What dps/utility buttons old or new would you add to your healer?

[glamazon]

WHM:
Aero 3 is back. Same potency as glare. Increases potency of next heal by 50%. 15 sec cooldown. Heal buff stacks twice.

Dia has a 2.5 second cast time and works the same as thundercloud on BLM.

New OGCD: elemental ward. Puts a persistent aoe on the floor as big as asylum that increases your damage by 10%.

Any GCD heal that doesn’t consume a lily (cure, medica 2 etc.) while standing in elemental ward charges your lifebloom.

Your lifebloom works the same way as blood lily. However, it grants access to Seraph Strike.

Seraph Strike- Usable regardless of how much your lifebloom has been charged. Dash at the enemy and strike them with an attack that deals damage equal to the missed glares. Restores 10% of your MP. 50% chance to proc into enhanced Holy III. 15 sec cooldown.

Afflatus Misery- Now has a 50% chance to grant enhanced Holy III.

Enhanced Holy III- deals damage with a potency of 500 to all nearby enemies. Stacks twice. Grants freecure.

Glare- Has a 20% chance to grant Enhanced Holy III or freecure.

Freecure: Your next GCD heal is free (ie doesn’t consume lily or cost MP) but still feeds blood lily or lifebloom.

SGE
I really like Taurus’s ideas but I’ll toss in my idea too.

Sage has a raid buff. Libra. 60 sec cooldown. Increases damage dealt to nearby enemies by 5-10%. Every cast of dosis against the target has a 50% chance to grant a sting or a charge of phlegma. 30% of any healing you do while libra is active is dealt to any enemy affected by Libra.

Aimolipsía- AoE cone OGCD attack that lands 2 hits on the target and nearby enemies. 300 potency. 2 charges. 60 sec recharge.

Toxicon grants a free charge of phlegma.

Every four casts of dosis grants a charge of aimolipsia.

SCH

Miasma 3 is back. 18 sec duration.

Miasma 2 replaces art of war. Works the same as it did in SB.

Any time you apply a barrier, you gain a buff that increases the damage of your next miasma 3. Stacks 3 times.

Bane is back. Spreads your dots to nearby targets.

Shadowflare is back. Persistent ground AoE that continually damages any enemies inside. Consumes an aetherflow.

Energy drain is replaced by fester. Damage increases based on the number of dots the target has. Maybe on the GCD?

All heals sans adlo and succor consume fairy gauge. Fairy gauge heals have a 50% chance to grant aetherflow.

New cooldown that consumes your DoT's and makes them deal all of their remaining damage at once.

from your fingertips to the devs ears... what about ast?

[SargeTheSeagull]

from your fingertips to the devs ears... what about ast?

I haven't played AST really since Stormblood so I'm not the most insightful about its current issues but I do have a few thoughts.

Nocturnal Sect is back

Lightspeed has two charges

Doublecast from PvP is now in PvE. The spell you doublecast is 20% more potent and costs 20% more MP.

Stella- GCD attack, same potency as malefic. Prevents the next X amount of damage dealt by the target and any other nearby enemies. About as much as one raid boss autoattack. 30 second cooldown.

Combust applies 3 stacks of combust to the target lasting 30 seconds. Any GCD heal you use consumes a stack of combust on the target and deals damage equal to one cast of malefic.

Astrodyne, divination, and seals are removed.

Celestial Opposition applies a HoT or barrier depending on your stance. Also applies stop to all enemies hit by it and extends the duration of any buffs you have on party members. Stop is dispelled after the enemy takes enough damage.

Draw is replaced by Solar Draw and Lunar Draw. Upon using solar draw it becomes solar play and vice versa. If used outside of combat there's no cooldown.

Solar draws one of three cards. Balance increases damage, spear increases crit damage, arrow increases crit rate.

Lunar draws a card for utility. Ewer restores MP, Bole increases defense, spire increases max HP and gives a move speed buff.

Spread and royal road are back. If you royal road a lunar card, your next card also applies a HoT or barrier, if you royal road a solar card its effects are doubled.

Cards affect everyone in 15y of you.

[Renathras]

Personally, I'd like something akin to SCH's Energy drain for SGE.

