Fixing Every Healer Job

[Shurrikhan]

I admit, I have not shared my entire rework for SCH and without that context, some of my suggestions come off as impractical or, to use your own words, constraining but to receive this level of push back for trying to salvage a horribly underutilized system seems excessive.

While in isolation it's a good thing to salvage the dung heap, that is only a net positive in practice if you haven't worsened the kit on the whole in doing so. "X needs more stuff attached to it," is not a sufficient reason for a loss in overall quality, which seems the case --albeit slight-- here. Maintaining resource margins without a reliable/rhythmic element generally devolves into bar-watching; pair that with shared CDs atop individual CDs, especially without use cases for the otherwise inferior tools (e.g., Lustrate, at least, is the only single-target spender after Excog), and you're very likely to have convolution more so than complexity.

I mentioned Bad RNG in my initial statement.

Which confused me because you specifically mentioned Repertoire, which is based on server ticks during an ongoing buff, not a DoT, and, again, would push gauge generation to excessive levels (which your later changes to FB's and then FC's CDs seemed to indicate was not your intent) unless you removed Broil from being a generator.

It could work, IF 100% uptime is achieved, which is not something I would force onto any player, especially during prog.

But you can't have both the system have sufficient gauge under low-offensive-uptime situations and allow Broil to play such a large factor, as then you'd have tremendous excess in high-uptime situations.

So, in theory, you can absolutely compress all of the Fairy abilities into my proposed Gauge system rework.

Can =/= should. Again, that the system is not necessarily broken, in theory, isn't sufficient to make it appealing. What is its gameplay appeal? Is it just that one is then able to trade some of the frequency between Fey Blessing and Fey Covenant? Is it that Broil becomes more important? What's the desired impact on gameplay?

Why use GCD heals at all when oGCDs are so abundant, free and powerful?

But note that you are currently causing GCD heals to punish oGCD healing and having Broil provide yet more free oGCD healing.

The reason why I primarily built the system on DPS is because I sternly believe that Healer's toolkits should revolve around a gameplay loop of DPS and Healing feeding into one another.

And I agree with that in principle, but we're in a place where most content is already Broil, Broil, Broil, and Broil. Tying yet more healing to filler-attack spam, further increasing the punishment of GCD healing, does not seem a wise direction given the current state of healers.

Shouldn't there be some level of trade off between them to make the choices not so black and white? In your example, Indom is not only more powerful than Succor in terms of healing but also in the fact that it allows you to use Broil to gain DPS over using Succor+Energy Drain and that it doesn't cost 1k MP. What is the benefit of Succor then? A last ditch effort for when crap hits the fan? Why are we content with that?

I am far from content with the state of GCD heals. I am far from content with how Succor faces up to Indom, especially given how often (i.e., in all but the most healing-intensive content) Indom makes Succor a non-option rather than simply a fallback.

Heck, I'd still find it a problem if they were designed such that one could, with little loss in affordance, simply macro Indom atop Succor. Buttons should not only have a place, but multiple places should be decently competitive.

Why is every single suggestion on how to "Fix" healers only geared towards part of the toolkit and not the whole job?

They're... not. Many, many suggestions have been addressed towards their respective jobs as a whole, rather than trying only to "fix" parts in isolation.

Which is what I've been asking for here. If salvaging a particular part would worsen the whole, it's not worth having. That does mean that focusing on some small concrete detail --especially in a direction that would more constrain it, let alone further favor Broil-spam and further widen the performance gap of the job whose gap is already widest-- will open itself to more criticism.

That's not being "excessive" so much as simply a greater interest in the whole than on any part in isolation, since I do not see why a vestige of Stormblood gauge-obsession would be worth constraining the kit unless those constraints create a more enjoyable job, again, on the whole.

____________

All that brings us back to this point:

I have not shared my entire rework for SCH

As you've said, that context is vital. At the very least, though, maybe let us hear the intended affordances for gameplay, not merely for systems X, Y, and/or Z being worth having on screen (even if not necessarily increasing the kit's fun/affordances/consideration/engagement)?

[Silver-Strider]

Which confused me because you specifically mentioned Repertoire, which is based on server ticks during an ongoing buff, not a DoT, and, again, would push gauge generation to excessive levels (which your later changes to FB's and then FC's CDs seemed to indicate was not your intent) unless you removed Broil from being a generator.

