Bring Cleric stance back

[IDontPetLalas]

Gods no. Cleric Stance can stay in the grave SE put it in. While I have no problem with stance dancing, Cleric Stance itself was clunky and often more trouble than it was worth. Due to server ticks it would often times refuse to turn off when you needed it to go off, and as others pointed out it ate up gcd which made healing during times when things go south insane. All it did was give the illusion of difficulty due to having to work around a poorly designed concept. I'd rather SE raise the amount of group and tank damage taken to scale better with all the self healing that classes have now to make healers actually heave to heal.

this is assuming that cleric stance has to be done exactly as it was before. there is no reason that it has to be implemented exactly as before. i would point out that the recent SCH rework, or even the way that shielding in general is a good example of why people shouldn't just assume that nothing can change. the past is very useful to learn from and improve from.

[TaleraRistain]

this is assuming that cleric stance has to be done exactly as it was before. there is no reason that it has to be implemented exactly as before. i would point out that the recent SCH rework, or even the way that shielding in general is a good example of why people shouldn't just assume that nothing can change. the past is very useful to learn from and improve from.

We had another version after the original was removed that was a temporary damage buff and was a role skill and it was kind of pointless as well. It didn't survive the last rework of role skills. I'd rather they either boost the potency of our damage or as Vrankyl suggested, raise damage taken to scale better with the self-heals available to non-healer roles.

[Vrankyl]

this is assuming that cleric stance has to be done exactly as it was before. there is no reason that it has to be implemented exactly as before. i would point out that the recent SCH rework, or even the way that shielding in general is a good example of why people shouldn't just assume that nothing can change. the past is very useful to learn from and improve from.

Even if it changed it wouldn't fix the problem with healers, it would just once more create an illusion of difficulty to silence a portion of the complainers. The problem is that damage is not high enough for healers to fully engage with their kits, which is how their kits are designed. Instead they are forced with the smallest portion of their kit only, which is the most boring portion of 1 button spam. So there are three possible fixes from where I am standing. 1) Enhance healer's DPS kit to make it more intricate and engaging. Granted, this will have the downside of increasing button bloat for healers. 2) Increase the amount of damage that people take in instances to require healers to utilize their entire kit instead of sleeping through any fight that isn't EX or higher. This would be the preferred fix imo. 3) Do away with the holy trinity altogether and opt for a system more like Guild Wars 2 where everyone can do a little bit of everything in different ways. This is the least likely option, but still an option.

[Melorie]

Why? So we have to press one button before spamming glare ad infinitum?

I like the stances and managing them and would love to see more of "get a better reward (damage) if you're able to time your healing kit well" to healer's kit, but I don't think cleric stance would even remotely help the current healer state. Besides, it was a nightmare if you had bad ping.

[Greyhawk]

this is assuming that cleric stance has to be done exactly as it was before. there is no reason that it has to be implemented exactly as before. i would point out that the recent SCH rework, or even the way that shielding in general is a good example of why people shouldn't just assume that nothing can change. the past is very useful to learn from and improve from.

Yes, we learned that Cleric Stance is a useless and hindering ability.

[Greyhawk]

No. God, just... no. I was happy when Cleric Stance was removed. No reason to switch between mind/int stats anymore, and the dynamics of duties now would further bottleneck healers into pure healing, which they are obviously not meant to do.

[Bacent]

It's in Bozja for anyone to try out a bit if they want to see it first hand as a Lost Action.

Personally I'd rather them not bring back Cleric Stance, just due to it causing a bit more aggro in parties I was in. 'Why don't you DPS you're doing nothing!' 'I don't want to use it because I forgot I have it on and we wipe!'

Sure players need to get used to their toolkits a bit, but it honestly caused more annoyance than not, personally speaking.

[LisSquid]

I would rather they look into giving healers a dps rotation. Nothing fancy, but a good 1-2-3 and a spender. Make Bloodlily not a dps loss, etc etc

[Packetdancer]

It's in Bozja for anyone to try out a bit if they want to see it first hand as a Lost Action.

Much as I love Lost Seraph Strike (and loved it even more with the pre-nerf Thin Air, since along with Lost Chainspell, if you had Misery up and Assize off cooldown and Presence of Mind ready to go, you could do an absolutely unreal amount of damage -- to the point that I frequently ripped aggro away from tanks with that burst in Delubrum Reginae), the Cleric Stance it gives you isn't quite the same thing.

