Yoshi-P: "If you want more engaging content, go play Ultimate"

[Semirhage]

Let's skip historical revisionism here.

Both single and multi-step ("diminishing returns") falloff damage have affected on physical attacks at some point. Tenka Goken, for instance, had 3-step fall-off originally, iirc, while Quietus originally had 1-step.

That falloff is also irrelevant; all that matters is the relative strength of the skill in an average/maximum pull. Rarely, if ever, has the damage of a skill's lowest falloff step been increased (outside of broad potency inflation across a whole kit to make up for the removal of %damage traits) just because earlier steps were removed.

It is also highly unlikely that dungeon gating was done JUST to nerf Black Mages and White Mages.

Yes, it's disappointing that supports' maximum offensive throughput has decreased over time (and I'd agree if you were to say that trend should be reversed), but that (quoted above) is, at best, quite the conflation.

Thanks for the correction. I have rage-colored glasses at Holy being nerfed, and nerfed, and nerfed, and nerfed, and nerfed, and nerfed, and nerfed, and nerfed.

[MintnHoney]

I’ve never heard that. [+more insight]

With that said, I've never heard the Ultimate devs are also involved with housing.

I'll gladly think of it as a squashed rumor or foul hearsay, then. Thank you.
I supposed toning down the difficulty of the Ultimate is a much more reasonable concern anyway, although, with such a delay and such confidence in its ability to make us "suffer," I would hope that they would know to keep the difficulty high.

[AnotherPerson]

Thanks for the correction. I have rage-colored glasses at Holy being nerfed, and nerfed, and nerfed, and nerfed, and nerfed, and nerfed, and nerfed, and nerfed.

If you wear those glasses, it will at least distract you long enough so you won't be able to see [Aero II] being 2 times more MP-efficient than [Dia]. Our level 46 skill is better than or level 72 skill...
And rather than have our single target damage skills directly improve, it just costs 100 more MP to do 30-40 more potency... It suddenly feels like a downgrade for the small amount of improvement.

Based on the trend of how all healer's damage skills are now getting 100 MP more expensive every 2-3 "upgrades", I expect White Mage's next skill upgrade get a 20-30 potency increase for another 100 MP by next expansion. -_-

I can see it now... Holy III increases in potency by 10 next expansion to 160, and by 8.0, we get Holy IV to do 170 potency for 500 MP to discourage healers from doing damage with their attack skill. They try to make healers heal more.
... But we will probably get another 10+ healing abilities to use for healing in another 2 expansions, which make no difference once you factor in tank survival because enemy damage is either too low or will instantly kill someone...

So future healer gameplay will then be press 'single attack skill' again and again or 'stand there and wait until MP recovers'.
Or meld piety to restore MP faster.

[Shurrikhan]

Thanks for the correction. I have rage-colored glasses at Holy being nerfed, and nerfed, and nerfed, and nerfed, and nerfed, and nerfed, and nerfed, and nerfed.

That's fair. I feel the same. It's just worth noting the context.

We can't rightly consider Holy's power today relative to ARR/HW without looking also at everyone else's relative changes in AoE burst strength over the same period (and, of course, the resource costs that were attached to those -- Holy, for instance, used to wreck our MP).

[Semirhage]

That's fair. I feel the same. It's just worth noting the context.

We can't rightly consider Holy's power today relative to ARR/HW without looking also at everyone else's relative changes in AoE burst strength over the same period (and, of course, the resource costs that were attached to those -- Holy, for instance, used to wreck our MP).

It was doubly infuriating because I remember back in...Heavensward? Early Stormblood? Sometime around then. When Yoshi stated that he didn't like nerfing jobs. He wanted to buff underperforming jobs to make things more fun. Because nerfing things feels bad.

Anyway let's rip a quarter of WHM's toolkit out for the role system, and nerf Holy, and spread Proshell out to everyone, and nerf Holy again, and delete Aero 3, and nerf Holy again and...what's that? Can't remember what I was saying.

Hell, I wouldn't even object to Holy having a monstrous potency for a high MP cost again. It'd feel impactful and make a juicy target for Thin Air at least. Reducing Holy's MP cost and potency (among several other things) is yet another small contribution to the spammy, boring hellscape healers are in now. 11111111111111 for AOEs too!

[Nizzi]

First thing people should try (and it will happen sooner or later) is try it without healers.
And the healer state won't change because of ultimate. The "rotation" will be the same. The healing requirement will VERY likely to be the same as well...
And even if is not, well, congratulations, you have ONE duty in the entire game that requires a bit more...

No worries, it will definitely be solo healed by every healer job at some point during EW, just like TEA was, and then the narrative will shift towards "healing is fine, this isn't something most people can do, healing is needed in all content because I just played a dungeon where sprouts couldnt stop dying and it was stressful, healing isn't increasingly irrelevant, stop complaining" as it always does when the state of healing is pointed out to people every time new high end content comes out and people show that it doesn't address the fundamental problems with this entire role as usual!

[Shurrikhan]

Anyway let's rip a quarter of WHM's toolkit out for the role system, and nerf Holy, and spread Proshell out to everyone, and nerf Holy again, and delete Aero 3, and nerf Holy again and...what's that? Can't remember what I was saying.

If they can still remember when first they were hit by the nerf bat, you clearly haven't clubbed them hard enough. /nod

And the saddest thing is how much more entertainment value can be generated from even just two --JUST TWO-- more offensive abilities per healer.

[MagicalChase]

If they can still remember when first they were hit by the nerf bat, you clearly haven't clubbed them hard enough. /nod

And the saddest thing is how much more entertainment value can be generated from even just two --JUST TWO-- more offensive abilities per healer.

Like honestly if you bring back aero 3 for whm and shadowflare for sch it'd be engaging enough I think. cleric stance as a buff instead of a stance too maybe, just yaknow....anything

[IDontPetLalas]

Like honestly if you bring back aero 3 for whm and shadowflare for sch it'd be engaging enough I think. cleric stance as a buff instead of a stance too maybe, just yaknow....anything

No. Not 'anything'. not 'just slap on another 100 potency and rename the skill' or bring back a skill from 10 years ago and call it a day.

that would still make the PVE skillset stale and boring compared to the recent PVP changes - although they weren't perfect each healer has its interesting identity with only around seven skills and is much more engaging.

[Anhra]

What Healers need the most, is a proper identity like in PvP but on a larger scale and a proper identity for the Dpskit as well, not just the same Skills slapped on all Healers where the only difference is animation and name.

The possibilities on those are endless, even if you give AST for example, to play all Cards differently in both a utility AND a offensive way (and not just dps boost and potency juggling, i mean as different as they used to be during Stormblood and before) alone would make a huge difference in gameplay.