Perhaps I should have specified how Repertoire used to work and not so much its current iteration to clear up that confusion. I haven't played BRD much this expansion so forgive my ignorance on the changes that made it no longer DoT reliant.

As you've said, that context is vital. At the very least, though, maybe let us hear the intended affordances for gameplay, not merely for systems X, Y, and/or Z being worth having on screen (even if not necessarily increasing the kit's fun/affordances/consideration/engagement)?

I suppose that's fair. Just bear with me as it's far from being complete given that SCH has a vast array of gameplay elements to it, from the pet, to Aetherflow, to Energy Drain, etc. that I needed to consider and for all of my theorycrafting, I am still not 100% on some of the suggestions myself as of yet nor do I have ideas for some skills. The overall Goal was to reduce the need for our oGCD heals by both expending the DPS toolkit to provide some level of utility and to make the GCD healing toolkit work in a way that would benefit DPS but not handicap the healing side of things. There are some buffs to the oGCD healing side of things but there is also some skills that I want to remove.

GCD healing:
As already stated, Addlo could be given a damage reflection element to it. It wouldn't build up the Fairy Gauge and is merely a means of refunding the DPS lost from missing a Broil cast but with the added benefit of Broil granting Fairy Gauge, would that be enough? You're still healing the target so it's not as though you're losing Healing or DPS but it is limiting the Fairy Gauge from building so how to rectify that is still something I have to work on. I don't want to pull a Toxicon when Addlo breaks but making Ruin 2 turn into Ruination that matches the potency of Broil but offers 10 gauge instead of 5 when Addlo breaks is an option I've been considering.

Succor could be used for both healing and to refresh/extend SCH's DoTs. Since DoTs do help to build the gauge, being able to refreshing them wouldn't have the same problems as Addlo does and since Healer DoTs only cost 400 MP now, the true cost of the ability comes down to 200 mp as you save 800 from not having to recast Bio and Miasma.

Physick I am at a loss. Upgrading it to Addlo at level 30 is an obvious solution but then there's also the option of just making every healer's Cure 1 equivalent skill have an Esuna effect added to them. You remove 1 skill either way so they both work.

DPS:
Broil and Ruin 2 now offer 5 Fairy Gauge. I'm not 100% on the Ruination thing for Ruin 2 but that's still an option.
Miasma returns and stacks with Bio with both having a 50% proc to grant 5 gauge per tic.
Shadowflare returns as an oGCD DoT that lasts 15s on a 60s CD but instead of a Slow effect, it grants the Protraction effect to any ally that enters the Dome for 10s. This way, it can remain useful for all content since most bosses are immune to the Slow effect and it would normally be centered on the Tank since that's where the enemies generally are so that they can still receive the benefits of Protraction.
Art of War gains the effect of spreading DoTs but to keep the Fairy Gauge from overcapping, only the initial target of the DoTs count towards the Gauge generation.
Bane is added as a 15s DoT on a 60s CD that doesn't build Fairy Gauge but turns the ability into Fester. Using Fester causes Bane's DoT to expire but reduces the damage the Target does by 5% for the remaining duration of Bane's DoT timer upon use.

Aetherflow: I am honestly completely stumped here.
Indom is in contention with Fey Blessing and Succor now so would we really need it? Either Indom or Blessing would need to go but I'm more invested in keeping Blessing than Indom since otherwise it becomes harder to balance the Fairy Gauge unless I add a new Fairy Ability, which defeats the purpose of reducing the over abundance of oGCD healing tools.
The can of worms that is Energy Drain is also something that I can't really think of what to do with. SCH should have plenty of DPS tools now that it wouldn't really need it and if we're reducing oGCD healing tools, we might need to use more Aetherflow abilities more often.
Sacred Soil, Excog and Lustrate are fine as is.

Fairies:
Eos
Whispering Dawn now lasts for 15s with a cure potency of 120. 60s CD remains unchanged.
Fey Blessing CD reduced to 30s
Fey Illumination now provides a 15% Healing buff with 8% mitigation on a 60s CD
Selene
Whispering Dawn now lasts for 24s with a cure potency of 75. 60s CD remains unchanged.
Fey Blessing CD reduced to 30s. Provides a 380 potency Shield instead of a heal.
Fey Covenant provides a 15% mitigation effect with a 8% Healing Buff on a 60s CD.

