[Unapproved Post][240 PB Requested]

[Roeshel]

Because original White Mage was straight forward. Aero instant cast, Aero 2 hard cast, Aero 3 hard cast, Stone -> Reapply dots.

Roeshel, can you please refrain from replying with sparky comments on things you weren't around for? It just makes you look, severely misinformed is the polite term I will use.

You have no clue what it was like to play back then, be quiet and let the FF14 "Adults" talk.

And what was Scholar like?

Miasma - Bio II - Swiftcast - Shadowflare - Bio - Aero - Broil -> Reapply dots

I don't see a lot of difference. Healer's always played like "bare-bones WHM" when it came to dealing damage. The only difference between Scholar and White mage is that WHM had to hard cast their healing spells while Scholar had a fairy that was doing all the healing for them and they could command it while casting Broil. In Shb all healers still deal damage in the same manner. The difference in healing methods still persists to a degree but this time around things are actually balanced.

[Roeshel]

snip

Raid-buffs are useless when you lose DPS with each GCD cast. If WHM had AST's oGCD healing and movement they would have been dealing more damage than them even though they have no raid-wide buffs.

Sage does have similar oGCD as Scholar. The AE stacks abilities do almost the exact same thing as Sage's resource abilities and then Sage has 3 additional raid-wide oGCDs heal that consume no resource and another GCD attack with neutral DPS gain/loss with healing 400 potency and 10% damage reduction. That's their second AoE oGCD with mitigation.
For ST healing, Sage's fairy is cardia which heals twice as much with 2.5 GCD recast time. Soteria is their version of Fey union which is better all round. It is instant and it is strong. Instead of Excog they have 10% damage reduction Lustrate on 45s and for Lustrate they have Lustrate.
Sage also has cubic barrier on 120 cd that consumes no resource and an AoE version of the cube ability. Both oGCDs have stacks that turn into pure heal once the time runs out.

Sage is better than Scholar, there is should be no doubt about that. Chain stratagem and summon Seraph are the only abilities that Scholar doesn't share with Sage. Once the shield of Sage's Aldo is broken they get an Adder's sting charge. Once the shield of Scholer's aldo is broken they get nothing.

They are also some abilities missing so there could be even more to Sage's OP-ness.

[ty_taurus]

Raid-buffs are useless when you lose DPS with each GCD cast. If WHM had AST's oGCD healing and movement they would have been dealing more damage than them even though they have no raid-wide buffs.

Sage does have similar oGCD as Scholar. The AE stacks abilities do almost the exact same thing as Sage's resource abilities and then Sage has 3 additional raid-wide oGCDs heal that consume no resource and another GCD attack with neutral DPS gain/loss with healing 400 potency and 10% damage reduction. That's their second AoE oGCD with mitigation.
For ST healing, Sage's fairy is cardia which heals twice as much with 2.5 GCD recast time. Soteria is their version of Fey union which is better all round. It is instant and it is strong. Instead of Excog they have 10% damage reduction Lustrate on 45s and for Lustrate they have Lustrate.
Sage also has cubic barrier on 120 cd that consumes no resource and an AoE version of the cube ability. Both oGCDs have stacks that turn into pure heal once the time runs out.

Sage is better than Scholar, there is should be no doubt about that. Chain stratagem and summon Seraph are the only abilities that Scholar doesn't share with Sage. Once the shield of Sage's Aldo is broken they get an Adder's sting charge. Once the shield of Scholer's aldo is broken they get nothing.

They are also some abilities missing so there could be even more to Sage's OP-ness.

Playstyle and job design aside, the one thing we definitely can't say with certainty at this time is performance. We have no idea what costs and cooldowns have changed, if any, and it's entirely possible that there could be a far more significant change to SCH than the live letter's anemic slides would lead us to believe. Keep in mind they said nothing about Sacred Soil getting a regen during the ShB live letter, and that turned out to be a game-changing heal. There are some clear advantages Sage has at this time in theory, but we really don't know much about EW Scholar outside of the fact that it's core design problems aren't being addressed. One of the very few things they did specify though is that they did improve SCH's barrier potential in some fashion, whatever that means. It's entirely possible that they could have something to contend with the value of Adder's Sting/Serpent's Fang.

I wanna be clear that I'm not defending SCH's playstyle in any capacity--though despite being gutted going into Shadowbringers, it still ended up being a substantially important healer for raiding. Watch it still be the best or second-best healer despite being a design disaster.

[Gemina]

I'm not going to go as far as putting in the time and effort to come up with an abilities list. That is actually really difficult to do because it is so easy to break the job. I just know that I've grown tired of feeling like I'm getting dirt kicked in my face when it comes to this job. It's SE's poster job in the sense that it is the poster in their basement that has had so may darts thrown at it that you can no longer make out the image.

As far as what to do with it. Rework it. Completely. They can even lose that joke of a new movement skill. I am even more jealous of the really pretty shield RDMs got. Even if SCH got just that it would have been better than what we did get.

