Predict the endwalker healing meta!

A meta of healers being hard to find in raid recruitment Discord channels.

I think the meta will be: WHM/SGE
My reasoning: I think as AST has less control over it's RNG again it's going to make rDPS a little less consistent and of course Glare spams are an easy consistent DPS, though it is more selfish in terms of DPS, but I think a meta would want more predictability. I feel like there's going to be some redundancy in the shield side of the Pure/Shield heals set up. SGE has better pure healing options than SCH and whilst SCH gets a speed buff, but I feel like it might be used more in progression runs but maybe not meta as every AoE will be avoidable without a SCH in the party and the long recast makes me think it'll be a selective use. And of course SGE has to DPS to heal and can be there to cover shields in any mechanic where that might be useful. Whilst AST can fill this niche enough, I wonder if the randomisation will affect AST DPS contributions enough for WHM to be preferred. Though I think AST is better to play from a 'feel' PoV.
Factors that might subvert my prediction: The randomisation of AST doesn't affect DPS that much then I don't think WHM has an advantage over AST and I think AST benefits well from a more rounded kit, we know WHM's status as the healiest healer is kinda redundant. And if the healing requirement gets boosted enough that shield healing becomes more useful then I think it'd mix things up be bit.

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Originally Posted by VictoriaLuv

this why scholar/ast needs have tool kit nerfed hard. cause white mage never be added to the meta

Ast/scholar... Ast/sage meta

white mage is trash always be trash dont expect it to be in any savage cause not viable at all

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WHM may be a liitle underpowered by comparison, but I'm pretty sure WHM will still be viable

Some people just love their job so much that they don't care about skill potencies, especially for thoese world first teir raider. Those minor potencies won't stop them for getting world first

Just look at TPS team, their TEA world first has DRK when it was considered trash among all tanks, and their E12S world first has BRD and WHM.

AST + SCH in 8 man content and SGE for 4 man content.

AST + SCH will provide the best heals and utilities for a party in any 8 man content as simple as that. AST can boost dps, SCH can boost dps every 2 min and will still be the king at shielding due to the new passive we will have in EW.

SGE should be the best in 4 man content with at least a decent party. From what I've seen, a lot of aoe DPS + enough heal to keep any decent tank alive. Not much more to say.

I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say the meta will be zero healers for farm and solo healer for progression, probably solo-SGE or solo-AST.

Assuming they don't give every single hard content healer-targeting mechanics, and provided the party doesn't have a DRK, I'm pretty confident you could do a zero-healer party with the increased amount of support tools classes are getting in general and the increased self-healing tools every tank except DRK is getting. Worst comes to worse you just substitute double-RDM for the two healer slots since their support kit is being enhanced even further. And you can go one healer if absolutely necessary, AST being the best candidate due to its RDPS stuff with div and cards, with SGE coming in second place due to having a large heal kit that doesn't impede the DPS rotation, alongside DPS heal stuff. Plus scholar is fucking boring and Astro is an abomination of lore-destruction and no-fun-allowed changes, so I'd recommend using SGE, personally.

Of course, they could counter this by having every single piece of "hard content" include forced-healer-target mechanics. As those go random if there are no healers and most people can't adapt on the fly to that during farm situations. But something tells me that they won't. They could also raise outgoing damage but if you think they'll do that you need to stop huffing copium.

So optimistic. 2 RDM is overkill.

It's PLD/WAR, 4 SMN, 1 DNC and 1 RDM.

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Originally Posted by Silver-Strider

So optimistic. 2 RDM is overkill.

It's PLD/WAR, 4 SMN, 1 DNC and 1 RDM.

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its 3 smn and 1 RPR cause you forgot people want that extra 1% buff

Since all numbers could change at launch and then further before the raid tier releases, there is no absolute tell to damage contribution from each healer in any given context.

That being said, I compare actual numbers based on what I've analyzed myself and what the other wonderful players from the Balance :tm: have said.

