A question for SCH mains and enjoyers

[Aravell]

I'm not accusing you of foul play here (I understand how hard it is to find some specific thing in another thread), but I think the three points above are the crux of it. Given how much I DO reply, and given we can't find the posts to verify, the logical interpretation is PROBABLY that I didn't see them or was away for the time you asked them. If you think of them again in the future, open invitation, ask me any time and I'll try to give you an answer.

Fair?

That's fair enough. The most recent question I asked you is now buried in a thread somewhere in general discussion, you probably know how much of a mess that place is now, so it's going to be a pain to find. I can't even remember which thread the other 3 are in anymore.

[ForsakenRoe]

Two people say something roughly aligned (Ren posts all these threads hoping healer opinion has somehow shifted), and we're told 'see, echo chamber'

And then immediately after, quotes someone disagreeing with those two/kinda taking Ren's side, going against the just-established 'echo chamber' line, and crickets, silence, nada. ????

[Supersnow845]

Has anyone here who doesn’t like current healing ever said that there should be no compromise and that all the healers need to be changed or are you just conflating totally different issues

For example let’s say we changed 3 healers and left 1 in its mostly current form, the two most likely candidates to be left alone are the regen healers, WHM is the games baby healer for better or for worse and AST while I think it’s clunky can be argued has a somewhat interesting DPS expression system

Now let’s say in thread 1 I say “yeah sure we can leave WHM mostly alone for people who like current healers” then in thread 2 I say “I think despite misery being a patchwork fix lilies just do not fix 14’s healing style” that is not me going back on my first point, that is me presenting my opinion on x job when the discussion focuses on y thing

I’ve never been opposed to jobs being left in their current form, hell current WHM is functionally 4.0 WHM anyway on a difficulty level, is anyone really asking for 4 HW SCH’s

So again I’ll say just because I rag on each healer individually when it comes up in conversation does not mean that I’m opposed to one or two staying roughly the same

Do I need to spell this out every time I have an opinion about a healer

[ForsakenRoe]

So again I’ll say just because I rag on each healer individually when it comes up in conversation does not mean that I’m opposed to one or two staying roughly the same

Do I need to spell this out every time I have an opinion about a healer

The issue is, different people have different opinions on what 'roughly the same' translates to. I, for example, would posit that my suggested WHM would be 'roughly the same', given that it retains it's position as 'the simple, strong throughput healer'. Ren argues that it's not 'roughly the same' because I shortened Dia and added a new damage GCD. We're both 'right' and 'wrong' because there's no distinct line in the sand where a job's changes pile up to total 'no longer roughly the same', no magical tipping point where 'two abilities added is still 'roughly the same', oh but a third ability? now it's completely unrecognizable!'

My 'compromise' has already come pre-applied to my designs, nobody got to see the 'non-compromise' versions. I'm fine with WHM remaining 'the more simple to execute' healer re: getting it's healing out. I take issue with the idea that it's damage should be subject to the same lack of skill ceiling to strive for. And apparently, if anyone dares to have a similar stance as me, that means we're an echo chamber

[IDontPetLalas]

Has anyone here who doesn’t like current healing ever said that there should be no compromise and that all the healers need to be changed or are you just conflating totally different issues

For example let’s say we changed 3 healers and left 1 in its mostly current form, the two most likely candidates to be left alone are the regen healers, WHM is the games baby healer for better or for worse and AST while I think it’s clunky can be argued has a somewhat interesting DPS expression system

Now let’s say in thread 1 I say “yeah sure we can leave WHM mostly alone for people who like current healers” then in thread 2 I say “I think despite misery being a patchwork fix lilies just do not fix 14’s healing style” that is not me going back on my first point, that is me presenting my opinion on x job when the discussion focuses on y thing

I’ve never been opposed to jobs being left in their current form, hell current WHM is functionally 4.0 WHM anyway on a difficulty level, is anyone really asking for 4 HW SCH’s

So again I’ll say just because I rag on each healer individually when it comes up in conversation does not mean that I’m opposed to one or two staying roughly the same

Do I need to spell this out every time I have an opinion about a healer

To be fair, there has been far more discussion and arguments m some of which were made in favour of modifying all of the healers and not leaving one "as-is". I'm not going to even try to summarize all of the past threads and posts (of which there have been many), some of which ( I would say a minority) - but argued in favour of leaving one alone.

A caveat- those were lengthy discussions, that's what I recall. Incidentally I would not say that "AST has an interesting DPS expression system", I don't consider spamming malefic that interesting, and the card system is currently not well designed in some aspects.