Fairy Gauge:
Starts off at 100 upon entering an instance.
Whispering Dawn, Fey Blessing and Fey Covenant/Illumination cost 25 gauge.
Aetherpact costs 50 gauge and summons your unused fairy to the target to provide healing for 15s. This way you can use your other fairy skills without needing to worry about the tether turning off.
Seraph costs 50 gauge but Angel's Whisper, Consolation and Seraph Illumination can be cast without cost.

Misc:
Dissipation no longer dispels your fairy nor grants Aetherflow but instead allows the use of 1 fairy ability with no cost.
Alternatively, Dissipation and Recitation could be reworked to allow 1 free Aetherflow or Fairy ability usage with 2 charges, Recitation just allowing the skill to Crit over Dissipation.
Expendant is also something I hesitate to touch since it's still useful, even after the nerf but with the buff to Covenant/Illumination, do we need it?

Like I said, it's a work in progress and it might not provide the full picture of anything either but hopefully, it can at least give some context on my thought process.

[Shurrikhan]

Perhaps I should have specified how Repertoire used to work and not so much its current iteration to clear up that confusion. I haven't played BRD much this expansion so forgive my ignorance on the changes that made it no longer DoT reliant.

Ahh, that makes more sense.

Just bear with me as it's far from being complete given that SCH has a vast array of gameplay elements to it, from the pet, to Aetherflow, to Energy Drain, etc. that I needed to consider...

Oh, no worries. I mean, it's taken a team of... well, too few but nonetheless multiple people almost a decade to arrive at a product nonetheless inferior to what you're hoping to create on your own.

It wouldn't build up the Fairy Gauge and is merely a means of refunding the DPS lost from missing a Broil cast but with the added benefit of Broil granting Fairy Gauge, would that be enough?

I mean, maybe? I'm probably a bit more against anything advantaging Broil spam than some others would be, but in this case, Broil would still be building free oGCD heals, not GCDs like, so... I'm not seeing the connection.

Imagine if it were the opposite, for instance -- whereby MP spent (which naturally more affects healing than our very MP-efficient attacks) would build Aetherpool, which then enhances the damage and MP you can restore via Energy Drain. Now you'd have, atop the damage-reflection, further ways of reducing the punishment for GCD healing, allowing them slightly more use cases for GCD healing + ED over Broil + Lustrate/Indom, etc -- instead of further Broil-spam advantage.

Now, given that you'd then be making Energy Drain and increasingly lucrative ability over MP expenditure, you may want to add a bit more Aetherflow to play with, such as by returning Quickened Aetherflow or just granting an extra AF stack per CD (essentially, one per 15s, up from one per 20 or QA's at best one-per-15). I could hammer out a polish for QA if you specifically want to return it and its margining play (really, just punishment for using AF skills in the last n seconds of AF's cooldown).

I don't want to pull a Toxicon when Addlo breaks but making Ruin 2 turn into Ruination that matches the potency of Broil but offers 10 gauge instead of 5 when Addlo breaks is an option I've been considering.

Understandable; we want jobs to feel distinct. Out of curiosity, would the 5-second spitball above (Aetherpool) be sufficiently distinct, or would the MP Spending->Energy Drain buff interaction feel too similar, still, to Toxicon, in your opinion?

Aetherflow: I am honestly completely stumped here.

Same, tbh. Half my mind says "it's fine," and half is shouting at me that it could result in far better. So much of the existing system seems dependent on a need to balance burst with sustain, both in terms of damage and healing, but with oGCD healing being capable of all one's sustain needs and no mainstay content requiring that oGCDs be saved for burst atop GCD healing... it feels a little destined to fall well short of its potential.

I imagine Aetherflow's (and its spenders') more ideal context would look something more like this:

• There's way more damage relative to mostly-free healer output. This is the basic requirement, though obviously adjustments would have to be made both to (A) not overly increase the minimum skill required to avoid wipes in typical content, and (B) deal with the increased MP requirements.
  
  
• Abilities have MP costs. No, really; I've no idea why the devs decided that MP costs on abilities should only ever be a thing for Dark Knight. By allowing abilities to have relatively high MP costs, similar to the increase in cost in going from Cure I to Cure II (since they offer at least that difference in potency in a given GCD), though not necessarily at uniform efficiencies across all abilities of a given kit, we can at least have a bit of that burst vs. sustain balance available here, rather than oGCDs being the default solution not just for timely burst, but --in typical content-- for sustained healing, too.
  
