A question: What makes a Healer "easy/simple" or "hard/complex"?

[IDontPetLalas]

It's interesting how frequently that you respond with rebuttal such as "Solo content isn't tedious to a lot of people. There's zero reason all Healers NEED those. I think the problem here is that you think that all Healer players want what you do and feel the way you do. Many players find WHM, for example, fun and engaging"

You are backing up your opinion, and based upon likely empirical evidence and claiming it as fact- when you aren't providing any factual evidence (independently sourced metrics) to back it up.

Given that- it remains an argument of one person's preference versus another person's preference. You are "being a contrarian" , you have held to some positions- one for example being "It's explicitly WHY I think we should change SOME Healers but not ALL of them, so that both types of player have at least one they enjoy playing on. There's only one Healer in the game that has 1 DoT + 1 Nuke, and that's AST." - you are absolutely entitled to your opinion, however that isn't one that everyone holds.

[IDontPetLalas]

Yet another attempt to derail a thread. Where to even begin? I'll stick this in an HB so it doesn't derail the thread itself.

Yet you attack me for my position which is far more sourced and supported than your own, which hasn't been by you or any of the posters agreeing with your position...

6)
Snip .....
IDontPetLalas's Avatar
Quote Originally Posted by IDontPetLalas View Post
Given that- it remains an argument of one person's preference versus another person's preference.
You mean the very thing I have stated numerous times up to this point?? That we all have different preferences and that the Healer/playerbase likely has a spread of preferences such that the Healers should NOT be made all the same (simple OR complex) as that would be denying many people a Healer Job that appeals to their preferences? THANK YOU for agreeing with me. Though it's rather untoward of you to do so only by acting like I didn't already hold that very selfsame position before you here. Indeed, I hold it now and you do not - your post indicates that you still think my position is not held by others, or at least, not by enough to matter.

So to address a number of points: as per (3) so you really don't have any idea of how many people share your position. Which is fine, neither does anyone else here on the forum - that does mean that throwing around "a lot" is extremely subjective, and no it doesn't derail the thread. That also impacts (4) for example - you just don't know. It could be 1 % of the healers, 5 or 20. No idea. 5) So hundreds of pages of healer feedback are meaningless ? In addition, in any change there are going to be minorities that disagree , that isn't going to ever be avoided. That shouldn't prevent change, it can however be managed, and it's something I handle all of the time (6) Nice try at taking my words out of context to justify your position of leaving "one healer as it is" but no, that isn't at all what that meant. (7) understood! (8) on this you are incorrect and I will leave it at that

Finally..there's the cherry on the cake mention of "attacking you". Really? Because your argument (not you personally) is challenged?

[ForsakenRoe]

All I'm gonna say is, if SE had a PTR where we could test 'SB WHM, with current Lilies and skills added', I would put actual money on the vast majority saying 'this is great'. Maybe I'm wrong, and I'd lose my money on the bet, but I'm confident enough in my assertions to make it. We only have to have these 'nuh uh my way would be better' because we're unable to put them to the test. It's all well and good insisting that 'no if we had all the healers have actual skill ceilings (skill floor remains as is) then EVERYONE would quit and the servers would explode and Blizzard would buy out SE and turn the game into a glorified Hearthstone lobby' when there's no way to disprove that statement. But if we had a seperate client for 'testing' stuff, we could put some of these false assertions in the grave where they belong

It wouldn't even need to necessarily take server space. Could make a 'lab room' of just plain white nothing forever, with a training dummy in the center, and have the game client look at localhost instead of the server IP, and essentially 'host' the 'server' on the player's own machine. We've got the benchmark program, something similar with a 'playtest these moves for us and give feedback on the forums' should be doable. At least, if the 'spaghetti code' issue is as solved as they claim

[Semirhage]

All I'm gonna say is, if SE had a PTR where we could test 'SB WHM, with current Lilies and skills added', I would put actual money on the vast majority saying 'this is great'. Maybe I'm wrong, and I'd lose my money on the bet, but I'm confident enough in my assertions to make it. We only have to have these 'nuh uh my way would be better' because we're unable to put them to the test. It's all well and good insisting that 'no if we had all the healers have actual skill ceilings (skill floor remains as is) then EVERYONE would quit and the servers would explode and Blizzard would buy out SE and turn the game into a glorified Hearthstone lobby' when there's no way to disprove that statement. But if we had a seperate client for 'testing' stuff, we could put some of these false assertions in the grave where they belong

