The Problem with Healer Feedback, and requested changes

[ty_taurus]

Looking over this, there's a few neat ideas here! I see there's some inspiration from the PVP iteration, wherein DoT application applies a barrier to cause Toxikon. (And I've also had the Eukrasian Dyskrasia crisis before.)

I do have some concerns about this design overall though, chief among them being "what even is the point of Eukrasian Diagnosis then, if you can get barriers and Addersting without ever stopping your attacks?" As you've already said, we avoid our GCD heals like the plague, and you've compounded that issue.
Plus you haven't mentioned if the two types of barriers can be stacked, for instance, or even if the E. Dosis barrier can stack for multiple SGEs, which could also be problematic when paired with another SGE or SCH since it constitutes a part of your DPS.

Second being, "what becomes the point of Dosis then, if you have a new spammable instant attack?" The Krasis/Taurochole skill you mentioned is "the same potency as Dosis and thus can be used interchangeably", but Eukrasian spells are instant by their nature due to consuming half a GCD to initialize.
You also haven't mentioned if the Eukrasian Taurochole is stackable with Kerachole (or even with the Krasis effect, which presently CAN be stacked), which could become an issue since it could increase the mitigation available to SGE significantly.
I mean just looking at any given 15 second window... you have Toxikon now being a DPS gain thanks to the oGCDs, the Eukrasian Taurochole, and then any number of options between the new generator GCD, E. Dosis and Phlegma. And if the new generator GCD is instant... all of the ones I just named would be.
And that's a pretty overwhelming number of options if your filler spell can be crowded out.

To be honest, looking at these two questions, one might almost get the impression that you think the point of the kit evolving is to... avoid/obsolete the staple tools of the kit, rather than treat them as the bread and butter.

And then there's the element of "what happens to Soteria, if there are now multiple spells that don't heal via Kardion at all, just applying buffs?"
I mean, several of the spells in that 15 second window I mentioned wouldn't heal at all, causing Soteria's potency buff to go to waste -- and I doubt we'd see an AoE Kardia out of Soteria, either, with all of those buffs you could spread through it.

I didn't want to go into the nitty gritty of every action in the build, but a lot of these concerns I don't think would actually be problematic in practice.

Firstly, SGE's standard GCD barriers do not stack with one another nor do they stack with SCH's Galvanize as they function currently. The E. Dosis/E. Paroxysm barrier is quite small, equivalent to a 200 potency cure with no additional value added as crit. These do stack with other barriers, but they're connected to DoT application, so you'll generally prefer not overwriting your DoTs for the sake of the barrier.

For Eukrasia Diagnosis, the new gauge mechanic gives you DPS neutral barrier application roughly once a minute. Both E. Diagnosis and E. Prognosis are great tools if you're generating Addersting from them. You do miss out on 1 application of Kardia, but this is also how you spend that resource, so it makes sense you wouldn't generate additional gauge with your spenders. E. Diagnosis could be quite helpful for things like the bleedbusters in savage, for example. I think your concept of having Diagnosis and Prognosis heal more on barriered targets could also be applied here. Yes, you'd still want to avoid them like the plague for optimization, but the point of that is giving inexperienced healers a safety net. Not everything needs to be designed for optimization, other tools can be designed simply to carry the skill floor. I also have vanilla Diagnosis removing status conditions in my concept as well, which it gains via trait early in level. I did this with all the weak level 2 heal spells and cut out Esuna. It merges two extremely niche tools into 1 button instead of 2.

Dosis would still be used, it just wouldn't be used quite as much, though still probably more than anything else. The Krasis/Taurochole skill (Kardiorrhexis as is known) as well as the AoE button that now offers instant cast utility and small AoE group healing with Kardia both have higher MP costs and will run you dry if you spam them instead of Dosis. Kardiorrhexis specifically is an MP cost of 2000, so managing it effectively is a key part of playing SGE rather than trying to maintain it as an uptime buff. That said, one thing my and any theorycrafted build lacks is proper testing in a playable build. I have no doubt my idea would need adjustments when put into practice, but that's also a part of these being fanbased concepts rather than playtested dev builds. It may turn out that it would just be better to attach a cooldown to Kardiorrhexis, maybe with charges.

