A lot of the main issues with SCH are not being addressed with Endwalker

[GrimGale]

Gah, I am so sorry. I got quote blocks mixed up. Or I cannot tell Hrothgar apart (despite the two very differently colored faces above and below).

...I have no excuse.

___________________________

To return to the slightly broader topic...

I'm still confused, though, why anyone would think Energy Drain ought have any effect on design decisions around having Aetherflow as a separate button. With the current maximum of only 3 resource charges held at a time, yes, it plays a vital part as a dump option, but there's no need to generate stacks via a separate button of any sort, I would think, so long as we could still sufficiently bank our resource charges to the extent we're used to.

The only advantage to having the button there was that we could bank up to nearly 6 charges' worth of actions (hold until the CD's nearly up, spend 3, refresh, spend 3 more). If we just allowed up to 5 charges to be held, with progress towards a 6th freezing just before completion until the 5th slot's space was cleared, we'd already have that capacity. There'd be no reason for the separate AF button (let alone any hybrid, far clunkier ED/AF as GrimGale suggested).

Eh, I don't think it makes it clunkier. It can be argued that having to chose between either using AF for DPS or Healing is part of SCH class design, but I don't personally think its a good niche to be the healer that is punished for using their healing oGCDs by losing DPS.
It's not a lot of DPS, but it's significant enough to make a difference. It would also remove Dissipation as an offensive ability which is IMO part of SCH issues.

As for the options I suggested, if having two extra mandatory weave slots taken by the ED is a problem (I personally think it breaks the Broil spam a bit, by having to weave some offensive options), I suggested just having ED be a 60s CD with 300 potency and granting 3 AF. You'd get all the potency from 3 EDs with the same APM than the old system.

Essentially these suggestions make it so there is no longer a choice between Healing or Damaging with your AF, which I think is a good thing for Scholar honestly. Ofc, that is just a matter of opinion, some people like that "punishing" aspect of Scholar, I think it just gets in the way and makes you feel bad for weaving healing in a job that is supposed to encourage weaving healing oGCDs.

Yes, you don't have an AF dump, but that could be solved by a trait such as something that gives you Fairy Gauge and MP based on how many stacks you have when re-gaining more AF stacks.

[Shurrikhan]

but I don't personally think its a good niche to be the healer that is punished for using their healing oGCDs by losing DPS.

That's merely a matter of balancing, though. If their rDPS is balanced such that in a fight that needs very little healing, a SCH would stand at least even with an optimized AST, then it's that SCH's rDPS is "punished" by using healing oGCDs for heals, but rather that SCHs have a unique flexibility by which to dump otherwise excessive healing.

Now, if you make it outright obligatory by essentially siphoning offensive potency-per-minute to new-AF (which now requires a target and cannot be used during downtime), then yeah, of course it's going to take from the budget and of course you're going to be balanced around that potency.

Essentially these suggestions make it so there is no longer a choice between Healing or Damaging with your AF, which I think is a good thing for Scholar honestly.

And I have to disagree. I think that choice is a good thing. I'd sooner keep that choice on Aetherflow Stacks/Charges spending than the dull-as-dirt way that Fairy Gauge is generated (and, to be fair, has merely replaced what micromanagement we previously had on our pets and its higher ceiling for nuance).

[OtakuSempai]

That's merely a matter of balancing, though. If their rDPS is balanced such that in a fight that needs very little healing, a SCH would stand at least even with an optimized AST, then it's that SCH's rDPS is "punished" by using healing oGCDs for heals, but rather that SCHs have a unique flexibility by which to dump otherwise excessive healing.

Now, if you make it outright obligatory by essentially siphoning offensive potency-per-minute to new-AF (which now requires a target and cannot be used during downtime), then yeah, of course it's going to take from the budget and of course you're going to be balanced around that potency.


And I have to disagree. I think that choice is a good thing. I'd sooner keep that choice on Aetherflow Stacks/Charges spending than the dull-as-dirt way that Fairy Gauge is generated (and, to be fair, has merely replaced what micromanagement we previously had on our pets and its higher ceiling for nuance).

Players just don't want to spend the iota of brain resources it requires to make decisions on the fly in their healer gameplay. There's just no point arguing with these players and SE will acquiesce to them eventually.

"I don't want any decision making in my healer gameplay and want to just play the same rote way every time so I can zone out and collect my tomestones" - most of this thread

[Truen]

Sorry man, but I have to be honest with you. While I don't think the developers have actual ill-will against those who want to see healer changes--I do think they actively ignore us and have made this pure healing boring crap their sacred cow. Meaning, they'll never change it no matter how many people complain, stop playing healers, and/or post on the forums. We're stuck with this garbage 1-button spam for a long, long time.

[Solaires]

Sorry man, but I have to be honest with you. While I don't think the developers have actual ill-will against those who want to see healer changes--I do think they actively ignore us and have made this pure healing boring crap their sacred cow. Meaning, they'll never change it no matter how many people complain, stop playing healers, and/or post on the forums. We're stuck with this garbage 1-button spam for a long, long time.