Healer meta changes based on the context of the situation, and most players (healers especially) aren't competent enough or can afford a good team to execute and afford the best possible performance to achieve the best results - since achieving the best results is the only reason a meta would exist in the first place. That being said, here are my takes:

For casual raid progression: anything.
- It literally does not matter at all, because you'll likely not be minimum gear by the point you get the fights that require higher gear and there will be no pressure or time limit on clearing. This could even include double of the same healer, which is abysmal for multiple reasons, but is possible.
- There are no mechanics that require special healer combinations minus big single hits from the 3rd and 4th floor of the tier, which only would reasonably need a "shield" healer.

For week 1 and racing: Likely AST/SCH.
- SCH has a the most effective mitigation and full sprint for the party, they handle split and spread party situations good, they still have chain which makes up for their lack of damaging the boss even when they cannot afford to and potential higher rDPS contribution regardless.
- AST heals relatively a ton still, they have really good spread/split party healing, same raid buff stuff just more than SCH, they have a lot of MP regen.
- Since healing the party in a still-standing spot or j-waves style mechanic is trivial with any composition I am not considering brute force or limited range healing.

For speeding: Maybe AST/SCH.
- The only thing that matters here is total raid damage, unless required healing is high enough where you warrant a healer that heals more but contributes less damage, which would likely not happen based on SHB tiers - and actual experience.
- This could change based on the viability of chain and maybe downtime adjustments that could lead to gains on SGE.

For any and all normal content in any context: none or any.
- Play what you like, don't feel pressured to do anything special, there is no meta for normals because no one cares enough about it for there to be a competition or consideration as a merit to performance. Use it as a learning opportunity to take baby steps in your growth as a player!
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My experience and knowledge comes from engaging in all raid content in HC prog, speeding/personal runs, and learning from other players that also engage in them.
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All of this could change with simple potency changes, minus the casual stuff. I can elaborate more, or correct any mistakes I may have made or overlooked.

I believe it's gonna be AST/SCH. After the SGE hype dies out and we get into proper optimization phase this combination will bring the best rDPS. ASTs kit is still overtuned and 180% shield on Adlo is insane if you add it Deployment + the SCH preloton mitigation is gonna be a quite good mitigation tool. WHM/SGE will see some play ofc but I since rDPS is the most important metric (as of SHB) AST/SCH will be the most powerful combo.

While I couldn't care less about meta, I do thinks its most likely going to be one of two things

Sage/Ast for fights with fights nowadays having lots of uptime and because big dick dps buff plz
Or its going to Sage OR Ast for solo healing because its looking very likely a 2nd healer is going to be permanently superfluous assuming no dark knight is in the party and these two roles are basically better than the other two in their categories

Healing required by the healers is going to be even lower this expansion, given 3 of the tanks have absurd self healing now and dark probably won't be used much because its hated by the devs as much as sch is. Lowest dps and fun for dark Always ;n;


Either way, I think its oging to be another expansion of "healer in need" after the initial hype has died off. IT will be either "nonsage healer" or "healer" depending on how sage goes potency wise. Toxikon needs but one buff and suddenly we have a healing job fit for the game

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Originally Posted by Aword3213

WHM may be a liitle underpowered by comparison, but I'm pretty sure WHM will still be viable

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Absolutely. WHM will be "fine".

The only issue is that it'll be "fine" and "viable" while the other healers will be powerhouses.

I want to joke and say PAL/WAR - what are healers.....

Ast/Sge overall, I can only really see Whm or Sch being viable is if there is just a ton of healing or a ton of mitigation required, but considering that just rarely happens, Ast and Sge could be the go to for the rdps and dps. That being said metas arent really a massive deal since you can clear any ex/savage/ultimate content with and job.

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Originally Posted by Laphicet

rant about how useless healers are.

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This was a hilarious read. Glad to see we've gotten to the point of black-pilling over a video game.

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Originally Posted by Brandedblade

This was a hilarious read. Glad to see we've gotten to the point of black-pilling over a video game.

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Except he's right.

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Originally Posted by FoxCh40s

Except he's right.

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Oh no i can't believe he got you too!

