Fixing Every Healer Job

[pikalovr]

how would we feel about a change like katoar suggested for WHM?

[Shurrikhan]

how would we feel about a change like katoar suggested for WHM?

Where was this suggestion made? Maybe I'm going blind, but I'm not seeing that name here as I scroll through the pages.

(Inb4 "see the link". There was no link at the time I made this reply.)

Edit: Nevermind; here it is. Reading through it now.

...

At a glance, it looks better than what we have, but I'm not fully sold on the Tesco-mudra design of Wind, Water, and Earth.

Moreover, if going that route anyway, one could add 3-5 (technically, up to 9) additional options at no additional button cost (Wind alone, Water alone, Earth alone, and perhaps the two missing trios if order were to matter for the trios), so I'm curious why it was left at just pairs and a single (ordered?) trio.

I'd also, especially if not going for more than just 4 total combinations, like to see some impact on the playflow outside of just what WHM-Jutsu the combinations produce. Haste, Crit, and Potency (perhaps flat bonus) buffs, with some windows and crit-procs to synergize with either, would be a start.

[pikalovr]

snip

this was my suggested changes to it

honestly instead of HP make it cost MP it'd put far more thought into using it optimally as it will affect rez potential and make any mistakes from the party more punishing than popping it 5 times out of the gate with no worry cause you can. you know no raidwides are coming up so might as well just pop all 5 since you have no worries for 25 seconds unlike making it an MP cost where any number of mechanics can affect someone else and hurt you more by draining unneccessary MP. it would also give lucid dreaming and thin air alot more use cases than just being used for rezzes. especially if you force each special move we'll call it cost MP since they are GCDs

also you really need to add more to the special moves (GCDs) unless spiritual ray is super powerful most people will just go earth+wind for the halfing of the effect of the next blissful sacrifice. if they need it, and seraph strike should honestly just be the single target attack that grants faith stacks and another 2 blissful sacrifice stacks to the WHM and WHM having a seperate dash ability. especially if you want "casual" players to be able to use it. you need to balance the damage to a point where for example making sure spiritual ray (10 cost overall) is more powerful than a seraph strike drought combo (10 cost overall) and making sure drought is more powerful than quad seraph strike

the main point of a setup like this is to allow the player to push their MP as far as they feel comfortable with alot of WHMs just using the 5 stacks and call it a day. but the more experienced WHM in better groups might use multiple seraph strikes (since it is inded a faith stack increase at the cost of MP) and i would add a mana regen/max MP return effect to spiritual ray to help those who really wanna "greed" a way to not go OOM if they're smart about it. yes you basically only use bene once and on CD but if you do for example need to use exaltation (which you can now get even more effect out of now since you can build stacks using bene and seraph strikes) even without using bene on CD you need a way to reenter that loop. and you still wanna keep up your dots and occasional nukes for blood spilled procs if you don't feel you can sustain enough droughts

[Shurrikhan]

...

I'm honestly a bit confused about the point of the Sacrifice mechanic in the first place.

I'm not sure how trading one's HP for special attacks sounds particularly "WHM". It also doesn't match up with the lore, given that those special attacks are all obviously (Tornado, Earthquake, etc.) or framed as (as per Water+Wind = Seraph Strike) elemental. The lore hints that the only thing for which we can directly sacrifice our soul(force)/aether for is healing, as an alternative to Water-based or Water-hybrid elemental magics.

It also feels odd to me that the burst options would be locked behind a 30-second oGCD that then gives 5 opportunities for said special-attacks-at-HP-cost, which seems clunky. And the HP-loss as some sort of alleged frequency-limiting factor seems... horrible to try to balance. Is it supposed to be balanced around maximum uptime, whereby one can use a special attack for 40% of one's uptime? If balanced around that HP loss being significant and thus overtuned as soon as one can really spend 25 per 60 seconds on special attacks?

I don't feel like the HP-sacrificing part of the iteration would survive obvious clunk or scalability checks. (Which is why my focus turned more to just the element-mixing component itself.)

