The grand return of Cleric Stance, with a twist

[Sebazy]

So I randomly thought of this last night and it struck me as an interesting concept so I thought I'd chuck it down here:

• First off, we apply a flat DPS reduction of healers via the MND to potency calculation by 30%.
  
  
• Then we add the Cleric Stance toggle back in, instead of flipping MND/INT as before, it simply increases damage done by 30%.
  
  
• Instead of nerfing your healing potency into the floor, it causes your next healing GCD to 'fizzle' (Yes I am digging up an Everquest term for this). Fizzling a heal this way removes the Cleric Stance effect in the process and starts a 10 second cooldown before you can recast Cleric Stance.
  
  
• Fizzling a spell causes a 1 second GCD reset and causes the spell to consume no resources or gauge.
  
  
• It's important to note that unless you fizzle, Cleric Stance has no recast time, you can drop it, cast a Medica II or Lily, then recast straight back into Cleric akin to how it used to be.

What's a fizzle you ask? Simply put, it would cause the heal to fail to cast (and in our case, it would also not use any resources, gauge or MP) and would trigger the GCD for a briefer moment than a normal cast akin to DNC steps.

Basically, if you try to use a GCD heal under Cleric, it effectively delays or stutters your next heal by a second but ensures that your following heal comes out at full potency rather than quietly allowing you to continue throwing out ineffective heals. Jarring enough to be noticeable but unlikely to actually make or break anything outside of panic situations in Savage tier content.

It's important to note that this ONLY applies to GCD heals, oGCDs function as normal and are unaffected. This achieves 2 goals:

It encourages actual use of our oGCD kits even if the content doesn't really warrant their use. And secondly, it brings back the old gameplay loop SCHs enjoyed in 2.x-3.x where you would spend as much time with cleric up as possible trying to juggle Eos healing and lustrates to maximise uptime, except this time everyone can play that game now. Oh and said game doesn't cause an embarrassing wipe if you queue for a dungeon whilst half asleep and not paying attention

Why 30% and not 5, 10 or even 90%+ like before? Simple, 90% takes us too far back to the dark old days, even if the punishment still isn't as detrimental overall, 100 damage glares or whatever are just going to make people feel bad and look needlessly silly when that's not the goal or what's needed here.

Why not 5% like Cleric from Stormblood? Because you needed a parser to feel it's improvement. It was immensely unsatisfying and unworthwhile, at the time you'd see far bigger improvements from optimising movement and weave windows than paying any heed to SB Cleric.

So why 30%? Simple, it's a big enough number to actually notice and feel without using a parser and is impactful enough to get the monkeh brain neurons firing but it's not big enough to actually make or break much of anything outside of perhaps newer ultimates and specific end of tier Savage fights (aka the likes of E8S where healers were expected to deal pretty significant damage thanks to far and few between healing checks).

If we assume a dungeon run (Where healer DPS is typically at it's strongest) and everyone is playing to a similarly high standard, 30% of your healers DPS equates to 5-10% of the groups overall damage in an absolute worst case. At the other end of the spectrum, if we look at a random Extreme where the entire group except for 1 of the tanks landed on a grey log, that comes out to ~3-4% of the raids damage if we assume both healers would completely ignore this new Cleric and never even put it on their bars. Now note that this group still killed Endsinger in 9:37, enrage happens at 10:50 if I'm not mistaken. A full grey run where every single DPS was in single digits for percentile and they still cleared comfortably with over a minute to spare. So please don't come here with the seemingly inevitable 'Aaaahmagerd it'll stop people from getting clears' because that's just not true.

Another thing to note is that this approach has plenty of avenues to expand on the concept. One that springs to mind: Using Misery under Cleric Stance adds an additional 20% damage dealt for your next 2 casts. Kit interactions, yay

If it was implemented as part of a level cap raise, it wouldn't even need to feel like a flat out nerf to healer damage. How many people noticed that their fairy heals actually got significantly weaker as you levelled between expansions back in the day? SE can just quietly turn the dial down as healers level towards the next cap and most would be none the wiser.

