I have to rant about AST cards

[ty_taurus]

Because the sad truth is that dmg is the only thing that matters.

All those other choices would just be worse options compared to getting dmg card.

But you can separate them into different draw commands. Have 3 cards that fill the offensive deck, and 3 that fill the utility deck. Your normally use your offensive cards, but when you want mitigation, extra healing, or utility, you draw from the other deck as well. They are separate cooldowns.

[vetch]

Because the sad truth is that dmg is the only thing that matters.

All those other choices would just be worse options compared to getting dmg card.

It's worth pointing out that even if they don't challenge the 'DPS > all' paradigm, you can make each card do damage but feel different and want different decision-making.

For example, if we stipulate that each card has to be able to do 1000 potency to a primary target, one card might have a damage aura that hits adjacent targets over a 15s duration, another might add 250-potency multi-hits to the next four auto-attacks, while a third card might cause the next 10 enemy auto-attacks against its bearer to receive 100 potency in thorns damage.

These all deal damage, but want to go on different targets in different situations. It's pretty easy to come up with six of them. The UI can pop the numbers up on the buff target's screen too, so that they get the awe factor of seeing their buffer bless them with more number. They're also all more useful when soloing than the current 3/6% buff cards are when applied to Astro's appalling personal damage.

[ForsakenRoe]

It's worth pointing out that even if they don't challenge the 'DPS > all' paradigm, you can make each card do damage but feel different and want different decision-making.

For example, if we stipulate that each card has to be able to do 1000 potency to a primary target, one card might have a damage aura that hits adjacent targets over a 15s duration, another might add 250-potency multi-hits to the next four auto-attacks, while a third card might cause the next 10 enemy auto-attacks against its bearer to receive 100 potency in thorns damage.

These all deal damage, but want to go on different targets in different situations. It's pretty easy to come up with six of them. The UI can pop the numbers up on the buff target's screen too, so that they get the awe factor of seeing their buffer bless them with more number. They're also all more useful when soloing than the current 3/6% buff cards are when applied to Astro's appalling personal damage.

Sounds familiar /s

But on a serious note, yes exactly. In the above, I had looked at one of the top speedkills at the time, and seen that the SAM in the group pulled 18k damage (not DPS, not potency, 18k 'points of damage removed from the boss' HP bar'), attributed to the card itself (ie, it wasn't because card + div + embolden + litany + dragon sight). So, with '18k because of 6%' being the value, it can be refactored to 'each 1% from the card is giving him 3000 extra points of damage'. So then I worked around having the cards be 10% (like ye olde days), and used 30000 damage as the metric by which to balance them.

All of which is to say, if all the cards contribute the same amount of damage, but in unique ways, then we can have unique card effects as the 'bonus' on top. For example, you say 'reflect damage' as one of the sources. So do I! In fact, we can stick it on Bole, the card that used to go to tanks for being damage mitigation, and balance it's damage output such that it's equal with the other cards despite being on a tank. Then, 'as a bonus', we can have the Mit effect return, so it feels good for the AST to use it on the tank. Some people will view it as 'I put it on the tank for the damage, the mit is just a bonus' and some will view it as 'the mit was the main goal, the damage is just a bonus'. Either way, the player is incentivized to consider how the card functions, and play it on the role that it's most relevant to.

Good call on the UI showing the source of the bonus damage. Let me MSPaint out a theoretical solution (which could be disabled/customized via options, if implemented):

As we can see in the above picture, there are 4 'streams' of floating text (I turned off the purple 'DOT ticks and all party members' one because it's unreadable). We could have an option, then, which allows the player to have AST's cards be considered a separate number. The question is, where would it be best to place said text? I believe it best to put in the 'healing received' stream of text, along with 'Brutal Shell 3900', as a different color, customizeable in options (or turned off). Additionally, we don't need to have the text telling us the name of the effect, we could instead just have the buff icon to the side of the number. So it'd be more like...:



Fonts are enlarged for visual clarity in the example, they're smaller/not bolded in game. Customization options for the UI element added (the purple text here) would be color of the text, whether to show the icons or not (if not, just a regular number appears. Like an autoattack, with no damage typing symbol next to it), or to disable the values from appearing entirely. For ASTs, when the damage due to their cards is triggered, the effect would appear in their floating text at the same time as the card target's, in the same place, but respecting the AST's UI options (meaning, if the GNB has their 'buff numbers' turned off, and the AST has them on, the GNB won't see them, but the AST will).