I know you hate it when we say it but this is unfortunately going to be a...now wait for it... WAIT AND SEE kind of thing. And even if the most optimized groups don't run healers that doesn't mean healers have no value outside of that. Not everyone playing this game is going to be playing at that level, for those people having a healer or two will be welcome.

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Originally Posted by Brandedblade

I know you hate it when we say it but this is unfortunately going to be a...now wait for it... WAIT AND SEE kind of thing.

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I've been sat waiting at this table since the Stormblood media preview! ;)

tbh the ast/sge meta will be more prominent due to how whm and sch gameplay will feel most of all.

with whm mp economy plummets to the ground making basically ast 5.0 and whm level 50 mp issues will now hunts him at level 90 only worse , he won't be anymore prog friendly healer(aka new player friendly) and has way more downside in progging compare to ast in terms of recovery in case of failure(especially personal failure cause they can restore their mp faster now) ,in pure healer category ast is the clear winner;

sch while have util is still one of the clunkiest and have contradictive kit that wont reward for said contradiction so while being able to do content ,its has the worst gameplay compare to sge who not only dont suffer from ghost and delays on his skiils due to fairy AI but he does not have any parts of the kit that actually lock him from using his other skills when they are used and since it was proven that sge has the same stuff sch has except niche util and he is more dps focused and actually heal people when he dps, so in the barrier healer category its sge that wins.

ast can also stack his shields with either of the barrier healers so most chances are we will see ast/sge or the niche of ast/sch as meta more even though ast has more rng.

All it takes to change the meta is a 10 potency buff to a nuke, so I'd say it's a little bit to early to tell.

I did notice though that SCH's shield potential is quite higher than SGE, so SCH might be meta in some fights if some mechanics can be cheesed with shield stacking.

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Originally Posted by PaulH

I want to joke and say PAL/WAR - what are healers.....

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A slot that has to be filled just to commence a DF.

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Originally Posted by PaulH

I want to joke and say PAL/WAR - what are healers.....

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It's a bit of a sidetrack from the original purpose of this thread but - with tanks getting so much more healing...

I'm skeptical it will have a tangible effect on raiding metas. But when people already complain that healing dungeons is boring and very easy... I do kinda expect this is just going to make things worse, particularly once we're all in EW's ilvl gear.

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Originally Posted by Brandedblade

I know you hate it when we say it but this is unfortunately going to be a...now wait for it... WAIT AND SEE kind of thing.

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I mean, sure. The point of this thread is to see different viewpoints. And come EW release, we can see "Oh this was right on" or "This was completely off" or "A little of this, a little of that was right/wrong."

This isn't meant to be some "IT'S GOING TO BE HORRIBLE YOU SHOULD JUST QUIT NOW" thing. But discussion does generally include negative aspects in addition to the positive ones.

I personally am very skeptical healers will disappear from raiding, along with some of the other forecasts in this thread. But the point isn't to argue that other views are wrong, it's to see what people are thinking and why.

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Originally Posted by Brandedblade

Oh no i can't believe he got you too!

I know you hate it when we say it but this is unfortunately going to be a...now wait for it... WAIT AND SEE kind of thing. And even if the most optimized groups don't run healers that doesn't mean healers have no value outside of that. Not everyone playing this game is going to be playing at that level, for those people having a healer or two will be welcome.

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People were saying "wait and see" years ago and I bet my left knee they'll be saying it again 2 years from now when 7.0 is on the cusp of release.

I think it's fair to say folks are more than tired of being told to wait and see.

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Originally Posted by Brandedblade

Oh no i can't believe he got you too!

I know you hate it when we say it but this is unfortunately going to be a...now wait for it... WAIT AND SEE kind of thing. And even if the most optimized groups don't run healers that doesn't mean healers have no value outside of that. Not everyone playing this game is going to be playing at that level, for those people having a healer or two will be welcome.

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You missed the point of what I was saying. Right now you can easily solo heal any hard content so long as there is no healer-targeting mechs that place stack markers or such the like on two healers. Even then you can still do it but the mechanical complexity increases to such a point it would invalidate the DPS gain for most parties. A big thing though is that you can't do a zero-healer party for most hard content, even with iLVL bloat, the outgoing damage is just too much.

