FFXIV Healer Strike and the 'How would you fix it?' line

[ForsakenRoe]

Looking at this again, the only change I'd make is how Strategy: Offense is used. As it stands now, it feels like you would simply swap to offense, unload your dots then drop offense. I would add a slight potency increase to Broil, Ruin II and AoW as well just as an added little minigame of how long you can stay in offense before you have to switch.

I could write a whole load of text about my decisionmaking re: Strategies, but the tl;dr is 'it is purposely kept to only the DOTs, because if it affected Broil/AOW players who don't want to interact with the system (and would prefer to simply stay in Defense for a more 'stress-free' gameplay experience) would feel like they're 'forced' to interact with the system and they don't want that kind of complexity forced upon them'. You can see Striker earlier in this thread make reference to how he does not want to play with any stance-dance gameplay because he remembers how jank Cleric Stance was. I can't exactly say anything to convince him that these stances would be 'less jank', but the point is, even with Offense affecting only the DOTs, he felt that he would be 'forced' to interact with the Strategies. Adding Broil/AOW to the list would only compound that, and turn more players off from such a system. And that's... kinda the exact opposite of the goal I had in mind (that is, design healer kits that are welcoming to newer players, but also have depth for veterans to explore).

Consider Strategy: Offense less of a 'you want to stay in this as much as possible' and more something akin to... a Recitation for your DOTs, albeit much weaker and with no CD. Where you're thinking of 'camp in Offense, swap to Defense/Emergency to heal, then back to Offense', I intend for the exact opposite. You'd stay in Emergency/Defense for quite a lot of the fight, swapping to Offense only to refresh the DOT before swapping back. You ARE a Healer after all, so I'd argue that it makes a lot more sense to mostly be staying in a Healing-related Strategy for the majority of the fight (to react to sudden healing requirements faster), no? Plus, there's plenty of Strategy-Swapping optimization possible even without having Offense bound to your bars, as IIRC I didn't actually say that the barrier from Selene's Embrace was exclusive with Galvanize, did I? So, theoretically, you could be swapping between Defense and Emergency, just to balance 'healing via Embrace' with 'have fairy set up fairy-barriers on each of the 8 raid members in time for the next raidwide'. Just that alone would add optimization to the job I think. Do you let the fairy's barriers handle the damage, or do you need to top it up with a Galvanise of your own? And if so, where does it come from, a GCD like Succor, or Deploying a Defense-Excogitation? Or what about Defense-Indom? Do you need the Galvanise at all, or would a Deployed Protraction be enough? So many choices, so many ways to handle the situation

Sorry if this doesn't read well, very tired

[Iedarus]

Snip

That makes a lot of sense. I'd imagine with the 15 second duration of Shadowflare you'd be flipping back to it pretty frequently, anyway. I do like the examples you added and I hope that SE at least references this for 8.0.

[ForsakenRoe]

Something that could be considered is increasing the base potency of Shadowflare's cast from 120 to 170, and reducing the DOT from 40 to 30 per tick (so it's the same total damage). With this, it'd be 10p less than AOW to spam, but with Strategy: Offense, it'd be 10p more than AOW. And that'd allow for AOW to simply be replaced (or upgrade into via trait) with Shadowflare. The main reason I didn't do so in the original design post was because we'd simply swap from spamming one button (AOW) in AOE situations, to spamming another (Shadowflare) and I wanted to fix that a little. But also, the niche 2 target optimization opportunities AOW provides by being centered-on-self (eg P6 DSR) would be lost. Unless Shadowflare could target enemies OR allies, and simply centers the bubble on whoever is targeted, I suppose that could work, that way you'd retain the current AOW functionality by targeting yourself with it.

That makes a lot of sense. I'd imagine with the 15 second duration of Shadowflare you'd be flipping back to it pretty frequently, anyway. I do like the examples you added and I hope that SE at least references this for 8.0.

In total, per 2min cycle you'd have 4 Bio refreshes, 6 Miasma refreshes, and 8 Shadowflare refreshes, for a total of 18 GCDs out of 48 where you'd 'want' to be in Strategy: Offense. Some of these naturally line up with one another (eg every 2min window all three would want to be refreshed in sequence), so there'd be some situations where you'd want to 'stay' in Offense for more than a single GCD.

I would love if SE referenced any of this stuff for 8.0, they have full permission (as mentioned on each post). Even if they only take the DOT part (eg readding Miasma/Shadowflare, and having ED upgrade to Bane) that'd be a win in my book. It's funny, because the SCH is actually my 3rd 'favourite' of the four, if I could choose which one design SE implements (exactly as I envision), I'd have a hard time choosing between the WHM and SGE. I originally made the idea for WHM and did the other healers after seeing how I did with WHM, but the more I've worked on it, the more I've come to see what a missed opportunity Kardia is for SGE, and how much incredible potential it has to be a completely novel approach to how we heal in the game

[ForsakenRoe]

Just adding a post here to 'save' an idea I had randomly, lest it be consigned to the sands of time in the #ffxivhealerstrike thread.

Basically, some people have raised concerns with having shorter (therefore used more often) DOTs, or having multiple. Having to use DOTs more often, via either of these changes, raises the skill floor.

