Final Fantasy XIV: Stormblood

[RohanV]

I'm a bit lost as to what we actually want healers to do in group play. If we want them to spend most of their time healing, we'd be better off to cut both heal potency and mana cost in half. Thus you have to spend 2 GCDs healing for every 1 GCD you spend now. You'd probably have to adjust boss burst down slightly.

If we want them to heal and do damage, we're probably better off without cleric stance, because it would simplify things for the average player.

I agree with everything you're saying here. I do want to add though that I actually raid with a top Holy Paladin, and he's very rarely if ever near the melee. They scrapped that melee healer stuff as best I can tell.

It depends on your build. If you take the 2 Beacon talent, you want to stand in melee. If you take the other talent, you generally want to stand with the ranged.

[The Casualty]

You also could reduce tank buster damage, and drastically increase auto-attack damage/increase frequence of aoe damage. What gives healers ample time to DPS is huge valleys in incoming damage and brief, predictable periods of huge spikes.

[threads]

Rather than see trick attack, I wish it would just add to it.
So if someone else hit trick attack and there's 10 seconds left on theirs and you hit it, it just adds the full duration + 10 seconds.
But then, I suppose that's part of the strategy of knowing when to hit what and paying attention. I like to have it ready to go when the previous has 1 second left and as soon as it drops, bam, it's back on!

yea that'd be really nice. i was talking more like being able to see trick attack/hypercharge from others so I know to use some of my cds.

[Faroth]

yea that'd be really nice. i was talking more like being able to see trick attack/hypercharge from others so I know to use some of my cds.

Right, I meant if they'd do the apply + add time left, you wouldn't have to keep track of trick attack. One less, anyway.

Though I do like the timing of it as is, so I can see wanting to see it more clearly.

[Binaris]

Right, I meant if they'd do the apply + add time left, you wouldn't have to keep track of trick attack. One less, anyway.

Though I do like the timing of it as is, so I can see wanting to see it more clearly.

Tracking others debuffs and buffs is group organization. not really a ui issue, but for the love of sandwiches we really need a way on the button to track debuffs and buffs. Instead Im stuck using act spell timer tickers to add timers overlaid on my buttons. Also get rid of the display issue with too many dots in 24 man content.

[TriHard]

Have they shown any Samurai gameplay except for the one video from the fanfest?

[Kazgrel]

You also could reduce tank buster damage, and drastically increase auto-attack damage/increase frequence of aoe damage. What gives healers ample time to DPS is huge valleys in incoming damage and brief, predictable periods of huge spikes.

This, at least in how I'm processing it, would make HoTs more valuable and less chance of being wasted overhealing if the damage output onto the tank was more constant vs. being in tankbuster form that can be more easily handled via tank cds + Adlo or Nocturnal AST shield.

- - - Updated - - -

Tracking others debuffs and buffs is group organization. not really a ui issue, but for the love of sandwiches we really need a way on the button to track debuffs and buffs. Instead Im stuck using act spell timer tickers to add timers overlaid on my buttons. Also get rid of the display issue with too many dots in 24 man content.

I had to set mine to only display my dots and debuffs, and I may end up going back and changing that, because I can't see when other useful debuffs are being applied (Foe Requiem, Trick Attack, etc.). Really hope to see that get improved upon.

[Wrecktangle]

I hope I wasn't unclear. Only failing the DPS check for the heart gave 4 stacks. If you mean that is also too severe, I agree. After the Midas nerf, stacks I think disappear after 30-60seconds (I'm not exactly sure on the exact timer, I haven't gone back since the nerf).

You weren't unclear, I'm just not familiar with that fight. I quit while A1-4S was relevant. That said, that definitely seems off. I think T6 was a perfect example. Someone gets eaten? Boss gets a damage stack. Not a huge deal, but definitely puts some pressure on the healers. I'd actually like to see some kind of revamp or benefit to using non DPS limit breaks. Things like where if Raff ate 4 people, you can mitigate it by using tank lbs through the fight and still get a clean kill because you adapted.

You *can* keep ressing people ad nauseum, but the chances of the player surviving keeps decreasing, and you meeting timers diminishes as well. Weakness isn't something that will eliminate the player from surviving incoming hits - even the large ones if they are properly mitigated, but Brink of Death is likely a death sentence on the next savage/extreme tuned AoE - which makes sense. There has to be some consequence to repeated failure and those large unavoidable hits serve as a nice mercy rule to avoid people limping to the finish line.