Alternatively, the 'purple text' could go in the 'damage dealt' text stream, along with the Brutal Shell crit we're dealing to the enemy in this example. Might get a bit cluttered up there during burst windows, though, and obscure gameplay/hide boss model (so you can't see a model-based telegraph like 'it raised it's left hand for a slam' for example). Especially, for example, as a Monk, who would have GCDs, Autoattacks, extra Autoattacks from Riddle of Wind, and even more Autoattacks from a reworked Arrow

The AST's card effect is split from the rest of the buffs (div, litany, step) on purpose, because it's more like an attack than a standard buff. Perhaps options could be deep enough so that you could eg 'show only AST card effects, but not all other buffs'

[ty_taurus]

Good call on the UI showing the source of the bonus damage. Let me MSPaint out a theoretical solution (which could be disabled/customized via options, if implemented):

While we're on this topic, I would really appreciate a revamping of the combat UI. The numbers font is very unflattering and difficult to parse at a glance. Having something more clean would help make adding more detail and information to that UI easier to process if the numbers didn't have a bunch of different heights for each integer.

[ForsakenRoe]

While we're on this topic, I would really appreciate a revamping of the combat UI. The numbers font is very unflattering and difficult to parse at a glance. Having something more clean would help make adding more detail and information to that UI easier to process if the numbers didn't have a bunch of different heights for each integer.

I think that stems from them doing like, what we do with letters. The 3 in the picture hangs down like a 'g' and the 6 sticks up off the top like a 'P'. If they equalized the position of all the numbers to be equal to how the 6 currently lies, then elongated certain numbers so the height matched (turning o into 0 for example, or lengthening the... I, why is that an I and not a 1), maybe that'd help. You can see in the MSPaint example, all of the digits are of equal height. We can still have a non-Calibri font to keep the 'style' or 'flair' of the game though, and doing this would also give a standardized height in pixels for the 'buff icon' to match with, and a relative position to align to

Related, I'm not actually sure if we can move the 'text streams' position on the screen. I looked, but couldn't find anything that'd let me move them about, which is rather annoying

[Post]

I think it's worth pointing out that even when WHM wasn't as OP as SCH in ARR, AST in 3.4+ HW, or really special at all in 4.x, most players still played WHM for whatever variety of factors, be that ease of use, accessible from level 1 or classic FF nostalgia.

This was fine. WHM was *never* in a position where it could not complete content, like AST in early HW. I think the imbalance in performance is natural, especially if they insist that only half the jobs in the role can contribute to the meta 2 min group buffs (no tanks have been able to directly buff another job's damage since 5.0). It was always viable.

But, near balance in playstyle is the problem, because that's where the homogeny hurts the players.

Their 'play any job you want' system is at its most broadly appealing when each job within a role manages to do this:

Viable in performance, diverse in gameplay.

[ty_taurus]

I think it's worth pointing out that even when WHM wasn't as OP as SCH in ARR, AST in 3.4+ HW, or really special at all in 4.x, most players still played WHM for whatever variety of factors, be that ease of use, accessible from level 1 or classic FF nostalgia.

This was fine. WHM was *never* in a position where it could not complete content, like AST in early HW. I think the imbalance in performance is natural, especially if they insist that only half the jobs in the role can contribute to the meta 2 min group buffs (no tanks have been able to directly buff another job's damage since 5.0). It was always viable.

But, near balance in playstyle is the problem, because that's where the homogeny hurts the players.

Their 'play any job you want' system is at its most broadly appealing when each job within a role manages to do this:

Viable in performance, diverse in gameplay.

I don't think there's anything wrong with there being a meta job choice for savage content as long as every job is at least viable, as you state. However, one of the problems I have with white mage is that even though it's viable, it has historically struggled to actually offer any sort of advantage over astrologian or scholar. Every job should at least offer something it does that other jobs of the same role cannot. Scholar has Expedient now, which means no matter what the balance between it and the other healers looks like, it will always offer something of tangible value.

White mage is just easier astrologian, but worse in every meaningful way in terms of performance. It also suffers from having exactly one form of mitigation in the mitigation meta which sits on a two minute cooldown. It needs to get something that gives it some sort of independent value. I've suggested Float before, a party buff that makes everyone immune to floor damage and puddle AoEs. It's more niche than Expedient, but would allow you to do things like cross the gaps between the platforms in P10 without taking damage (which is lethal in savage). It would allow white mage to be the only healer that could solve certain mistakes in that fight as well, something astrologian was allowed to do during P3S, and something scholar gets to do to a lesser degree but in nearly every fight.

[Semirhage]

I don't think there's anything wrong with there being a meta job choice for savage content as long as every job is at least viable, as you state. However, one of the problems I have with white mage is that even though it's viable, it has historically struggled to actually offer any sort of advantage over astrologian or scholar. Every job should at least offer something it does that other jobs of the same role cannot. Scholar has Expedient now, which means no matter what the balance between it and the other healers looks like, it will always offer something of tangible value.

