Another WHM chicken little sees the sky falling. The sky is an AST.

[Sylvain]

I disagree here. I like the way healing works in this game due in part to it's uniqueness. Of course if healers had to spend more time healing the healer best at making hp go up wins but that isn't what I want and it isn't the direction I anticipate SE going. Plus it doesn't fix the problem - in a world of dps optimization giving healers less time to dps just means their rDPS (yet another category that goes SCH>AST>WHM) matters that much more.

Well on this one I suppose it's more a matter of personal opinion.
What I find confusing though, is that Y.P had to remind players, more than once, that healer were only there to heal and raid weren't designed with any healer dps contribution in mind. (I doubt this is true for the last 2 tier of savage and Ultimate but that's not the point) and yet every raid seems to promote this healing dps design. I mean, when you look on forum you see 10 post about how to optimise your dps for 1 post of how to handle some healing situation.

I personally would like more healing time. I rolled a healer to heal. Not to spend 90% of my time spamming MaleficIII or StoneIV

Well that's the thing isn't it - first kills. People don't often bring AST to prog because they're going for survival rather than optimization. At the end of Stormblood tough when we're all in PF parse running Savage and farming totems for mounts and weapons you can bet unless something changes WHM will be left in the dust again.

I'd like to correct your assessment, "A fraction of the fraction able to clear Savage on PF" doing parse run will care

I'm sorry but let's be real there, balancing a whole job so that not even 1% can have more e-peen online doesn't sound right.

I don't think having all job perfectly balanced for parse run is among SE top priority. (nor should it be)

It's like you summerized my whole post right there xD Thank you!
..

This is actually something I find utterly disapointing about AST and WHM
Healing wise, they're very similar. Like when a WHM friend told me "I don't know how to heal as an AST" I was just like "...... I mean, spare a few spells you're missing and grounded star, they pretty much heal the same exact way."

I really hope we'll get more unique spells like Grounded Star next xpac, because WHM and AST are definitely too similar when it comes to healing.

[Ceasaria]

It's funny when you see WHM complaining about AST but no AST or WHM complain about SCH and the role he has played for years, irreplaceable.
In the end of the day, AST will have more DPS, more MP management (it was hot really when you got the min mana), but that's all, it's like a quality of life change for me.
Even if Aspected Helios got some buff, it will not replace the great WHM and his Cure III, his 0 cost mana spam (Holy, heal or Rez), Benediction, Divine Benison (hey it got buff at 4.2, did you see AST complained ?) etc.
So no, WHM will be good, and will be prefer in Ultimate compared to AST, and any progress.

[Ghishlain]

@OP

I don't have too much to add at this time as I don't have a lot of time but I will say it would be best to attempt to try to keep a level head until we see the numbers on paper and can discuss the facts about it. I know that's easier said than done because WHM has been down this path before with a WHM vs AST debate but WHM still brings benefits to the table that AST did not back in 3.4 era when AST got overbuffed out the ying yang.

I know you said don't bring up Savage / Ultimate arguments only but I do feel it's an important aspect to consider because part of balancing revolves around the highest tiers of content because those represent kits being played at the highest skill tiers. Generally when you rebalance a kit you're either adjusting the skill floor or skill ceiling and the best place to look at skill ceilings are in the highest difficulties of the game.

As Miste pointed out in their comment, there is a rather large dearth of AST compared to WHM and SCH when you look at the FFLogs participants number. I know that one should take logs with a grain of salt but the participation numbers shouldn't be that divisive. I imagine S-E has seen this as well and are basing their adjustments to suit to increase utilization of AST.

My personal opinion at this point is the only thing that seems out of place is the Aspect Helios buff. I'm of opinion it's not really necessary unless the buff is a minor thing like a cast time adjustment. I don't think it needs a potency buff in either Diurnal or Nocturnal.

As a WHM main, the Lightspeed change to me doesn't feel too out of whack. Lightspeed never affected recast so all it did was front load the GCD. It'll be a DPS increase for Gravity in dungeon content and their wall to wall pulls. Lightspeed from a MP efficiency stand point will still be lacking compared to Thin Air since Thin Air is both 0MP cost and has a lower cooldown than Lightspeed (though the second bit is arguable due to Hyper Lightspeed trait).

The cast speed change feels like it's reducing cast time without changing recasts. This should allow for less clunky AST play and be a minor buff to their DPS as ASTs won't have to clip their GCDs as often. I'm okay with this though - from a high skill ceiling standpoint I feel this would give the AST about an additional 2 GCDs per minute (gut feeling, no theorycraft to back this up).

Anyway, that's all the time I have now. I hope you are feeling better now and let's try to maintain a level head until we get to see the changes officially on paper.

[Exiled_Tonberry]

What I find confusing though, is that Y.P had to remind players, more than once, that healer were only there to heal......and yet every raid seems to promote this healing dps design.