Speaking strictly from personal experience in Savage. If you died and got weakness, the next AOE that went out killed you. I mean hell double divebomb in T9 left me with ~500HP during progression. Weakness meant restarting the fight if a single person had it. That's not fun. There need to be consequences without a doubt, but my post was to discuss whether the consequences are in line? I personally don't think so (seems you agree too). If I die once, I'm guaranteed to die twice, in which case I'm further guaranteed to die over and over, because of one mistake. I should be able to recover from one bad death, but because it snowballs in this game, it means you get mercy ruled. I don't like that. If it was me personally dying over and over, that'd be one thing, but you can't stop the snowball.
IN any other content, its likely irrelevant so I don't bother discussing it.

Where it falls flat on it's face is poorly tuned encounters like Sophia Ex where you could chain res people the entire fight due to failing the prime mechanic - the scales - and there was no real mechanic that punished the entire group for failure, as well as an EXTREMELY lax enrage timer.

I've never done the fight, but I remember watching a first kill video of it and was really confused. Like, I didn't see a single actual threatening thing in the fight. Not a single one.

Do they not? My mistake, I've not played WoW in quite a while. Perhaps Druid shapeshifts would be a better comparison then, I'm assuming those still exist? Despite the change in appearance, they function identical to Stance type mechanics. They open up one set of skills by locking you out of another. Presenting it in a cool, unique and thematically appropriate way was a strong enough design goal to build an entire class around.

No worries. Shapeshifts aren't a better comparison. Nowadays, when you specialize you don't have a Boomkin (laser chicken) in cat form during a raid, or dungeon, or out in solo play. You might see them turn into a bird to fly, or you might watch them turn into a mutated seal to swim, but they don't go in between forms for utility or damage. Sometimes they turn into elks so I can lazily sit on them while they walk to wherever we're going. You might see someone pop into bear for pvp reasons, but that's the only instance I've ever seen.

Any change to Cleric Stance needs to leave it in a position where it is;

• Either Permenant, or very long duration.
• Cancelable on demand.
• Viable for solo play.
• Viable for group play.
• Easy to use.
• Intuitive and as smooth as possible.

In it's current form as a toggled buff it hits most, but not quite all, of these already. I feel like embracing that and giving it proper Stance mechanics would go a long way towards removing some of that clunky feeling it has sometimes and help push it towards being something cool and interesting. They get bonus points if they also tack on a cool shapeshift effect onto it too. Angel wings, maybe? It's the kind of cheesy-Japaneesy thing Squenix loves to cram into their recent games. I agree that it's not the most interesting or unique solution, but it is one that would work best for the most number of people.

I can't disagree with your points here. They're pretty well defended. I'm not opposed to a stance type mechanic, but again I just don't want it toggleable clickbait. I want it to be something engaging and organic. I know I'm harping on the same point, but I can't think of any better way to explain it.

As interesting as your solution is, I feel as though it would work very badly for solo play. Stacking buffs tend to fall off between mobs when you're alone, and unless things are going very wrong, you seldom need to heal yourself either. That said, it would work out well for group play, especially damage spells were also able to stack a buff to your healing power. The crippling flaw with it, unless I've missed something, would be that it doesn't give Damaging spells the kind of punch they need by default. You would also need to have a way for the player to use their Mind stat to deal damage for it to be a positive change for healers.

This is a fair point. So How can we improve my mechanic for solo play? I'm 100% ok with increasing the base power of healers to be as strong as a DPS in a leveling/solo vacuum. In fact I'd even argue that it's a good thing to have to boost healer participation. You can give a healer really powerful burst, but mitigate that with their sustained being lower than a DPS (unless they could successfully utilize the mechanic, but it'd still be lower over extended time because they're also healing you ) A DPS would be able to burst very hard and maintain high sustained damage. The difference would be that they're more fragile and cannot restore themselves.

I'm a bit lost as to what we actually want healers to do in group play. If we want them to spend most of their time healing, we'd be better off to cut both heal potency and mana cost in half. Thus you have to spend 2 GCDs healing for every 1 GCD you spend now. You'd probably have to adjust boss burst down slightly.

If we want them to heal and do damage, we're probably better off without cleric stance, because it would simplify things for the average player.