  
• AoE heals are turned into smart-heals but have lower maximum effective potency. This allows a greater place for spot-healing and for single-target spenders not to become useless on all but tanks and targeted-mechanics victims, which in turn increases interplay between shared resource options, including GCD heals themselves.

Fairies

So Selene remains heal/shield-only (no offensive buffs nor utility anymore), with Eos simply offering a bit more urgent recovery and Selene offering further mitigation. I'm a tiny bit torn on not bringing back SCH's ability thereby to flex with the situation (especially if, say, we could make pet-swaps conditionally oGCD), but I can see how the Dawn/Moon pairing would play out that way. Looks solid.

Aetherpact costs 50 gauge and summons your unused fairy to the target to provide healing for 15s. This way you can use your other fairy skills without needing to worry about the tether turning off.
Seraph costs 50 gauge but Angel's Whisper, Consolation and Seraph Illumination can be cast without cost.

Smart fix on the first, though you could also just change Aetherpact from a cast to an applied aura, absence any cast-locks. That'd then also allow you more granular control over the skill, such as by draining 5 gauge per second to rapidly heal (Eos) or cumulatively shield (Selene) a target, etc.

Seraph's up-front cost seems more attractive than individual costs, short of perhaps borrowing the old Inner Release design of reducing gauge costs by X% for Y seconds, but to briefly repeat an earlier warning... One choice being far more gauge-efficient than the others, so long as it can be maneuvered not to hugely overheal, will not add to decisions, only to constraints (i.e., lesser skills becoming non-options as you near Selene's). Constraints can feel good --in this case, in widening the gameplay impact of Seraph's CD so that its CD feels more real, big, palpable, significant, or what have you-- but it should be carefully considered.

Or, put more simply: Do you really want the punishment for overspending prior to Seraph to be a desynced Seraph, or might it be better to soften the blow slightly, such as by having Seraph's forms of each gauge spender costing less gauge (but that efficiency of course being less exploitable if you enter at less than full gauge / enough gauge to use each ability)?

I'd also repeat that there's zero need for every AoE spender to have a significant CD unless you want to deliberately want to force single-target spending (via Aetherpact). You also don't want overflow issues to be dealt with only upon acquiring Seraph. I'd therefore just put a 2s, 5s, or 10s CD on Fey Blessing.

[Silver-Strider]

Quickened Aetherflow

Well, I did try to experiment on how to bring back Quickened Aetherflow but quickly scrapped it because it further empowered oGCD heals and it caused Gauge to generate even more haphazardly. The only way such a system could work is if Energy Drain was its own system unbound by Aetherflow and that caused its own set of headaches. While still a tempting prospect, trying to create a functional system was something that would require a level of fine tuning that is better done in practice rather than on paper to get an actual feel of the changes, limitations, etc. It could absolutely work, the issue is figuring out HOW it would work that isn't just Toxicon but as an oGCD.

Aetherflow is honestly the single biggest obstacle for a SCH redesign because of how intricately it is woven into the job. Between MP management, Healing abilities, Energy Drain and Gauge Generation, so many of SCH's facilities are so hindgent on it that any small adjustment throws the system into chaos, as we've seen with SE's past attempts to remove Energy Drain. It works because it has to, else SCH crumbles. I tried to remove it in several experiments, tried moving the focal point of the job on the fairies, even tried to make Aetherflow work like Addersgal but for some reason or another, every theory ended in failure.

Make Aetherflow abilities CD based and remove Aetherflow? oGCD healing goes thru the roof since there is nothing keeping Lustrate in check from just being used alongside the other Aetherflow abilities, apart from whatever CD is added to it and then there's still Gauge and MP management to consider on top of what to do with Energy Drain. Have it function as a Fairy Swapping ability? Limits control of the Fairies. Maybe you want Selene for Mitigation or Eos for urgent healing? Well too bad. Have it function like Addersgal? Apart from the obvious homogeny, Energy Drain becomes problematic due to how easy it is to regulate its usage that rises SCH's DPS and make Gauge Generation into a bit of a joke.

I both wish to congratulate and condemn the person that made that skill because I am truly at a loss.

[Shurrikhan]

<Aetherflow nightmares in general>

I feel like the hardest thing about something as integral as Aetherflow is to try to deal with it in any sort of function-first approach, let alone in isolation.

