Macrocosmos completely invalidating the P3S heal check is stupid

Healer balance is in the gutter this expansion

WHM's MP economy is in shambles while also being the weakest healer
AST single handedly invalidating Healer checks with a touch of a button.
The nerfs to Energy Drain to disincentivize its usage in ShB have been completely undone with the cast time changes and is once again in contention with SCH's healing toolkit, all while still being the most jank class in the game.
Heal checks in general have become so lackluster we have people running dungeons and clearing extreme primals without healers and even soloing still relevant normal 8 man.

I left ESO because Healers in that game were unnecessary and balance was garbage. Now it looks like FFXIV is following a similar mindset and it sucks.

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Originally Posted by pinkbubblegum

This is the same as Lillybell during FoF though haha. That's 4 GCDs your bell is covering for an entire area every fountain soak that neither healer has to do anything other than DPS xD

Only thing Lily can't do is shield for the next 2 Scorches but like honestly, one job having an advantage over one part of the fight is fine for me.

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So...why does Benediction, which is a far, far weaker, jankier ability than Macrocosmos, have the same cooldown? Why does Astrologian get AOE Benediction plus damage on the same cooldown as Benediction? Could it be because healer balance is in the spot it's been for literal years, i.e. Astro has a whole flying boatload of free healing, infinite MP, higher total damage output than a "selfish" job, buffs, mobility, and a partridge in a pear tree?

Awful design decisions aside, the balance within the healer role has always been pretty bad ever since Astro was introduced to the game. You don't have jobs complementing one another with different strengths in different places. You have one or two jobs that can do everything extremely well with zero weaknesses, and one or two jobs that are strictly inferior in almost every single category except maybe one or two. That's not balance.

This is probably why Macrocosmos will get nerfed, and it\\'s sad, it\\'s truly a unique ability that they\\'ve designed in awhile.

Honestly, I just don\\'t think they were intending for it to completely ignore the mechanic. I mean, they are the ones that design the fight and still the tool tip does say 50% of the damage you take, of course it\\'s gonna top you off, you\\'re literally taking 999999 damage.

And while I agree that it shouldn\\'t invalidate it, saying that AST should be nerfed is the vicious cycle that causes the devs to completely destroy it because it\\'s better designed than WHM.

And yes, I said that, WHM is the one that needs a buff/rework. Instead of nerfing AST and ignoring the obvious issues it has (really high APM, cards feeling really bad), ask for SE to give WHM something that can compete. Lilybell isn\\'t useful there as you can\\'t heal until the blasts go off and only proc\\'ing it once unless you have the 4x, and even then, it only matters after the fact. .

And then whenever WHM is not doing so well in actually healing the party, the devs go ahead and destroy the other healers (ala ShB) because they need to be on WHM\\'s level in order to be "balanced". So only having direct healing clone spells, cookie-cutter regens painted oGCD and zero identity is the only way for healers to truly be on the same level?

I\\'m tired of this narrative that it\\'s AST\\'s fault that WHM is being looked down upon by the community. People will to clear with the least amount of resistance so that\\'s why AST is preferred because it\\'s healing is powerful whereas WHM at an optimal POV is the worst teammate to have, seeing as they only have a handful of healing tools that doesn\\'t impact their uptime. Everytime I play WHM on an optimal run, the co-healer will always output more healing than what I can do WHM unless I GCD heal to match that when they can do just by timing their oGCDs. And the fact that Misery isn\\'t even DPS-neutral makes matters worse, WHM isn\\'t even rewarded for GCD healing like the devs want them too. They have no other utility other than Temperance.

Do you see the problem here?

WHM CAN do Death\\'s Toll however at their MP and GCD timing\\'s mercy.

While yes, AST can straight delete the mechanic with one button (this is more of an issue of how they make you take damage and didn\\'t account for it), asking them to nerf will result in them either deleting it entirely or nerfing it into irrelevancy. I would rather them tune the mechanic to not play into Macrocosmos\\'s strength tenfold.

So with that, let\\'s ask for WHM to get buffs instead and possibly a mid xpac rework (unlikely).

Although I can already see the dev team destroying AST yet again so people will stop complaining about them and leave WHM untouched.

