Healer role design change?

[Renathras]

Again... do we really need to strip the melee-ranged-based complexities from Melee, the casting-based complexities from Casters, etc.?

Again, not my argument.

My position is that encounter design has changed since ARR/HW/even SB, and not for the better, and that encounter design needs to shift back. FFXIV is not an ARPG, it needs to stop having fights designed as if it were one.

Imagine, for a moment, SCH without Aetherflow. It wouldn't make the cut, either. And why would it?

What are you talking about? SCH current meta is devoting as many AF as possible to pathetic 100 potency Energy Drains. Without AF, SCH would still work just fine. It still has an abundance of healing tools that can clear every encounter in the game right now. Again, the current design meta for SCH is "use no AF on heals". The only question would be if its slightly lower potency would make it unable to deal enough damage to clear content...and the answer would be yes, since ED is a pretty pathetic amount of increased potency on the whole that only makes the difference in cases of massive DPS player messups that bring Enrage that close to the wire.

Imagine, for a moment, any other healer with 2400 (or 1200n) less mobile curative ppm and 930 less offensive ppm.

That's oddly specific and not at all comparable to "remove this one set of mechanics from the Job and watch it be entirely non-viable".

None of them would survive that. I'm not sure why we're treating this as something WHM-specific.

As noted: Because it is WHM specific. WHM is a Job that seems designed for a different game, because it was. So was SCH, but it was originally designed as a more mobile support healer with oGCD focus to aid the main healer (WHM) while chiefly focusing on dealing damage. As this is more or less what FFXIV's combat system has become, SCH slots into it pretty well other than a little jank related to pet AI and snapshotting stuff.

FFXIV encounter design in general doesn't match the Healer design, but in the case of the other Healers, this is muted because they don't have as much raw healing (that becomes even more useless overhealing), they have more mitigation and mobility (what FFXIV encounters actually care about now), and their kits are focused on oGCD healing to augment fairly mobile damage dealing. They also aren't perfect with FFXIV's encounter design, but WHM is the outlier and the biggest sore showing the disconnect between the two.

[Shurrikhan]

That's oddly specific and not at all comparable to "remove this one set of mechanics from the Job and watch it be entirely non-viable".

But that's what you're asking for there. You're asking for the removal of 3 uses per minute of 800 ST or 400 AoE free cure potency per minute. That'd be huge... on anyone.

Yes, that much happens to be stored in one mechanic on WHM, but strip Fairy skills from SCH, Kardia from SGE, etc., and... no shit, it's going to be a lot. Because they're supposed to be. It's why their core elements.

What are you talking about? SCH current meta is devoting as many AF as possible to pathetic 100 potency Energy Drains. Without AF, SCH would still work just fine. It still has an abundance of healing tools that can clear every encounter in the game right now. Again, the current design meta for SCH is "use no AF on heals".

Sorry, yes, fairy skills would be the more apt comparison for healing output.

Regardless, though, without that extra 300 potency per minute, it wouldn't likely be hard meta. And it's only even able to waste the healing potential of all its AF, anyways, because healing requirements in general are so low. That is the core issue.

So we've got a litmus test healer that tells us the modern condition has gone basic-bitch; shouldn't we be addressing the condition, then, rather than just going straight to homogenizing that healer / ignoring whatever that test tells us? The more we roll over with/to the problem, the less we can contest it in the future.

[Renathras]

But that's what you're asking for there. You're asking for the removal of 3 uses per minute of 800 ST or 400 AoE free cure potency per minute. That'd be huge... on anyone.

No, I'm not asking for that. I'd hate that. I'm pointing out that Lilies are a crutch that is the only way WHM is currently viable, much like Triplecast and SEVERAL instant casts like Xenoglossy and Thundercloud are for BLM. Again, remove SCH's Aetherflow and you've removed Incom, Soil, Excog/Lustrate (which SCH players frequently ignore to cast ED anyway), but they still have ample healing somehow because their other non-"on CD" use healing is more than adequate for most encounters. If a SCH has to move, even ignoring AF, they have Blessing, Dawn, Embrace casts, Aetherpact, Seraph/Consolation x2, and the Embrace casts are happening all the time passively. SGE is in a similar boat, having Panhaima/Haima, Holos, and Physis on a really short CD, as well as constant Kardia healing going out with every damage cast AND they can cast Eukrasia Prognosis/Diagnosis while moving AT ANY TIME, and they have pretty good MP economy allowing somewhat liberal use of those tools. They also have frequent access to Icarus allowing them to stand and hardcast something if they wanted to (though they really have no need) and still move in time. AST I don't know as well, but I believe it also has a lot of healing options that can be used while moving.

