[Megathread] Final Fantasy XIV

[Kaelwryn]

Yes, Succor shield doubles too, but I think she was calling out Adlo specifically because when it crits, it crits for easily several thousand more than Succor (My SCH is undergeared so I can't speak about endgame shields)

That's correct. Succor's shield is weaker than Adlo (since its an AoE shield) so its crit shield is going to be weaker than crit Adlo's.

[Deleted]

yeah but intermission phases are often followed by heavy damage, which is why a AoE shield crit is nice. You can literally fish for it because it'll override the weaker one

So if you mana allows it, cast it 2-3 times to get dem crits, no?

It's one of the reasons why SCH is so OP imho, reactive healing will always be worse than proactive.
AoE shield pre AoE DMG, followed by AoE shield post AoE damage.
Way more time to react to damage spikes.

Same thing applies to tank busters, or tank damage in general which is often relatively critical when you try to heal up the group before the next AoE kicks in etc.

Man... in addition to their vastly superior DPS, SCH are so OP.

[Kaelwryn]

yeah but intermission phases are often followed by heavy damage, which is why a AoE shield crit is nice. You can literally fish for it because it'll override the weaker one

So if you mana allows it, cast it 2-3 times to get dem crits, no?

The problem is that succor doesn't hit each target for the same amount (just like medica/medica2/cure3). So each target will have a different shield strength on them. That's why you wouldn't want to do that and why you would want to adlo your tank and deployment tactics it to the rest of the group.

Just to give an idea of the shield strength: using succor I got a shield that blocks 1729 hp vs 3389 hp shield. Both non-crit shield. Crit succor shield 2536hp vs a 5271 hp crit Adlo.

So trying to fish for a crit succor shield is pretty much not worth just for the fact that heal/shield strength is not the same for each party member and because the crit shield will probably not compare to non-crit adlo.

[Granyala]

Man... in addition to their vastly superior DPS, SCH are so OP.

Except when damage is so heavy that shields are overwhelmed.
SCH has difficulties at bringing the group back up. That's where WHM/Diurnal AST shine.

[Kaelwryn]

Man... in addition to their vastly superior DPS, SCH are so OP.

That's actually not entirely correct. WHM is slightly higher dps than SCH. If both sch and whm were allowed to just straight dps, whm should come out ahead. SCH will outlast a WHM.

[Deleted]

Isn't the overall potency pretty much the same?

Like... 150shield 150 heal vs 300 heal. Even if it's not. The shield is still better, mostly because of the fairy.

[Kaelwryn]

Isn't the overall potency pretty much the same?

Like... 150shield 150 heal vs 300 heal. Even if it's not. The shield is still better.

Overall potency for what?

[Deleted]

Medica 2 is 200+50
Succor (or whatever the AoE from SCH is) is 150+150.
So it's actually better effectively speaking. Not only doesn't it overheal as much, the shield itself is also worth as much as an non-crit adlo on every single member if it crits.

Which is why a little bit of crit fishing is well worth it. (at least if Deployment Tactics isn't available)

[Kaelwryn]

Medica 2 is 200+50
Succor (or whatever the AoE from SCH is) is 150+150.
So it's actually better effectively speaking. Not only doesn't it overheal as much, the shield itself is also worth as much as an non-crit adlo on every single member if it crits.

Which is why a little bit of crit fishing is well worth it. (at least if Deployment Tactics isn't available)

It's not worth fishing for when you get varying shield sizes on everyone. You're just better off casting succor once.

[Deleted]

Uhm.. how does that matter? If I have the time and mana, there is no reason not to do it, Varying shield sizes don't matter at all?

You get a Crit, it overrides the non crit, you get a non crit - it doesn't override the crit from before? I'm pretty sure FFXIV made it so that weaker buffs won't remove stronger ones.

In the end (unlikely), you have 8 shields worth 300 potency on your team. Depending on how lucky you are or how often you cast

You are only better off casting it once if you know you need the mana. There are quite a few fights however where you know exactly that you don't need it.

[Kaelwryn]

Regardless, you're still going to have to heal up after the AoE damage anyway because the succor shield likely won't be big enough to soak up all the damage like a crit deployed adlo might. Why waste the mana fishing for something that really isn't going to make that big of a difference?

*also too early for me, my brain just decide to zero in on the dumb 'varying size shields'. maybe if i drank coffee this wouldn't be a problem :^)

[Deleted]

Because people won't drop down as much and you have more time to get them back up, and your WHM might not need to do Cure2 2 times, or your pet can handle it, or X and Y or Z.
Basically a hundred reasons.

The only mana wasted is the mana you have left over after the boss is dead. As long as you keep that low, without running dry, nothing is wasted with shields.

[StrawberryZebra]

But don't act as if crit isn't useful for all other spells too. Depending on incoming DPS, a crit heal won't create any overheal and might save someones butt.

