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

[Renathras]

Honest question that isn't intended to be rude - have you actually cleared this tier or are you just going off of what you think the tier is like? There's a very big reason people have been complaining about how body-check dependent mechanics are this tier.

I've cleared some fights this tier, which is why I outright mentioned one.

People have complained because literally every fight this EXPANSION has had a body check. Erik did as well.

The body check on P5S is Devour. If you're missing even one person, that's generally going to be a wipe (technically you can have one person dead, but only one). P1S's body checks were Fourfold Suffering and Intemperance. P2S's were the dash/limit cut thing and the shove + puddles mechanics.

That's why I said "several mechanics" not "all mechanics".

I believe you have fundamentally missed the point being made.

No, I think it's that we're talking about different things.

You're talking about what optimal SCH play with Energy Drain in the game is, and I'm noting that SCH play would be fine without that. That SCH currently revolves around that is irrelevant since its removal wouldn't significantly alter the playstyle. (Not to mention "revolves around" is pretty subjective; it doesn't revolve around Energy Drain, it revolves around Aetherflow, of which ED is one method of managing, but not the only one, and not the only possible one, either...) Consider a world where Energy Drain has been removed. Here is how SCH would play:

Maintain ABC with Broil casts, refreshing Biolysis when it has less than 3 seconds left. Use Chain Strategem on CD for 2 min bursts outside of planned party burst delays for untargetable phases. Establish an oGCD healing plan for the encounter with your co-Healer. Place your Faerie in the center (or whatever) of the field to ensure Faerie-centered abilities apply to the party. Use Aetherflow on CD to regenerate MP and resources.

That's how SCH plays today, with the only difference being your burst windows are a bit less hectic since you aren't trying to cram EDs into them, and you would have AF spenders be higher priority oGCD use, giving SCH's healing toolkit more flexibility. Otherwise, SCH would play identically to today. Hence why I say it wouldn't break the Job for it to be removed, since the Job would, overall, play the same way it does today. The only major change would be the skill ceiling to optimize it would be slightly lower, but that doesn't break the Job, either. (And, let's be real, Faerie Gauge needs a serious rework as well; it's probably the most useless Job gauge/mechanic in the game - looking at those same top players, Fey Union's healing tends to make up a tiny fraction of their overall healing.)

Optimising scholar is about getting as many energy drains out as possible because damage is the only utility that matters

But don't you see, this is why I say it's bad. Because it's never a choice. You're either doing it right, or you're wrong. They could delete Excog, Lustrate (they could delete that one anyway...), and Soil and SCH be played largely the same because you aren't allowed to use them. And why not? Because Energy Drain.

Though you again overstate your case:

Energy Drain has nothing to do with MP management, and having a non-damage AF spender that produces mitigation would not be overhealing.

Removal of energy drain would fundamentally change how scholar plays

As shown above:

No, no it would not.

SCH without ED would play almost identically to SCH with ED. That's the exact opposite to "fundamentally change".

Beyond energy drain, the only spammable aetherflow ability is lustrate, not a particularly helpful button

This is the part where I have to ask if you've actually read any of my posts before replying to them. I've literally said that removing ED would mean they'd need to give SCH a spamable AF spender with mitigation attached to it like Divine Benison, Aquaveil, or Taurochole. You should really read things before replying to them...

For better or worse, scholar revolves around aetherflow and its management. One of the ways to manage this resource is to dump excess into energy drain. Use of aetherflow abilities including energy drain also fuels the fey gauge, which allows for more healing over the course of the fight. Optimising scholar is about getting as many energy drains out as possible because damage is the only utility that matters. Living on 1hp is exactly the same as living on 100% - there is no mechanic that gives you a damage boost when at higher health percentages or penalty while at critical hp. Removal of energy drain would fundamentally change how scholar plays in that it would necessitate gross overhealing to manage both mp and fey gauge, or overcapping on aetherflow to ensure you're not sinking wildly into mp debt. Beyond energy drain, the only spammable aetherflow ability is lustrate, not a particularly helpful button to have to dump aetherflow with as it's merely a waste on the healthy. If they were to make this change and refuse to revert, I'd avocate for "slowened aetherflow", where the usage of aetherflow adds 10s to the recast timer just to take the edge off having to overcap so obscenely.

I've looked at logs for p8s phase2 and top, both of which show at least half, usually significantly more aetherflow uses going into energy drain than the other aetherflow skills combined. It does not matter how you try and twist these data, energy drain is the main usage for aetherflow.[/QUOTE]

just an update, a group called NO DRAGOON posted a run after I had already looked at a different group. This new run has 3 indoms, 3 excogs, 1 lustrate, 15 soils and FIFTY THREE energy drains. a massive increase over the other log, now we're at like 80% of the aetherflows in the fight going into ED

53/75 ~= 70%

Then it's a good thing I didn't bring up Sacred Soil, isn't it. I specifically said Indom, because that would be my first assumption for where the Recitations are being spent, with Adlo a second, due to Deployment. IDK why you bring Soil into it when its clearly not part of the point.

I wish you wouldn't do this so often. "I don't know why you bring up thing that opposes my argument, I'd like to pretend that's not a thing since it makes my argument weaker..."

I bring up Soil because it's used more frequently and because it's an AF spender that cannot be used with Recitation and is not Energy Drain.

If SCH was not 'broken and unplayable', even without ED's presence in the kit, surely the devs would have either left us without ED returned, or replaced ED with something else? The fact they backpedalled on it without any hint of an alternative beyond 'guess you can just overcap then', shows how necessary to the kit ED is.

Man, I wish I lived in your headspace sometimes...

No, it proves none of this. What it proves is that the Devs were trying to mollify the complainers, not that they felt ED was critical to the gameplay. Recall they nerfed it to the point it was only a DPS gain of something like 30 potency (since you had to use it with Ruin 2). They effectively made it as negligible as possible when giving it back so that it would have a minimal impact between the people using it and not using it.

That says they felt ED was not at all critical to the game play, and were actually trying to make it as non-critical as possible. It wasn't the big DPS gain (if "big" is even the word for it...) that it is now until EW lowered Broil's cast time to allow a good weave window. SCH wasn't "broken" in 5.0.

As I've said SEVERAL TIMES, the word was "awkward", not "broken". SCH in 5.0 was still the most powerful Healer in the game at the time - and for all of ShB. Its problem wasn't ED being gone, its problem was Fey abilities ghosting and it still had a lot of weird clunk. Some of which was fixed in EW, but some of which remains.

If they moved the MP restore off of Aetherflow's cast, and put it on the spenders (so, exactly like SGE) and removed ED,

...literally no one is arguing for this. You're fighting a strawman here.

Maybe if there was a more granular generation, in the way that WHM and SGE have theirs

I don't often see you argue for homogenization...

But if there needs to be a DPS component to it,

There doesn't, in fact, need to be a DPS component to it. Taurochole has no DPS component and is fine.

...though that said, an aoe bursting shield would be cool for dungeons, but people would probably demand it have a CD for some godforsaken reason, defeating the entire point... <_<

.

Also note again for the record:

I'm not advocating for the removal of Energy Drain.

I'm simply arguing that the idea SCH "revolves around it" or would be "nigh unplayable" without it are silly extremeism statements overstating (vastly) the argument for it.

The main valid argument for ED, imo, is that SCH has no other spamable AF spenders that are useful (Lustrate generally isn't) in most casts (when party health is in a good place already and Soil and Excog are on CD), and that it allows for a feeling of (really) slight optimization for players really into that.

Those are valid arguments to make in its favor.

SCH "revolving around" it or being "nigh unplayable" or "broken" without it are not.