Note that with WHM, it's not JUST healing, either; Lilies also contribute to its damage via Misery (in buff windows, this is a DPS increase on a Healing Job that doesn't have any party buffs, so its "selfish damage" is important), but ALSO is an MP management tool. WHM needs to use four lilies a minute. Recall before 6.1 that it was MP negative over the course of encounters because Misery was a DPS loss so people were using Lilies only if they had to and instead chadding on their co-healer to actually do most of the encounter healing. Making Misery damage neutral was the equivalent of giving WHM 1600 MP per minute.

Lilies are entirely essential for WHM to be viable because of how much is tied up in them. On demand movement, on demand healing (Rapture can be boosted with Plenary), "selfish DPS" essential damage, and MP economy. And unlike Faerie abilities or Kardia, WHM does not get Lilies at level 4. It's not just a "core element" (which is added half-way into the leveling process...), it's an ESSENTIAL element. SGE without Kardia would still work. SCH without Aetherflow would still work. SCH without Eos would probably still work as well, btw. WHM without Lilies would NOT work in FFXIV's current encounter design system.

Sorry, yes, fairy skills would be the more apt comparison for healing output.

And again, doesn't matter; SCH without Faerie Skills would still be fully capable of healing in the current game using Aetherflow augmented by its non-Faerie skills like Recitation, Deployment Tactics, Emergency Tactics, Expedient, Protraction, and also still bringing Chain Strategem to the table for the party. SCH is not so dependent on any one thing to be functional since it has a lot of functionality across its skills. It's why I've said before that SCH doesn't really have a lot of fat to trim since all of its skills ARE useful (albeit generally overkill; you can make Spreadlo shields so strong that many attacks in the game won't even scratch the party, and if you add Consolation and mitigation on top of that, it's entirely possible to have "ultimate" attacks land with no party members taking actual damage to their health bars), and was designed around the concept of oGCD healing in the first place. Far moreso than WHM, anyway. And it has carried those traits forward to the modern game.

Likewise, SGE without Kardia could heal just fine. Even if you took away its oGCD heals, SGE with Eukrasia has the most mobile GCD heals in the game. Where WHM has 3 Lilies, SGE can keep casting Eukrasia heals until it runs out of MP, which is at the VERY least 11 Eukrasia Prognoses in a row, possibly 12, roughly three times what WHM can do with Rapture. "But WHM has Plenary to boost that!" and SGE has Zoe. It also gets a healing boost from Physis II if it wants (Krasus if we're talking single target), or a damage reduction from Holos or Kerachole.

And recall in 6.0 when Lilies WEREN'T damage neutral how WHM was far and away the worst Healer for raiding. It had to chad on its co-healers or tank its damage, and unlike SCH and especially AST, it didn't boost its party damage to make up for this. Without that 1600 free MP from Lilies per minute, it was in an MP deficit over long fights even if it wasn't having to cast any GCD heals. It was far and away the worst Healer and the most non-Meta pick in 6.0, and it was so bad, it was one of the fastest times SE has actually addressed a Healer issue in the game's history, something that people like Semi and so on can attest is...not a common thing for them to address quickly.

We know how bad WHM would be in current encounter design without Lilies since we got a partial taste of that in 6.0 (that wasn't even the full taste) and it was already bad.

That.
Said:

...because healing requirements in general are so low. That is the core issue.

Agreed.

So we've got a litmus test healer that tells us the modern condition has gone basic-bitch; shouldn't we be addressing the condition, then, rather than just going straight to homogenizing that healer / ignoring whatever that test tells us? The more we roll over with/to the problem, the less we can contest it in the future.

I am.

I'm consistently ragging on encounter design in this game. That's what I'm doing right now by pointing out the problem of ARPG movement heavy fights in a tab target, hardcast game like FFXIV. The reason SMN is what it is and RDM and BLM and all the Healers have become so mobile is because the game is now designed such that Jobs without mobility CANNOT execute mechanics in current encounter design.

