Because why not: A Moderate Proposal - SCH

[ForsakenRoe]

IIRC the exact moment they stopped giving patch notes early was when some spreadsheeters did their spreadsheet thing on WAR 4.2 changes (the ones that changed IR to be 'press for 5 free FCs') and decided that, since it was going to change to a 90s CD it'd be misaligned from Trick/2min stuff. Turns out, it being guaranteed crit/dhit was a lot bigger of a buff to the damage WAR dealt than 'it lines up with raidbuffs every time'

Problem with the media tour thing is, if we get the info about say, WHM SB lilies and we go 'these are bloody terrible', chances are by the time the majority of the playerbase get to know (ie, the embargo is up) then it's too late to do anything to fully fix or replace the bad design, only tweak numbers stuff. And the majority of the influencers are some combination of 'dont play healer', 'play healer occasionally but not as main' or 'dont want to anger daddy SE and lose media tour privileges' so stuff slips through

[Semirhage]

Were stormblood lillies the single most prominent case that made players doubt the devellopers actually played the classes they designed?

That was the watershed moment, yes. Back in Heavensward there was a ton of jank and tuning issues. Lilies were the first stark example where I think the most positive thing I saw was "maybe they aren't bad once you play with them". Everywhere online I looked back then was eviscerating Square on what a surprisingly terrible idea they were, wondering how the hell they made it out of the brainstorming step.

[Post]

Oh man. Yeah, I remember feeling ahead of Stormblood that they were focusing too much on trying to make pretty UI elements for each job without really considering if they were necessary or complementary to each Job's feel.

WHM's Lillies are a great example, but so is SCH's Faerie Gauge, notorious for its sole use being "Fey Union," then and again now that they've removed Fey Blessing from it. Fey Union itself has always been stupid, IMO. Too many buttons to push to get what amounts to what Rouse already did anyways, and they very specifically had to nerf Embrace entering StB just so that Fey Union felt like it contributed something worthwhile. The Aetherflow's UI element is probably more useful because it's more central to how the job operates (I think it should also display Aetherflow's cooldown visually, and this would have made even more sense during StB when Aethergauge usage reduced Aetherflow's cooldown).

I think the best example of the Faerie Gauge being an engaging system was during ShB PVP, actually, when you would generate gauge via healing/damage spells at a rate of 10/20, and then you could convert 50 gauge into a Lustrate charge and a short 150% damage/healing buff. It was a simple, fun and impactful to the game plan of SCH, and it had the added benefit of high risk-high reward where if you played offensively you could be rewarded with more damage and free heals, where if you solely healed you would much more slowly accrue resources and wouldn't be able to maintain the buff for most of the time.

At least Lillies and Faerie Gauge could mostly be ignored. In the worst cases, they completely altered certain jobs to fit their system. MCH was pretty significantly changed so that the heat gauge could be a thing and you had almost control over it until max level (Flamethrower is a vestige of this). BRD was well received, at least. DRK was changed pretty hugely too, but that probably has more to do with the changing cross class to the role action system at the same time.

The job gauges were often a case of systems outside of job design or the battle system arbitrarily affecting job design, rather than for an actual issue that needed addressing.

[Renathras]

Expedient, if nothing else, is a 10% mit buff for 20s that sticks to allies, addressing one of the weaknesses of SCH: that people need to stand in Soil for the mitigation.

This. People always forget the damage reduction component of Expedient. It's a 20 second Soil that doesn't require standing in. When the Sprint was 20 seconds - in combat 20 seconds Sprint - it was amazing. I used that in 6.0 for ZodEx (meteors) and HydEx (chakrams, probably her most difficult mechanic, as well as the stack/spread in the final phase) and they made things go WAY more smoothly. Like, they were often the difference between success and wipes. Expedient is one of the most powerful abilities we have in our arsenal. It's absolutely worth the level 90 spot. Especially compared to stuff like Aetherpact and Dissipation.

I'm glad the OP responded with what they see the issues of SCH as being. I think it's fun to sometimes imagine specific toolkits or adjustments, but I prefer to focus on what we enjoy and what we don't enjoy with what's there when trying to give constructive dev feedback.

I think it's instructive to do both. There are things I love about SCH. It has tools for most any situation. It really nails the fantasy of protecting your allies, not just patching up their boo-boos, both in the Job quests, the mechanics of mitigation and shielding, and even the VFX of the various abilities (Succor looks a lot more shielding than Eukrasian Prognosis, for example, with the latter sending a wave of energy out but Succor specifically forming bubbles around each party member; and, of course, there's Soil's ground effect bubble with the flittering barrier animation around the border).

It also does a good job of presenting a tactical field officer leading and augmenting troops in battle, coordinating with their adjunct subordinate, Eos. I always thought that, not the DPS, was SCH's hallmark and class fantasy. It's also why I hate Dissipation as a skill, since it rejects that core of SCH's gameplay and fantasy (working with your faerie partner) and why I dislike Energy Drain optimization, since that actively works against Sacred Soil, one of the Job's iconic moves that I love using.