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Originally Posted by elioaiko

I'm tired of this narrative that it's AST's fault that WHM is being looked down upon by the community. People will to clear with the least amount of resistance so that's why AST is preferred because it's healing is powerful whereas WHM at an optimal POV is the worst teammate to have, seeing as they only have a handful of healing tools that doesn't impact their uptime. Everytime I play WHM on an optimal run, the co-healer will always output more healing than what I can do WHM unless I GCD heal to match that when they can do just by timing their oGCDs. And the fact that Misery isn't even DPS-neutral makes matters worse, WHM isn't even rewarded for GCD healing like the devs want them too. They have no other utility other than Temperance.

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I get what you're saying, but at the same time you don't think having AOE Benediction is a tad disgustingly overpowered, especially on a job that's already in an incredibly comfortable spot even without it? None of the other jobs have a potential infinite potency AOE heal without burning a third level limit break. That'd be like Reaper getting a 5000 potency attack on a 3 minute cooldown. That's busted.

Being AST / SGE / WHM this tier, if anything I'm kind of annoyed that I have to be on AST for P3S just for this. But then, it's just strong for this one mechanic, like Lillybell is on FoF as people said.

If there is anything to touch on AST, I'd say the opener where I have to double weave Draws and Redraws, Lightspeed, Astrodyne, Divination, Earthly Star, Minor Arcan and its Play button, and mitigation CDs within 10 seconds.

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Originally Posted by Semirhage

So...why does Benediction, which is a far, far weaker, jankier ability than Macrocosmos, have the same cooldown? Why does Astrologian get AOE Benediction plus damage on the same cooldown as Benediction? Could it be because healer balance is in the spot it's been for literal years, i.e. Astro has a whole flying boatload of free healing, infinite MP, higher total damage output than a "selfish" job, buffs, mobility, and a partridge in a pear tree?

Awful design decisions aside, the balance within the healer role has always been pretty bad ever since Astro was introduced to the game. You don't have jobs complementing one another with different strengths in different places. You have one or two jobs that can do everything extremely well with zero weaknesses, and one or two jobs that are strictly inferior in almost every single category except maybe one or two. That's not balance.

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I'm not saying WHM isn't in a bad place right now, because it is, given that it's being punished for even using any of its GCD heals (including Lilies) without being given many other ogcds to remedy that but for me to look at this thread and be like "Oh yeah man Death's Toll should just be taken out" isn't something I agree with haha.

I'm not saying Death Toll should just be removed, lol. I'm saying if SE is unwilling to fix the mechanic so Macrocosmos is as weak as all other healing skills then they should just remove it because it's not doing anything by being in the fight.

What, the party has to sit through this whole 20s song and dance just to set up a mechanic that is handled with one button? That's just dumb.

I think it's fine and cool.

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Originally Posted by Silver-Strider

I left ESO because Healers in that game were unnecessary and balance was garbage. Now it looks like FFXIV is following a similar mindset and it sucks.

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It's this that bugs me the most.

Healer balance is the worst it's been for a pretty long time yet the devs are silent and make inscrutable changes. But what bothers me even more is just that healers are becoming so much less necessary to have and I don't think the clock is going to turn back on that one.

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Originally Posted by pinkbubblegum

I'm not saying WHM isn't in a bad place right now, because it is, given that it's being punished for even using any of its GCD heals (including Lilies) without being given many other ogcds to remedy that but for me to look at this thread and be like "Oh yeah man Death's Toll should just be taken out" isn't something I agree with haha.

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I don't think Death's Toll should necessarily be taken out. I think Astro having AOE Benediction is complete BS and the ability should be fixed so it doesn't generate a fifty gajillion potency heal in response to mechanics that overkill the party and then healblock them for flavor reasons.

WHM needs a fundamental redesign, but it's never gonna get it. It's been horribly designed for several expansions now, and the fact that the other healers keep getting tools that allow them to continuously do whatever they want, for free, has backed Square into an ugly corner. If you fix WHM the easy way and just hand over oGCDs, well now you're "stepping on everyone else's toes". The whole role needs the table flipped. The amount of zero cost abilities half the role has makes them much stronger than the other half, in pretty intractable ways. Strengths and weaknesses are only fun if you don't have a class or two in the role that go "weaknesses? What are those?"