I do see that as a problem.

My solution is that encounter designs need to be re-designed more akin to the way they were earlier in FFXIV's history when twitch movement at home in a FPS or APRG was not the order of the day for solutions to most of the game's mechanics.

Some others may be arguing for something else, but then you should be addressing them in your post, not me.

[Aravell]

I want to point out that removing Aetherflow will absolutely cripple SCH.

If you remove Aetherflow and all associated abilities, you lose value on Recitation because you can only use it on Succor/Adlo, no Indom, no Excog. You'd turn SCH into a healer that can only chad their co-healer because they bring barely any free healing to the table. Removing Aetherflow also turns SCH very quickly MP-negative, you'd want to avoid casting Succor even more than you already do now, which is kind of a problem, because Succor is your only method of reliably blocking damage now because every mitigation you have now is on a 2 minute timer, because removing Aetherflow also removed Sacred Soil.

[fulminating]

There’s 3 lily buttons; st, wide and angry. Beyond that there’s several free heals and things - bene, temperance, divine venison, aquaveil, bell to name the ones that first sprang to mind.
Scholar has more aetherflow buttons: aetherflow (mp generator), energy drain, lustrate, soil, indom, dissipation(partial), excog, aetherpact (indirect- no aetherflow means no gauge), recitation(partial), formerly fey blessing (gauge). None aetherflow buttons are: physick, succor, adlo, whispering dawn, illumination, deployment & emergency tactics, summon seraph, protraction.

This is to highlight just how integral aetherflow is as a mechanic to scholar with roughly an equal number of buttons being tied to it as not. This is of course in a vacuum. When you look at which are frequently pressed - or able to be based on cooldown - there is a noticeable bias towards the aetherflow things.

[Renathras]

Oh, so we're doing THIS again.

Nope. I'm gonna bow out.

Semi, they're all yours.

[SenahPanipahr]

I'm not confident that debating to such a level of minutiae necessarily helps with this particular topic anyway, as the problem isn't needing a few abilities tweaked or removed, but a general issue with how Healer jobs are designed, the homogenisation of the role as a result, and how poorly it all fits with historic and current encounter design. (Unless I'm misunderstanding something, I thought most people here were on the same page as far as that all is concerned.)

[Renathras]

I'm not confident that debating to such a level of minutiae necessarily helps with this particular topic anyway, as the problem isn't needing a few abilities tweaked or removed, but a general issue with how Healer jobs are designed, the homogenisation of the role as a result, and how poorly it all fits with historic and current encounter design. (Unless I'm misunderstanding something, I thought most people here were on the same page as far as that all is concerned.)

Yes, which is also my point and why I'm consistently surprised how I can state something everyone agrees with but people want to argue about it. [EDIT: That is, people seem to love trying to "prove Ren wrong" even if it's something they agree with the overall concept of and where the minutia argument (a) doesn't prove me wrong - I can present arguments to counter the above, I just see it as pointless, and I'm trying to get better about not legitimizing the derailing and Ren bashing when there's an actual discussion to be had that isn't any of that; and (b) just gets lost in the weeds and derails the discussion away from "we all agree about X, what should be done about it?" into "I have a technical issue with Ren saying Y about X thing we all agree with, so instead of discussing solutions to X, I'm going to try to make him wrong about Y and fail at doing it because he is the white whale" or something. <_< ]

Concur that the issue is encounter design has changed over time to where healer designs that are closer to ARR are less viable, and that there's now a glaring disconnect between Healer kits and encounter design, which has led to a lot of shoehorning and a lot of homogenization. [EDIT: My point related to WHM and Lilies, as well as BLM and post-SB additions to the Job, are both cases of said shoehorning and was the entire point of me pointing out how WHM wouldn't work in current encounter design without them because it wouldn't have that mobility and mobile healing. It's had to be shoehorned to fit into the current encounter design at all. Even if we submit that SCH needs Aetherflow to be viable (we do not, but let's pretend), SCH had AF and all of those abilities since at latest SB, and they work just fine in EW, whereas WHM hardcasting Medica 2 or chain casting Cure 2 - both things that were viable at various times in the game's history - in EW era high movement fights, does not work without a Swiftcast and a huge chunk of MP that isn't sustainable.]