How Lily is addressed would be interesting because I think the current mechanic with SCH fairy can no longer continue. The job gauge and Lily's behaviour has to completely change. How they go about that, I do not know. I know that some constraints to her skills are caused by her being in the middle of casting Embrace, and having to follow the SCH if she is not placed; so bye bye auto Embrace. However, Place [the ability] by itself is an interesting aspect to SCH that has a very 'tactical' feel to it. I don't know. I'm willing to lose it in favor of more fluid gameplay and synergy between SCH and fairy.

[FoxCh40s]

And what was Scholar like?

Miasma - Bio II - Swiftcast - Shadowflare - Bio - Aero - Broil -> Reapply dots

I don't see a lot of difference. Healer's always played like "bare-bones WHM" when it came to dealing damage. The only difference between Scholar and White mage is that WHM had to hard cast their healing spells while Scholar had a fairy that was doing all the healing for them and they could command it while casting Broil. In Shb all healers deal damage in the same manner. The difference in healing methods still persists to a degree but this time around things are actually balanced.

Bio II - Miasma - Swiftcast - Shadowflare - Bio - Aero - Broil - Lustrate - Succor party before raid wide hits - manually direct Eos to heal someone who got hit harder - Wait for it - Fey Illummination/Bio II - Bio/ Whispering Dawn - Virus/Sacred Soil - Aero/Manual Embrace Target - Broil - Broil - Broil - etc.

Way more complicated than now, I assure you. The fact that we can no longer simultaneously active fairy abilities with other abilities kills the complexity further right there.

[AFuzzyMu11in]

Bio II - Miasma - Swiftcast - Shadowflare - Bio - Aero - Broil - Lustrate - Succor party before raid wide hits - manually direct Eos to heal someone who got hit harder - Wait for it - Fey Illummination/Bio II - Bio/ Whispering Dawn - Virus/Sacred Soil - Aero/Manual Embrace Target - Broil - Broil - Broil - etc.

Way more complicated than now, I assure you. The fact that we can no longer simultaneously active fairy abilities with other abilities kills the complexity further right there.

That’s so disgustingly boring/long to learn no wonder I didn’t play sch back then Jesus. So much button bloat

[Doragan]

That’s so disgustingly boring/long to learn no wonder I didn’t play sch back then Jesus. So much button bloat

To be honest, I agree this was a lot of DPS actions back in the day, but here's the thing: you were always free to completely ignore them. If you weren't doing any hard content, you could just smash that broil&subscribe button like we have now and it wouldn't matter. Just spread the dots with bane and save MP or something.

Now, it's just broil, and now, it's just boring for everybody involved.

While I think HW went a bit too far in the number of DPS actions available, personally, I think SB was a pretty good middleground. ShB, unfortunately, broke the fairy management and gutted the DPS to the bare minimum. I think it's a real shame, because we finally got Recitation with this expansion.

[Truen]

Start and end with adding more dps abilities beyond the pressing of ONE FREAKING BUTTON 10k times a week.

[Yhisa]

Sigh ...healers are not boring

The problem is, we learn too quickly, or read a guide to use our "ogcd" for certain mechanics in a boss fight, which ultimately turns healer boring in the fight "overtime"

When we all do a "blind" run we on our toes and have no idea what's going on, and have more healing to do, more raises, questioning which "ogcd" to use next, so we do this raid consently back to back for a few hours...

After a few hours or days, BOTH healers will now know where to use their "ogcd" healing within the fight, which ultimately makes the healing job super boring because u lay down a "guide" for yourself within the fight to press X ability for Y mechanic, and continue to spam (broil/glare/malafic) consently, and press 1 dot every 30seconds

People have been screaming to add more "buttons" to the jobs which is the wrong thing to do...there is zero difference pressing 111112111112 (casts and 1dot) to 123123123123(combo) it's still boring even if u add two more combos on a spell

If people want to make healers "fun" we should "gut" the "ogcd" side of healing , we have far too many "ogcd" healing that it pushes us into a turret mode, pressing a single button to heal a mechanic whilst blasting out the same skill over and over again

But reality is, there isn't much you can do to make healing more fun, base on how the game is played, it's all scripted mechanics which makes the healing role boring to play, unless they decide to make fights entirely "random" the healing job will remain boring

Scripted fights causes healers to place an ability when a certain mechanic is happening, so they have all their cooldowns planned out for the entire fight, now if the entire fight was "random" the healers would need to be "active" instead of sticking to their "plan" sheet, which forces a more fun playstyle for the healer because it's no longer "predictable" with what's going to happen next

The healer job problem is how "predictable" fights are in the game, unless they break this problem, healers will forever be stuck in this cycle until they break the "predictable" fight mechanics (which will never happen since it's FFXIV whole battle system)

[Liam_Harper]

Sigh ...healers are not boring

The problem is, we learn too quickly

Am I reading this correctly... Healers are fine, it's our fault for not playing them badly?

Also I'll never understand the obsession with removing oGCDs. They're still buttons you have to press. All you do by removing them is slowing down the gameplay and instead of (example) alternating between Star, CU, CO and Horoscope for raidwides, we just press AspHelios every time damage happens, and continue spamming 1.