So what do you think? Personally as someone who was strongly against Cleric as a concept but isn't afraid to admit that it did at least add a level of excitement and pressure to healer gameplay that's arguably been sorely missing in more mainstream content, I'm quite happy with it. It's simple, it has a ton of room for expansion. It's not as make or break as old Cleric Stance was, but it's impactful enough that you'd be able to feel the difference without needing to parse.

Some good suggestions and additions that are worth keeping in mind:

2) Wouldn't it be better to have a 1s recast native to Cleric Stance? One of the biggest problems Cleric Stance had back then was that you could immediately toggle it back on after turning it off, a 1s recast wouldn't hurt at all since you'd only turn it off to cast a GCD heal and every GCD heal already has a recast of 2.5s base (Eukrasia + Prognosis/Diagnosis is 1+1.5).

Rather than having the healing spell fizzle, wouldn't it be better to let it go through at 100% effectiveness, but cause Cleric Stance itself to fizzle and lock out for 10sec (or however long for balance)? That way, emergency healing with Cleric up doesn't get neutered at all, but it DOES prevent you from going back into Cleric as fast, costing you some damage. Floor is less affected by misplays (a 20% reduction at certain times may well be a death sentence, what with how spiky damage is at times), Ceiling is able to know when to turn Cleric off manually to prevent 'fizzles' and maintain optimal uptime of the buff

[Aravell]

Honestly, a less punishing Cleric Stance sounds pretty nice and I don't really see anything outright terrible about the proposal. Although, 2 things I see that are a concern:

1) Does the spell fizzle as soon as you press it or at the end of the cast? If it fizzles as soon as you press the button, it could be annoying if you misclick a GCD heal and queue it up which causes a fizzle.

2) Wouldn't it be better to have a 1s recast native to Cleric Stance? One of the biggest problems Cleric Stance had back then was that you could immediately toggle it back on after turning it off, a 1s recast wouldn't hurt at all since you'd only turn it off to cast a GCD heal and every GCD heal already has a recast of 2.5s base (Eukrasia + Prognosis/Diagnosis is 1+1.5).

[Renathras]

As I said, oof, no.

Cleric Stance was a bad ability and was removed from the game for good reason. It caused gaps between top and bottom healers that made balancing encounters for "the average party" nearly impossible, it discouraged damage dealing (this would, too, due to the "fizzle" mechanic), from new healers, and it led to big fights in the community about whether healers should be in cleric more, less, deal damage more, heal more, etc. This would do that same thing, and the community is more prone to fighting about it now.

We aren't ever getting Cleric Stance back as a toggle, and I suspect you recognize that as well.

Aravell is right that if Cleric Stance were to return, it would get the Tank Stance treatment of a 3 sec CD to prevent accidentally activating/deactivating it. But I don't expect to ever see it again. IF it does come back, it won't be as a role action but would be limited to a single Job like SCH or SGE which would probably be designed around it. For example, if SGE's Eukrasia wasn't a single ability but a stance that turned its heals into attacks (and got Kardia ticks), and deactivating it defaulted you to your base heals. In such a case, it wouldn't have attack and heal GCDs at the same time. It would have Cure 1, Adlo, Regen, Medica 1, and Succor (for simplicity of names), and when turning on "Eukrasia Stance", these would be replaced with Dosis, Bigger Dosis (maybe a dualcast mechanic like RDM), DoT, AOE attack, AOE DoT attack. While in this stance you can oGCD heal and you can hot-swap Kardia (no CD or a 1 sec CD on use to allow for swapping), and probably have some kind of AOE Kardia on a 1 or 2 min CD for party healing. Slap on an Energy Drain (Toxicon?) to compete with the AG heals and you've got a "damage dealer focused healer" Job. If damage is too great, you drop out of Eukrasia to do your GCD healing to get the situation back under control before going back into Eurkasia Stance.

If we ever see a Cleric Stance as a toggle type ability again, something like that is probably how it would work. Some continuous passive healing while it's active, oGCD healing options while it's active, but which compete with an extra damage oGCD to force an opportunity cost on use.