This actually is exactly why the healers are like this now. Back in Heavensward we had a bunch of healers whining that they only wanted to heal and do absolutely no DPS what so ever. Yoshi P agreed that this was okay and thus things got adjusted to push that tanks and healers are much more minimal on priority to DPS. This also killed a lot of DPS for most of those classes. DoTs being changed after Heavensward also might be arguably one of the big losses classes as before those DoTs were a major part of your DPS and melting mobs. After HW they wanted to remove most of the DoTs. In terms a lot of other changes happened like DRG not having high physical defense and HP with tank buffs and low magical defense as well as many classes losing the ability to have skills from other roles not of their of class.

Though in terms the healer only priority is stemmed from a complaint of lazy healers back in HW where they only wanted to heal and do no DPS and Yoshi P agreed upon this. Probably pushing for an anti-toxic community and trying to address even unreasonable complaints. DPS checkers also were something they didn't want because of targeting players as an example and we also lost the ability to skip cut scenes in Main Scenario Roulette due to complaints which now just makes people not want to run Main Scenario Roulettes either. It also removed the ability to chat in Feast due to not wanting toxic gameplay. Unfortunately Feast is much better prioritized with chatting and coordination so it was another flop in the choices they made. Of course Feast is a flop altogether as it's unrewarding and 100 people getting the prizes per data center was a poor choice. Ques never happen asides from cheaters manipulating wins for the prizes. These terrible decisions were also like this for Triple Triad.

Sorry I trailed off but just notably you are correct and that's why it's like this.

[Sebazy]

Same, healing the Bozja duty as a dancer is the most fun I've had in this game outside of Savage prog in years.

[ty_taurus]

Same, healing the Bozja duty as a dancer is the most fun I've had in this game outside of Savage prog in years.

You know, it's funny--For the hell of it, I was messing around with re-theorycrafting Dancer as a healer using largely the same kit, and honestly, it works pretty smoothly. We would undoubtedly need casted healing in the form of Curing Waltz, Divine Waltz, Astral Waltz, etc. (Though rename the existing Curing Waltz as your staple OGCD heal and keep it). You could probably get away with just 3 casted spells as your Cure, Medica, and Raise equivalents, but Dancer certainly has the hotbar real estate to afford that. We'd also need to lower potencies and damage because obviously keeping DPS numbers would be a big no-no for a healer, but that doesn't necessarily mean that their rotation would need to go.

Cardia is basically plagiarizing Closed Position already, so it could've easily turned out the same in practice.

We could add healing to Standard Finish and Technical Finish. Yeah it runs into the Assize problem, but since the playstyle would really lay into the offensive healer identity, you'd be sure to benefit from that healing regularly, not to mention you'll know when your next burst heal would be coming when your party has some damage given how frequently standard comes around.

I'd say we could convert feathers into OGCD healing gained through your DPS rotation as usual. As mentioned above, we need to lower the damage anyway to make Dancer a healer, and since you store them as a resource anyway, they'd be perfect for your core healing resource. We could do something similar with Saber Dance and make it damage and healing since Esprit also gives you room to save it.

Honestly the only thing that truly breaks in functionality is MP. I mean, you could simply add MP costs to Dancer's actions and call it a day, but that's a bit odd I feel. A different idea I had was linking Dance Partner to MP similarly to how Foe's Requiem worked--as in it drains your MP (though more slowly than foe's), and we could perhaps include more MP management as secondary effects of things, perhaps make your steps restore your MP instead of act as additional healing and put more emphasis on maintaining feathers for HP. This would guarantee you had MP going into your bursts which would be important, but it would also limit your DPS buffs more which would also lower your overall damage a bit more in that process of balancing Dancer with other healers.

Beyond that one big thing that would need some design work to rectify, everything else I think would flow pretty well into a fun and exciting healer that wouldn't be for everyone certainly, but would be exactly what a lot of people want in healer that we're not getting even with Sage.

[Grimoire-M]

You know, it's funny--For the hell of it, I was messing around with re-theorycrafting Dancer as a healer using largely the same kit, and honestly, it works pretty smoothly.

I have an old Dancer healer kit thread from Stormblood (here) that basically had Cardia as the go-to mechanic well before it became a thing, though it did a lot more than that. It used a basic 1-2-3 combo and augmented it in a few ways and let that be the core of the DPS rotation. It had guard heals (think HW/ARR Inner beast, but the heal was delayed so you were encouraged to time your use of it perfectly) augmented by a DPS version of Cardia to refund the loss (which got used in a few cooldowns) and relied on burst heals and mixture of debuff and buff based support. No regens, no shields.

It was from a time where that seemed realistic, that's for sure.

[Acidblood]

Snip...

A healer version of DNC is exactly the sort of healer that FFXIV needs; i.e. mostly oGCDs heals (with cast-time heals as backup); simple, flexible, instant, and no-cost damage abilities; a few buffs, utilities and cooldowns sprinkled in; and best of all, it's all integrated so the more active you are the more prepared and better you'd be at dealing with whatever happens.

The sad part is, this is also exactly the sort of healer FFXIV will likely never get

[Con_Moo]

I would suggest gaining Miasma, Bane and Fester from the soon-to-be-defunct Shadowbringers SMN and using Fester as the new Energy Drain. 100 potency with no dots on your target, 200 potency for one dot, 300 potency for two. Would be a major upgrade in DPS life for SCH and gets rid of Energy Drain which is even more underwhelming in Endwalker.