It depends on your build. If you take the 2 Beacon talent, you want to stand in melee. If you take the other talent, you generally want to stand with the ranged.

Not intimately familiar with Holy Paladin talents, but I appreciate the insight. You bring up a really good point about what do we want healers to do. Honestly, I want a healer to be able to do whatever they want and be rewarded for playing better or harder and have it be more fun for them. I honestly don't think anyone draws genuine enjoyment from typing /follow while a fairy heals an entire dungeon for them or not even needing to use cure because by time the mobs are dead out of combat regeneration has everyone at full again anyway.

You also could reduce tank buster damage, and drastically increase auto-attack damage/increase frequence of aoe damage. What gives healers ample time to DPS is huge valleys in incoming damage and brief, predictable periods of huge spikes.

I would be 100% ok with increasing the frequency at which a healer is required to heal (i.e. fulltime) and have them doing 0 DPS. As managing that level of outgoing damage would provide ample engagement and challenge.

I've given my personal examples of how I achieve that type of gameplay previously in the thread.

[RohanV]

You bring up a really good point about what do we want healers to do. Honestly, I want a healer to be able to do whatever they want and be rewarded for playing better or harder and have it be more fun for them. I honestly don't think anyone draws genuine enjoyment from typing /follow while a fairy heals an entire dungeon for them or not even needing to use cure because by time the mobs are dead out of combat regeneration has everyone at full again anyway.

I'm not certain we can allow both. You heal what there is to heal. You can only dps if you don't need to heal. So if you want a game where healers heal full-time, it basically means there was no time to dps.

Well, maybe you could do something where you have efficient heals, expensive heals, and damage spells give mana back. So you could full-time heal with efficient heals, or do a BLM-style spend-regen cycle with damage. But the damage-side would be better because you're contributing damage to the fight. Maybe if healing with efficient heals gave you an aura which boosted your group. But honestly, I don't think both pure heals and healer dps is possible.

[Faroth]

Have they shown any Samurai gameplay except for the one video from the fanfest?

Not yet. Maybe the next live letter will give a new glimpse, but I'm skeptical. I think it'll be closer to release before they show us more of RDM and SAM in action.

- - - Updated - - -

You bring up a really good point about what do we want healers to do. Honestly, I want a healer to be able to do whatever they want and be rewarded for playing better or harder and have it be more fun for them.

There are other games that scrap the concept of roles and class trinity. You apparently want one of those because a role based game can't function with "everyone just does whatever they want." FFXIV ain't it and ain't going to be it, I'm fairly certain.

If it was built from the ground up, we'd all be DPS first and foremost. There would be no tank and no healer, those abilities would be available to every DPS class via materia for heal spells and tank buffs.

Which sounds cool, but.... it would probably end up a broken nightmare of a mess because min/max "show me all the data, every number, I have to number crunch this and see there's only one way to play the game" would immediately destroy it.

[Wrecktangle]

I'm not certain we can allow both. You heal what there is to heal. You can only dps if you don't need to heal. So if you want a game where healers heal full-time, it basically means there was no time to dps.

Well, maybe you could do something where you have efficient heals, expensive heals, and damage spells give mana back. So you could full-time heal with efficient heals, or do a BLM-style spend-regen cycle with damage. But the damage-side would be better because you're contributing damage to the fight. Maybe if healing with efficient heals gave you an aura which boosted your group. But honestly, I don't think both pure heals and healer dps is possible.

I think you misunderstood me. Those 2 scenarios are mutually exclusive. I'm 100% ok with a 100% healing no dps paradigm if the content was built around it (currently it is not). I'm also 100% ok with existing encounter design, but with more fluid gameplay. What I am not ok with is clunky gameplay mechanics combined with the existing encounter design, which is why I've been discussing it.

Does that clear it up a bit?

There are other games that scrap the concept of roles and class trinity. You apparently want one of those because a role based game can't function with "everyone just does whatever they want." FFXIV ain't it and ain't going to be it, I'm fairly certain.

If it was built from the ground up, we'd all be DPS first and foremost. There would be no tank and no healer, those abilities would be available to every DPS class via materia for heal spells and tank buffs.

Which sounds cool, but.... it would probably end up a broken nightmare of a mess because min/max "show me all the data, every number, I have to number crunch this and see there's only one way to play the game" would immediately destroy it.