Honestly, Energy Drain is probably one of the worst abilities in the game. It's the crux of otimizing one Job, but the difference between optimal play and not is RELATIVELY minimal, and further, it actively encourages people to not use a resource for Healing if they can at all get away from it, even if that's unintuitive and requires using inferior abilities instead. It's why they probably won't do it again. Having a resource compete for both healing and damage is something the Devs clearly don't like, and the only reason SCH even has it now is because people complained about NOT having it, which was less due to people loving Energy Drain and more due to (a) people being used to it, (b) it having a legacy position as an MP management tool (which has been entirely replaced by Aetherflow just giving the MP outright), and (c) the actual problem: That SCH had nothing useful to do with AF stacks if AF was coming off CD, Excogitation was on CD, and they had any stacks left while the party was at full health (in theory, could throw down a Soil, but if there wasn't damage going out soon or you were saving it for damage a little further, this would be bad). That problem could just as well have been solved by giving SCH an AF spender that was either a barrier (think Divine Benison) or a Regen to toss on the Tank. Either of those would have solved the problem (provided they didn't ALSO come with CDs, which was the problem in the first place; if Excog and Soil didn't have CDs and could be used left and right, that also would have fixed the problem.)

It's a badly designed ability which has only gotten worse as the Devs have tried to make it as unattractive to use as possible without outright removing it.

Moreover, people already complain frequently that SGE and SCH are too similar. I'm not sure adding something that would make them even more similar is the way to go...

Like I said, if Yoshi is unable to think of new mechanics, just mimic existing ones.

I guess my point is that the combat system doesn't allow for this. Again, think of how many OFF-GCD abilities BLM has that allows it to play like it does. Also instants. People that think BLM is a pure turret are people that haven't looked at the Job since SB. It's changed quite a bit in regards to its mobility. WHM would have to be given tons of mobility tools - as I've pointed out before, BLM has something like 12 GCDs of free movement when using its GCD and oGCD abilities, BEFORE it has to resort to Scathe spam. WHM has no where near that mobility.

Also, no, WHM hasn't been merged with Geomancer. The lore (SB AST quests) say that Geomancy is a type of Astromancy, not Conjury, and definitely not White Magic. (Despite them using CNJ spells and wands, but whatever, the lore's the lore). And on top of that, the Devs and game have spent no less than 2 and probably closer to 3 expansions moving WHM away from Conjury in most every way that counts, not towards it. Lamitt was no where tied to Conjury or nature magic, and we haven't used any since we went to the First ourselves. They even removed our one Water spell from existence and removed the Aero spell we'd presumably still have at higher levels (Aero 3) to make sure we don't have any real connections to Conjury at this point, and certainly to Geomancy. Aquaveil is the only non-holy, nature themed spell we have, and...it is still pretty holy looking, like Divine Benison (which also makes a water-ish sound but is pretty clearly holy element)

So I'd say WHM has been the exact opposite of effectively merged with Geomancer. It's been more or less completely severed from it.

I feel like a lot of people want GEO, and I REALLY wish they'd add it to the game (it would be cool if it branched from CNJ since that would make some thematic sense and give WHM/GEO the SCH/SMN treatment, which is kind of a nice little perk), but they seem to not want to do it for some godforsaken reason. They could make any number of GEO Caster builds doing so easily. And if they didn't want it to be shared with WHM, they could just make it its own thing (though the former makes more sense considering all the GEO NPCs in the game are basically CNJs). Making a proper DPS Job out of it would be laughably easy at this point, either as a Caster or as a Melee.

...

So...about the SCH, SGE, and AST ideas?

Also, what did you think about having Water be low level (level 15) Holy you get after Trial of Water at level 15 that you can use so you actually have an AOE spell for dungeons and such from level 15-45 when you actually get Holy? Imagine the FF8/FF9 big water bubble forming and floating into the air then bursting and that's more or less what Holy does, so the animation and stuff would work great and give you that Water spell, and it'd be useful for all those leveling dungeons before level 45 we get in roulette where we'd LOVE to have an AOE spell but just don't have one...

from your fingertips to the devs ears... what about ast?

*cough*

Astrologian: Healer/Buffer With All The Cards

AST is honestly the hardest, because it is in uneviable position of having a kit that overall is the most powerful in the game and "just works"...while also being incredibly clunky in practice. Its buff system is random, likewise seals/Astrodyne. There are also issues with changing it, since any change is going to both disrupt current play and any serious change will also (unlike SCH) not appeal to past play. For example, making Draw and Play GCDs would reduce the APM issues, but AST has never used them as GCDs. A further complication is a desire to return Diurnal and Nocturnal to the mix while ALSO trying to reduce the Pure/Barrier dichotomy.

The first step would be to revert AST's healing kit to the ShB era. Dirunal and Nocturnal were both pretty well established and pretty good during that period, and both provided for effective healing. Both also included mitigation and party shields to meet party needs, making both well rounded while also allowing the player to adapt to best synergize with whichever co-healer they got. This would mainly affect Aspected abilities and some CDs, but those largely worked just fine in ShB. Benefic would be upgraded into Benefic 2. Even MORESO than WHM, there's no point in these being distinct. Where Cure 1 and Cure 2 at least have different cast times and a 500 MP cost difference, Benefic 2 has the same cast time as Benefic (so that "clutch 1.5 sec heal when a 2 sec cast wouldn't make it" argument doesn't even exist here, insomuch as it exists out in the wild anyway), and the MP cost is 200 more on the Healer that already has the best MP economy in the game. There's pretty much no reason for Benefic 1 once you get Benefic 2 at level 26 on a Job that starts at level 30 anyway. If it's really a concern, the MP cost can be reduced by 200 for Benefic 2 to make it a straight upgrade. Remove Undraw. Seriously.