White mage is just easier astrologian, but worse in every meaningful way in terms of performance. It also suffers from having exactly one form of mitigation in the mitigation meta which sits on a two minute cooldown. It needs to get something that gives it some sort of independent value. I've suggested Float before, a party buff that makes everyone immune to floor damage and puddle AoEs. It's more niche than Expedient, but would allow you to do things like cross the gaps between the platforms in P10 without taking damage (which is lethal in savage). It would allow white mage to be the only healer that could solve certain mistakes in that fight as well, something astrologian was allowed to do during P3S, and something scholar gets to do to a lesser degree but in nearly every fight.

This. 100%. The problems I have with WHM's design are many, but this one is particularly deep-rooted. WHM is stuck in this craptastic place where it has no material advantages. It offers nothing the other healers don't already (or that they don't do better). The other healers have utility WHM couldn't even hope to offer. A combat sprint? Hell no, that has to go on one of the healers that can -already- do everything and more. If it's never allowed to stand out in any way, it'll be forever limping along in the state it's pretty much always been in: "It can clear content I guess".

It's why I'm always wary of the "just revert to Stormblood! It'll be fine with some tweaks! Screw balance, make things fun instead!" take. Yeah, we all know exactly how that's going to turn out. A forever-meta where two specific jobs are always superior to their competition, and the only remaining slider is how *much* better.

Yes yes, there will always be a meta, that's just how math works. FF14's healer meta is SO stagnant though. WHM's design constraints pretty much define it as "the stupid shitty one that sucks and is for people who are bad at healing and has no utility or gimmicks or uniqueness". I can tell you right now exactly what the healer meta in Dawntrail is going to be. AST/SCH. Maybe SGE for a patch. Why? Because it's always AST/SCH. Because their competition is designed to be "me, but with a hole carved out of the utility portion of the kit replaced with nothing". Wait why is the class I just defined as strictly worse not competitive? A mystery for the ages.

[Supersnow845]

The other problem with WHM is even in the era of ShB stagnant healing WHM more than anything they just seem to have absolutely no idea what to do with when they give it new skills

HW WHM got 4 skills added that were unique WHM level up skills (assize, asylum, tetra and aero 3), the first three were amazing balances to WHM’s overtly high GCD focused healing that cost them a lot of mana and the latter was a good counter to the fact SCH basically used to be a DPS with respect to dungeon damage (note here SCH also got really good balanced skills in HW like indom to counter the fact SCH only had whispering dawn and succor in 2.0 for AOE healing)

Then we hit 4.0 and for some reason square enix decided to introduce the lily system, I’m not going to go into detail again about the lily system in stormblood other than to say I legit have no idea who the hell ever signed off on that trash fire but otherwise the other main skill WHM got was the incredibly unwieldy old plenary indulgence which used to be a nightmare to use

Then we get to 5.0 and WHM as a whole doesn’t actually change much except the lily system, by 5.0 the “juggle your few oGCD’s and otherwise GCD heal” meta of 2.0 and early 3.0 is long gone in favour of the current oGCD meta, knowing this square enix decides to change the lily system to being GCD heals that lose the player damage, plus again it’s only real new skill is temperance which is just functionally divine seal, they didn’t change this till WHM hit early 6.0 where it had every factor working against it


So WHM at its best design is “well it works” but far more than any other healer WHM continues to get updates that represent 2 things

1) square enix either still doesn’t understand how the healer meta works and continues to design skills that seem to be focused around the idea that healers cure 1 spam in their downtime
2) these updates take way too long to be fixed and in the meantime put WHM in the trash bin for an expansion

I still cannot figure out why square gives it’s worst updates to WHM (you can’t honestly tell me anyone thought SB lilies would actually work as a system) but also refuses to give it anything that straight up works and instead continues to waste their development budget on WHM by fixing the problems they keep giving it, in general I don’t like every 10 levels getting a massive capstone heal that has no downsides (in fact I like SCH’s 3 capstone skills at 60, 70 and 80 for this fact of actually having downsides) but for gods sake give WHM something only they have and can rely on in every fight that will always have a use (like expedient, panhaima or macrocosmos) so people have a reason to pick WHM and stop wasting development time on dodgy systems that make no sense

[Semirhage]

-snip-

Someone around here once said that WHM's biggest problem was that its design is an expansion behind. I'd say by this point it's almost two. If WHM were at this point in Stormblood (plus Aero 3), it'd be...ehhh, alright. I still hate how backasswards lilies are designed, but alright. We've had two expansions worth of tools added to healers since then, catch up.