How would you feel if shields had no upfront healing?

[KaerisKlyne]

If Benediction and invulns have taught us anything, it's that such wouldn't be saved for clutch moments as an "emergency" shield...

Nor should they be saved. Statics will just plan around best uses for those skills in relation to each other to maximize GCDs spent dealing damage. Even outside endgame savage settings, of course I'm just going to hit a fantastic off-global button that will do the job I need to let me help end a fight faster.

[Shurrikhan]

Nor should they be saved. Statics will just plan around best uses for those skills in relation to each other to maximize GCDs spent dealing damage. Even outside endgame savage settings, of course I'm just going to hit a fantastic off-global button that will do the job I need to let me help end a fight faster.

Never said they should be. Was just pointing out that the notion given (that it'd be an "emergency" shield for "clutch" situations) runs contrary to the many years of play since the game's release.

[IceBlueNinja]

Wouldn't it be cool if Emergency Tactics turned all current Shields into a heal, even Divine Bension, Celestial Intersection? That would give SCH some synergy outside of just casting shields and letting it fall off.

Dirunal Celestial Intersection gives a shield though. Also we go Dirunal with sch as ast all the time so wouldnt probably work

[ty_taurus]

I think some people may be underestimating the utility of shields even in their current incarnation. Shields can be useful (if not strictly necessary) even in situations where they do not prevent otherwise fatal damage. Shields allow you to "pre-heal" damage. With ordinary "pure" healing, you cannot heal damage until after it occurs. If you cast a pure heal on someone who is already at full HP, this achieves nothing. But shields let you heal damage before it occurs. Shield-healing can raise a player's effective HP above their maximum HP, but pure-healing cannot.

Pre-healing is useful in various scenarios. Perhaps the most obvious is pre-pull and during periods of downtime. At these times, you can apply shields for free, easing the burden of healing damage that will occur later when healing isn't free. Another scenario is when there are two successive heavy-hitting raidwides with little time to heal up in between. Again, you can ease the burden of healing between the raidwides by pre-healing some of the damage from the first. A final scenario is when raidwide damage occurs during mechanics that force the party to be widely spread out, making it difficult to heal everyone after the damage occurs. Shields enable you to heal some of this damage before it happens, while the party is still grouped together.

The thing is, no one is shutting down the value that barriers have before fights and in-between phases. It's just that those examples are a fraction of the total fight, and during the entire rest of the battle, most of the barriers in this game just aren't really worth using because they take away your DPS. In SCH's case, they have such a vast library of OGCD healing that they almost never ever need to even think about Adloquium or Succor even in some of the most challenging content the game has to offer. There is a value to those barriers as well as Nocturnal AST's barriers when progging new content since you probably will be forced to resort to those heals, and that added endurance provided can help your party last longer and learn more from the encounter, but that's a short-lived experience. What most of us want is for tools like Adloquium and Succor to always have value, not just when we're challenging new fights.

The common example is having attacks that demand a barrier in order to survive. This is because that's the most straightforward example of how to force value out of utility that otherwise is unnecessary. I feel like there are people on the forums that feel like barriers are being attacked by the majority of us, but that's not the case. We all want barriers to feel good to use, but they just aren't in the majority of circumstances outside of Divine Benison and Diurnal Intersection.

[Deceptus]

The main problem with barriers vs shields:

If a Barrier is required to survive an attack Regen based healers won't be used in that content (because otherwise you'll be dead).

If Barriers aren't required to survive an attack, generally regens are always better because they're more efficient. And if Barriers aren't needed in content, what's the point of having barrier based healers?

It's the Progression vs Farm debate all over again. The better your group's gear is, the less dependent on barriers they'll be.

[IceBlueNinja]

Issue is to me regens do not tick enough hp restore base vs a barrier that I tend to knock of all of major hurt or get alot of fat zeros on myself and my party members, idk if maybe the insane crit and decent det i have, aiming for more det via getting better gear on savages now that its been tone down and grants echos, i know people probably ew you do det instead of dh, well am not a dps so am not doing dh, if healers was to have dh the gears would have it in them, besides dancers/bard have a skill that mass raises a direct hit rate to everyone for a few seconds, Regens in their own way feels so weak like a 3k/4k tick seem off or maybe its just me, specially the lil 15 seconds. If shields are not as needed as people say, why are tanks migit seemed so loved than the healers barriers, am sure healer barriers are stronger than tanks barrriers, and dps barriers like troub/samba and tatician is not even close to tank or healer barriers.