Now, what do do about Cards? The big Hauchefaunt in the room is that the RNG is what kills interesting Arcana effects. "I drew the one that reduces damage by 10%! Man that'd be useful for a Tank buster! Right now...the next Tank buster isn't for another 45 seconds, but MAN would it be cool if I got this card for that, huh?!" While RNG is part of AST's aesthetic, it's also what prevents it from being a good buff Healer, since you have no guarantee of getting the buff you want when you actually need it. So the first objective for fixing Cards involves a way to remove RNG, or at least remove the significant RNG that makes buffs so suboptimal. Does this mean people might use the "meta" buffs a lot? Yes, but it means the other buffs might have room to shine as well, and can also cover for other parts of the kit. The second big change is making Draw and Play on the GCD. The reason for this is simple, it removes Lightspeed reservation being mandatory for burst windows (allowing its use more flexibly when the player needs/wants it) and it reduces the frankly bonkers APM required during the burst phase. However, it would need to now have something done to make it damage neutral vs Malific. Fortunately, that's pretty easy. Both Draw and Play would have the Additional Effect: Arcanum Malificum. The next Malific or Gravity spell cast has its potency increased by 100%, stacks up to 6 times, lasts 30 seconds. In short, you use Draw and Play (up to 3 of each), then lay down the Malific/Gravity hurt. Another option (but one a bit more complicated) would be to have Draw hit a hostile target with 1 Malific's worth of damage (presuming you're targeting the boss when you hit Draw) and only Play doing the +100% next Malific...but that's honestly more likely to cause problems than anything ("Oops! Forgot to turn off autotargeting and the 20 sec prepull Draw smacked the boss in the face with a Urianger card! Sorry everyone!"), like Ranged DPS rightclicking the boss before the pull.

A second change I'd make to reduce the RNG would be to have cards arrayed a bit more like Mudras. You have a Damage, Mitigation, and Healing/Restoration (MP refresh) Draw. They share a CD (like WAR's Upheaval and Orogeny or MCH's Bioblaster and Drill). To make it a bit more mistake/fat finger friendly, you'd have the Draw buttons and then a separate Play button, so if you drew the wrong one, you could draw a different one at the mere cost of sacrificing a GCD (e.g. if you drew the mitigation one too late and the Tank eats the Tank buster, now you don't need it, so you can draw the damage buff to put on someone else instead, or the healing one to use on the Tank if you don't have some other better option up). To keep the lore of 6 main constellations, they'd be paired, and using Arcanum shift would allow you to toggle between single target and AOE versions of each. For example, Balance might be a single target 6% damage increase for 15 seconds or you could use its counterpart, Bole, for an AOE 4% damage increase for 7.5 seconds instead. Likewise the mitigation and the healing ones. Spear/Arrow would likely make sense for damage, Bole/Tower for mitigation, and Balance/Ewer for healing, though I'm not married to any of those being necessary, just trying to keep them all relevant.

We could keep a little randomness from Minor Arcana, which is honestly MOSTLY flavor right now. Royal Road can also be added back, with the effects of increasing the damage buff's strength, the mitigation buff's duration, or the healing buff's potency and the HoT's duration, respectively (there'd be no need for the AOE since we already have that covered). We could also do some other stuff like allow the AST to stock a card for later using Sleeve Draw, to store and then play it, but given how we're removing the RNG from the buffs now AND that Draw/Play has charges reducing the need to stock cards for later AND that AST already has a lot of buttons, we probably don't need it. Likewise, we don't need Redraw since you can choose to draw the specific cards you want anyway. If we really want Redraw, we can add another Minor Arcanum (maybe the Jester of Crowns), and allow Redraw to work for those, but it's really not needed at this point.
So that's a LOT of discussion on Cards/buffs, but I feel that's really at the core of what AST is, a playstyle people want in FFXIV (a buffer/healer), and the crux of AST's problems (the "This is why we can't have nice things..." where "nice things" in this case is "more interesting buffs") as well as the APM problem. Collectively, this change reduces APM by making Draw and Play GCDs, prevents using them being perceived as somehow suboptimal by making them damage neutral, removing the RNG so you can get the buffs you need when you need them (which has the side-effect of allowing more interesting and even niche buffs to be added since the player can access them when they need them but not have RNG work against them when they don't), and allowing more player agency in the choice of buffs used and when to use them, freeing up Lightspeed for more overall flexible use in the encounter, and with the Minor Arcana still retaining a bit of the RNG flavor for the Job fantasy.

