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]

Snip

They need to adjust Healers in a way that makes the opportunity cost of using GCD heals not feel like a punishment and warrant actually using them. If they do that, then we can discuss cutting button bloat off of healers since then we wouldn't need 20+ abilities geared towards healing.

The question though is how?
Would Addlo reflecting damage work?
Would Succor extending/refreshing DoTs work?
What skills could be cut if we were to make GCD healing worth it enough that these oGCD skills would no longer be necessary? Protration, for all its merits, is scarcely used outside of Shield Cheese. Could the effect be consolidated onto another skill instead of being its own thing? Either Blessing or Indom would probably need to go? What about Lustrate? Between Excog being stronger, Addlo getting buffed to be worth using more and that Energy Drain exists to remove excess resources, would we really need it?
Speaking of Energy Drain, that's also something to think about as well. Could something be done with it to make it more utilitarian in nature other than just being a generic DPS button that we use to prevent overcapping on Aetherflow?

There's so much room to work with on SCH, it's mind blowing.

[pikalovr]

idk if it's just cause the AST changes are fine but it's kinda weird only like 1-2 other people have even brought up the changes besides me

[SirShady]

idk if it's just cause the AST changes are fine but it's kinda weird only like 1-2 other people have even brought up the changes besides me

Yeah it's a bit of a bummer cause honestly I think it's the set of changes I think are most reasonable and well thought out overall. I think it's a bit too much for most folks to want to read, honestly. It can be a little confusing to parse.

[SirShady]

I assume that SirShady's suggestion of Aero 3 would be as it was back in the day, aka it could stack with Dia. Timing it to land during trash pulls in dungeons was a pretty neat mini game in itself, especially if you didn't want to use swiftcast on it. I could be wrong OFC but that would certainly be my preference.

Yep! This was what I had in mind, so stacking Dia during pulls would still be your general gameplan, then hit them all with a nice Aero 3/Refulgence and get into your Holy spam, using Bloom, Refulgence procs, and Blood Lily when you can for max damage. Still a simple rotation, but a lot more room for optimizing.

[SirShady]

Yummy feedback!

Hey Leonerdo! Appreciate you weighing in here! As Sebazy stated for me, the effects of Dia/Aero3 (Refulgence) would stack with each other, giving you a reason to use both in trash pulls. Perhaps having the proc work on Dia as well is unnecessary. I was just thinking it would give you more overall damage if you were keeping your eye out for it, and keep you from having to reapply the buff.

Oh yeah, I agree there. The numbers are definitely off now that I think about it. I was just thinking of a Lily spender White Mage's could use when no healing had to go out, and it can't be outright damage since then they'd be penalized for choosing to use the Lilies to heal, as is the intention. With how Bloom works to empower the next Blood Lily I was thinking it would be good to have Afflatus Inspiratione so that if you had lilies to burn you wouldn't just be outright wasting them.

Yeah, I thought about making Smite 2 seconds as well! I just thought that might be too overpowered from a balancing perspective, but I definitely see where you're coming from. The combo finisher should feel better outside of a small amount of potency gain.

To be honest I was just thinking the Bloom buff would be pretty generous. The optimization wouldn't come from timing your Blood Lily within the buff window, but spending your lilies wisely, but liberally so that you could get one off each time Bloom came back up for maximum damage.

I appreciate it! I know my changes are quite significant and would definitely throw some balance out of whack, but I feel they could be balanced number-wise while also bringing some much needed life/fun to the slog that is current day healing.

[SirShady]

The more i read those threads the more i feel like healers nowadays are just dps Players in disguise.
The real problem with healers is not the healers themselves its how the enounters are designed. Remove heavily scripted dmg, add more healing checks, make bosses auto attack the tank for half of their hp like how Bahamut used to do back in the day. Remember the coils how you had to stance dance between cleric to apply dots and normal stance to actually heal bcs bosses hit like a truck ? yeah that was engaging and skillfull. This becomes very apparent for me when i play a dps or tank class and most of the healers i get in PF cant even keep up with a mild heal check like the bleed from endsinger ex.

"healers nowadays are just dps ̶p̶l̶a̶y̶e̶r̶s̶ in disguise" Fixed that for you!

As much as I would absolutely LOVE them to move away from heavily scripted fights with little outgoing damage, at this point, that has become part of the game's core battle design philosophy. Every single fight is structured this way, a dance, and I don't see them suddenly changing their mind on how combat encounters fundamentally work. Trust me, if I had my way we'd have BOTH interesting kits AND interesting non-scripted fights that actually required you to hit your GCD heal buttons. That would be a godsend. Sadly, as much as I'd love to believe that the next major chapter in the game's story will bring with it huge changes and some actual difficulty, I HIGHLY doubt they will give up their incredibly digestible scripted encounters because they want to keep the game incredibly approachable for its casual audience.