[Lubu_Mykono]

1. Bring back Cleric Stance
2. Give White Mage Defense buffs for tanks e.g. Stoneskin & Protect (not like it was ever in the game)
3. Give Scholar a move at 99 with Full Faerie Gauge it gives Eos and Selene out together (Make Eos heal again and Selene dps buffs)
4. Make Astrologian a proper Time Mage again with the old skills and bring back old card system
5. Give Sage comparable DPS to DPS but more focus on DPS leech and a better DPS rotation
6. Make a Melee Healer with off tank capability like RDM has single target heals, and Dancer has AoE ones..
7. If not just do Alchemist with a simplified ninjitsu type mix system and call it a day.

[Shurrikhan]

1. Bring back Cleric Stance

Bring back that thing that makes all but 4 skills useless, or makes 4 skills useless, until you swap again, for extra bloat APM.

...I'd rather not. It was button bloat that rarely presented any risk (by merely adding a single GCD of commitment to any attacks), and for which there'd be no risk outside of shit like DSR now.

2. Give White Mage Defense buffs for tanks e.g. Stoneskin & Protect (not like it was ever in the game)

How does this differ from Adlo/E.Diag spam and a spammable Aquaveil? Do we really need that further overlap in identity, now that all %HP shields (outside of TBN only) and all over-GCD casts for healers (outside of rez only) have been removed?

3. Give Scholar a move at 99 with Full Faerie Gauge it gives Eos and Selene out together (Make Eos heal again and Selene dps buffs)

Double down causes enough complaints when just requiring two-thirds of resources by itself. To have a skill require that you have (and likely hold onto) capped gauge...

Not to mention, Seraph already is basically our combined pet form.

That said, I wouldn't be necessarily against a return to further offensive-curative trade space from our pets (via Selene's throughput buffs vs. Eos's bonus healing).

4. Make Astrologian a proper Time Mage again with the old skills and bring back old card system

Sounds good.

5. Give Sage comparable DPS to DPS but more focus on DPS leech and a better DPS rotation

Then you just have a DPS --in throughput, not just portion of GCDs / play priority-- with a shitton of free healing.

May as well play more into Kardia, though, agreed.

6. Make a Melee Healer with off tank capability like RDM has single target heals, and Dancer has AoE ones.

I'd love it if we had the context to support this.

7. If not just do Alchemist with a simplified ninjitsu type mix system and call it a day.

I wouldn't mind this, either, but AST and NIN, by all reports, were already the answers to Chemist/Medic, as Chemist/Medic/Musketeer-as-healer was the earlier job being considered/prototyped, even, than NIN.

[pikalovr]

I'm honestly a bit confused about the point of the Sacrifice mechanic in the first place.

I'm not sure how trading one's HP for special attacks sounds particularly "WHM". It also doesn't match up with the lore, given that those special attacks are all obviously (Tornado, Earthquake, etc.) or framed as (as per Water+Wind = Seraph Strike) elemental. The lore hints that the only thing for which we can directly sacrifice our soul(force)/aether for is healing, as an alternative to Water-based or Water-hybrid elemental magics.

It also feels odd to me that the burst options would be locked behind a 30-second oGCD that then gives 5 opportunities for said special-attacks-at-HP-cost, which seems clunky. And the HP-loss as some sort of alleged frequency-limiting factor seems... horrible to try to balance. Is it supposed to be balanced around maximum uptime, whereby one can use a special attack for 40% of one's uptime? If balanced around that HP loss being significant and thus overtuned as soon as one can really spend 25 per 60 seconds on special attacks?

I don't feel like the HP-sacrificing part of the iteration would survive obvious clunk or scalability checks. (Which is why my focus turned more to just the element-mixing component itself.)

thats why i turned it into a MP cost cause we're "offering" up our residual aether to the elementals to assist us. plus MP will be way more thought provoking and risk reward heavy without feeling unfair in certain cases.

the lock on sacrifices and faith is circumvented with my changes to seraph strike and spiritula ray allowing you to drain as much MP as you feel comfortable with and you can sustain it back if you're efficient enough spiritual ray returns 25% max MP back (not in actual MP just you can get back 25% of your max MP) and a boost to mana regen which ontop of things like lucid dreaming and thin air should make for quite challenging game MP management. seraph strike granting the 3 faith stacks and 2 sacrifice stacks

[SirShady]

how would we feel about a change like katoar suggested for WHM?