Now, AST still has some issue with a lot of button bloat, but we can clean a little of that up. First, we're having Benefic upgrade into Benefic 2 as I said above. Second, we can pull a Variant Cure and remove Helios as a separate ability. What would happen is that if the target had the secondary effect (Regen for dAST and barrier for nAST), the spell would, instead of applying the secondary effect, boost the healing potency from 250 to 400. Basically, double up that button's use. Astrodyne would be a MP management tool + Presence of Mind self buff on a 90 or 120 second CD (whichever). No more seal craziness. If we are DESPERATE to retain seals, we could work that into the Minor Arcana Lord/Lady/Jester of Crowns thing and have Minor Arcana have a 40 sec CD so you'd use it for your seal sidegame and Astrodyne would be up every 2 minutes. [NOTE: If 7.0 moves us away from the 2 min meta, then this can be 30 and 90 sec instead, or whatever; I'm just trying to consider the present systems in play as of right now.] We can also do a similar Helios thing with Aspected Benefic and Benefic 2...but I feel like that's a little more niche and we may want to keep those separate.

I suppose for Minor Arcana, Lord and Lady could work as they do now, and maybe Jester could do something like give you two stacks of Arcanum Malificum or something. That's distinct enough from the others while also having some flex on the new kit and stuff. I dunno, just a thought, but that would be kind of a fun effect if you wanted to get a bit more burst at the cost of needing GCDs and making sure you didn't overcap Draw/Play generated Arcanum Malificum stacks.

Another change I would probably make is to make Neutral Sect a bit shorter of a CD (probably 60 seconds) and cause all Aspect/Sect based abilities to take on the properties of both (which...I think is what it used to do) for 10 seconds or something. In short, it allows dAST to have some barriers while allowing nAST to have some HoTs. Celestial Opposition and Celestial Intersection would be oGCD versions of Aspected Helios and Aspected Benefic, similar to how Solace and Rapture are instant damage neutral versions of Cure 2 and Medica 1 in live WHM, each would take on either a barrier or HoT based on being in nAST or dAST stance (or both under Neutral Sect...unless we want Neutral Sect to not affect them, I guess?), and we MIGHT consider folding Essential Dignity into Exaltation...though that's a bit more tricky. Exaltation with a scaling heal would be nice, but one use of Dignity is as a quick spot heal, so...maybe not. Just a thought, though. I guess it would work better if Exaltation and Taurochole were the opposite of one another. Ideally, I'd like to see Synastry rolled into something, but I'm not sure what. Maybe make the duration 8-10 seconds and combine it with Exaltation? If Essential Dignity had a 60 sec CD (I know, I know, a nerf, but hear me out) but upgraded at level 50 to apply the Synastry effect for 10 seconds and, at 80-ish, the Exaltation damage mitigation, that might make it worth it. The heal would be upfront, but essentially this would make it a strong spot heal that also reduces damage the target takes and allows splash healing them while healing other party members with Benefic 2 or Aspected Benefic. Might make up for it? Could also have it trait at some point to add a HoT, but the Synastry effect might reduce the need of that.

Finally, Lightspeed, Earthly Star, Horoscope, and Macrocosmos are all being retained to keep AST's secondary Job identity as a pseudo-Time Mage in tact.

The core damage rotation would be unchanged, but your Combust upkeep + Malific spam would be interrupted by Draw Damage/Mitigation/Healing and Play, followed by even prettier Malifics (1-6 of them), and Lightspeed use would be far more flexible. Minor Arcana would be your RNG Seal game with Redraw attached to it (those could all be oGCDs still), Royal Road and Arcana Shift would be oGCDs to modify your Card effects, and Astrodyne would be connected to the Minor Arcana Seals from Lord(sun)/Lady(moon)/Jester(celestial) of Crowns.

Benefic 1 and Helios would be removed once upgrading to Benefic 2 and Aspected Helios, respectively.

New Buttons: 2 new Draws (three total, but we have 1 already; Draw Offense Arcana, Draw Defense Arcana, and Draw Restorative Arcana), Royal road, Arcana Shift, Diurnal Sect, Nocturnal Sect. [While Sect is set before the battle starts, this means we still need to remove at least 4 buttons for neutrality]

Removed Buttons: Benefic (on upgrade), Helios (on upgrade), Undraw, and Synastry and/or (both) Exaltation if there'd be a good way to roll those effects into other abilities (or if players collectively don't want them). Alternatively, we could remove Celestial Opposition and/or Intersection. We could also remove Redraw or just leave it for Minor Arcana. Collectively, there are 8 total abilities here we could remove 4-6 of (or all 8) to free up some bar space.