Though conceptually, yes, it's similar inasmuch as it gives you a damage buff and a healing debuff, but it's not outright swapping two base stats. It's also only for a very brief window (rather than a toggled stance), and it's paired with a gap-closer.

Interestingly, I think part of why I've come to love sage is that you have something that, while it isn't stance dancing per se, feels a tiny bit similar. Namely, the fact that I can weave a Kardia in amongst normal attacks to shift my Kardion healing status among the party to top off whoever's a bit wounded, without having to spend an Addersgall charge and throw a bunch of overhealing at them. DRG is down a little bit of health? No problem, I'll shift Kardion from the tank over to them. BRD got Dropsy in P2S? Well, I'll shield them first, but then I'll shift Kardion over to them as well and let my damage help keep them topped up. They're good? Shift Kardion back to the main tank. Etc.

It's not quite stance-dancing, but shifting the Kardion around that way mid-fight feels at least a little like it to me, somehow.

I would rather they look into giving healers a dps rotation. Nothing fancy, but a good 1-2-3 and a spender. Make Bloodlily not a dps loss, etc etc

It hurts my soul that the blood lily is not only still a DPS loss, but it's become a bigger DPS loss than it used to be. The lily mechanic has so much interesting potential.

Like, make it so the blood lily does 4 Glare III's worth of damage (so it's at least DPS neutral), and maybe make an option to 'eat' the lily and regain two normal lilies. (So that, like Sage's Rhizomata, WHM has a way to replenish their healing resource in a pinch... albeit at the cost of giving up that 'banked' 4 GCDs of damage.) Or just... something.

[IDontPetLalas]

Much as I love Lost Seraph Strike (and loved it even more with the pre-nerf Thin Air, since along with Lost Chainspell, if you had Misery up and Assize off cooldown and Presence of Mind ready to go, you could do an absolutely unreal amount of damage -- to the point that I frequently ripped aggro away from tanks with that burst in Delubrum Reginae), the Cleric Stance it gives you isn't quite the same thing.

Though conceptually, yes, it's similar inasmuch as it gives you a damage buff and a healing debuff, but it's not outright swapping two base stats. It's also only for a very brief window (rather than a toggled stance), and it's paired with a gap-closer.

Interestingly, I think part of why I've come to love sage is that you have something that, while it isn't stance dancing per se, feels a tiny bit similar. Namely, the fact that I can weave a Kardia in amongst normal attacks to shift my Kardion healing status among the party to top off whoever's a bit wounded, without having to spend an Addersgall charge and throw a bunch of overhealing at them. DRG is down a little bit of health? No problem, I'll shift Kardion from the tank over to them. BRD got Dropsy in P2S? Well, I'll shield them first, but then I'll shift Kardion over to them as well and let my damage help keep them topped up. They're good? Shift Kardion back to the main tank. Etc.

It's not quite stance-dancing, but shifting the Kardion around that way mid-fight feels at least a little like it to me, somehow.
It hurts my soul that the blood lily is not only still a DPS loss, but it's become a bigger DPS loss than it used to be. The lily mechanic has so much interesting potential.
Like, make it so the blood lily does 4 Glare III's worth of damage (so it's at least DPS neutral), and maybe make an option to 'eat' the lily and regain two normal lilies. (So that, like Sage's Rhizomata, WHM has a way to replenish their healing resource in a pinch... albeit at the cost of giving up that 'banked' 4 GCDs of damage.) Or just... something.

i don't see how kardia is at all like the cleric stance concept, however Lost seraph Strike is very much much what i had been thinking about, without realizing it. i do realize that this isn't the *only* solution, as vrankyl, for example, has also pointed out, however if i had a toggle for a Seraph-Strike-like buff? Sure, i'd take it and i would expect that to be available in parties, while in ow sure i can use my chocobo.

now if someone wants to say, now , I can't have that BUT I can have an extra DPS button (or 2), personally i wouldn't consider that button bloat and I would not feel that i then would be suddenly anywhere near the complexity of DPS jobs and their combos or rotations. Also, if someone isn't hitting their DPS buttons now, and this stresses them out, and they just want to heal, well no one can really force them to force them to hit more of them.