How would you feel if shields had no upfront healing?

[DPZ2]

With four months to go before the next expansion releases, I don't believe you'd be able to see this kind of change until 2023. Keep dreaming on though - it might nudge some of the devs with ideas for the 7.0 release.

[Calysto]

"Instant" shields only ability would be nice.
Cheezing fights is another point ; there are lots of ways SE can prevent that : like said removing the "no add effect" is one.
Another REALLY easy one ; just make theses 80+ (or whenever) with content planned for it.

And for my 2 gils : how about "auto-convert" shields ? heal a player for 1000 hp ; if he's missing 200 hp ; heal those and apply the 800 left as shield. (low hp for ease of explanation)
If "processing perf" is an issue, could be tier-ed i guess (apply 3 shield with excog property at 100% HP)
And for balance, just make them less powerful than pure heal (but still good please).

[Liam_Harper]

Or we know that bosses can deal unmitigatable % damage.
Have the boss deal 1% of your HP if it's a problem.

Could also change it so Shields only absorb a percentage of the damage. For example, if instead of an aoe shield fully absorbing 200 potency worth, it could absorb half or 75% of incoming damage up to 400 potency worth.

Plenty of things they could do to prevent debuff cheese.

[Raminax]

Could just be consistent about it, as well. For example, Light Resistance Down is applied regardless if you take 0 or 50'000 points of damage from the Light Sprite on Shiva Savage. The technology is clearly there - Squeenix are just very inconsistent about enforcing it.

[RyuDragnier]

SE already has the ability to ignore shields if it wants to in content, they just don't use it that much. Just look at the skeleton explosions during the Undead Dragon fight in Labyrinth, those ignore shields completely and do set damage.

Simply make more raidwides set damage that ignore shields, making it so only pure mitigation (Sacred Soil, tank cooldowns other than TBN, etc) can deal with the problem. Then make SCH's shields instant cast (this will require changing a few Abilities we have or adding new ones at early levels), with Adlo and Succor becoming straight % mitigation (with a bit higher healing to compensate). This can simultaneously make shielding easier to pull off while still keeping us having to use our GCD heals to mitigate incoming damage, fitting our titles as a shield healer, since we're still shielding from damage, regardless if it's with an actual barrier or % mitigation.

[IceBlueNinja]

There still is mechs that do 99999999 damage to people so even if they try change shields to any of these ideas I agree with you all on. That alone will make change a waste imo

[Shurrikhan]

Similarly, there is/are (a) damage type(s) which cannot be mitigated by physical or magical shielding or mitigation, variously called "true", "pure" or "darkness", etc. damage.

(Yes, shielding against physical damage only or magical damage only used to be a thing; see T4.)

[KDSilver]

I feel like people sometime forget about how insanely powerful was spread critlo and why he doesn't exist anymore.

[RyuDragnier]

I feel like people sometime forget about how insanely powerful was spread critlo and why he doesn't exist anymore.

Oh I remember our lord and savior, and how he saved the party from much damage in the EX fights.

[ty_taurus]

This wouldn't resolve everything, but I do think something like this would be a step in the right direction:

Adloquium now is exclusively a barrier and only provides Galvanize, even when landing a crit. Succor is the same, but provides Catalyze instead (again also if landing a crit).

Emergency Tactics converts the entire barrier into a heal for 15 seconds as a buff, but you can reactivate Emergency Tactics prematurely to end the effect.

That wouldn't resolve the issue though that you still wouldn't need the barrier in almost every scenario. Instead, I think there needs to be an additional benefit to applying barriers--perhaps that when Galvanize breaks, it generates Aetherflow for the SCH similarly to how Blackest Night works. Perhaps Catalyze provides 5 Fey Gauge per barrier broken. These would be the main ways to generate these resources (outside of the Aetherflow action). Personally, I'd also like to reevaluate the main purpose for each of these resources. I myself would like to see Aetherflow Repurposed for damage while OGCD healing becomes the emphasis for the Fey Gauge. Perhaps Indomitability stays an Aetherflow action, but because you'd have greater DPS options on Aetherflow, it becomes suboptimal, but an effective clutch button. Experienced SCHs will stay away most of the time, but avoids the issue of the job becoming too punishing for casual players. Otherwise, you need to rely on options like Fey Blessing for consistent OGCD healing.