The reason I say zero-healers or solo heal is my prediction is that they are buffing both Healer kits on the healing side AND tank self-heal abilities for all tanks outside of DRK. And with this bloat to these support kits, plus increases in RDMs healing kit and SMN having more ready access to shields, I think you would be able to cut the healer out of things completely provided there's no role bucketing via forced healer target, at least during farm. And with the increase to healer potencies and just more bloating of healer kits I do think you could easily solo-heal during prog with anything but WHM, and WHM could do it with a high-piety build and some ethers. This does assume they won't be increasing outgoing damage, though... but historical record shows that if anything they'll be reducing outgoing damage, so I'm pretty confident in my predictions.

EDIT:
However, there is one big thing keeping solo heal from becoming a thing for higher-end stuff. And that's FFlogs. You see, FFlogs puts anything that's not 2tanks2heals4dps in a category called "non-standard". Non-standard parses don't get added to overall ratings and are basically nonexistent when it comes to your personal records IIRC. This makes it so that a good chunk of people running end-game stuff, parse chaser types, are actively disincentivized from using these non-standard comps as these don't carry as much weight as standard comp parses. If this were to be changed then you'd see a lot more solo-heal parties and maybe even some attempts at no-heal parties even in current content. But for now it's a niche thing that can speed things up greatly in some content.

And like I said before, there is the issue of healer-targeting mechanics going random if there is no healer to target. So all they would need to do is put one very-punishing healer-focused mech in every hard fight and solo heal becomes much more scarce due to the increased coordination required.

It could also be made so that you have to have one shield and one regen healer to get the full "different party members" damage and LB bonus, but such would be a bit vindictive to do and also doesn't matter to people just looking to farm things and get clears... such is moreso a thing for parsers.

I think the meta will be: AST and SGE


My reasoning: Given how the healer meta has evolved over the years since Heavensward, I've seen a lot of reasons why it's difficult to balance healers in a way that doesn't step on another job's toes in terms of functionality.

AST from HW to SB was an example with it being "White Mage with Cards" so to speak. SGE is basically the DPS form of a Healer - except when they decided to split healers into 'pure' healers and 'shield' healers. What they wound up with SGE was a hybrid Healer due to its ability to shift between two different stances that can change up how you heal in a given situation.

One problem that does present itself however is how SGE actually has better tools than SCH. If we're basing off of what XIV's general composition is supposed to be, then that only leaves the four healers competing with their separate counterparts. This presents a problem for SCH due to its lacking functionality(outside of fairy AI improvements in the Media Tour) and lackluster ability additions. Virtually, SCH only got 2 Tools. Two. And only one is possibly impactful for Tank Busters.

Unless they plan to address this in a hotfix a la SB WAR style, I don't see SCH ever getting much play in high-end. SGE on the other hand has tools that actually are better than SCH's in some places, such as not having to ground target for a 10% Mitigation effect, and also the fact that Pneuma heals, does DPS, and provides mitigation all at the same time which is very effective as a heavy CD. Then there's the application of Haima and Panhaima, which restore the effects of the 150 potency shield up to 5 times, which adds up to 750 potency worth of shields for raid-wide spam. There's too much good to pass up SGE for SCH in the meta.

As for AST, I would say that the changes that were brought to it were welcome in bringing back SB card functionality in a way with Lord/Lady, as well as providing a system that rewards for good card play that isn't a heavy requirement for AST's performance compared to Shadowbringers. Against WHM, AST has strong oGCDs to use over WHM's large heals; the other fact that WHM's Thin Air was nerfed back down to earth makes it more difficult for them to be MP efficient, while AST now has strong MP regeneration via their new self-mechanic.

But that's not what breaks the camel's back - Macrocosmos is just on paper. The fact they gave AST HP Storage is one of the strongest aspects you can give to a job when you're dealing with multiple raid-wides at once that hit for at least 50% of your Max HP and 65% of DPS' Max HP. This is far stronger than anything Benediction could give you, as sure, you can heal the damage from the raid-wide, but when it comes to HP storage you could heal it up, then take more damage, then burst heal for your Max HP.