[Renathras]

Has anyone here who doesn’t like current healing ever said that there should be no compromise and that all the healers need to be changed or are you just conflating totally different issues

Ty has outright said all Healers must be changed, not even one can remain. He also opposed the idea of adding a new healer with the current paradigm while changing the existing four so that a person who likes healing now could "shelter" under the new healer. (That discussion in particular went hairy because of confusion over it being a Class or a Job, since we know classes in FFXIV aren't full Jobs, but he seemed not to like the idea of there being a healer Job that might have an aesthetic he'd like to play that doesn't exist in the changed/more complex state).

Semi has also insisted that they must all be changed (or specifically that WHM can't be "left behind"), and frequently used the argument like Ty that we have to change them all to be complex since someone might like one aesthetic and would be upset if it was "the simple one" and they wanted the complex playstyle (completely disregarding that the people who prefer the simple play style would not have any option at all). Semi is...quite...vehement about this, so if she sees you suggesting it, you'll likely get an earful.

Shurrikhan has made a similar argument to the aesthetic one, too, most recently about Ranged physical, but when I tried to make the connection to Healer and infer that means we shouldn't change all of them, brushed me off. [EDIT to add applicable quote:

I doesn't matter who speaks it. I didn't care for it any more when Misshapen Chair first brought it up, before you co-opted it. I'm not going to care any more for telling 1-2 jobs to f off and be the sacrificial lamb now.

Askellington and Rein_eon_Osborne have both said that not changing one of the healers would be a punishment to whichever was left unchanged, and refused to see that someone like me sees the change as the punishment, not the being left unchanged.

Roe has called it garbage design that shouldn't be allowed to stay. (As she says in her reply to you, she thinks her changes would be "roughly the same", but that's "the same in the sense of still being the easiest" not "the same as in not being changed". Kind of like saying giving WAR two DoTs would still be "the same" since it would still probably be the easiest tank; objectively, that's not the same, her "roughly" is a pretty big approximation.)

Sebezy is a bit more muted, but seems to also hold that they should all be changed, but doesn't engage in these discussions as much. Fulminating and Nizzi are kind of in this camp as well in they also seem to oppose leaving any healers the same. I think IDontPetLalas may be in this same group, I can't remember any specific time she made the above arguments instead, but she's been consistent in disagreeing with me when I bring things like this up, so I THINK she's opposed to it as well?

Two people say something roughly aligned (Ren posts all these threads hoping healer opinion has somehow shifted), and we're told 'see, echo chamber'

You realize that's not why I called this place an echo chamber? I've been calling it that for months, not in reaction to just those two posts. And I'm not even sure I was the one that brought up "echo chamber" in this thread. I think Aravell did...

Regardless, I think it's been pretty consistent here that every time I've brought it up, I've been told we can't do that. Until today, with Deo and now you, I've never seen any other poster here support the idea, and I've been shot down/opposed whenever I propose it.

For example let’s say we changed 3 healers and left 1 in its mostly current form,

WHM and SGE. WHM because it starts at level 1, has a more or less similar playstyle to what it has for the game's entire history absent HW (even in ARR it was played much like today except for very top end 2nd Coils healing, as Sebezy can attest where it was pushed to the limit there and a lot more Cleric and damage was used), and is, as Misshapen Chair (a video I often link on this topic that makes this exact same point: https://youtu.be/sbWubxOTUWU?t=676

The other that would make sense to me would be SGE. While a BIT more complex, the thing it has going for it is it was introduced this way, meaning there's no "lost glory days" effect. That is, many WHMs want Aero 3 and possibly Cleric Stance back; some SGEs want SB DoTs or ARR DoTs back, or the old Eos where you could macro her abilities and such; most ASTs seem to want the old cards and hyper-oGCD stuff to weave and manipulate those like old Sleeve Draw, Royal Road, and Time Dilation. SGE is also the most DPS focused of the Healers right NOW, so there's an argument for SGE being the one to remain as it is. Btw, this is the one in particular Ty hates me mentioning; not to keep mentioning him, but SGE is his favorite of the archetypes, and he points out - rightly, I think - that SGE's lore supports the idea of a more complex healer, both in how controlling nouliths is described as very challenging to master and that unlike the other "give you healing aether" WHM/SCH or "turn back the clock/fate and rewind a bit of time to before you were wounded" AST, SGE is a doctor, their lore describing them being knowledgeable of both magic AND Human anatomy. Meaning they are using a much more technical form of healing, and their nouliths (an advancement from ancient aether-infused rocks that were used as early magic wands) are delivering healing precisely to where the wounds are in the precise way to heal them.

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In any case, I've posted this a number of times, and am kinda shocked seeing two people in one day seemingly on board with what I've been arguing for months.

To be fair, there has been far more discussion and arguments m some of which were made in favour of modifying all of the healers and not leaving one "as-is".