It wouldn't even need to necessarily take server space. Could make a 'lab room' of just plain white nothing forever, with a training dummy in the center, and have the game client look at localhost instead of the server IP, and essentially 'host' the 'server' on the player's own machine. We've got the benchmark program, something similar with a 'playtest these moves for us and give feedback on the forums' should be doable. At least, if the 'spaghetti code' issue is as solved as they claim

My disagreement stems from approaching it in the opposite direction; "SB WHM with current lilies and skills" is the logical equivalent to "Endwalker WHM plus Aero 3". I think "lol just add Aero 3 it'd make WHM good again" is...not something I see panning out, and in fact would slot into the folder of opinions I have labeled "Endwalker healer design is terrible, samey, and embarrassing...oh except WHM, suddenly when the white egg job stone is involved this horrible job design I spent the last two paragraphs lambasting is *chef's kiss* near pinnacle".

[ty_taurus]

I've had different ideas of how to approach SCH in the past but here's my bingo card of things I'd want to see from a full SCH rework:

- Restore Miasma and Shadowflare; replace Biolysis with Bio III and upgrade Miasma to Miasma III.
- Separate Selene from Eos with something new where both feel valuable in different scenarios. No party buffs on Selene.
- Rework Aetherpact into a replacement for random casts of Embrace. Instead of your faerie casting heals constantly, you tether her to party members you want to have a permanent, weaker regen on. She can still activate faerie actions while tethered.
- Delete Dissipation.
- Rework Aetherflow into exclusively an offensive resource and rework the Fey Gauge into your resource for healing tools. For Aetherflow, cutting Energy Drain and making it more about Fester, Bane, and a third DoT, for example, or something to that effect would be the goal.

EDIT:
Also, as an additional brownie point, I want SCH to apply Toad to enemies somehow. Perhaps just adding that to Bane, or adding it to a mitigation debuff on enemies from Selene that toads and reduces damage dealt. I know it really isn't important, but it's fun for dungeons, deep dungeons, and any future Eureka/Bozja type content we may get.

[Renathras]

I'm just gonna copy over some ideas I had for SCH from another thread. Although it's somewhat more controversial than my WHM suggestions.

The overall Goal was to reduce the need for our oGCD heals by both expending the DPS toolkit to provide some level of utility and to make the GCD healing toolkit work in a way that would benefit DPS but not handicap the healing side of things. There are some buffs to the oGCD healing side of things but there is also some skills that I want to remove.

Huh. Interesting.

I mean, I'd have gone the opposite way with it - since ARR/HW/SB SCH players enjoyed being GCD damage dealers power-weaveing oGCD healing and mitigation. But I'm always interested in seeing interesting twists. So, obviously, I'm reading on.

So Adlo being kind of a Thorns (WoW Druid) ability, interesting. Though I'm not quite sure how you mean for Succor to work here. Like an AOE Iron Jaws that also is an AOE party heal? Interesting...

Yeah, Physic/Cure/Benefic are all kinda "Uh, wut?" at this point. The only one that isn't instantly overshadowed is...I dunno, Diagnosis MAYbe? But probably not even that.

So your spam nuke/movement nuke gives you some gauge, your DoTs (of which you have...2 GCD ones) have a chance of giving gauge on ticks, Shadowflare is a.....sorta healing oGCD?...oh, three DoTs since you want Bane to be a DoT (not a spread), but on a CD, which doesn't build gauge.....though I'm not sure what "but turns the ability into Fester" means? Bane turns into Fester once you use it? Or something about having gauge turns Bane into Fester? Either way, I do get that you mean for Fester to basically make the Bane DoT a damage down debuff bomb/boobie trap, where the player can either expire it late to get DoT ticks and a short damage down debuff on the boss, or use Fester early if their party needs a longer period of mitigation. That's actually a neat idea. Not sure if it would work or not, but I don't think I've seen it proposed that way before, and that's kind of a cool concept.

