Healer Survey:

[Renathras]

"I never call people names, I just say they SEEM like it and if they take that to mean I called them a name that's just me pointing out facts!"

Jesus Christ you have to have the most convoluted gaslighty passive-aggressive definition of "not actually insulting people" I've ever encountered.

When a person does a thing, then gets mad at you for doing the same thing?

And you're one to talk, Jesus...

I just called you out and proved you a liar and the best you could do is attack me again? No apologize, not even an attempt to explain it away to save face. Just pretending it didn't happen so you could attack AGAIN. Piece of work, you are.

[Icecylee]

Man, I know posting onto the forums really doesn't amount to much more than pissing into the wind either way, but like... is there honestly, really, *any* point in this long winded Blame Game shit? just tell each other to fuck off and get onto whatever other points you were making instead of writing up treatises on why so and so is actually the meaner/more decietful/bully/whatever the hell like the person you're faux debating is going to go "oh, yeah, you're right and i'm wrong i am the villian" or w/e you're expecting to happen. Would save everyone a couple headaches and definitely some time, not to mention stop derailing threads that are approaching being interesting.

[Elucesta]

Tbh, I think the problem is that they split the healers into 2 different groups, if white mage has less hp regenerative abilities and potency yet more mitigation tools, along with just a second damage spell aside from misery and dia that would be a complete kit. Most of the games encounter design for healers is rather predictable, so having more mitigation tools or vice versa for barrier healers plus more damage buttons would provide more engagement. Meaning you'll have more proactive tools, more throughput regen tools, and more damage tools. Making it more well rounded, this is kind of why I like sage so much. Its has a bit of everything.

[Renathras]

Man, I know posting onto the forums really doesn't amount to much more than pissing into the wind either way, but like... is there honestly, really, *any* point in this long winded Blame Game shit? just tell each other to fuck off and get onto whatever other points you were making instead of writing up treatises on why so and so is actually the meaner/more decietful/bully/whatever the hell like the person you're faux debating is going to go "oh, yeah, you're right and i'm wrong i am the villian" or w/e you're expecting to happen. Would save everyone a couple headaches and definitely some time, not to mention stop derailing threads that are approaching being interesting.

God I've tried.

If there's another way, I'd love to know what it is.

There are a few specific people that constantly start it, and I wish to god they'd stop, but I've asked nicely and they refuse to do so. I even outright have asked (multiple times) what to do different other than just agree with them on everything, and the only thing approaching an answer was I have to agree with them on everything or just shut up and not say anything, neither of which is an acceptable answer.

Tbh, I think the problem is that they split the healers into 2 different groups, if white mage has less hp regenerative abilities and potency yet more mitigation tools, along with just a second damage spell aside from misery and dia that would be a complete kit. Most of the games encounter design for healers is rather predictable, so having more mitigation tools or vice versa for barrier healers plus more damage buttons would provide more engagement. Meaning you'll have more proactive tools, more throughput regen tools, and more damage tools. Making it more well rounded, this is kind of why I like sage so much. Its has a bit of everything.

Agreed. The "Pure/Barrier" split has been a total failure, not least because they gave AST 3 party mitigations per 2 mins and WHM only 1.

My personal fix would be to give Plenary Indulgence a Protect/Proshell/Wall/whatevername that reduces all incoming damage by 5% or 10% for its duration (10 sec). That would synergize extremely well with Plenary anyway, which is used for periods of high healing need, and be distinct from Collective Unconscious since you'd be casting the individual GCD AOE heals to trigger the healing effect. Do that and add Aero 3 that upgrades to Banish (and I'd also love to see Water as a level 15 AOE that upgrades to Holy at 45) and the kit would be more or less great.

The only thing I MIGHT do if I was going to tweak things more would be to give all its GCD heals where they nourish the Blood Lily so they aren't DPS losses, but that's about it. It would also make HoTs (Regen and Medica 2) not DPS losses to use.

EDIT:

...

/sigh

You're doing it again.

But honestly, I'm not interested in calling you out or proving you wrong anymore.