Yoshi is extremely stubborn with this topic. He doesn't want to build this idea that healers should also be DPSing so the casual crowd doesn't get intimidated, but these fights are obviously made with this in mind, the exception to me so far being God Kefka because the DPS requirement is actually really low.

Sometimes I wonder if their stubborn stance on this is effecting balance, because it feels like they could focus a lot more on WHMs DPS to make up for a lack of utility, but making them too strong would force people to want WHM dpsing even more. AST and SCH obviously contributes utility, but WHM offers nothing beyond personal dps, so you would think they'd make that extremely strong, not weaker than SCH dps in most fights...


But yes, for once I do think we should wait to see how these changes effect things. I do really hate that AST healing and toolkit is getting closer and closer to WHM almost every patch (as someone mentioned, Lightspeed now is more like Thin Air(lite) + PoM).
I was hoping that they would slowly works towards stepping away from being so WHM-like, but apparently not.
And it's bad because unlike AST and SCH, WHM complaints never get taken seriously by Yoshi. Probably because of the point made earlier; healers are meant to heal, and as long as they can do that they're balanced enough...

[Remedi]

Not a main Healer, but I'd say it's more thin air (lite)+swiftcast (lite)

[KDSilver]

It is a valid concern, though.

It's not.
The day AST will have the same toolkit as WHM, or insane potencies increase, maybe it will.
But those small adjustements won't.

WHM crying over AST always are people who don't know how to properly play WHM.

[KaivaC]

It's not.
The day AST will have the same toolkit as WHM, or insane potencies increase, maybe it will.
But those small adjustements won't.

WHM crying over AST always are people who don't know how to properly play WHM.

That's a bit judgmental, ain't it? Mayhaps there is a valid worry that the devs have absolutely no idea how to balance properly, and in their attempts to fix the 'balance, they may end up making WHMs less desirable in content where something like that matters? WHMs have been known as pure healers, but with some of these changes, its apparent that ASTs are coming closer to being WHMs themselves with buffs. Upset the balance too much and it'll last for a patch cycle - the devs don't often introduce hotfixes to jobs in between patches. So yes, it is a valid concern. Sure, the adjustments may be a tad bit too small now, but it could end up with WHMs being left behind - potentially.

[EaMett]

It's not.
The day AST will have the same toolkit as WHM, or insane potencies increase, maybe it will.
But those small adjustements won't.

WHM crying over AST always are people who don't know how to properly play WHM.

lol. Sweeping generalization and incorrect statement.
Diurnal AST and WHM have almost the exact same toolkit and play very similarly (from a healing pov)

assize > earth star (honestly I'd pick earth star anytime)
medica > helios
medica2 > aspected helios
regen > aspected benefic
cure > benefica
cure II > benefic II
tetra > essential dignity
holy > gravity
presence of mind + thin air > lightspeed now
aero II > combust II
Stone > malefic

WHM has a couple of things like bene or cure III that stand out but at what cost? An entire card system that can add up to 1000 rdps. Not to mention that AST also has other skills to replace those two.

So, I'm sorry, but even though as an AST you may organize your heals around earth star (since it's so OP when done right), and even though there are some subtle differences in potencies and duration/cooldowns, or making good use of synastry. The kits are so similar it's a joke at this point. AST is basically a WHM for more experienced players.

The only thing WHM has going for itself is it's comfort level. That extra padding that can allow for reversals of situations. This really shouldn't be overlooked but lets not fool ourselves in saying AST and WHM don't have the same toolkit. WHM at this point is mostly an AST for beginners. And I believe that's exactly how SE sees it and the reason why they've been so adamant about upholding the "pure healer" image in a game that was designed not to require a "pure healer" (aka: letting all content be accessible to all healers)

[Kabooa]

Yoshi is extremely stubborn with this topic. He doesn't want to build this idea that healers should also be DPSing so the casual crowd doesn't get intimidated, but these fights are obviously made with this in mind, the exception to me so far being God Kefka because the DPS requirement is actually really low.

Savage raiding isn't the game.

It's the only challenging content in the game, however, and that's why the playstyle there changes dramatically.

For 99.9% of the game, Healers don't have to DPS, except for their own leveling content.

When you step into the .1% meant to actively challenge you, obviously, you have to change some things.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

It's not.
The day AST will have the same toolkit as WHM, or insane potencies increase, maybe it will.
But those small adjustements won't.

WHM crying over AST always are people who don't know how to properly play WHM.

Or they experienced the absolute dominance of AST in 3.4, which became so wide spread, PFs were actively locking healer spots to AST/SCH. Plenty of very good WHMs were forced to change because everyone wanted AST. That being said, even if all these purposed changes did occur, AST is still not slipping back into 3.4 god status, but WHM mains have every reason to be frustrated; perhaps even apprehensive, especially when you consider their gimmick for Stormblood remains the biggest joke of the expansion. Instead of addressing that... AST is the focus. Sure, it needed some adjustments, however WHMs have been down this road before. They spent a year being told "You don't have Balance."