Factors that might subvert my prediction: Macrocosmos' functionality. We need to see how the system actually works because just being on paper isn't enough to understand the stipulations of it. One of my speculations was that if a Tank took a 300k Tank Buster, that 150k could be spread across the party - but that's the thing. We don't know if it's individual.

If Macrocosmos' functionality is individual, then the strength of it is different and AST is very close to the same level as WHM's CD Suite, especially since WHM now has a flower they can pop out of the ground for big heals that pulse every time they're hit(and heal at the end).

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Originally Posted by Laphicet

EDIT:
However, there is one big thing keeping solo heal from becoming a thing for higher-end stuff. And that's FFlogs. You see, FFlogs puts anything that's not 2tanks2heals4dps in a category called "non-standard". Non-standard parses don't get added to overall ratings and are basically nonexistent when it comes to your personal records IIRC. This makes it so that a good chunk of people running end-game stuff, parse chaser types, are actively disincentivized from using these non-standard comps as these don't carry as much weight as standard comp parses. If this were to be changed then you'd see a lot more solo-heal parties and maybe even some attempts at no-heal parties even in current content. But for now it's a niche thing that can speed things up greatly in some content.

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I feel that if such a meta became common place, the developer of FF Logs would adjust the website such that those parses counted or had their own category or something of the sort.

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Originally Posted by Rolder50

I feel that if such a meta became common place, the developer of FF Logs would adjust the website such that those parses counted or had their own category or something of the sort.

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nonstandard comps actually used to count in rankings, but they forced standard comps for rankings bevause ppl were complaining about being forced off healing roles.

kind of funny that fflogs does more to make ppl play two healers than the fights themselves do

Ast is incredibly difficult. It won't be meta over whm.

I think people are confusing the actual meaning of meta. Its most effective not most fun to play or most easy to play. In xiv effectiveness boils down to the speed of a kill which basically equates to group dps which means party buffs. Seems pretty plain by that definition alone that a single healer having ~30 more potency on its spam ability won't beat out buffing an entire team of 7 other people over the course of a fight. So as far as predicting the meta, I'm firmly in camp ast/sch.

We see now the effects of a healer that only buffs itself and brings its own damage with whm versus ast. The same will happen with sch and sage. Party movement and a crit buff that will scale harder over time as peoples individual crit scores increase, since that also buffs crit damage, will beat out sages personal dps and slightly more reliable healing. Ast had the rng taken out of its party buff and retains the usual cards on top of that so if anything its even more of a predictable consistent damage boost now except those rare occasions where they hit the lotto and buff themselves 5% with dyne.

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Originally Posted by AFuzzyMu11in

It won't be meta over whm.

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In line with what Tanya said, I want to stress that meta isn't the same as popularity.

History has shown us time and again white mage is the most popular healer even when it is the worst healer. For other healers to exceed WHM's population, it needs to not just be the worst performing, it needs to be severely far behind the next lowest. So, if the balance is remotely close, I have no doubt WHM will be the most popular even if it is the bottom performer.

Sage theoretically could change this, but overcoming the iconic-ness of WHM, and that it's the only healer we can start the game as, and so on is a tall order and I personally doubt that will happen. SCH and AST can't do it despite SCH+AST being the speedkill meta this entire expansion and white mage, once more, having the lowest DPS contribution at the tail end. Last expac, it only happened when WHM was really far behind and there was a particularly tough-to-heal raid (O12S).

So to be sure: It's pretty likely WHM will have the highest population unless certain thresholds are crossed. But "meta" is far less likely and personally, I don't think it will happen.

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Originally Posted by Laphicet

EDIT:
However, there is one big thing keeping solo heal from becoming a thing for higher-end stuff. And that's FFlogs. You see, FFlogs puts anything that's not 2tanks2heals4dps in a category called "non-standard". Non-standard parses don't get added to overall ratings and are basically nonexistent when it comes to your personal records IIRC. This makes it so that a good chunk of people running end-game stuff, parse chaser types, are actively disincentivized from using these non-standard comps as these don't carry as much weight as standard comp parses. If this were to be changed then you'd see a lot more solo-heal parties and maybe even some attempts at no-heal parties even in current content. But for now it's a niche thing that can speed things up greatly in some content.