I love class trinity. Did I say or imply otherwise somewhere? Not my intent.

When I say does what they want I mean. An average play can heal full time and be successful and engaged (currently I don't see this in the game), a good player can push his limits without fear of catastrophic failure and improve themselves over time (currently he can push limits, but failure is catastrophic), and a great player will have engaging dances that demonstrate pure mastery of his job while having a good time, not it being a job (currently, they are held back by clunky mechanics).

[Deleted]

As for the cleric stance discussion:

Why do we even need a stance for that?
PvP?

I think one of the biggest reasons why Healers don't deal damage is because of that stance and a misclick/toggle ruins your day.
Yet I can't see a reason why a stance like that even exists.

[Treeba]

As for the cleric stance discussion:

Why do we even need a stance for that?
PvP?

I think one of the biggest reasons why Healers don't deal damage is because of that stance and a misclick/toggle ruins your day.
Yet I can't see a reason why a stance like that even exists.

Maybe... I think you get a lot of healers who just can't be bothered. They want to heal, not dps. You get a lot of others who just don't even know they are expected to dps. Cleric stance, and its "issues", is probably not a huge factor for most people who pick healer and don't dps while doing so.

I don't personally care what happens with the it. I don't mind it being in game and I don't really feel inconvenienced by it. I wouldn't be upset it if it was removed either. I do think there is some value in that risk scenario that comes with using it. I don't mind that it can be hugely punishing to screw it up. I also don't feel that my experience as a healer would be greatly diminished if the ability was gone.

[dope_danny]

As for the cleric stance discussion:

Why do we even need a stance for that?
PvP?

I think one of the biggest reasons why Healers don't deal damage is because of that stance and a misclick/toggle ruins your day.
Yet I can't see a reason why a stance like that even exists.

Its a buff. Without it your offensive spells scale with a stat you dont gear for, cleric makes those spells be affected by your gear stat instead. No reason it couldn't become a passive, or they could change the spells somehow.

But i think the idea is 'isnt that just a dps with heals and a res which makes other dps redundant?" so its meant to be a 'drop in drop out' filler to use in low damage periods to make the jobs more dynamic and not be master of two roles instead of one. Certainly not perfect though.

[TirielWoW]

I think you misunderstood me. Those 2 scenarios are mutually exclusive. I'm 100% ok with a 100% healing no dps paradigm if the content was built around it (currently it is not). I'm also 100% ok with existing encounter design, but with more fluid gameplay. What I am not ok with is clunky gameplay mechanics combined with the existing encounter design, which is why I've been discussing it.

Does that clear it up a bit?

I wish I could state things this clearly. I've been trying to explain for ages that I don't mind DPSing as a Healer in WoW because it doesn't make me want to cut myself. It's not clunky - it's smooth and fluid. But in FF, I feel like I'm taking a huge chance with Cleric Stance half the time, and it's annoying as hell not to be able to react on the fly to things.

It's kinda like having Chakra stances as a Holy Priest, and those sucked.

- - - Updated - - -

As for the cleric stance discussion:

Why do we even need a stance for that?
PvP?

I think one of the biggest reasons why Healers don't deal damage is because of that stance and a misclick/toggle ruins your day.
Yet I can't see a reason why a stance like that even exists.

I believe it's a side effect of not having multiple "specs" per class. In WoW, if questing as a Healer is incredibly painful, you can swap to a DPS spec to smooth things out. You can't do that in FF, because you are leveling the class/Job, not a spec...so swapping to, say, Bard isn't an option. So Healers have to be able to DPS competently.

It's just...Cleric Stance is awful.

[Deleted]

Maybe... I think you get a lot of healers who just can't be bothered. They want to heal, not dps. You get a lot of others who just don't even know they are expected to dps. Cleric stance, and its "issues", is probably not a huge factor for most people who pick healer and don't dps while doing so.

I don't personally care what happens with the it. I don't mind it being in game and I don't really feel inconvenienced by it. I wouldn't be upset it if it was removed either. I do think there is some value in that risk scenario that comes with using it. I don't mind that it can be hugely punishing to screw it up. I also don't feel that my experience as a healer would be greatly diminished if the ability was gone.