Note that AST is the Healer I play the least, but I do play it, and I've long liked components of it (the buffing gameplay, when it's interesting, paired with a simple damage rotation and flexible heals with interesting oGCDs). So this is my attempt to retain those traits of it while also retaining the RNG and Time Mage feel it has, and restoring it the flexibility that it used to have with Diurnal, Nocturnal, and Neutral Sects.

.

Okay, Attempt at Summary:

Super short version:

AST has dAST and nAST back, Cards are GCDs but you pick which card to use and play, Draw and Play generate a stack of boosted (+100%) Malific/Gravity to make using them damage neutral, Arcana Shift to access weaker but AOE versions of the main three buffs, Royal Road to boost the power or duration of said buffs, Minor Arcana is retained as your RNG and Seal mechanic, and some abilities are combined (Benefic -> Benefic 2, Helios -> Aspected Helios, Undraw -> Recycle Bin) to make room for the additional buttons.

That leaves out a lot of the nuance and discussion, but gets the main crux across.

[NOTE: As Ty pointed out, it would be Knave of Crowns, not Jester, but otherwise, all that.

[ty_taurus]

So...about the SCH, SGE, and AST ideas?

Also, what did you think about having Water be low level (level 15) Holy you get after Trial of Water at level 15 that you can use so you actually have an AOE spell for dungeons and such from level 15-45 when you actually get Holy? Imagine the FF8/FF9 big water bubble forming and floating into the air then bursting and that's more or less what Holy does, so the animation and stuff would work great and give you that Water spell, and it'd be useful for all those leveling dungeons before level 45 we get in roulette where we'd LOVE to have an AOE spell but just don't have one...

I had raid night and my brain is a little fried.

As far as WHM stuff, I just don't really feel like having a couple extra buttons with a little more interconnectivity is asking for much, especially when AST makes so much more sense to be the healer who can intentionally have limited DPS buttons in favor of setup tools that disguise support as DPS. I'd rather Water be its own independent piece of the earth, wind, water CNJ trinity. Regardless of how it's implemented though, Water I-IV actually have animations in the game already and are used by enemies and CNJ NPCs as well as Y'shtola, and Water IV is essentially a large bubble explosion. Though I see that more as a single target spell early game that upgrades to AoE eventually before becoming something else. I also just really want something like Aerith's Tempest action in FFVIIR or anything Aerith-inspired really.

For SCH:

It's not dissimilar to the SCH build I've had in mind really. I personally would like to see Biolysis replaced with SMN's lost Bio III and restore Miasma III as well. SCH is the healer who feels like its identity is being overshadowed by other healers in other ways. It's healing doesn't visually stand out in anyway that feels different to WHM's healing, and its sci-fi tones are heavily overshadowed by SGE now. Redirecting SCH toward its ACN roots gives us as poison healer which I feel like would stand out very nicely. Having a third DoT as well to revive that feeling of HW having your core 3 DoTs would be a great treat, perhaps something like Pain or Rasp from past Final Fantasies to go with the poison theme, and adopting Fester would also be nice.

As for AST:

I really can't say right now. AST is a healer that I know clearly what direction I'd like to go in, and I've thought of many ideas that I think help accomplish this--essentially having GCD cards that you play in advance on your party members, and then use another GCD to activate your cards, all the while generating a passive resource that you can give to other players to do your damage for you basically--potency magic attacks that come from you that other players detonate. That said, I feel very confident about 1 thing with the AST rework slotted for 7.0: Whatever we get is going to eliminate the bulk of AST's single target buffing. I can't say that for certain of course, but constantly needing to cycle through single targeting is the thing that the general player hates the most about AST and what makes it so undesirable for so many people. I think it's a massive deal breaker that they will address in some fashion, but trying to rattle my brain around ways to eliminate single targeting while creating unique card buffs that take the place of your general DPSing and still make solo-content enjoyable has been a tough challenge. I've yet to settle on anything that I'm fully satisfied with.

[Silver-Strider]

Honestly, Energy Drain is probably one of the worst abilities in the game.

