The Problem with Healer Feedback, and requested changes

[Renathras]

That's unfortunately a problem...

Agreed with this post, but I'll note that SCH/SGE has been taken to many fights and isn't considered a meme comp. The only meme comp/comp no one uses is WHM/WHM.

Arguably one of the reasons WHM is prevalent at all is that the raw number of WHM players probably close to equals the number of SCH + AST + SGE. I don't think it's QUITE that, but WHMs are probably something like 40% of healers. So even the elitist (not elite) meta-chasers have to settle for them in their PF groups because they'd rarely get a party otherwise. If AST was as played as WHM, you just wouldn't see WHM at all.

One thing that is kind of interesting to me, though, is WHM/SGE seems to be a thing. I noticed in the top P5S runs, there were several groups running that. No idea why, but I guess it works for them. /shrug

B: the Pure/Barrier split is a sad joke and should be reverted

I mean, let's be honest: That's already apparent. WHM was not QUITE but not FAR FROM blacklisted in 6.0 because of how much they had to crutch/chad (depending on your perspective) their co-healers to be competent at all. SCH/AST/SGE paired with WHM's were essentially solo-healing the fights - SAVAGE fights - which says even more how much Barrier Healer HPS is overtuned and how WHM was effectively redundant.

But I like the idea of all healers being able to throw up nonstacking GCD shields, because that way it opens the door for more design in fights.

Maybe, but I feel like this is why they wouldn't do it.

They don't allow shield stacking precisely because it can cause some funny business with cheesing mechanics, and they don't really want that. Because of diminishing returns and multiplicative (rather than additive) stacking, mitigation has a far lower risk of that. Sure you CAN mitigate the heck out of a mechanic, but then (a) you've used up all your mitigation at once and (b) diminishing returns prevent outright negating entire mechanics. I don't disagree it could lead to fun mechanics, but that's what the Devs are...largely avoiding... <_<

[ForsakenRoe]

They don't allow shield stacking precisely because it can cause some funny business with cheesing mechanics, and they don't really want that. Because of diminishing returns and multiplicative (rather than additive) stacking, mitigation has a far lower risk of that. Sure you CAN mitigate the heck out of a mechanic, but then (a) you've used up all your mitigation at once and (b) diminishing returns prevent outright negating entire mechanics. I don't disagree it could lead to fun mechanics, but that's what the Devs are...largely avoiding... <_<

Context matters. Negating the Damage Down in E10S for the wall-orbs (for uptime) is clearly cheese and not intended. Negating the Ifrit KB via shielding is memes, because it's not a threat, just a mild inconvenience. Negating the same Ifrit KB, but in UWU, is the intended strategy for the fight. It's 'cheesing the mechanics' only because the design wasn't made with it in mind. But if it WAS made with it in mind, then it's no longer cheese. It's the intended solution. There may need to be a clear indication that 'hey if you have a shield up for this mechanic, you can negate it/not get a debuff/it's a good idea to' for newer players to understand the concept, but maybe not. After all, how many people completely ignore all the interject-able casts in the game

[Liam_Harper]

They don't allow shield stacking precisely because it can cause some funny business with cheesing mechanics, and they don't really want that.

It's worth noting that the only shields that can't stack are barrier healer GCD shields. Basically, Eprog. They added a shield to Holos that's almost as much as a plain Eprog. Neutral Sect shields also stack with Spreadlo.

I'm quite certain that allowing Eprog to stack with Galvanize won't make the slightest difference when we already have Spreadlo and a huge range of stackable mit, oGCD shields and tank lb. There are no lethal mechanics you can skip or ignore by adding a Zoe Eprog to the current selection. We can already stack ridiculous shields and mit and Eprog is a drop of water.

Really, they don't have a legitimate reason. They just don't want to change it. Same with many other outdated things on healers, their tiny job design team is already strained simply lining up SGE/WHM and PLD with the 2 minute burst window and heal reworks are bottom priority.

[Deceptus]

They don't allow shield stacking precisely because it can cause some funny business with cheesing mechanics, and they don't really want that.

Yet Macrocosmos completely invalidating certain raid mechanics is perfectly fine (heavy /s)