I cant trust when a boss who love to do double aoes at once and and regen with its slow ticks and short 15 seconds dont seem to fix this issue, at least with shields I can block as much damage I can then a well time earth star will repair damage instantly, because earth star is stupidly op and tends to crit like 90% of the time, then there is horoscope too, a well time horoscope after a barrier heal is all it takes to full restore or major restore hurt things. All these ideas I respect I love of what people think barriers should be, but when I look at it even if some of those changes apply I still feel people who prefer regens will still have nothing good to say on barriers, only solution indeed is force mechs to do have a reason to use barriers more though for me there is way more than enough even at this current content.

GG to when people over stack their markers to you when they arent suppose to not to like(twinning) which can be a 1 hit if no barriers. Or Luna bahamut with that thing he drops on a player that does rapid constant damage, or fate breaker who hits you with that nasty lightning debuff that ticks off like 30 to 40k a piece and have the nerves to aoe for another 50k to 60k which usually instant end a healer with no barriers on. Well this debate will be a endless one, I just feel at this point majority will say sch/noct ast is pointless, so will sage then too in end walker. Now I get why all this time(sad i notice this but am hardly in dirunal so yeah it makes sense) aspected helios and medica 2 only has 100 pot vs regen/aspected benefic 200 pot, so single regens wise I see the power in regens but in terms of the aoes ones nope. All I can say is those who see know the power of barrier healing do that to your comfort and those who prefer regens stick to regens to your comfort and everyone have their merry way and be happy.

[BungleBear]

In SCH's case, they have such a vast library of OGCD healing that they almost never ever need to even think about Adloquium or Succor even in some of the most challenging content the game has to offer.

Have you ever played SCH in high-level content? I'd like to see a SCH heal TEA without using Succor, for example.

[ty_taurus]

Have you ever played SCH in high-level content? I'd like to see a SCH heal TEA without using Succor, for example.

I have not played through TEA, actually, and that is certainly a very good example of where healers are pushed to used the majority of their tools, but the issue I have with using TEA is that very few people have attempted that level of challenge and it is very much not an example of how content plays in the rest of the game.

Here's the thing, at the highest echelon of play, healing is far more interactive and requires a lot more thought and variety in skill, but that's not the standard FFXIV experience and pretending like it is is what so many of us have issue with. Healers should ALWAYS be fun to play and have ALL of their tools feel important at every level of play, not just the highest and most challenging content that only a fraction of players will even attempt.

[Deceptus]

I have not played through TEA, actually, and that is certainly a very good example of where healers are pushed to used the majority of their tools, but the issue I have with using TEA is that very few people have attempted that level of challenge and it is very much not an example of how content plays in the rest of the game.

Here's the thing, at the highest echelon of play, healing is far more interactive and requires a lot more thought and variety in skill, but that's not the standard FFXIV experience and pretending like it is is what so many of us have issue with. Healers should ALWAYS be fun to play and have ALL of their tools feel important at every level of play, not just the highest and most challenging content that only a fraction of players will even attempt.

Seriously. Of course in the highest level of play every ability is squeezed to maximum potential.

90% of the game doesn't need players to use their full kit. That's the problem.

[BungleBear]

I have not played through TEA, actually, and that is certainly a very good example of where healers are pushed to used the majority of their tools, but the issue I have with using TEA is that very few people have attempted that level of challenge and it is very much not an example of how content plays in the rest of the game.

Here's the thing, at the highest echelon of play, healing is far more interactive and requires a lot more thought and variety in skill, but that's not the standard FFXIV experience and pretending like it is is what so many of us have issue with. Healers should ALWAYS be fun to play and have ALL of their tools feel important at every level of play, not just the highest and most challenging content that only a fraction of players will even attempt.

To be honest, I find it strange that people complain about healing not being engaging and challenging when the game does provide content that is engaging and challenging to heal. It's like they're saying "I want to be challenged as a healer but I don't want to do the challenging content".

It's also worth noting that how challenging a piece of content is for a given player depends largely on the player's level of experience. I can remember a time when normal mode raids seemed difficult. Now that I'm more experienced, I do ultimate for a challenge. I'm not going to complain that normal mode raids are too easy for me, or that they don't force me to use my full healing toolkit, because evidently they're not too easy for other players who are still learning how to use their healing toolkit.

Edit: I thought of an analogy. It's like an adult playing chess against children and then saying: "Oh my god, chess is too easy. I don't even need to use all my pieces to win. Chess needs to be redesigned to make it more challenging."