There are always gonna be people who don't even bother, that's no different with DPS classes either.
But it would remove the risk, the spells themselves are weaker than proper DPS abilities anyway, so healers are never going to "outdamage" them anyway. Someone who properly stancedances anyway won't even notice a difference in damage if you remove it.

I remember times where a healer buddy of mine was pretty sure he toggled it off before using an expensive healing spell, just to notice it being still up (because he spammed the key and reactivated it) after spending a good portion of his mana for big heals. I think situation like these are unnecessary, because the challenge to balance heals and DPS adds enough complexity - no need to make a simple missclick so punishable.

[Treeba]

My point was more that cleric stance isn't what's keeping most people from doing dps as a healer. There are obvious exceptions like the poster above you, but I'd be willing to bet you that's not the norm.

As for your healer buddy... I think all healers have done that at some point. I know I've done it before. I just don't personally see that as a huge reason to remove cleric stance. It's an awareness thing that can be avoided. There is value in being able to make (or avoid) mistakes like that. I'm not saying I like the ability... or that I want it to stay. Just that a lot of people here look at it as a stupid pointless complication to playing a healer. They may like that risk/complication.

[Wrecktangle]

I wish I could state things this clearly. I've been trying to explain for ages that I don't mind DPSing as a Healer in WoW because it doesn't make me want to cut myself. It's not clunky - it's smooth and fluid. But in FF, I feel like I'm taking a huge chance with Cleric Stance half the time, and it's annoying as hell not to be able to react on the fly to things.

It's kinda like having Chakra stances as a Holy Priest, and those sucked.

I do give lessons. Come heal for my casual friends guild and they're free!

I remember REALLY liking the idea behind chakra stances, but that implementation was just SO bad.

My point was more that cleric stance isn't what's keeping most people from doing dps as a healer. There are obvious exceptions like the poster above you, but I'd be willing to bet you that's not the norm.

As for your healer buddy... I think all healers have done that at some point. I know I've done it before. I just don't personally see that as a huge reason to remove cleric stance. It's an awareness thing that can be avoided. There is value in being able to make (or avoid) mistakes like that. I'm not saying I like the ability... or that I want it to stay. Just that a lot of people here look at it as a stupid pointless complication to playing a healer. They may like that risk/complication.

You may not have seen the origin of my multi-page discussion so I'll restate it here to clarify for you. This isn't about increasing the player pool of healers who will DPS. That is merely a side effect of making healing/dpsing more engaging.

The issues with cleric stance are pretty straightforward:
1) It's not fun to press. Ever.
2) Its clunky and archaic design. You're arbitrarily limited to x or y.
3) It's far too punishing for a mistake, thus significantly reducing the player pool willing to use it in any form of group content. No one here is advocating for easy street. We (people who have sided with me and myself) are 100% ok with complexity and difficulty as long as it is fun. See point #1.

[Treeba]

You may not have seen the origin of my multi-page discussion so I'll restate it here to clarify for you. This isn't about increasing the player pool of healers who will DPS. That is merely a side effect of making healing/dpsing more engaging.

The issues with cleric stance are pretty straightforward:
1) It's not fun to press. Ever.
2) Its clunky and archaic design. You're arbitrarily limited to x or y.
3) It's far too punishing for a mistake, thus significantly reducing the player pool willing to use it in any form of group content. No one here is advocating for easy street. We (people who have sided with me and myself) are 100% ok with complexity and difficulty as long as it is fun. See point #1.

Someone actually did say that, and I was responding to that person.

I skimmed some of the posts. You're presenting a list of subjective opinions as though they are objective facts. I can understand why you guys don't like it. I'm just saying there is risk/reward gameplay around it and the developers (and some players) are probably okay with that. Not every ability is about fun. There are lots of not fun abilities that I push to use abilities that are fun. Fun is ultimately subjective. I promise you out of all the people playing this game there are absolutely people who do think it is fun to push cleric stance.

[Ravex]

Someone actually did say that, and I was responding to that person.

I skimmed some of the posts. You're presenting a list of subjective opinions as though they are objective facts. I can understand why you guys don't like it. I'm just saying there is risk/reward gameplay around it and the developers (and some players) are probably okay with that. Not every ability is about fun. There are lots of not fun abilities that I push to use abilities that are fun. Fun is ultimately subjective. I promise you out of all the people playing this game there are absolutely people who do think it is fun to push cleric stance.

This is a game people play for entertainment. Yes every ability should be about fun.