I agree on this point but I disagree on how you addressed the issue. Granting an Aetherflow spender that is just a shield or heal is no different than just spamming Lustrate to get rid of excess stacks; It's pointless overhealing/overwriting the shield. SGE has to tolerate that playstyle because their MP suffers otherwise, whereas SCH has other problems that would need to be addressed in order for Energy Drain to be removed, those problems being that SCH's toolkit is practically reliant upon it. Dissipation and Aetherpact are 2 very lackluster abilities that are so reliant on Energy Drain that removing it would be pretty much akin to nerfing those skills because 1) The CD on Aetherflow abilities means that you can't use the extra Aetherstacks from Dissipation before Aetherflow comes off of CD and 2) Aetherpact would take even longer to build up unless you're spamming overheals, in which case the abilty itself isn't needed because you've already overhealed whoever would've needed Aetherpact in the 1st place. Not only that but Energy Drain makes up an average of 2-3% of SCH's current damage, that removing it would result in SCH's overall contribution being even lower than AST's unless the damage is distributed elsewhere. However, this damage cannot simply be added to Broil or Bio since increasing their potency would make their impact during the 2 minute burst phase even more important, whereas Energy Drain's low potency received very little help from the 2 minute burst phase so you'd ultimately just end up replacing Energy Drain with another low potency attack anyways, defeating the whole point of trying to remove Energy Drain in the 1st place.

Short of a rework, Energy Drain literally cannot leave without the job falling to pieces, as was the case the last 2 times it got removed.

[Renathras]

I had raid night and my brain is a little fried.

All good.

"As far as WHM stuff" - Already went over this (and it's why I didn't mention WHM other than pointing out Water there) that we wouldn't agree on it since you want it to change and I want it to not change (though I'm offering some changes anyway) and so it's no point talkingabout otherwise. So I'll log you as "No, you don't want Water as an early AOE spell version of Holy". Got it. : )

"For SCH" - I figure Biolysis is a different enough name from merely Bio, and this would let us have Bio, Miasma, and Biolysis spell lines in the future (additional spell ranks or whatnot) without the names tripping each other up. Well, except for Masma 2...I suppose we could just make that Shadowflare and be done with it. Have it apply a DoT on enemies entering it akin to how Lype (SGE LB) works in PvP, maybe, and that can count as the 6th DoT. I'm not really married to the idea. But yeah, that's why I suggested the name scheme the way I did. I don't understand how "Bio 3, Miasma 3, Miasma 2, and...Bio 2...?" all being single target DoTs makes very much sense when we could instead have Bio 1/2/3/4..., Miasma 1/2/3/4..., Biolysis 1/2..., Shadow Flare 1/2... instead. I feel that'd be quite a bit LESS confusing. I already find BLM's system annoying (though at least it and RDM use the nomenclature of "even numbers means AOE", I guess...) I never felt SCH was "sci-fi", so I'm a bit confused about that. I always thought of it as a combination of fae and barrier magics.

What I REALLY wanted to know is if you like or dislike the idea of a DoT that has 3 stacks and Fester that optimizes use based on playing with 3 spamable DoTs, one that stacks to 3, and one on a CD that must be used smartly to maximize damage potential. You talk all the time about skill expression, and I feel that's some pretty good skill expression...but you completely...ignore that part of the idea. <_< That's the part I actually most wanted your feedback on. XD I personally love the idea because I liked Resto Druid in WoW having a HoT that worked that way (in fact, all of the stuff here I presented as DoTs Resto worked with HoTs...which I wasn't thinking of when I wrote it, but funny how that worked out; including the "makes a burst heal based on which ones are on the target" thing), so I was hoping to hear your take on that.

"As for AST" - I think what the playerbase hates about the single target buffing is that you're trying to do it as weaves. Malific-Draw - Malific-target-Play - Malific-Draw - Malific-target-Play - Malific-Draw - Malific-target-Play is pretty hard to do. But Draw-target - Play - Draw-target - Play... would fix most of that issue. It is, indeed, why I proposed it. That and actually making it where the AST gets to choose the buffs they want, thus preventing the "Balance fishing" issue, which was why the cards were changed in the first place.

You may be right that they'll just gut the single target buffs, but I'm trying to come up with an idea that's not that. Also to bring back dAST/nAST since I do feel a lot of the playerbase enjoyed that. Though the likely alternative is that they'll just make them like PvP Cards where they're AOE so you could just Draw and Play them right away (if the radius is big enough) and the auto-self-targeting affect the whole party.

I agree on this point but I disagree on how you addressed the issue. Granting an Aetherflow spender that is just a shield or heal is no different than just spamming Lustrate to get rid of excess stacks; It's pointless overhealing/overwriting the shield.

Uh...but it's not?

This is going to take a sec, but I genuinely don't understand your position here...

In practice, you're never sitting on 3 AF stacks when AF is coming off CD. IF you didn't have Energy Drain, AF spenders would be your go-to heals, and one per 60 seconds (2 every third minute or so) are spent on Excogitation, which is basically always useful to put on the Tank (again, if you have no ED so aren't suffering a DPS loss by doing so). Soil can be used twice per minute as well. Note that Tanks are always taking damage outside of downtime, so there's no time that these are ever pointless choices. But you can sometimes run into a situation where you've used Soil based on a big damage portion of the fight that required you to hold it for 15-20 seconds of this AF CD (meaning it won't be up again before you need to refresh AF) and Excogitation is already on the Tank, so you have 1 stack left. Presumably if you used Dissipation, it's because you had a lot of healing needs, so we're going to assume you shouldn't have a full 3 stacks from that.