Aetherflow: You're honestly not the only one.

Indom is stronger than Fey Blessing and stronger (in healing) than Succor, but if you're pushing more GCD heals, I could see wanting to remove Indom. Just make Blessing into Indom? XD I still think Blessing should have had the CD cut, not the Faerie Gauge. That way you'd have an AOE healing option alongside Aetherpact, instead of gauge being just for a single somewhat lackluster ability and having ANOTHER oGCD CD ability...

The can of worms that is Energy Drain is also something that I can't really think of what to do with. SCH should have plenty of DPS tools now that it wouldn't really need it and if we're reducing oGCD healing tools, we might need to use more Aetherflow abilities more often.

Energy Drain IS one of those kinds of "What even to do with this...?" abilities, isn't it?

Fairies: I feel the Devs want them to be glamour options (though as we know from SMN, you can do that anyway...), but I do like how your Eos and Selene are kind of mirrors of each other, fitting for the Sun/Moon dynamic Lily was introduced to us as having.

Fairy Gauge: I kind of like these, too. Though I'm curious which Faerie you're using during Aetherpact? I'm guessing the one you have active. And I'd guess this ability wouldn't allow swapping for its duration? Basically you have your benchwarmer come in to Aetherpact so your active Faerie can heal and oGCD without interruption. And putting all the Faerie oGCDs on the Gauge actually makes it have a purpose. I'm kind of curious if SCH would be unable to effectively heal if they weren't actively damaging - SGE has an issue right now (though much lesser) that if it IS having to GCD heal party members, it's not Kardia healing the Tank, so the SGE player has to devote more resources (and potentially "catch-up" GCD healing) on the Tank. So I'm curious if you're having to spam Succor/Adlo/Physic (for whatever reason) if you're going to be in a "losing battle" of being gimped since you won't be getting any gauge?

Dissipation: I MUCH prefer this version. Basically Recitation/Rhizomata but for Faerie abilities. Neat idea.

Alternatively, Dissipation and Recitation could be reworked to allow 1 free Aetherflow or Fairy ability usage with 2 charges, Recitation just allowing the skill to Crit over Dissipation.

Note that Recitation in this scenario would be more powerful...and has a shorter CD.

Expendant is also something I hesitate to touch since it's still useful, even after the nerf but with the buff to Covenant/Illumination, do we need it?

I would say YES.

Expedient is one of the neatest abilities to me in quite some time since it offers non-mitigation, non-damage boosting, non-Raise UTILITY to the party...and it's utility that people actually VALUE. Yes, a lot of people sleep on this, but it's definitely a form of utility that isn't "you do more damage", "you take less damage", or "I'm raising you because you took too much damage". Most of the rest of the utility in the game is one of those kinds, but Expedient is different. Yeah, it has the mitigation part, which is NICE, don't get me wrong, but it has something ELSE. And it's something else people actually VALUE when used well. Meteors on ZodEx and Chackrams on HydEx, you can really feel the extra buffer it gives the party. Using it on HydEx is what helped me get my first clears there, because people were otherwise largely too slow (and for whatever reason, couldn't use Sprint).

I cannot overstate how cool it is to me for the Devs to introduce an ability that ISN'T damageboost/mitigation/Raise or damage dealing itself, but that is so popular with players they actually have to nerf it. I think we need more of those, not less.

Like I said, it's a work in progress and it might not provide the full picture of anything either but hopefully, it can at least give some context to my thought process.

I mean...I'm not one of the people who dislikes current SCH, but I actually like those proposals a lot. I'm a bit concerned about emergency healing situations and balance, but if those things could be addressed? It seems creative and interesting, and I'd definitely at least give it a spin, even if it wasn't my favorite in the end. It would definitely diversify the Healer Job offerings, in a great way, and I think that's a good thing.

As for AST, ...

Yeah, I'm not much of an AST player (I can play it, I just don't like it that much), but honestly, I really like your proposed changes there, too.

Major Arcana for the "all cards are Balance" since people would fish for Balance otherwise, Minor Arcana for the actual interesting side buffs (which are no longer competing with Balance), and ShB era Minor Arcana (under a new name) to convert cards you don't need at that time into Lord/Lady.

