruin II can prevent a lot of clipping, but using Ruin II is already a DPS loss compared to their nuke when used for weaving. Consistently using it to use healing skills means a huge sustained DPS loss overall. Unlike WHM with Afflatus Misery, SCH has no way to play catch up with the DPS loss depending on how the party performs. Aetherflow healing is very costly because using Aetherflow healing means you lose an Energy Drain (which gives +500 MP and makes Ruin II not a DPS loss). While Energy Drain should be used as a way to dump excess aetherflow, it also affects SCH's MP - which means SCH's MP economy is directly tied to the performance of the party - a party that doesn't dodge mechanics means less MP overall since SCH will have to use more aetherflow healing as opposed to Energy Drain (which gives the +500 MP per energy drain). This is in contrast to WHM and AST where Assize, Draw, Sleeve Draw, and Thin Air do not share a resource or cooldown to use. While I think having energy drain is a great way to dump excess aetherflow, Energy Drain currently restoring MP also inherently hurts SCH since it affects SCH's total potential MP regenerated based on party performance.

The less costly option would be to use Faerie skills, but it's still a DPS loss since Faerie skills require the use of at least 1 Ruin II to weave and some skills cannot be used back to back, making the SCH require multiple uses of Ruin II. Sometimes Faerie skills will also ghost or get consumed without activating (ex: using whispering dawn and then dissipation because dissipation erases the faerie before whispering dawn activates due to pet delay).

I don't think Ruin II is the issue here since there should be some form of limiting factor to prevent too much mobility for any one healer for optimal play. I believe the issue is how SCH's faerie skills and aetherflow skills work as a whole. I rather see SCH's faerie skills be independent from the SCH toolkit - something similar to the pets [Place] and [Heel] Actions being able to be used independently from SCH. As for the MP issue, I rather they adjusted/expanded on the SCH's Aetherflow gauge as well. Maybe give SCH 2 types of aetherflow gauges - the old ACN aetherflow that uses Energy Drain to gain 2 aetherflow stacks for DPS, and the current Aetherflow ability on SCH that gives 3 stacks for healing actions. The ACN energy drain + 2 aetherflow can be used for DPS actions and make Ruin II a feasible tool for mobility and for weaving. ACN Energy Drain can also get a trait that gives MP when using it. Meanwhile, excess Aetherflow on SCH's Aetherflow skill can give faerie gauge before being replaced with 3 new aetherflow stacks or be moved over into the ACN's aetherflow gauge.