Though I haven't has as much time as I'd like to progress it, my current approach for any broader SCH design improvements, much like for CNJ, is to first start at the roots and level the kit up over time, trying to find something compelling at each step of level progression, rather than taking a top-down approach.

Given SCH's ACN roots, that seems to orient around very unique takes on MP. Of course, for any of that to be pulled off, MP needs to first be a mechanic beyond merely a rez charge meter (or, for that to be the case in more than a mere <5% of content).

Which means, to have the liberty/license to make SCH far more compelling... I need to be able to tap into broader changes and fix the dysfunctional systems that surround it. RIP.

Make Aetherflow abilities CD based and remove Aetherflow? oGCD healing goes thru the roof...

Well, again, that'd just depend on the in-practice frequency and burst thereby made available. Given single cost and three charges thereof per minute, burst wouldn't likely be too affected. Their CDs would doubtless have to change, though. And, of course, you'd lose the ability to not only shift around forms of healing within that difference in cooldowns, but to trade out would-be excess healing (or, in a more ideal context, the ability to trade burst for sustain).

Have it function like Addersgal? Apart from the obvious homogeny, Energy Drain becomes problematic due to how easy it is to regulate its usage that rises SCH's DPS and make Gauge Generation into a bit of a joke.

This one seems the most lucrative question to follow.

Consider: What would be the difference in affordance between (A) a 6-charge maximum Aetherflow that starts at 3 charges and builds a charge per 20s and (B) what we have now, apart from needing one fewer weave space per minute (which we had more than enough of anyways)?

Between the current version and a 3-charge maximum Addersgall-like system, there's a faint difference, but only for dumping an extra 3 Energy Drains into even-minute bursts; for all other uses of Aetherflow, there'd be little to no practical reason to pool that many heals, given the efficiency you'd be giving up in leaving Soil, Excog, and Indom untouched.

In terms of playflow, there's the obvious difference of "must hit button as near as possible to on CD (delaying at most 1-2 GCD during the second buff cycle only)," but, again, that's it.

Surely we could do more with an active button-press being attached to our resource generation? Something to actually make that button-press good for more than a wonky trade-off for having an, effectively speaking, 6-charge limit?

[Silver-Strider]

With Aetherflow removed, you would need to increase the CD of Aetherflow abilities but not so much so that it becomes detrimental to the Fairy Gauge system while also keeping them at least somewhat in line with other healers so as to not lower SCH's ability to heal adequately in high stress scenario. The most promising combination of these factors was 2 Lustrates on 30s CDs, 2 Sacred Soils on 60s, 1 Excog on 60s and 2 Indom on 60s, which is just AST's CD line up on steroids, even before accounting for fairy abilities. Any increase in CD or charge removals caused SCH to start to fall behind in its healing capabilities since I was working on an average uptime of 75% in terms of Broil/DoTs so as to give some wiggle room for less experienced SCHs. It worked the higher your uptime was but started to fall apart at lower increments and given prog can get messy at the drop of a dime, I didn't think it was wise to pursue it further.

As for changing Aetherflow into Addersgal, the problem stemmed more from the other adjustments to the job I had made, such as Succor and Addlo being more useful and Blessing, and Covenant being on shorter CDs. You could get several additional casts of Fairy Abilities in that could substitute for other Aetherflow abilities instead, when coupled with Succor or Addlo, that you could use Energy Drain unabated and that it would be optimal to do so over using any of your Aetherflow Heals, that theoretically, I could completely axe all of the other Aetherflow abilities almost entirely, which became the case when I moved the uptime threshold up from 75%. Between the extra DoTs of Miasma, Bane and Shadowflare, 3 Energy Drains a minute for 7 minutes rises SCHs DPS into Tank Levels, with an estimation puting it just between PLD and WAR in terms of damage, i.e. more than any of the other healers could get close to.

I couldn't make ED solely a sustain tool with no damage because locking sustain independent of healing would be disastrous for a healer and removing it entirely would just further homogenize SCH and SGE. I can't increase the CD on Fairy abilities since that causes Guage Overflow issues. I can't make Aetherflow abilities more lucrative because it defeats the point of making GCD heals more useful. Admittedly, it wouldn't be a problem if the Fairy Abilities and Gauge were left unchanged but creating the resource management mini game that is my suggested Fairy Guage is something that I would like to see become a thing, even if only to test the waters with and seeing if it could realistically work first before admitting defeat on it.