On the topic of Toxikon, there is actually a concern that came up based on what you mentioned... I think you generate more Addersting than you can phyiscally spend which is a flaw that I need to reevaluate. Perhaps that means there needs to be a weaker spender button you use for excess Addersting. It does muddy the water of generating Addersting via healing vs DPS buttons, though by having the spender GCD have a higher potency than Dosis, it does give it a small niche of being best used during your buff windows. One of those OGCD additional tools would give a personal DPS vulnerability for a brief window. So trying to plan your excess Addersting spending for those moments could be a unique aspect of engagement. Or maybe the Addersting generated on E. Dosis/E. Paroxysm is too excessive and it's just better to slim down the generation of Addersting. Or the cooldown isn't necessary for Toxikon and the use of all 3 Toxikosis stacks is all the spell needs to manage it's time.

Again it just goes to show that design requires playtesting and prototyping, which we lack as players to do for concepts.

Soteria and other tools are outlined in the full on document. It places Soterion on yourself and all nearby party members, healing them for each stack whenever any Kardia effect triggers. All the DPS actions do have Kardia effects, it's just that I didn't want to spent too much time outlining every specific detail. The effect was just not the main thing I was looking to convey on those actions. The only GCD tools that don't generate Kardia gauge are your heals and a revamped Holos (more in the document).

I think overall the concept is not a concern on the intent behind it, it's just, it would need to be tested and cross-checked for balance with the other healers before moving forward with the design. Which is true of any design really.

[Shurrikhan]

I honestly just want to see at least one extremely different control system, so to speak. I want a healer that doesn't just have a discrete button for almost every function (no, the 4-way doubling of Eukresia is not sufficient).

For instance, I'd like SGE to feel more like I'm managing nouliths, not just casting noulith-skinned spells. Let me program and command my little goddamn gundam army.

Build out in-universe-physics ways of giving reason to apply different modes or formation or such, and build out the kit from there, rather than from any template.

After that, I'd probably head to WHM, then AST, then finally SCH, until they each actually feel truly different from one another.

[Archwizard]

I honestly just want to see at least one extremely different control system, so to speak. I want a healer that doesn't just have a discrete button for almost every function (no, the 4-way doubling of Eukresia is not sufficient).

For instance, I'd like SGE to feel more like I'm managing nouliths, not just casting noulith-skinned spells. Let me program and command my little goddamn gundam army.

Build out in-universe-physics ways of giving reason to apply different modes or formation or such, and build out the kit from there, rather than from any template.

After that, I'd probably head to WHM, then AST, then finally SCH, until they each actually feel truly different from one another.

That I'm not too sure about. I mean if we were going to have a healer based on different formations and modes, I'd think it would be SCH.

In an ideal world:

* WHM should be the standard healer -- the cleric/druid hybrid. Job that introduces players to the basics of healing, low skill floor. Consistent focus on GCDs, everything's straightforward and classical effects, no particular gimmicks besides rewarding use of GCD healing tools.
* SCH should be the tactical healer -- the military support who happens to heal. Several situational tools that synergize, sabotage foes while commanding allies, lots of versatility with the expectation of fitting to and rewarding complex stratagem. If they're going to have the faerie, then it should create additional strategies, rather than just being a glorified HoT/totem/charge of oGCDs.
* AST should be the gimmick healer -- the spacetime manipulator. Enhance allies with bursts of speed and cooldown reduction, debuff enemies to stagger damage intake, accelerate HoT and DoT effects, turn back time to undo damage, stagger heavy hits then negate them with HoTs, etc.
* SGE should be the battle healer -- the doctor with a gun. Attacks flow into heals flow into attacks. (I don't necessarily think that this means every healing tool needs a dual function for attacking and vice versa, however.) There's a lot you can do with that without having to add in complex noulith formations.

Of these, I feel SGE is already the closest to its ideal, though it could do considerably more in that regard. SCH meanwhile seems the most muddled and in need of overhaul, since it presently feels like two jobs fused together with a number of tools that don't really mesh, followed by AST who is simply overwhelmed by its card system.

[Shurrikhan]

That I'm not too sure about. I mean if we were going to have a healer based on different formations and modes, I'd think it would be SCH.

To me, SCH would be based around schema(ta) and strategems, rather than actual weapon configurations. I was referring to only flight formations and energy modes for the gundam nouliths, after all.

[Archwizard]

I was referring to only flight formations and energy modes for the gundam nouliths, after all.

The other thing is (speaking as someone with some animation experience myself) that in order to have the diversity of noulith formations you describe, they would either have to animate each of the four as individual weapons with their own skeletons, or continue as one set but with several times more weapon animations than any other weapon just to account for the number of formations you're looking for. As already one of the most complex weapon types in the game, it'd make nouliths far and away the most overloaded and laggy weapon to boot.