This means, in practice, you only ever "needed" to burn 1 AF stack.

Placing a barrier on the Tank would always be a good use of the resource. Especially in ShB when encounters didn't have 30-50 second gaps where the bosses did literally no (unavoidable) damage. The shield being used on the Tank or being thrown on a party member with a Vuln stack would pretty much always be useful in this sense. It was for this ONE errant AF stack at the end of a 1 min AF cycle that SCH had to have ED added back, but what that did was make people try not to use ANY AFs on healing (since it was now costing them 150 or whatever the potency was before they nerfed it even further to 100) and just dump them all into ED, which also meant using Dissipation as a damage CD instead of a healing one (WHM has this same general issue with Presence of Mind, which was, in ARR alongside Divine Seal, supposed to be used as a healing CDs). In short, rather than saying SCH's toolit is reliant on Energy Drain, I'd say ED broke SCH.

Lustrate DOESN'T work like this because it's a heal all at once. This means if the Tank is at 100%, it does nothing useful. A Shield OR a HoT wouldn't have this problem, as at least some of them would be useful even if the Tank is at 100% right this second, where a Lustrate would not. This is why either of those would be useful, and why I often propose Lustrate should be weaker but have a small shield so it's at least vaguely useful, even when the party's all at 100%. A Shield or a HoT would work, as either one is likely to be at least somewhat useful.

SGE has a similar problem in that it doesn't have a good AG dump, but because it doesn't have ED, people instead think of "Well, since we can't use this on damage...it means using AG isn't a damage loss! So instead, let's talk about how best to use it on healing/mitigation!" (which should be the point of...Healers...after all; at least in theory). So the discussion is instead about keeping good, but also effective, Taurochole and Kerachole uptime and conserving SGE's bigger CDs for more important/heavy hitting mechanics. Where SCH uses AF as a last resort (well, last resort before GCD heals, other than Recitation Spreadlos which is sometimes even used before AF healing), SGE does the opposite, prioritizing AG heals first and then CDs second or in tandem with AG spenders.

This makes SGE feel much better, smoother, and more dynamic since you aren't tying your hands by trying to ignore that 1/8th of your toolkit exists unless you're forced to engage with it. SGE, instead, is rolling through these short CD abilities, throwing them out left and right between its damage rotation, while still having its bigger CDs to fall back on, which honestly feels WAY better and more satisfying to me to play.

And I think this goes into how SCH and SGE (despite superficial similarities and people suggesting otherwise) actually are and feel different to play. They have essentially an inverted priority system where SCH attempts to heal and mitigate through CDs first while SGE attempts to heal and mitigate through resource spenders first. While both are Barrier Healers, both focus more on mitigation than throughput, and both attempt to work out healing plans, SGE's is a lot more flexible to deal with mistakes from party members since it has a much lower cost to throwing out, for example, a Durochole on someone than SCH does a Lustrate.

Though...I'm somewhat curious:

You say that Aetherpact and Dissipation are "reliant" on ED. Shouldn't that be more worded "They aren't reliant on ED, but not having ED makes overcapping them - which feels bad since it's foregone efficiency - feel bad"? You don't HAVE to spend all your AF before refreshing Aetherflow when it comes off CD. It feels bad to do it, but you can hit your AF refresh button even if you have 3 stacks unspent. I'm not trying to be...not trying to get you on some kind of technicality, I feel this actually is an important distinction. The Job doesn't NEED Energy Drain to work. If Energy Drain was removed and Broil did 15 more potency of damage (more or less damage neutral vs using an average of 4 Energy Drains per minute - 3 natural from AF and 3 per 3 mins of Dissipation = +1 per minute average for a total average of 4 per minute; that would technically be 16.6... more, but I'm trying to keep it simple, so pretend that's 15 for now ), then SGE would have the exact same performance it does now under optimal ED play, meaning the Job would not be suffering at all - in terms of clearing Enrages and stuff, I mean.

I'm just not sure how it breaks the Job. Feels bad IS a big deal - 100% agreement from me on that - but I'm more saying I don't think it is the crux of the toolkit. And if SCH had something to spend those extra stacks here and there on that felt useful (barriers or HoTs for the MT are basically always useful), then it would even remove that. This also addresses the Aetherpact/Faerie Gauge thing (though I think most of us (?) agree that mechanic ITSELF needs a serious rework...)

The only thing it wouldn't do is that there wouldn't be a "skill" DPS gap between SCHs using ED and those not doing so or not spending all AF on ED, I guess?

