Fixing Every Healer Job

[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.

[Shurrikhan]

SCHOLAR
Ruin 2 is replaced with Miasma - A casted dot with an 18 second timer and 50-100 potency on-hit (single target).

No mobility tool outside of melee range, then?

You may want to determine a filler-value-per-minute for perfect uptime each of your DoTs, accounting for the GCDs spent on their applications (and therefore not on filler). This is what determines DoTs' importance across your kit.

At 700 potency vs. Broil IV's 295, Biolysis currently grants 2.75 bonus Broil IVs' damage per minute. 700(2) - 295(2) = 810. 810/295 = 2.75. It's DoT ppgcd is meanwhile 2.37x that of its filler.

Note that until EW, its DoT held much greater relative importance, as Broil III dealt only 255 potency.

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.

Neat. Gotta admit, though, I'd still rather see Bane returned as an Aetherflow effect, ideally one that can also be used on allies (effectively replacing Deployment Tactics -- slightly weaker, but more flexible and without any CD of its own).

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).

So, it's just free offensive potency per minute, at roughly the value of 3 EDs, thus giving SCH both its maximum offensive and curative potential. That would not be balanced unless SCH were currently undertuned by some 2k+ ST or 0.9k+ AoE healing potency, or 300 offensive ST potency, per minute. The trade-off exists for a reason.

Aesthetically, functionally, and in terms of responsiveness, I also can't say I'm a fan. I'd rather build off AoE than a ground-DoT, especially since, in this game, ground DoTs can't interact with other effects or conditions.

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SAGE
Eukrasian Dosis spells have been reduced to 24 seconds.

Quick note: This would require 5 casts per 2 min, up from 4, which means you'd lose half a filler's potency per minute. You'd have to increase potency elsewhere at a value of 165 potency per minute.

Additionally, one would need to have a GCD of 2.4s in order not to clip their DoTs or potentially let a tick go to waste. Playflow-wise, I'm fine with a 2.4s GCD, but keep in mind that the devs are more than happy for Skill Speed / Spell Speed to generally be dead, or at least notably inferior, stats outside of the Yoshida Special.

Addersting is now accumulated upon execution of any Eukrasian ability in combat, and can now be stacked to 4.

Not a fan. That'd simply mean that every (already spammable) instant-cast GCD heal offers further mobility AND bonus AoE (relative to Dosis spam) or ST (relative to Dysk spam) damage.

Toxicon spells now cost 2 stacks of Addersting and are now DPS positive over Dosis spells.

And now you'd added raw damage to the mobility+splash/focus bonuses of Toxicon.

That just sounds like you'd be stealing the Lily mechanic, then, but both watering it down and making it far more flexible. WHM toes be crushed.

Phlegma spells now combo off any Eukrasian ability.

At 510 potency (180 over filler), if Toxicon is more than 150 potency over dps nuetral, you'd have just made Euk-heal -> Phlegma combo spams more powerful than Dosis spam, with no CD on that potency recovery (or, in this case, bonus). That'd be excessive, to say the least, whilst also wasting Kardian tie-ins on half of your GCD uptime.

And thematically... why? Why should every two-part instant-cast heal+shield result in a melee AoE skill combo? That's less DPS-healer than Healer-DPS.

I like the general direction here, though. Quite a lot, actually. Though my feedback was likely harsh, these were all really good food for thought.
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ASTROLOGIAN
Combust spells now have a reduced timer of 18 seconds.

See the comment to EukDosis. This would be a pretty large potency loss. It'd also require a 2.33 GCD for sync.

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.

Oooh. Hmm. Not sure what impact that'd have just yet on power and playflow, but the effect is... a bit intriguing, at a glance, especially for the DoT.

Note, though, that now that Gravity no longer has a greater-than-GCD cast time (I think since Shadowbringers), Instant's value would be purely utility... when one could already stutter-step after barely over a second of Grav's mere 1.5s cast. It will be the feelsbad effect, to say the least.
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WHITE MAGE
Aero and Dia spells now last 15-30 seconds (variable).

Based on? What's the condition for the duration variance? Random chance is unlikely to feel good here, especially if they sync to different Spell Speed tiers.

Yes, the more obvious universal solution to such things would be a rollover/"pandemic" mechanic for durations replaced/refreshed early, but that requires attention to code that the dev team does not seem inclined to invest in.

Aero III is restored and upgrades to Diara at level 72 (aoe version of Dia).

Cool, cool.

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).

This is the first time I've heard such an effect suggested for jobs other than SCH. Tbh, I'm tempted to agree with them that this is more a SCH Eye-for-an-Eye / Galvanic Spikes sort of effect than something suited for WHM, despite its being the more chunky nuker.
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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.

Fair 'nuff. In the absence of concrete potencies, though, you may want to define intended behavior, as that's what internal balance (A being better or worse than B within the same kit) results in.

[Conchoidal]

Thanks for going over my post, these ideas were mostly just things which would spice up healer gameplay and not be too difficult to implement (creating new visual assets/animations/etc).

How could we, when limited to low healing requirements relative to our kits, better feel as if healing is decently urgent and that our heals are worth doing?

In regards to healing urgency, in AOE situations this could be solved by either simply nerfing all relevant DPS heals (e.g. Everlasting Flight, Curing Waltz/Improvisation, Arcane Crest), changing them to be single target heals only, or changing them to operate like Mantra in that they only provide a boost to healing.

For tanks there's a few other things they could do, like having more bleeding tank busters which require healers to be aware of both the main and off-tank's health for a time, or have some boss auto-attacks do damage to both tanks simultaneously, or bring back the ability for bosses to crit their auto-attacks. I'd personally think it might be more engaging for tanks if had to swap more often rather than simply using Shirk/Provoke during or after a tank buster.