But I also don't quite understand, practically, how programmable flight formations would work/benefit the job? It's a nice descriptor on paper but it really depends how much it actually adds to the job besides micromanagement.
I get that they're inspired by Gundam bits, but it's not like they're in danger of getting shot down if they don't perform evasive maneuvers, or need to bypass obstacles on the way to their target (and in the extremely rare cases where that mattered, like having to shoot from a particular angle at all times to bypass a reflective barrier, it might be imbalanced if the SGE was the one job that could ignore the mechanic). Nor do we have a sword or handheld gun as a backup weapon while they're deployed; they're the only extension of our arms, which is why they only fly for a second and come right back, as we'd otherwise disarm ourselves for extended periods (and prevent the charging of healing abilities to boot).
I could see things like "have two of them channel a barrier in front of you while the other two fire over it like an emplacement" or something like that, but even then the multitasking nature of SGE abilities means you could just have that as one "pre-programmed" spell... in the case you could ever justify us needing that capability. Anything more complex than that, there are probably simpler alternatives for.

And this is all ignoring the lore implications to boot, where the first thing you learn as a SGE is that the four adderstones/nouliths create one circuit for spells... so all flight formations would have to be in predetermined isometric shapes anyway.

At least in the case of SCH, the faerie acts independently of you and you can keep casting while it's deployed, so ordering it around to do one thing while you do something else at the same time makes sense so that you two have to work in synergy with each other, and is additive in just having actions to dictate the faerie's behaviors at a distance.
So it really feels like SCH is much more capable of accomplishing what you want out of SGE, in a practical manner.

[Shurrikhan]

it'd make nouliths far and away the most overloaded and laggy weapon to boot.

I've... yet to see a frame drop just due to a physical animation, or for an animation to stutter over load. And I've mostly played on a laptop. Particle effects, sure. But the actual physics, such as when particle effects are culled via the graphics options? Have not seen that.

So, simply put, I don't think I'll be considering that a constraint worth worrying about.

But I also don't quite understand, practically, how programmable flight formations would work/benefit the job? It's a nice descriptor on paper but it really depends how much it actually adds to the job besides micromanagement.

And this is all ignoring the lore implications to boot, where the first thing you learn as a SGE is that the four adderstones/nouliths create one circuit for spells... so all flight formations would have to be in predetermined isometric shapes anyway.

If the lore tells you a Soulcaliber-style blade-whip can't actually be used as anything like a whip (instead of just a sword that can curve a bit more and grab onto enemies a bit between its blade-plates), you dispense with the lore, not the obviously available functionality of the blade-whip.

Personally, I'd like to see Sage as actually being able to go in, from time to time, and kind of wreck shit. Allowing nouliths to be oriented in more than just a pyramidal formation with one's mis-torso palm thrusts at the center would be vital to a lot of those prospects.

With that, you might have them... funnel energy into you from behind, chain into one another into a sort of lance in order to empower a physical attack [via a launched noulith] for stunning purposes (where a mere beam would not suffice), carry off each other's momentum into a sort of cleave or additionally physically-based shield (using the sides of the nouliths, say, with exhaustible/rechargeable fortification runes), use short persistent beams that could uniquely impel and siphon simultaneously (but are limited to functioning temporarily as short-swords), or even stack them close, touching each other, for an extremely dense but small shield (e.g., single-strike miti).

While that would shift Sage's former identity from being just a backliner with a fancy 4-part staff, instead letting it extend into anything that would seemingly make use of those varied shapes, I wouldn't mind that. I'd prefer whatever tool it picks be the primary organizer of its kit, even if subtly constrained atop that by intended vibe.

To spitball something slightly more concrete, let's say that you have two basic phasic modes (essentially, inflow/drain and outflow/release), two overlying modes (impulsive and stabilizing), and a variety of commands that perform a dynamic action in themselves and set up a given formation of your nouliths. You have an energy gauge separated among 5 cylinders, one larger one in the center (your own), and 1 for each of the nouliths. The lower their energy, the more they can drain (inflow). The higher their energy, the more they can release (outflow).

As a creative exercise, let's imagine that's basically where it ends. A dozen or so buttons across two switches, a handful of dynamic actions, a power release (2-charge CD or whatnot) and/or maybe a noulith overload or full burst command (temporarily puts noulith out of commission if its energy isn't sufficiently high/low, though with certain added advantages from that crossover atop the burst throughput itself), and a few specials. Total actions actually possible, on the other hand... maybe 30-50.

If you want a mock-up beyond that, I can come back to this in a few days when work has calmed down.

For now, I'll just leave that...

• The means by which a job forms its given capacities (its "micromanagement") ARE what makes a job feel like that job; else we could simply modulate auto-attacks for a given burst window length and height and given cleave formula and that'd already provide a unique throughput profile (which, without building out of the different means of interaction is all that could differentiate jobs beyond a couple of arbitrary and unrelated utility --or variants on bog-standards-- that'd just be slapped on after).
  