The obvious solutions are to roll back encounter designs, change Healer kits, or a hybrid solution of doing both. There may also be further solutions, but those three seem obvious from the jump.

[vetch]

Yes, which is also my point and why I'm consistently surprised how I can state something everyone agrees with but people want to argue about it.

Unironically, skill issue. You have, or had, an annoying habit of trying to shortcut people into agreeing with your conclusions once they agree with you on minutiae, so now everyone avoids agreeing with you on minutiae the same way a wolf won't step into a snare twice.

The obvious solutions are to roll back encounter designs, change Healer kits, or a hybrid solution of doing both.

I hope it's the first one. Trying to shoehorn a 'magical spellcaster healer' into an action RPG framework with constant movement is conceptually loathsome.

[Shurrikhan]

Yes, which is also my point and why I'm consistently surprised how I can state something everyone agrees with but people want to argue about it. [EDIT: That is, people seem to love trying to "prove Ren wrong" even if it's something they agree with the overall concept of and where the minutia argument (a) doesn't prove me wrong - I can present arguments to counter the above, I just see it as pointless, and I'm trying to get better about not legitimizing the derailing and Ren bashing when there's an actual discussion to be had that isn't any of that; and (b) just gets lost in the weeds and derails the discussion away from "we all agree about X, what should be done about it?" into "I have a technical issue with Ren saying Y about X thing we all agree with, so instead of discussing solutions to X, I'm going to try to make him wrong about Y and fail at doing it because he is the white whale" or something. <_< ]

If agreement on particulars is coincidental to disagreement on the warrants themselves, then no, it's not an overall agreement.

And since you've frequently shifted goalposts surrounding or made conclusions based on conflations about particulars or chain logical steps beyond their purchase ('PLD changes were largely considered a net positive, so everyone must surely like every part of the PLD changes, thus they must have hated DoTs on PLD, which implies that the SMN changes also were an unmitigated good') for instance, no shit, your minutia gets checked.



As for my overall stance on the relevant topic:

My personal preference is for a bit more melee movement requirements and constraints than are present currently, and slightly to faintly less caster movement requirements (in terms of how they affect in practice %uptime a couple thoughtful runs in) than are present currently, but I see absolutely nothing wrong with a Caster leveraging infrequently available spells or modifiers to nonetheless keep a high amount (or, %uptime) of actual casts, even in today's context. I do not consider that "shoe-horning" so much as simply additional room for skill-expression, which we already overly lack across most of the game.*

I much prefer we keep that room for skill expression, of casts on casters, melee being an actually limited range, etc., over further reducing all towards a lowest denominator of available optimization.



Of course, personally, my preference regarding something like BLM would be to make it slightly less reliant on Triplecast and Swiftcast, sure, but not by giving it numerous free instant-casts; instead, I'd simply decrease the relative cost of shorter AF strings slightly by siphoning a bit more potency towards pre-falloff Flare and later Despair and removing the 30% damage decrease on using Ice from AF3 or Fire from UI3. And, for the sake of leveling improvements and a more intuitive mechanic, I'd likely change most of the stat bonuses from their current awkward mess, wherein some effects are null until AF3/UI3, others maxed immediately, and none increase linearly (see that links above) to just 25% per stack.

But that the caster actually hard-casts... is totally fine. That it has some CDs discretely meant to help with that, so long as the kit isn't too thereby bloated (and I don't believe any case for trimming Triplecast as a "shoehorning" or "bloat" ability could be made as long as BLM's elemental pairings --F4<>B4, Flare<>Freeze, etc.-- remain on separate keys)... is likewise totally fine.



*Admittedly, room for skill expression is a nebulous topic, because the relative value of optimizations are zero-sum. The more the reward for always completing one's combo, the less there's a space for the potential reward of, say, clipping a combo early so that one can Chaos Thrust an add (that'd live for less than CT's 24 seconds, if all goes well) instantly upon its spawn. The larger the bonus in, say, Lance Mastery II (+100 potency on Move-5 of either combo), the less room there is to make decisions between where to end a combo (in that earlier hypothetical), but too little and there'd be no use case for Life Surge outside of Full Thrust. The larger the reward for hitting within raid buffs everything that can reasonably be banked for raid buffs, the less room there is for alternate functions of the skills used therein and the lower the relative value of optime optimization, positionals, or rotating correctly in any other respects. Etc., etc.