I posted my feedback in his thread. Mixing and matching elemental combos is a great concept, but the way he has it outlined is very clunky. As Shurrikhan already stated, the self-damage makes absolutely 0 sense. There is no reason for it to be there. The numbers just don't add up as far as Faith stacks go (why are two of the spenders odd numbers?), and depending on which combo gave the most overall potency, you'd really only be cycling through one combo to get either Seraph Strike or Spiritual Ray. Changing Benediction, one of the most loved White Mage buttons, into an AoE cleanse makes no sense, doesn't tie with Blissful Sacrifice at all, and the button bloat is a bit much too. Gameplay-wise, I think the fact that you have to use a pointless AoE cleanse, in order to deal damage to yourself, in order to get stacks, in order to save them to be able to use on abilities that cost an odd number of stacks, in order to use whichever of the damage combos deal more damage... Just doesn't make sense, frankly. Conceptually though, I love the creativity and would definitely enjoy seeing a combo magic system like this for Geomancer.

[Conchoidal]

I've compiled a few ideas for the healers.

SCHOLAR
• Ruin 2 is replaced with Miasma - A casted dot with an 18 second timer and 50-100 potency on-hit (single target).
• Art of War/Art of War II – Is now a AOE instant spell around target and nearby enemies. The trait “Bane” is unlocked at level 56, which spreads the effect of Bio/Bio II from the target to all nearby enemies with a potency of 40% upon executing (with the same duration remaining) upon executing AoW upon target.
• Energy drain is now replaced with Shadowflare, which functions as it did in Stormblood, but can only be executed under the effect of Aetherflow III (does not consume a stack of Aetherflow).

SAGE
• Eukrasian Dosis spells have been reduced to 24 seconds.
• Addersting is now accumulated upon execution of any Eukrasian ability in combat, and can now be stacked to 4.
• Toxicon spells now cost 2 stacks of Addersting and are now DPS positive over Dosis spells.
• Phlegma spells now combo off any Eukrasian ability.

ASTROLOGIAN
• Combust spells now have a reduced timer of 18 seconds.
• Drawing a card now has a chance of granting either “Enhancement” or “Instant”, which now grants either enhanced versions of Gravity and Combust spells or allows the next spell to be cast instantly.
• Enhanced spells include: Enhanced Gravity, which now does 300 potency to target and surrounding enemies (potency gain over Malefic spells) and Enhanced Combust, which now lasts for 30 seconds and an on-hit potency of 50-100.
• Crown Play now replaces Minor Arcana upon the execution of Minor Arcana.

WHITE MAGE
• Aero and Dia spells now last 15-30 seconds (variable).
• Aero III is restored and upgrades to Diara at level 72 (aoe version of Dia).
• Divine Benison is now a level 66 spell, which when fully absorbed causes an AOE attack of 300-400 potency to target and 50-75% less to nearby enemies and grants “Blind” to target and all nearby enemies (duration 10 seconds).

Note that these potencies are just off the top of my head but these changes are really just to give some variation to healer dps.

[Katoar]

this was my suggested changes to it

honestly instead of HP make it cost MP it'd put far more thought into using it optimally as it will affect rez potential and make any mistakes from the party more punishing than popping it 5 times out of the gate with no worry cause you can. you know no raidwides are coming up so might as well just pop all 5 since you have no worries for 25 seconds unlike making it an MP cost where any number of mechanics can affect someone else and hurt you more by draining unneccessary MP. it would also give lucid dreaming and thin air alot more use cases than just being used for rezzes. especially if you force each special move we'll call it cost MP since they are GCDs

While I agree MP needs to be of use, if the end goal is to prevent popping all 5 stacks right away we can simply add uncleansable Grievous wounds debuff if 3 or more stacks have been activated without the Aura of The of Life if Hp cost and reduction is not enough.
Grievous Wounds: Healing and Shielding received is reduced by 80%
Duration: 1 minute
This will kill you in current savage and extreme content unless you spam heal yourself to full HP. Note that I don't mind MP being the resource to be managed but I do not understand how risking not having MP for rezzes is relevant outside of prog.

Also, Benediction can be made GCD Button with a 5-second recast time. This is a minor detail. And the cleansing can be removed as well.

That Thread started out with me wanting a change in benediction and I ended up writing some DPS kit.