  
• No, SCH would not be more capable of accomplishing what I want out of SGE, in a practical manner or otherwise.

[Archwizard]

I've... yet to see a frame drop just due to a physical animation, or for an animation to stutter over load. And I've mostly played on a laptop. Particle effects, sure. But the actual physics, such as when particle effects are culled via the graphics options? Have not seen that.

That's not what I mean. The individual casts aren't going to be the sources of lag, barring particle effect calls.
A character's entire animation moveset must be loaded into an area at once in anticipation of that character's actions, and each moveset has different file sizes which means different server load. Now while I'm not looking at 14's back end, I assume that part of the "change jobs with weapon swap" element of the game is calling different available movesets so that only the relevant/active one is loaded by the game while in use (a tricky advantage of being locked into a job while instanced) in order to reduce this server strain; it's also why there's a slight delay every time you swap weapons.
If the nouliths themselves have four separate movesets in order for each one to be separately programmable, then the presence of a Sage in the party is 5 entities on the field, each with its own moveset, which is a significant multiplier on server strain compared to most jobs that are only two or three.
If all four nouliths share only one moveset, then that's only two entities as with most other jobs, but it's a significantly larger moveset to account for more possible variations of each individual action, which might cause problems loading the individual entities throughout their presence on the battlefield.

Which is why a limited number of pre-programmed actions is much more plausible than 4*(2^x) animations where x is multipliers on formations.

[Shurrikhan]

A character's entire animation moveset must be loaded into an area at once in anticipation of that character's actions, and each moveset has different file sizes which means different server load.

Why would the animations not simply be stored client-side?

(a tricky advantage of being locked into a job while instanced)

But not all instances lock you into a job, nor does the open world. I can cycle every animation on one job, immediately swap to another, cycle all its animations, etc. And there are far, far more animations going off at once around an S-rank than in any dungeon, despite job-swaps being possible at any time in that more burdened setting.

The fact that modders can swap any animation to any animation, including from collected parts of multiple other animations, likewise seems to hint that every animation possible within the entire game is always available to every client.

If the nouliths themselves have four separate movesets in order for each one to be separately programmable, then the presence of a Sage in the party is 5 entities on the field, each with its own moveset, which is a significant multiplier on server strain compared to most jobs that are only two or three.

Maybe, but I've not asked for that. I just want them to have more than a single idle position and for their part within spells to be, well, more than just the spell animations themselves. A degree of dynamism that gives them at least the pretense of actually functioning how they look like they should be able to function. And then to build out the toolkit from there, that weapon of choice and all that would seem feasible thereto that could be put to significantly entertaining and cohesive use.

[ForsakenRoe]

Maybe, but I've not asked for that. I just want them to have more than a single idle position and for their part within spells to be, well, more than just the spell animations themselves. A degree of dynamism that gives them at least the pretense of actually functioning how they look like they should be able to function. And then to build out the toolkit from there, that weapon of choice and all that would seem feasible thereto that could be put to significantly entertaining and cohesive use.

IDK about all the animation mumbo jumbo you ask for, but I could definitely envision a job gauge where you have to keep all 4 Nouliths balanced, keep them powered enough to function but don't let them overheat sort of thing. These 'Formations' sound like different amplification effects though, like Eukrasia Formation changes skills to apply shields instead of direct healing, or Zoe Formation amplifies the potency of both damage and healing skills, but puts strain on the Noulith and starts to overheat it (reminds me of the Pyretic Booster from the G-Warrior instance), so you'd have to swap to a different Formation to allow for it to aggressively vent that heat before it gets too hot and has to cool down. Unfortunately though, in practice that would probably end up working like Gauss Barrel from SB, except you have 4 guns to worry about the gauges of (and they're all on seperate gauges too). Maybe if it were a DPS it'd be more likely, but SE'd probably say 'well what if the SGE overheats their Noulith and now they cant heal, we cant have that so no this wont work'.

[elioaiko]

It's because when they do pick some questions in regards to concerns of healer community, it's almost always "I want more busywork/heal more" and then the devs do so and people get mad which in turn frustrates the devs.

I really wish they would just ask an endgame, raiding healer to explain the issues bc the "I want more to do" isn't telling them what's wrong. All that tells them is to do the opposite and add arbitrary ways to limit "healing" with just as pointless GCD healing.

They think Medica 2 -> Medica 1 spam is more to do with back to back raidwides.

Whenever people accept that healers don't need need more forced GCD healing spam is boring too.