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Correct me if I'm wrong, but logs are only moved to Non-Standard if you're running two... well, non-standard comps. 1T/1H/6D or two DRGs and 1 Healer. If you only have one, it'll still list it under Standard.

With that said, Rolder is correct. If it ever become commonplace, FFlogs would either adapt or make a ranked category. rDPS exists primarily because of Dance Partner utterly destroying logs.

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Originally Posted by AFuzzyMu11in

Ast is incredibly difficult. It won't be meta over whm.

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AST has been meta over WHM since 3.4 and thoroughly dominated it ever since. We aren't talking about viability or casual preference but how the meta raid scene will turn out. Popularity doesn't matter in this case. Overall damage does. Presently, WHM is the lowest, losing to both AST and SCH. And by a fairly substantial margin too.

Except AST is terrible design. You are forced to constantly weave and manage multiple systems it's insane.

Ast + Sch combined healer rDps is almost 18% above sch + whm on e12s p1 at 90%, in P2 the difference is 23%. The damage difference is ridiculous, and ast the strongest healer right now and is getting even more powerful healing tools and less rng meanwhile whm is getting nerfed going into end walker for some reason lol. I think whm will be viable but never the best pick.

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Originally Posted by AFuzzyMu11in

Except AST is terrible design. You are forced to constantly weave and manage multiple systems it's insane.

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This may shock you, however several players actually like keeping themselves busy by weaving oGCDs and cards alongside Malefic. In fact, many of those same players dislike White Mage because they consider it "boring".

Good thing we have some choice in playstyle and all healers don't play exactly the same. Oh wait... Well, at least we have some choice.

Guess they’re back with the good old bait, huh?
… but anyway…

They won’t make encounters that inevitably exclude WHMs, so WHMs will almost definitely be viable, still.

Except at that point you’re basically a handicapped green DPS. I imagine things will get marginally better with future ‘rebalancing’, but meh. I have no high hopes.

Glad your only rebuttle is still the same. But yeah AST is so many buttons and so many systems. I'm actually a little upset the healers been making these posts about asking for more difficulty and downtime nonsense when AST exists. Let the non optimize players have whm and sch. You guys have AST soon to be Sge.

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Originally Posted by AFuzzyMu11in

Glad your only rebuttle is still the same. But yeah AST is so many buttons and so many systems. I'm actually a little upset the healers been making these posts about asking for more difficulty and downtime nonsense when AST exists. Let the non optimize players have whm and sch. You guys have AST soon to be Sge.

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Then don't play it.

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Originally Posted by ty_taurus

Then don't play it.

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Trust me I don't. I stopped at 50 when I realized how boring and unfun it is compared to sch/whm.
Cards, crowns, divination and healing??? At 50 no sir.

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Originally Posted by AFuzzyMu11in

Glad your only rebuttle is still the same. But yeah AST is so many buttons and so many systems. I'm actually a little upset the healers been making these posts about asking for more difficulty and downtime nonsense when AST exists. Let the non optimize players have whm and sch. You guys have AST soon to be Sge.

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except sch is optimizing as well, since you got to manage the fairy, apply chain strategem in during bursts ,time your dissipation when needed, and above all heal and dps at the same time.
so since you are scared of ast cause he has more buttons to press, how about sch now? and dont forget you have expedite and protractive so you need to time those and with the movement speed might kill someone cause he went to far out of the arena cause of you or using protactive during 1 hp mechanic might actually get someone dead when it fades.

thats the problem with you lot, you are not satisfied with one healer you want all healers to be shallow and without depths, without their lore, just so you can go afk during runs.

Obvious bait is obvious sirs.

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Originally Posted by Sebazy

Obvious bait is obvious sirs.

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then how about you check my classes? u will see ast is 50 for a reason lmao