If you go strictly according to stat weights and mathematics: crit is the go to stat as SCH. No arguing around that.

If you're in the situation where you absolutely need a crit to save someone's life, chances are something has gone horribly wrong in the first place. You also might not get a crit and have a wipe on your hands. I'd rather not roll the dice.
I'm not questioning the usefulness of getting a crit heal, only the reliability of it. If Scholars had a skill to force crits (instead of that useless level 60 one, for instance!), then things would be diferent, but as they stand right now I consider crits a nice bonus rather than a core part of my gameplay.

On the subject of the math and statweights... Anywhere I can look that up? A quick google search didn't turn up anything useful, and the ones I did find were all out of date. It did show up lots of people parroting Crit with no real numbers to back it up however.

You can literally fish for it because it'll override the weaker one.

You can, but you probably shouldn't. Adlo costs too much mana to be careless with using it, and time you're fishing for a crit is time that could be better spent doing something else.

Its also for dps which is 90% of what a scholar does anyway.

Most of my Scholar DPS comes from my DoTs which, correct me if I'm wrong, don't benefit from crit? They keep on ticking while I'm busy doing other things, so they account for more of my total DPS than their numbers alone would suggest.

Man... in addition to their vastly superior DPS, SCH are so OP.

I wouldn't say Scholar DPS is higher than other healers, just they get more opportunity to do it. Bare in mind that they can keep their DoT's ticking while doing something else, so they don't need to be chain casting to put out damage. They also have much better AoE than other healers, but that's only relevent for trash for the most part.

Medica 2 is 200+50
Succor (or whatever the AoE from SCH is) is 150+150.

Medica 2 is 200 + 700 from the HoT over 30 seconds, assuming you don't overwrite it. The problem with Succor is that when you keep casting it to top a group up you get reduced benefits after the second cast. If you need to bring your group up to full Succor is the wrong tool for the job really. It is however the right tool when you keep getting hit by constant pulsing AoE damage, since the shield will be used before the next one is applied.

Indomidability is fantastic for burst AoE healing, but comes with a lengthy 30 second cooldown.

[Deleted]

Oh yeah, I forgot, FFXIV lists hot/dot potency as per ticks.

Crit gets applied to dot damage afaik. Bard has a skill that'll activate on DoT crits after all.
And I'm not looking at Succor to get the Group back up, that's not the point of it. It's the additional time you get before you need to attend to your group or rather the additional time you get becaus you don't need to attend to them at all, because your WHM will keep them healthy with a single Medica2 since they didn't take a lot of damage due to your Galvenize etc..

[Kaelwryn]

Most of my Scholar DPS comes from my DoTs which, correct me if I'm wrong, don't benefit from crit? They keep on ticking while I'm busy doing other things, so they account for more of my total DPS than their numbers alone would suggest.

Dots do benefit from crit. Each tick can crit.

[Granyala]

On the subject of the math and statweights... Anywhere I can look that up? A quick google search didn't turn up anything useful, and the ones I did find were all out of date. It did show up lots of people parroting Crit with no real numbers to back it up however.

Not sure, I calculated all weight via napkin math back when HW was still fresh. It's easy to do with det and ss, crit is a bit harder, because the game doesn't give us our actual %crit.

Anyhow, napkin math showed me that the choice of secondary is up to personal preference, as they are all well balanced for WHM.

[Kaelwryn]

You can look at iDervy's blog about it. Mind you his stat weights are for DPS only went it comes to healers.

[StrawberryZebra]

You can look at iDervy's blog about it. Mind you his stat weights are for DPS only went it comes to healers.

Thanks for the link. Not entirely what I was looking for, but it's interesting all the same. Especially showing that Spell Speed is more DPS than Crit for Scholars, which seems to run contrary to popular opinion.

Though it being attributed to a modeling error is one thing, but if it really is 0.5 difference as claimed, that would push SS to being far and away the best DPS stat you could get hold of.

[Kaelwryn]

Thanks for the link. Not entirely what I was looking for, but it's interesting all the same. Especially showing that Spell Speed is more DPS than Crit for Scholars, which seems to run contrary to popular opinion.

Though it being attributed to a modeling error is one thing, but if it really is 0.5 difference as claimed, that would push SS to being far and away the best DPS stat you could get hold of.

I want to reiterate that those stat weights are for DPS only. Spell power increases the potency of your dots every tick, which is why spell speed is stronger.

But again also: healer secondaries do not make that big of a difference and ultimately comes down to YOUR preference/playstyle.

[Granyala]

Well, we don't heal enough for SS to make much of a difference in the healing department.

After all, I'd need to cast 60? ish spells in a row to get one "free" cast via spell speed? When have you ever cast 60 heals back to back?