[Sebazy]

1) Does the spell fizzle as soon as you press it or at the end of the cast? If it fizzles as soon as you press the button, it could be annoying if you misclick a GCD heal and queue it up which causes a fizzle.

It would basically just hit a 1 second GCD and fail to cast your spell. Imagine fat fingering a dance step instead of Cure 2 and you're there. I did think that another option would be that a fizzle could simply add 1 second to your cast time rather than straight out canceling the cast but I didn't want to overcomplicate the suggestion.

2) Wouldn't it be better to have a 1s recast native to Cleric Stance? One of the biggest problems Cleric Stance had back then was that you could immediately toggle it back on after turning it off, a 1s recast wouldn't hurt at all since you'd only turn it off to cast a GCD heal and every GCD heal already has a recast of 2.5s base (Eukrasia + Prognosis/Diagnosis is 1+1.5).

Yeah, a 1 second recast would absolutely make sense as it entirely puts the double cleric stance thing to bed. I just wanted to keep the original suggestion as simple and easy to digest as possible for reasons that will likely come clear soon.

snip

Are you sure about your assumptions there? I'll give you a chance to actually look at the math. You might want to take it before you make yourself look a little silly.

[fulminating]

As I said, oof, no.

Cleric Stance was a bad ability and was removed from the game for good reason. It caused gaps between top and bottom healers that made balancing encounters for "the average party" nearly impossible, it discouraged damage dealing.

Are you saying that the removal of cleric is what directly caused tighter enrages? After all a narrower gap between the better and worse healers allows ‘fair’ enrages to be tuned significantly more precisely than when the healer contribution is much more variable.

[IDontPetLalas]

Funny, a "cleric stance" is implemented in other games and the sky doesn't fall.

Here's one such example https://aion.fandom.com/wiki/Sacrificial_Power_I.

So, how is this skill used? It's a toggle, it activates instantly, if you want extra DPS, activate the skill- however your heals (all of them) get decreased by a certain potency (if I recall, it was around 20%, maybe slightly more). You want to go back to full healing? Hit the toggle, you're instantly back to full healing power - but there's 10 seconds in between hitting the button.

Did anyone ever die due to "oops, I hit the button" ? probably- but somehow, this skill lasted for at least 10 years- so how much of a problem do you think it was?

[Eastwall]

Just make dungeons in a way that l need to heal all the time... I want to play healer, not a green dps.

[Sebazy]

Just make dungeons in a way that l need to heal all the time... I want to play healer, not a green dps.

It's a nice idea, but have you thought through what that actually entails?

A run of the mill dungeon that requires us to actually make use of our kit and doesn't give us time to DPS would be pretty bonkers without a complete across the board rework of our entire healing kits.

Again, don't get me wrong, I'd be all for it. I genuinely would love a slice of that. But every time I see this suggestion, I genuinely don't think that people appreciate just how much incoming damage it would take to actually force us to heal all the time *AND* how much of a knife edge it would be actually sustaining our MP through that.

[Eastwall]

It's a nice idea, but have you thought through what that actually entails?

A run of the mill dungeon that requires us to actually make use of our kit and doesn't give us time to DPS would be pretty bonkers without a complete across the board rework of our entire healing kits.

Again, don't get me wrong, I'd be all for it. I genuinely would love a slice of that. But every time I see this suggestion, I genuinely don't think that people appreciate just how much incoming damage it would take to actually force us to heal all the time *AND* how much of a knife edge it would be actually sustaining our MP through that.

I admit the reason l want that is my experience from playing other games. I guess l like more reactive healing. I maintain offensive buff, And when something goes wrong, l heal them. Depending on the fight, l adjust my utility skills to handle them.

[Rithy255]

Just make dungeons in a way that l need to heal all the time... I want to play healer, not a green dps.

I think a nice compromise Is letting healers just gcd heal actively a lot more (I don't think healing 100% of the time would be fun either for me).
I'm certainly one for healers Healing a lot more then current, as that actually makes optimising out DPS more fun for me rather then the 100% DPS uptime we got.

I don't think Cleric stance would fix healer at all, they wouldn't simply use healing gcds... like they already dont, I feel like this would also just punish white mage for no reason compared to other healers.