And unpopular opinion: I actually liked the ShB changes to SCH, and the EW making the pet more responsive.

Those are the things I love about SCH, I think.

.

As for the thread:

There are a lot of people here who want all the Healer Jobs dps focused with more dps rotations. I'm not one of those people. I've been advocating for a while for one to be left alone, and agree with the YouTuber Misshapen Chair's video of why healing in FFXIV is bad and his solution ("Probably White Mage."), and I actually like Healers as they are now.

But after repeated attempts to gain traction with the "leave one of the Healer Jobs alone" having failed, I considered an alternative. Changes to one of the already most complicated ones that MOSTLY leaves it alone, but maintains the general level of complexity and playstyle today by trading away a bit of SCH's existing clunk (complexity...sorta, more artificial complexity/difficulty) for a slightly more interesting rotation and smoother overall mechanics to kind of meet in the middle as a bridge we might collectively agree on. I long thought SCH would be the LAST choice to leave more or less alone since people liked its HW and SB incarnations, but these changes are largely a nod to those while striking a middle ground.

And based on how well they've been largely received, I'd say it's a bridge that could work to reach compromise into something everyone can accept and at least be somewhat happy with, as it were.

Were stormblood lillies the single most prominent case that made players doubt the devellopers actually played the classes they designed?

Probably.

No matter what the perception, they were the absolute worst possible idea. WHM in ARR was fine and in HW was decent, just outshown by AST's utility and heals. WHM just needed a few buffs. Instead, SB was when they decided every Job was getting a Job Gauge ([VOICE=Oprah]"You get a Job Gauge! And YOU get a Job Gauge! AND YOU get a Job Gauge! EVERYONE gets a Job Gauge!!!"[/VOICE]), even if the Job didn'd need one and what they came up with was worse than not giving one at all. With Cleric Stance toggle going away, all WHM needed is what they've needed before and since - a party damage buff, a party mitigation buff (instead they removed Protect and Stoneskin), slightly better MP economy (oddly, they got that right with Thin Air, only to make that the ONE downgrade for WHM from ShB to EW...), and slightly buffed damage output.

To this day I'm convinced before SB they were told EVERY Job HAD to have a Job Gauge, and they literally had no idea what to give WHM, so Lilies were born out of that. It righted itself with the ShB and 6.1 EW implementation, but WHM didn't even need that in 4.0. There was no reason at all for it.

[Semirhage]

Excuse me on Lustrate. I could have sworn that Lustrate was a 50 ability in the past when I was levelling in Heavensward. If so, it must have been changed with me not noticing at level cap already. And also, I wasn't the first person to suggest switching Expedient with Sacred Soil. I was discussing what type of things could potentially occur if a switch was desired between the 2 spells. Aetherflow is a major cooldown SCHs use and making a switch like this would kind of remove an aether spell for levelling unless Expedient became the new spell with an Aether cost.

It was. Sacred Soil used to be 45. Scholar got Lustrate and (Arcanist) Shadowflare at 50 before Square swapped them around.

[ForsakenRoe]

It's not like SCH is unique in this regard though, look at something like MCH. Ricochet at 50 (130p OGCD), Heated Split Shot (???) at 60, Flamethrower at 70. Only Queen at 80 and Chainsaw at 90 are 'interesting' and even then, Chainsaw is basically Drill 3 in function, nice that it's got AOE to it though.

Rather than saying SCH has problems because Expedient is at 90 but feels like it should be at 50, surely it's more productive to change the 60/70/80 skills to feel better

It was. Sacred Soil used to be 45. Scholar got Lustrate and (Arcanist) Shadowflare at 50 before Square swapped them around.

Probably so SCH has more tools to 'emergency heal' in the 'super difficult noob-slayer dungeon' Aurum Vale, since it syncs you to 49. You'd get more use out of Lustrate than Soil in there and Dzamael, and since you get both within 5 levels of each other it doesn't really change anything else

[Renathras]

I wonder what other potential areas of agreement exist here...

[Tigore]

I'm not sure. I said that it could be a possibility to work Expedient into a low level spell, but if we were to keep it the way it is for the switch, it would kind of take the focus a little away from Aetherflow. As others said, Sacred Soil has been a major part of what SCH does even though Expedient might technically do it better. I think we have slightly more saying no to the spell swap, but we still have enough disagreement to suggest we may need to discuss why the switch is wanted. Looking through the SCH Beginner Job guide, these look like our milestones.