Imo, that's a good idea. One of my complaints about SCH is that BECAUSE Energy Drain uses Aetherflow, it makes Lustrate, Sacred Soil, Indom, and Excogitation (when the latter two aren't using Recitation) fight with Energy Drain, and because "damage >>> all", Energy Drain often wins. But contrast with SGE, which has basically Lustrate, Sacred Soil, Indom, and not-Excogitation...and actually USES them. Is, in fact, ENCOURAGED to use them (for MP management, but what's important is they have a reason to use them and they aren't forced to choose between them and something else).

HW/SB Arcana had all the "bad" ones competing with Balance. And like Energy Drain, Balance always won. Splitting them into Minor Arcana like this takes the SGE route where you have Plegma (Balance) and then Addersgal abilities (Minor Arcana), and you're incentivized to use both and actually USE BOTH because they aren't competing with each other.

I might be gushing a bit, but I think that's a fantastic idea.

And you make it even BETTER with Crown Play there (whatever name you'd call it; I'm guessing Undraw isn't the name you'd settle on?) - Say you get the Minor Arcana Bole but the boss is untargetable or the tank buster just happened and no one needs any mitigation for a while? Convert it into 50/50 free damage (Lord) or free healing (Lady) to open up the slot to draw something else next and get some use out of the "dud" at the same time. And if you draw Bole and the tank buster is coming up? Well, obviously toss it on the Tank!

It's low-key brilliant and honestly, I'm...kind of shocked you're the first person I've ever seen propose it because it's elegant and allows AST to have both the "wanted" buffs, the "niche" buffs, and some RNG fun, and a "bad draw" protection to keep the "bad" cards from getting you down.

I honestly love this idea. You're selling yourself way short!

Then have their identity be more "time magic" again (HoTs and less direct heals), but like WoW's Resto Druid (same concept, just nature regrowth instead of time, but same diff), having some burst tools and HoT -> burst conversion CDs for emergencies. This would make it more distinct from WHM, which supplies more direct, burst healing but has HoTs on the side, so AST and WHM would be mirrors of each other instead of carbon copies.

I don't really see a reason to keep the Seal system either. Astrodyne is a weak skill, even at 3 seals, that they could probably just turn it into a 2 minute buff with all 3 bonuses without it really impacting AST all that much.

Honestly, the Seal system has never been good. It was introduced as a way to say "See! We've taken your Card diversity but you still have some RNG here!", but then they (yet again) stuck the RNG on things that people want (Divination), which then caused them to 180 and stick it on something where the different levels were arguably "happy accidental bonuses" rather than something people really were excited for, making it completely lame. Just dumping it and making Astrodyne a 2 min buff with all the bonuses would probably work better, I agree. Bonus points: Less buff capping.

Edit: This is what happens when you post at 2am lol. I'll edit this to clarify some things.

Honestly, I think you're REALLY selling yourself short.

Yeah, I don't like your WHM idea, but I love these. These are both pretty creative ideas that I haven't seen other people suggest, and your AST one is an amazingly elegant solution to the "boring cards, but if not, RNG feast of famine" situation. I love it in particular. Though it doesn't change AST's GCD game...maybe with actual interesting Cards, it wouldn't have to...

[Silver-Strider]

Though I'm not quite sure how you mean for Succor to work here. Like an AOE Iron Jaws that also is an AOE party heal?

Pretty Much.

though I'm not sure what "but turns the ability into Fester" means? Bane turns into Fester once you use it?

Think of it like how SAM's Ogi Namikiri turns into Kaeshi: Namikiri after use. You use Bane and then the skill changes to Fester in a similar fashion.

Just make Blessing into Indom?

There's a few reasons I didn't. For the proposed Fairy Gauge to work well, there needs to be more frequent usage of Fairy Abilities. It's why I cut the CDs on Blessing and Illumination/Covenant in half during the Fairy Ability changes. With the abilities also being stronger than the current forms of the skills (Whispering Dawn is currently 560 total potency to my proposed 600 potency, Fey Blessing granting a Shield effect under Selene and Fey Illumination/Covenant provide 15%/8% buffs as opposed to the 10%/5% buffs) as well as the change to Succor to make it useful to maintain DoT uptime, and by extension restore more gauge via DoTs, I felt it was fine to remove Indom.