This. Though "some" means "all that weren't started by Ren", as I've thus far been the only person here to seriously propose and champion the "4 Healers Model" idea.

The "some of which" referred to in favor of leaving one alone were all me, I believe. Originally, it was leave 2 alone - one each of Pure and Barrier, with my proposals being WHM and SGE or WHM and SCH (there is something to be said for SCH/SMN being "entry" Jobs on one class for people that are turbo-casuals to have both together as opposed to one being super simple and the other being super complex). I eventually trimmed this down (the word "compromise" comes to mind) to just one. ANY one. I even said once AST could be the one to not change if that was allowed, the one Healer Job currently that I don't like and don't play. That I would change to that one if even just it could be left alone. I was willing to give up the three I play (AST is the one I don't) for one to stay the same, thinking that 25% staying the same and 75% changing was more than fair...and was told to go pound sand. I even made a proposal for SCH for a relatively minor set of changes that would add a bit of rotational complexity while "paying that off" by easing some of the Job's clunk - which doesn't meet the "1 left alone" standard, even.

That last one is the only one that was at all semi-well received (not universal praise, but not universal condemnation) here, though it was not because it was "leave 1 alone" so much as it was "change even this one, and make changes that include another DoT and DPS rotation optimization", so even that doesn't meet the idea.

So until today with you and Deo both, there has been no agreement with "leave 1 alone" in your case and "leave 2 alone" in Deo's.

[ty_taurus]

Ty has outright said all Healers must be changed, not even one can remain. He also opposed the idea of adding a new healer with the current paradigm while changing the existing four so that a person who likes healing now could "shelter" under the new healer. (That discussion in particular went hairy because of confusion over it being a Class or a Job, since we know classes in FFXIV aren't full Jobs, but he seemed not to like the idea of there being a healer Job that might have an aesthetic he'd like to play that doesn't exist in the changed/more complex state).

I like how you went out of your way to explain my stance for me (crudely) but failed to add in that I am entirely in support of reworking a healer to appeal to players who do not want to DPS as healers. You didn't feel like that was an important aspect of my stance to share with the class? I wonder why.

EDIT: Since you hated the idea of repurposing Conjurer because of arbitrary language that actually doesn't affect the game's engine in any functional way, I came up with a better idea just for you. After finishing the level 30 Conjurer questline a new quest unlocks where Syphie hands you her mother's job stone: White Mage (Classic) or WMC. This is an alternative version of White Mage that shares the same level and equipment, but uses a different job stone, similar to Summoner and Scholar. It's based on traditional White Mage spells.

Here's the full level-up list

Here's the final action list at level 100:

Offensive Spells:
Dia (Classic) - Single target damage with a potency of 430. 1.5 second cast. 200 MP. GCD
Holy (Classic) - AoE Damage around target and all enemies nearby the target with a potency of 215. Inflicts Stun for 4 seconds. 1.5 second cast. 400 MP. GCD.

Healing Spells:
Cure (Classic) - Single target healing with a potency of 600. Instant cast. 300 MP. GCD
Cure II (Classic) - AoE heal on target and allies around target with a potency of 400. 1.5 second cast. 600 MP. GCD
Cure III (Classic) - Single target healing with a potency of 1100. Instant cast. 600 MP.
Cure IV (Classic) - AoE heal on target and allies around target with a potency of 600. 1.5 second cast. 800 MP. GCD
Regen (Classic) - Single target healing over time with a potency of 150. Lasts 30 seconds. Instant cast. 600 MP. GCD.
Regen II(Classic) - AoE healing over time on target and allies around target with a potency of 150. Lasts 45 seconds. 1.5 second cast. 1000 MP. GCD
Arise (Classic) - Resurrects target to a weakened state but with full HP. 2400 MP. 8 second cast. GCD.

Mitigation Spells:
Protect - Single target 15% physical mitigation for 20 seconds. Increases the healing magic potency of your next healing spell by 20%. Instant cast. 300 MP. GCD
Protect II - AoE 10% physical mitigation on self and all allies nearby you for 15 seconds. Increases the healing magic potency of your next healing spell by 20%. 600 MP. GCD.
Shell - Single target 15% magical mitigation for 20 seconds. Increases the healing magic potency of your next healing spell by 20%. Instant cast. 300 MP. GCD
Shell II - AoE 10% magical mitigation on self and allies nearby you for 15 seconds. Increases the healing magic potency of your next healing spell by 20%. 600 MP. GCD.

OGCD Abilities:
Pray - AoE heal on self and all nearby allies with a potency of 400. OGCD. 20 second cooldown. 3 Charges.
Renew - Fully restores HP to self and all allies nearby you. OGCD. 120 second cooldown.
Unicorn - Summons a Unicorn at a fixed location that restores HP to all allies within 30 yalms of it every 3 seconds with a potency of 400. Lasts 15 seconds. OGCD. 120 second cooldown.
Charge - Restores 20% of your missing MP. OGGCD. 45 second cooldown.
Silence - Inflicts Silence for 2 seconds. OGCD. 45 second cooldown.
Blind - Inflicts Blind for 15 seconds. OGCD. 45 second cooldown.