[ForsakenRoe]

Agreed. The "Pure/Barrier" split has been a total failure, not least because they gave AST 3 party mitigations per 2 mins and WHM only 1.

The Pure/Barrier split could never have worked out, but I'd assume that in true SE fashion, they'll hang onto it for another expansion before deciding that it failed. 'Lets split the healers into 2 pure, 2 barrier. Ok now we've done that, let AST keep shield via neutral sect, and let SGE pump 900p in one GCD. Just slap a big CD on it to 'balance' it'. The writing was on the wall as soon as it was announced, because they had already planned for the tanks to split into MTs and OTs, and then they immediately went back on the idea. So I don't really get what was going through their head when they did this one. Probably the same as whatever was going through their head when they designed MCH to work with cast times in HW, and then went 'oh yeh for parity, put cast times on BRD too'

And to think, Noct AST was apparently such an issue for them to balance that it had to be removed. Could have made AST a stance-dancer but nope

[Rilifane]

The Pure/Barrier split could never have worked out, but I'd assume that in true SE fashion, they'll hang onto it for another expansion before deciding that it failed. 'Lets split the healers into 2 pure, 2 barrier. Ok now we've done that, let AST keep shield via neutral sect, and let SGE pump 900p in one GCD. Just slap a big CD on it to 'balance' it'. The writing was on the wall as soon as it was announced, because they had already planned for the tanks to split into MTs and OTs, and then they immediately went back on the idea. So I don't really get what was going through their head when they did this one. Probably the same as whatever was going through their head when they designed MCH to work with cast times in HW, and then went 'oh yeh for parity, put cast times on BRD too'

And to think, Noct AST was apparently such an issue for them to balance that it had to be removed. Could have made AST a stance-dancer but nope

What I don't understand is that not only do they have the MT/ OT split example from the past for why this isn't going to work - but then they also ensured that barrier healers are the superior and needed type of healers by making every raidwide into a mitigation check to the point where SGE/ SCH wasn't just viable but downright godmode while WHM/ AST comps took a lot longer to catch up because you relied more on gear in addition to better coordination.
Is there an easier way to ensure that your idea fails spectacularly?

A split like that doesn't work if your entire encounter design is tailored towards only one side because and that one side is "pure, but better" by bringing chonky heals and all the mitigation you'll ever need.
But yes, my money is on them trying to shove it down our throats for another expansion until admitting defeat and just giving everyone everything and call it a day instead of looking at why barrier healers are so much better. It shouldn't be rocket science to see a string of mitigation checks and think "Hm, only 50% of our healers are designed to handle it, maybe we could mix up the damage patterns so it's not all mitigation checks?".

[Elucesta]

This 100% i dropped my whm because I started to understand unfortunately that the game is made for barrier healers at the moment, the encounter design of fights are all like you said "mitigation checks" and you don't need an absurd amount of healing, just a couple of Regens and maybe an ogcd or 2.

[RyuDragnier]

The Pure/Barrier split could never have worked out, but I'd assume that in true SE fashion, they'll hang onto it for another expansion before deciding that it failed. 'Lets split the healers into 2 pure, 2 barrier. Ok now we've done that, let AST keep shield via neutral sect, and let SGE pump 900p in one GCD. Just slap a big CD on it to 'balance' it'. The writing was on the wall as soon as it was announced, because they had already planned for the tanks to split into MTs and OTs, and then they immediately went back on the idea. So I don't really get what was going through their head when they did this one. Probably the same as whatever was going through their head when they designed MCH to work with cast times in HW, and then went 'oh yeh for parity, put cast times on BRD too'

And to think, Noct AST was apparently such an issue for them to balance that it had to be removed. Could have made AST a stance-dancer but nope

The easiest method would be to just have attacks that can be mitigated as usual, but then also have attacks that are set HP % followed by a heavy hit and cannot be mitigated or shielded against. Something that would require quick and powerful heals to get through, hard for a barrier healer but easy for a pure healer. They've already made fights with raidwides that cannot be shielded against, the skeletons exploding during the Dragon Zombie fight in LotA ignores shields completely, so making raidwides that work like that wouldn't be too difficult for this purpose. This makes the shields and mitigations worthless against the HP % attack but useful for mitigating the followup that comes afterwards.