[SirShady]

Unpopulr opinion, I know, but I do not think healers really need fixing.

Having played all healers at max level, the only real problems I ever saw was that SGE sucks if your Tanks are terrible or super squishy (Kardion stops contributing to healing when you cannot DPS) and healing inbetween Holy spam for WHM feels clunky (give Holy the same cast time as Glare or make it instant cast).

Not to sound condescending, but do you legitimately believe that all of the healer jobs bring with them a unique and fun "healing experience"? Because that's what this is about. They're all perfectly serviceable to do all content, sure, but that's part of the problem. They play it so safe with all of them that their kits are just about identical. They're scared of taking any kind of risks that might jeopardize the balance. Because of that, every healer job feels bland and same-y, and offers nothing in the way of stimulating gameplay once you know how to use OGCD's effectively. If the game is going to be kept so braindead easy through 90% of the content, to the point where we don't get to actively HEAL as healers, then why stick us with a 1-button rotation on every god damn healer job? It's infuriatingly stagnant and boring when you consider just how much could be done to make it better.

Even IF you're happy with the way the healers are designed, it's still a problem because they're ALL designed in the same exact way. We need some diversity, some variation, something to keep me from falling asleep on my 300,000th Glare/Broil/Malefic/Dosis cast.

[WaxSw]

This is pretty much the reasoning that led to SCH's DPS kit being gutted in the first place, and I don't think the existence of bad players or greedy players should be even more of a reason to homogenize and neuter whats left of distinct differences between jobs that aren't base level paint jobs at this point. Don't get me wrong though; I don't really disagree on that either - but I think we both know that SE will absolutely not replace Energy Drain with anything that is more interesting; considering they seem to have a fear of even giving Ruin II or Energy Drain new animations, I sincerely believe they would make Energy Drain a 2 charge 30s oGCD with a potency of 150, separate it from Aetherflow and call it a day. That sounds exactly like the level of work they'd be willing to do if they didn't decide to just outright remove it and replace it with a fat whopping nothing like in the past.

I mean the whole "Sch does not heal so we gut its dps" was just an excuse they threw around to justify an unnecesary gutting, and a wrong one too as the logs showed how Sch were healing as much if not more as its cohealer in the top runs of the last floors of savage back then, while right now that argument holds true as the top Sch runs of both P4s p1 and p2 show Sch that are healing significantly less than its cohealer (and generally less too in the rest of floors but not that much, we know how the healing requirements are there after all...)

I completely agree on the whole SE does not give a fuck argument tho, that's why a lot of times I say that Aetherflow needs a rework but highly doubt SE is able to do a proper one.

Energy Drain is a non significant DPS gain to focus on purely, and I think Scholars who focus on ED, something that amounts to an 5% DPS gain if totally optimal in coordinated environments above healing are just bad players; I don't think this is a reason to remove it. It wasn't a reason to remove Miasma, Shadow Flare, Bane and Miasma II either even though there were Scholars that focused on that above healing as well.

Maybe its my parsing Sch talking but they are significant and to be fair if you don't focus on getting the most out of them you may as well be playing Sage at that point as ED optimization is the only remaining bit of complexity Sch has. The reason to remove is not because the damage they deal but because they are a tax for healing, the game is moving to a place where every healer has loads of free tools and Sch remains as the only one who has to pay to interact with part of its kit which feels weird and obsolete and even if its not much potency just the mere payment you have to do feels like much by mere comparision.

There woudn't be a problem if every healer had to pay some tax but the problem is that the payment is only for Sch and if they are goint to go that route I'd rather see them make the healing free and giving back all the lost dps tools and new ones so the depth increases without hurting the healing part.

Sorry if this comes off as just total Scholar apologism, I just really love the job. I don't want to see one of the things I find fun about it reworked with current job design in mind, because that spells nothing but death for things anyone likes

Its your opinion, for me the job died after SB when it got gutted so much that its dps healer identity was lost and EW put the last nail in the coffin when the ruin 2 optimizations for weaving were lost and actions that do not give/interact with shields, interact with the fairy or aetherflow were added, so thats why I want it to go back to its former glory even if it means changing some stuff to fit the new gameplay because Shb/EW Sch is not Sch.

[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.