[AnotherPerson]

In regards to healing urgency, in AOE situations this could be solved by either simply nerfing all relevant DPS heals (e.g. Everlasting Flight, Curing Waltz/Improvisation, Arcane Crest), changing them to be single target heals only, or changing them to operate like Mantra in that they only provide a boost to healing.

But at that point, what's the point of even having relevant DPS heals when they become so weak that they serve literally 0 purpose? It's not going to save you in a pinch in solo fights, nor will they be any more useful if they're nerfed outside of high-end party coordination. At that point, the skills are just there to take up hotbar space. Individual DPS jobs would just lose their own identities and self-survivability in the process, benefitting no one.

The problem isn't the healing from other jobs. Their healing is already weak enough and spaced apart as is, but jobs have been able to do content without healers. That implies it's a problem with how much total unavoidable damage there is. What needs to change is either raising the unavoidable damage players take more frequently or making the healer GCD more interesting instead of the same button over and over again.

If they won't raise damage requirements (as they said they won't do), then all that can really change is giving healers a decent GCD rotation.

That means both reducing the number of healing abilities to encourage more GCD healing and increasing the number of GCD DPS spells to change up the GCD playstyle. That way, healers aren't forced to spam only Glare or Cure II.

[Conchoidal]

But at that point, what's the point of even having relevant DPS heals when they become so weak that they serve literally 0 purpose? It's not going to save you in a pinch in solo fights, nor will they be any more useful if they're nerfed outside of high-end party coordination. At that point, the skills are just there to take up hotbar space. Individual DPS jobs would just lose their own identities and self-survivability in the process, benefitting no one.

The problem isn't the healing from other jobs. Their healing is already weak enough and spaced apart as is, but jobs have been able to do content without healers. That implies it's a problem with how much total unavoidable damage there is. What needs to change is either raising the unavoidable damage players take more frequently or making the healer GCD more interesting instead of the same button over and over again.

If they won't raise damage requirements (as they said they won't do), then all that can really change is giving healers a decent GCD rotation.

That means both reducing the number of healing abilities to encourage more GCD healing and increasing the number of GCD DPS spells to change up the GCD playstyle. That way, healers aren't forced to spam only Glare or Cure II.

I don't really think the developers really understand how healing can work considering they continue to completely simplify every mechanic that requires consideration (i.e. enmity, MP). The only solution is as you say, to expand healer DPS kits through GCDs, and if they had a skill-floor/ceiling between WHM and DRK there would be far fewer complaints from casuals and high-end raiders alike.

[Katoar]

That means both reducing the number of healing abilities to encourage more GCD healing and increasing the number of GCD DPS spells to change up the GCD playstyle. That way, healers aren't forced to spam only Glare or Cure II.

Anything nerf related to healing oGCDs and spells will be counter-productive.

[HyonaCookie]

• 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.

I personally don't want AoW to need a target to use. Targeting the tank while using the AoE makes it easier to keep track of the tank's health, especially since SCH's heal potencies are so low. Besides Excog and Fey Union, you might not end up reacting fast enough while switching from the mobs to the tank to heal them.

[Shurrikhan]

I personally don't want AoW to need a target to use. Targeting the tank while using the AoE makes it easier to keep track of the tank's health...

To be fair, we could just make it so that target-centered AoE attacks (at least those without further primary target damage) can be centered on anyone/anything.

[Nizzi]

Note that until EW, its DoT held much greater relative importance, as Broil III dealt only 255 potency.

Not to be /that/ person who nitpicks something minor but back in ShB Broil III was at 290 potency and Biolysis was at 70 potency. Broil III being at 255 only became a thing with the stat squish and Biolysis' potency didn't change.

I personally don't want AoW to need a target to use. Targeting the tank while using the AoE makes it easier to keep track of the tank's health, especially since SCH's heal potencies are so low. Besides Excog and Fey Union, you might not end up reacting fast enough while switching from the mobs to the tank to heal them.

Agreed, SCH not needing a target is its thing, I think if anything needs an instant targeted spell it should be SGE to differentiate between the two so Dyskrasia isn't just a straight AoW clone. AoW is the same functionality as Miasma II was except without the DoT as well, so it would be weird to change something that SCH has *effectively* had AoE-wise for a long time now.

[Shurrikhan]

Not to be /that/ person who nitpicks something minor but back in ShB Broil III was at 290 potency and Biolysis was at 70 potency. Broil III being at 255 only became a thing with the stat squish and Biolysis' potency didn't change.

Sorry, perhaps I should have said "until EW levels" or "until level 82", but the point still remains:

From levels 72 to 81, your DoT does 275% of your filler damage, offering 3.5 extra filler cast's worth of damage per minute for perfect uptime. That's relatively significant for a DoT, making it much more important than, say, Dia's 227% of Glare and extra 2.55 filler casts per minute for perfect uptime.

After level 82, SCH's DoT's relative importance decreases to 237% of filler damage and an extra 2.75 filler casts worth of damage per minute, under 80% of its former significance.

Before potency was shuffled from Broil III to Biolysis with EW release, this would have been 241%, and an extra 2.83 filler casts per minute for perfect uptime, nearer to what we see later. But whether that's for the better or not is arguable.


At any rate, it's just a matter of how significant one wants their DoTs to be, which is most easily viewed by the number of bonus filler casts' value they give per minute, given perfect uptime. For that reason, any decrease in duration will necessitate an increase in DoT potency if the affected DoT's relative value is to be retained.