[Rilifane]

The easiest method would be to just have attacks that can be mitigated as usual, but then also have attacks that are set HP % followed by a heavy hit and cannot be mitigated or shielded against. Something that would require quick and powerful heals to get through, hard for a barrier healer but easy for a pure healer. They've already made fights with raidwides that cannot be shielded against, the skeletons exploding during the Dragon Zombie fight in LotA ignores shields completely, so making raidwides that work like that wouldn't be too difficult for this purpose. This makes the shields and mitigations worthless against the HP % attack but useful for mitigating the followup that comes afterwards.

I think what they really need to do is looking at damage patterns and cast a wider net.
We are currently stuck with above max HP hits that can be shielded and mitigated and have long gaps between them - both for raidwides and tankbusters.

What we could instead have:

• more bleeds across the board (can also be surface damage etc. doesn't have to be a debuff)
• full range from small, very frequent hit over medium semi-frequent hits to hard infrequent hits instead of only having one extreme for everything
• initial hit with a bleed/ series of hits that reduce or increase in strength over time
• bring back auto attack crits
• set of random hits on part of the party (so a player can get hit twice or not at all, who knows?)
• hits or series of hits that scale up in damage the higher your HP are
• hits that don't directly damage but give a "heal absorb" debuff, nasty side effects while it persists optional
• hits that ignore shields and/ or mitigation, as you suggested (we had them in e1s... a little bit)
• damage links between people (not damage on its own but can be combined with any of the above for spice)
• adding smaller vuln up debuffs to random unavoidable hits (e.g. increases damage by 5% per stack) to shake up the "everyone takes roughly the same damage"

And I'm sure more creative people could come up with even more ideas.
But looking at this list makes it obvious how creatively bankrupt encounter design is with damage patterns. It's basically all "big hit, mitigate, gap for brain reset". It doesn't matter if the big hit comes in the form of a stack marker, a spread marker or just a plain aoe since the damage pattern behind it is always the same.
And as long as it's all "hard hits, long gaps", then different "heal styles" will not feel different. A regen doesn't feel different from a burst heal of the same potency if the gap between hits is 3 times longer than the duration of the regen.

[Renathras]

The Pure/Barrier split could never have worked out, but I'd assume that in true SE fashion, they'll hang onto it for another expansion before deciding that it failed. 'Lets split the healers into 2 pure, 2 barrier. Ok now we've done that, let AST keep shield via neutral sect, and let SGE pump 900p in one GCD. Just slap a big CD on it to 'balance' it'. The writing was on the wall as soon as it was announced, because they had already planned for the tanks to split into MTs and OTs, and then they immediately went back on the idea. So I don't really get what was going through their head when they did this one. Probably the same as whatever was going through their head when they designed MCH to work with cast times in HW, and then went 'oh yeh for parity, put cast times on BRD too'

Largely agreed. At least with MT/OT, they figured out half-way into the expansion that was dumb and went back on it. Hopefully the will reverse Pure/Barrier as well.

EDIT:

What I don't understand is that not only do they have the MT/ OT split example from the past for why this isn't going to work - but then they also ensured that barrier healers are the superior and needed type of healers by making every raidwide into a mitigation check to the point where SGE/ SCH wasn't just viable but downright godmode while WHM/ AST comps took a lot longer to catch up because you relied more on gear in addition to better coordination.
Is there an easier way to ensure that your idea fails spectacularly?

A split like that doesn't work if your entire encounter design is tailored towards only one side because and that one side is "pure, but better" by bringing chonky heals and all the mitigation you'll ever need.
But yes, my money is on them trying to shove it down our throats for another expansion until admitting defeat and just giving everyone everything and call it a day instead of looking at why barrier healers are so much better. It shouldn't be rocket science to see a string of mitigation checks and think "Hm, only 50% of our healers are designed to handle it, maybe we could mix up the damage patterns so it's not all mitigation checks?".

Also this. Agreed. The design was just like "I see what you're trying to do...so why did you make all the design decisions you could make to make that fail?"