Though I'm curious which Faerie you're using during Aetherpact?

Correct on the Benchwarmer Fairy. They would tether to your intended target and the other would continue as normal.

I'm kind of curious if SCH would be unable to effectively heal if they weren't actively damaging

I attempted to mitigate this issue as much as possible. Succor refreshing your DoTs to allow the Fairy Gauge to continue to accumulate while you healed, Dissipation allowing a free Fairy Ability usage, the buffs to the Fairy's skillset, Bane providing Mitigation, Shadowflare becoming a secondary Sacred Soil but instead of mitigation/regen, provides more healing received/Max HP, etc. was all an attempt to make SCH able to prevent that emergency scenario from happening in the 1st place. I even considered making Addlo shield breaks proc an effect that turns Ruin 2 into Ruination that provides 10 Fairy Gauge on usage but that was too much like Toxicon for my liking. The only other things I could consider was buffing Emergency Tactics to provide Gauge and give it 2 charges or put an effect like DNC's Espirit on Chain Stratagem so that the party would provide SCH with more Fairy Gauge as they attacked while the SCH focused on Healing.

Though it doesn't change AST's GCD game...maybe with actual interesting Cards, it wouldn't have to...

That was my thought process as well. AST never really had many attacks to start with, just the 2 DoTs (3 if you cross classed Aero 1), Malefic and Stella. Stella, however, lost its main purpose of being a 1.5s cast time ability over Malefic and the Heavy debuff hasn't really seen much, if any, usage in recent times that it would need a rework to be of any use to AST and while I'm fine with AST getting Stella back to break up the monotony of 1-1-1 Spam for them as well, I can't confidently suggest anything for them since I'm not sure what the class really needs to be engaging for AST mains again.

[Jirah]

Problem :On a good day with a good team in most instances you will not but doing much besides 1-1-1-1-1-1. tank busters are a joke, raid wides are infrequent, mechanics revolving around healing is slim to nonexistent. On a bad day with a bad team youll at most do some ressing or healing slightly more than continue 1-1-1-1 Due to this gameplay the question is irrelevant due to the jobs being irrelevant. Doesnt matter how complicated the kits are, you can get by raw healing medica 1 and cure 1 and its equivalents for 99% of the content. Except savage which is where all jobs are designed for no matter how few of them their are. Not helped by some job skills being outclassed or never used to due how many tools healers kit. Secret about me is as a SGE ive never used; Kardia, Soteria, Hamia, Panhamia, Zoe, Pepsis, Diagnosis, Prognosis, Kerachole, rhizomata, Holos, & Krasis due to never needed too and all healers have this fluff issue. In dungeons specifically if your with a WAR you dont even need to heal. Bosses are a bigger waste of a healers time because nothing is thrown to warrant your existence due to trivial mechanics. Trials could be fun with 1 healer but with 2 its plainly overkill back to 1-1-1-1 and doing 2/14 healer actions.

Solution The biggest naysayers are raiders for a job overhaul with some exceptions. For dungeons; mobs needs more diversity than bowling pins, vague answer but dont wanna rant on dungeon design again going off topic, Dungeon bosses need to do more damage and need more mechs where the party takes damage, all bosses need this change 24 man raids and nm trials dubbed raids included

ask again once the game uses healers in their day-to-day content using at least 50% of their kit vitally

[ForsakenRoe]

God could you imagine how cool it'd be if you could Synastry-share Exaltation's mit effect (at 40% effectiveness on the secondary target) for double TBs?

[Recon1o6]

God could you imagine how cool it'd be if you could Synastry-share Exaltation's mit effect (at 40% effectiveness on the secondary target) for double TBs?

asts could babysit both tanks!

joking aside i am a little torn on that. I'm not 100% sure single plyer % mitigation should be a healers thing, since tanks ought to be responsible for pressing their own mitigation. That being said, I also think its unfair the healer should have to pick them up off the ground if they fail this basic responsibility of tanking