There you go, a healer with as much flavor as a plain oatmeal to suit your tastes independent of the current White Mage, but as a separate job, and with the identity and nomenclature you particularly enjoy.

[Renathras]

I like how you went out of your way to explain my stance for me (crudely) but failed to add in that I am entirely in support of reworking a healer to appeal to players who do not want to DPS as healers. You didn't feel like that was an important aspect of my stance to share with the class? I wonder why.

Did I misrepresent your position?

Do you support one healer going forward COMPLETELY unchanged?

I didn't mention there DPS buttons, did I? "said all Healers must be changed, not even one can remain", opposed the idea of adding a new healer with the current paradigm", "not like the idea of there being a healer...that doesn't exist in the changed/more complex state"? As you told me recently, you support changing AST to buffing, non-damage gameplay, but that it must be changed into a more complex state as well, and that no healer should remain in the current state. You cited your work as a game developer (though didn't tell me the game; I'm not the type to doxx or harass anyone, I was just genuinely curious to see a new game I might not have heard of - or might have - I think it's cool you work on game design).

You wonder why? Because I was summarizing a half dozen people's views in an already long post, and you wanting to change AST to be more complex but as a buffer is still you not wanting any healers left as they are. The effort by you is specifically as you say "to appeal to players who do not want to DPS as healers", but NOT to appeal to players that want a healer Job to remain AS IT IS TODAY. You've explicitly told me you don't want any to, and think that would be garbage design. I think I got you to once, in exasperation, say "Fine, do that, we'll watch the healer Job you like fail" (to extremely loosely paraphrase), but you haven't restated that position since nor shown an openness to it.

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Your position is that all Healers must be changed and none can remain exactly as they are today, yes?

You oppose the idea of any new Healers being added that are as the ones today (e.g. if we took WHM, pushed copy then paste, and just changed the spell names and FVX)?

That's what I represented as your stance. It seems I represented it correctly. I'm not sure the problem here. You oppose any healers being left as they are today. Snow was asking if anyone opposed just leaving 1 healer as it is today. You are in that camp of people, hence I mentioned you as such. I'm confused why you think that's a problem?

[ty_taurus]

Did I misrepresent your position?

Do you support one healer going forward COMPLETELY unchanged?

Yes, actually. Particularly the "he seemed not to like the idea of there being a healer Job that might have an aesthetic he'd like to play that doesn't exist in the changed/more complex state)." statement which is not true. I'm not really interested in White Mage, it's just that the current paradigm is a failure and is not worth saving in any regard. There is a way to redesign each healer to ensure that each healer actually has room to engage with the combat system while still having one be very forgiving and easy to pick up for any new or learning healer, still be straightforward in how it approaches healing and damage, all while moving away from mash the filler button until the button disintegrates into a pile of powdered plastic system.

Its your stance of "One healer cannot change in any way, shape, or form at all because I won't like it" that is inflexible. Also I added a personalized second White Mage job in the post above just for you. You could play White Mage (Classic) and have your one-button-fits-all playstyle while everyone else plays regular White Mage: WHM vs WMC.

[Semirhage]

Has anyone here who doesn’t like current healing ever said that there should be no compromise and that all the healers need to be changed

Me. I have. I think current healer design is embarrassing and horrible and some of the worst class design I've ever seen in a video game, RPG, MMO, or otherwise.

I think "leaving one healer alone" is madness. If I have to give Ren one scrap of validation, it's that he actually "likes" current healer design (I think his enjoyment comes from its utter lack of a skill ceiling more than anything else, but whatever). I cannot square the opinions of people who think current healer design is boring and terrible......and so in conclusion, one healer should be cursed with the current asstastic snoozefest design for....*reasons*, while we fix the other three and call it a day.

I think the current healers do have fans. Those fans are people who don't like trying, don't want to improve, and want to make sure that playstyle is also optimal. A while back, Roe spent a lot of time designing a hypothetical WHM that keeps the Glarespam playstyle at 90% of the job's damage output while providing a rotation of sorts that could eke out another 10% if you wanted to go for it. Ren rejected it outright. Nope. No complexity for its own sake.

That's where I realized that "compromise" means one job *has* to remain boring and terrible, floor to ceiling, spending most of its time spamming one button. This is an argument that the DPS forums wouldn't countenance for a second. WHM is the only job in the game people regularly argue must be designed like crap because Someone Think Of The Sylphies.