- 50: Sacred Soil
- 60: Dissipation
- 70: Aetherpact
- 80: Summon Seraph
- 90: Expedient

Dissipation is already going through discussion with the first post to no longer sack the fairy and may have other effects desired. Such as extending the healing buff to spells and oGCDs and maybe buffing / refreshing shields on the party. Aetherpact is already suggested on the first post to essentially become the new "Lustrate" using fairy gauge. Summon Seraph could use some discussion of thought since they only really have a couple weak AoE shields on the party and that's about it. Maybe it could also have a single target shield that shares charges with the AoE one? Expedient has already been dubbed the best milestone having the mobility with it although with no HP regen and likely does not need any changes to it if it stays here.

[ForsakenRoe]

- 50: Sacred Soil
- 60: Dissipation
- 70: Aetherpact
- 80: Summon Seraph
- 90: Expedient

When I look at this list, I realize: Two of these are just 'Rouse, but reskinned'. Aetherpact could instead just be 'your next X Embraces are empowered by Y potency' and it'd be almost identical. Just that you wouldn't be manually targeting the target of the Embrace, but people used to do that with macros in the old days anyway. And Seraph is 'Rouse again, but the bonus effect granted by Rouse is not flat HP but instead granted via a shield'. Expedient is different but at this point I'm chalking it up to them thinking 'if we give them Rouse AGAIN they'll realize'

I'll say it again, Expedient does not need to be moved in level, it's fine where it is. Moving it would throw a lot of things into disarray, like old Ultimates are tuned around Soil being available every 30s. Are we reducing Expedient's CD to 30s? What about it's duration, surely that would change too, we can't have 33% uptime on a partywide sprint surely! Everything about the skill has to be changed to accomodate it being moved to level 50, and it'd be way more work than the actual solution, because this doesn't really address the real problem (imo): the other capstones feel bad in comparison to how useful Expedient feels. So make those better, and Expedient being great isn't as glaring a difference

[Post]

I'd argue SCH's been in a state of "Rouse, but reskinned" since StB. I have a lot of thoughts on how it ended up that way, but it'd be a long(er) post.

Suffice to say, SCH's basically been too powerful relative to the other two healers since 3.0 and to the encounters in the game since 3.4, but it feels bad to nerf jobs outright and they want to keep adding new actions every expansion.

On the subject of old capstones, they fit better in the past environments before StB.

At ARR's Level 50, SCH's only strong, reactive heal was Lustrate. It costed SCH's overall dps to use (instead of Energy Drain; Bane). Notably, this is the only period in the game's history that Energy Drain is stronger than SCH's basic Ruin damage (100 vs 80). WHM by contrast gets the ultimate simple emergency healing tool, Benediction.

At HW's Level 60, SCH is still a mostly planning-oriented healer and still the main job that mitigates party damage. Dissipation grants an emergency reaction state comparable to Benediction, again at a major cost to its dps and even its sustained healing if done at an inopportune time. Other healers get their own flavors of SCH's Indomitibility and Lustrate because they're so strong.

At StB's Level 70, SCH follows suit behind WHM and AST and starts copying its own actions. It has to lose power (Embrace) and buttons (Rouse) only to get them added back (Aetherpact) so it feels like it's still progressing on paper. But this is the first time none of the healers really get anything too new in their toolkits. They've hit a rhythm with their encounter design: most healers can handle everything thrown at them without casting and then some, even in the new "Ultimate" modes. The meta leans further towards dodging and mitigating, not healing, and especially in savage floor 4s, which now invariably are designed around walls of "get 5+ debuffs and puzzle out what the hell to do" and not "this boss hits really hard and has multiple adds so puzzle out how to spread out so you can reach everyone and who's healing which tank." Healers have their offensive debuffs removed and given entirely to dps and tanks. They add Rescue, but overall the game's healer meta is kind of solidified.

SCH made off like a bandit this time because it got the first new tool that fits in its own unique way with the "mostly avoid the damage" meta. It has a mitigation slapped on there so it's always useful, but because it has so many other buttons, SCH can easily save it for when movement would help. It has the unique action that brings it out of line with the other healers for now; please look forward to the other three healers getting an answer in 7.0 unless some serious overhauls to how healers fit into the the battle system happen.

Edit: I wouldn't mind Seraph doing that, considering they've basically made Consolation weaker than Succor at 90 and everything she does is just a less responsive oGCD now that you can't use pet actions while casting. I dunno how many Fey Adlo's you'd get if they're meant to be her Seraphic Veils, but considering those are about 40% as strong as Adloquium if they were just buffed up to match, who cares? They could also just add Seraph for 20 seconds instead of replacing your faerie. Outside of duties, you can have a minion, a pet and a companion with you simultaneously, so... Anything to keep her clunky ass animation from eating my faerie cooldowns or preventing me from using faerie Indomitability and dumb Rouse. Hell, I think in other FF games SCHs would get 'faerie circle' which would have an animation with like 3 of em showing up; maybe Summon Seraph shoulda gone the way of Neutral Sect and also let you use both faerie's actions for a time. Y'know, before they were trashed.