So to keep the DOTs 'accessible' regardless of frequency/number available, we could have a system change (or trait, however SE decides to implement it) wherein if you have an enemy targetted, but the enemy does not have a certain DOT active, that DOT lights up on your bar to show 'hey, maybe using this is a good idea'. As an example, if you took my SCH idea (has Biolysis, Miasma, Shadowflare to maintain), if you target an enemy that has only Miasmalysis active (and you don't have an active Shadowflare), Biolysis and Shadowflare would light up on your bars.

It'd be an option that can be disabled, of course.

I think a change like this would be massively beneficial for casual players, while hardcore players would be able to choose to ignore it in certain moments (eg 'boss will jump away in 6s, it's more efficient for damage to ignore the DOT and keep casting Glare/Broil'), similar to how they ignore the flashing lights on things like Fan Dance for DNC (to pool everything into the 2min window for more damage)

[ForsakenRoe]

Greetings and salutations, General Discussion. It's been a while since I updated this thread, but a recent video about the topic has prompted me to come back and do some spring cleaning. The main updates are to SCH, wherein the base healing action potencies (which would be used while in Strategy: Offensive) have been updated to exactly match Dawntrail SCH potencies. Effectively, staying in Offensive and never changing stances, is almost 1:1 identical gameplay to DT SCH, from the perspective of healing potency, with the main exception being 'Embrace is weaker compared to other stances'. As such, anyone who doesn't want to participate in the added complexity that such 'stance dance' gameplay would entail, would have the option to ignore it entirely. I know this goes against what I've said in previous posts, but I figure that it's better for 'players who want to play current SCH and not interact with this new stuff' to have an option preserved, rather than rip their preferred gameplay away from them. Consider it 'a change made based on player feedback' ; )

The other updates/changes/additions are to add the new DT actions, and where necessary, adapt their function to fit the new systems the jobs have received. SCH and SGE in particular needed a bit of adjustment for their level 100 actions. For SCH, Seraphism and the new Tabula Rasa action grant access to Manifestation and Accession temporarily (as with DT), with those actions' effects being the combined bonus effects of Strategy: Defensive and Strategy: Emergency. In essence, it's a 'you have all Strategies active at once' button. Tabula Rasa and Seraphism both share a cooldown with one another, as they are meant to be a 'choose the aesthetic you prefer' option. A lot of people find Seraphism's VFX to be antithetical to the previously established 'Marine Spirit' aesthetic of SCH, while others enjoy the angelic/seraphic theme. Thus, by having two actions with identical effects/CDs but a shared CD, the player can simply choose the one they like the look of better.

SGE's Philosophia has been changed here too, because currently it functions as a pseudo-Pankardia (with a 20% magic boost attached), and the addition of an actual Pankardia to this design (which is much more accessible, cooldown-wise) renders Philosophia quite redundant. As such, it has been retooled to better fit the Kardia Augmentation gameplay, by granting full stacks of all Augments at once, with no MP cost (normally doing so requires 4000MP). By spending all of these Augment stacks, the player will also generate 80 Toxicosis over the next 4 GCDs, allowing them to almost instantly use Toxikon for even more burst healing. The 20% magic boost continues to be present, but additionally affects the Kardia healing that the player will spend their free stacks on, making their Kardia healing throughput even stronger for the duration of Philosophia's effect. The increased base potency of Eukrasian Prognosis (due to it using regular Prognosis' base healing in this design), going from 100p to 300p, should make up for the lack of Eudaimonia's healing (the 150p heal per spell cast under Philosophia). Due to only having 4 GCDs affected (instead of the 8 (or 9 with SpellSpeed) GCDs that DT's version allows), the CD has been reduced to 120s.

As always, feedback/criticism/discussions are welcome

[Mortex]

So many people think they can be an arm-chair game designer.

My friend you thought new Astro is peak healer and Astro design in general. I say roe at least cares about healers having a identity and not “regen is regen hur dur” Healers in general are just soooo bland that any kind of spice up would be a gift.

[Supersnow845]

My friend you thought new Astro is peak healer and Astro design in general. I say roe at least cares about healers having a identity and not “regen is regen hur dur” Healers in general are just soooo bland that any kind of spice up would be a gift.

It’s incredible how many people think “overpowered” is an identity

[Mortex]

It’s incredible how many people think “overpowered” is an identity

And something they could have done with extra charges for almost all ogcds Astro had but nooooooo let’s make the cards a joke except the dmg cards. Lady is just a bad star without skill expression.

[Hyperia]

I do not believe my job of WHM needs any changes itself, we just need to be needed.

We have an amazing healing kit, I just want to be able to heal.

Until they remove other jobs outright broken self healing, we won’t get to heal.

[Supersnow845]

I do not believe my job of WHM needs any changes itself, we just need to be needed.

We have an amazing healing kit, I just want to be able to heal.

Until they remove other jobs outright broken self healing, we won’t get to heal.

WHM is still the weakest healer at healing as much as anything. Even if you randomly dumped massive healing checks the other healers have tools for it and they bring other advantages

WHM doesn’t have a single real niche