I'm also confused why you think buffing Broil would make SCH overpowered in the burst window. It'd be the opposite - ED allows you to slam more buffed potency damage in the burst window whereas putting it on Broil would (15 potency per cast) would reduce SCH's burst potential slightly, but overall it would average out to a similar amount. If it was a smidge low, 20 potency instead would more or less equal it out.

I don't think the Job "(fell) to pieces" without ED the last time. It still worked fine and was still the meta Healer in both SB and ShB during the periods where it didn't have ED. It just felt awkward to play. (WHM had a similar issue with blowing a Lily on overhealing as a movement tool being a DPS gain in ShB...I guess it technically still is/does.)

IF we removed ED tomorrow but buffed Broil by 20-25 potency, SCH would actually be VERY slightly buffed as a Job, not nerfed. Note Glare 3 does 310 damage per cast vs Broil 4 doing 295. A 15 potency boost would make Broil 4 equal Glare 3. A 25 potency boost would make Broil 4 do 10 more potency than Glare 3, which would also be 10 less than Dosis 3's 330. (And keep in mind Biolysis and Eukrasian Diagnosis both have 700 overall potency vs Dia having 660 but applying 60 immediately on hit with the 600 being from the DoT). On balance, SCH needs ED because Broil 4 is 15 potency weaker than Glare 3. Boosting it 15-25 potency would entirely eliminate the need for ED in terms of damage balance. WHM has Assize and SGE Plegma - which I could do the math for when less sleepy - but SCH brings Chain Strat, so those should roughly even out depending on your party's crit luck and performance.

.

Short version/TL;DR:

I'm not sure SCH needs Energy Drain in terms of balance. I think the question is more does it need it for play/feel/satisfaction. And as I said, "feels" IS an important part of gameplay, so IS important (to be absolutely clear, I'm not hand-waving that; I just feel that's the actual question). And I say it definitely does while there's no good AF dump.

...but if there were better AF dumps, it might not. So I'm not sure ED is inherently tying the Job together.

But as far as SGE goes, I think it NOT having something like that is actually a positive. It makes it feel and play differently than SCH (in both healing and in damage), which is probably a good thing, and imo (subjective assessment), it makes SGE feel more dynamic, smooth, and fun.

[ForsakenRoe]

The first thing that comes to mind for SCH for 'what can we make as a Aetherflow spender', assuming the whole system isn't just fully reworked (which it really needs), is a way to apply shielding OGCD. SGE has Panhaima/Haima and Holos for this, SCH has Consolation. Even if that shield were to be very limited in some way, eg the CD is 1min compared to Indom's 30s, or it's 30s but the potency is lower (300p shield vs 400 for Indom, would give it parity with the shield from Holos), or even just having it be equal to Indom, but cannot be effected by Recitation (and is unable to crit full stop). This would allow for the whole 'do I shield this with [new skill], or do I mitigate in a different way, then use that same stack on Indom to heal after?' kind of battle planning to occur. You know, SCH's identity

As for it's VFX, they should rework skill VFX at some point and drop all the sci-fi from the class. SGE has it locked down. Instead, we should go for a more 'mathematical' sort of vibe. Since it evolves from ACN which uses 'mathe-magics' and arcane geometry, something that leans into that. IDK what that would look like though, the first thing that comes to mind is like, the code screens from The Matrix, but that goes back towards sci-fi again. Maybe less 'slam book shut' animations, and more along the lines of Painflare, where you write stuff in the air with a pen?

[ty_taurus]

What I REALLY wanted to know is if you like or dislike the idea of a DoT that has 3 stacks and Fester that optimizes use based on playing with 3 spamable DoTs, one that stacks to 3, and one on a CD that must be used smartly to maximize damage potential. You talk all the time about skill expression, and I feel that's some pretty good skill expression...but you completely...ignore that part of the idea.

I mentioned it. It's literally what I had on my own SCH build as well, basically taking SMN's old Fester. In terms of offensive, as I mentioned, we're both on largely the same page.

On the healing side for SCH, I also wanted to pull a little from modern SMN in a fashion. Basically, beyond Physick/Adlo/Succor, you'd have a single target and AoE spell that changes based on your faerie and consumes Fey Gauge and generates extra Aetherflow for your DPS. This would be Protraction and Indomitability for Eos and Retaliation (Eye for an Eye) and Expedient for Selene. Both Protraction and Retaliation would also be spread-able via Deployment Tactics.

[Zeastria]

I like how WHM workes atm..
but if i where to improve it i would:

1) Make Dia into an AOE dot!!!!!!!!..
2) Make Glare spam more interesting by adding an % to proc ability
=> that change Glare ability into somrthing else for a short time..ect..

[Nizzi]

Energy Drain is the best button in the game.