Do you want healers to be reworked from the ground up?

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Originally Posted by Laphicet

The classes may be balanced but they sure has hell aren't fun or worth it to play to the community at least. and I don't think anything they could build onto this simplified system could fix it, either start over from scratch or revert SCH and AST to SB and go from there.

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This is step 5: "No no don't give WHM any utility, just tune their numbers against the two overpowered Good At Everything kits"

The next step after that one is AST and SCH mains bitching to high heaven because the easy job can match their output for less work.

Keep cycling.

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Originally Posted by Laphicet

Go look at clear rate statistics for endgame content and come back and tell me that same thing. AST and SCH both having significantly less usage than WHM and AST being used half as much as scholar.

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Where are you seeing this? I'm looking at total 5.3 parses for this Savage tier and AST is used more than SCH (11.4k to 9.6k). AST overtook SCH and saw a spike in popularity after the 5.3 changes. SCH is actually in a rather dire spot lately, excelling at almost nothing, having lower damage and having half its toolkit tied to a clunky pet that ghosts and vanishes for 30 second windows.

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Originally Posted by Semirhage

This is step 5: "No no don't give WHM any utility, just tune their numbers against the two overpowered Good At Everything kits"

The next step after that one is AST and SCH mains bitching to high heaven because the easy job can match their output for less work.

Keep cycling.

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You cannot balance the same set of jobs for savage players and any other purpose.

I've seen many people suggest, for example, that Samurai should have relatively high DPS to compensate for lack of utility, and also, that Samurai should have lower DPS because they thought it was relatively easy.

Both of those lines of logic are commonplace, but the development team has to pick one, and it vacillates.

Perhaps those could be reconciled with hard and easy modes for each job, but the dominant issue with the healers (according to most posters in the Healer Roles subforum) is something else, how boring healers are.

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Originally Posted by Semirhage

This is step 5: "No no don't give WHM any utility, just tune their numbers against the two overpowered Good At Everything kits"

The next step after that one is AST and SCH mains bitching to high heaven because the easy job can match their output for less work.

Keep cycling.

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What I said there is a simplification, I would actually keep whm where it's at save for adding back aero 3 and adding shell+protect at some kind of other mitigation, but, well, SCH and AST need to be reverted or have a proverbial sledgehammer taken to them.

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Originally Posted by PondHollow

but the dominant issue with the healers (according to most posters in the Healer Roles subforum) is something else, how boring healers are.

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I mean yes, that's the most pressing issue with the role at the moment. But recall that a decent number of posters here are, out of one side of their mouths, kvetching that healers are boring now that they're all as simplistic as WHM, while out of the other side it's all "keep WHM where it is but revert AST and SCH".

There is only one conclusion I can draw from both "healers are boring as-is" and "keep WHM as-is", and that conclusion is that I want this forum designing WHM about as little as I want the current class design team working on it. Because this forum wants it boring.

I play all three healers but only since shadow. All three are eighty.
WHM needs more dps abilities whether it’s tied to lillies or not.

AST needs more buffs than just dmg. Bring back that spread ability I heard about. Or let the lord lady do something other than +dmg. Also another dps spell.

SCH needs more debuffs. Also I won’t complain about its healing because I find the challenge rewarding. Let’s face it healing as scholar is the most challenging of all three. How about giving scholars a couple debuff dots to weave? Art of war is fun but that drains no so fast and it’s spam.

The dominant issue with healers is boredom.
Some healers in this forum seem to think we must have whm be easy and lack utility- absolutely not. Let me point everyone towards conjurer: that class is what healers should be taught on. If you treat whm as a tutorial healer as opposed to a full job, then you will be ruining whm's fun again

remember HW? it lacked utility although it had good personal dps. So it was fun to play, but raiders disliked it.

Whm must be fun too, and get some utility of some kind or highest healer dps complete with rotation to compensate for the lack of utility like the other roles have with their selfish jobs. A self buffing powerhouse of healing and damage would fit a nice niche for WHM and we can end this "but whm has to be simple!" train of thought.

The jobs should be designed to be fun first and raid second, but each job must be able to pull its weight in raids or raiders will complain. That means giving WHM tools to compete with the other jobs.

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Originally Posted by Recon1o6

The jobs should be designed to be fun first and raid second, but each job must be able to pull its weight in raids or raiders will complain. That means giving WHM tools to compete with the other jobs.

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It's almost like SE/ the FFXIV development team has forgotten or dismissed the philosophy that saved FFXIV.

https://i.imgur.com/pDrXDGe.jpg

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Originally Posted by Recon1o6

The dominant issue with healers is boredom.
Some healers in this forum seem to think we must have whm be easy and lack utility- absolutely not. Let me point everyone towards conjurer: that class is what healers should be taught on. If you treat whm as a tutorial healer as opposed to a full job, then you will be ruining whm's fun again

remember HW? it lacked utility although it had good personal dps. So it was fun to play, but raiders disliked it.

Whm must be fun too, and get some utility of some kind or highest healer dps complete with rotation to compensate for the lack of utility like the other roles have with their selfish jobs. A self buffing powerhouse of healing and damage would fit a nice niche for WHM and we can end this "but whm has to be simple!" train of thought.

The jobs should be designed to be fun first and raid second, but each job must be able to pull its weight in raids or raiders will complain. That means giving WHM tools to compete with the other jobs.

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I keep echoing this idea that WHM should be a powerhouse in terms of both healing and Damage output in comparison to other healers. I see it as the healer BLM equivalent. Selfish in terns of utility but incredibly powerful.

That in itself doesn't make it necessarily easy to play. The fact that a class is straightforward to understand doesn't make it easy. In BLM's case the rotation is increidibly simple, but the long casts that warrant it's damage output make it so it demands a good knowledge of the encounters. WHM could stand to be like this, at least in the damage department.

That's why I think WHM could stand to gain from some sort of self buff upkeep mechanic, just like Enochian. Turn WHM enochian on, and Elemental spells turn into light spells.
Make Glare a slow cast with very high damage, give WHM some mobility abilities and an oCD damage ability to maintain the enochian state. That way, players would be rewarded for smartly weaving healing and damage while constantly casting spells.

IMO the jobs should be balanced around how they work in Savage, and let the rest of the game figure it out.

For me to find healing engaging, the devs would have to likely revamp how the game is played, and primarily how damage is dealt.
Maybe it's cause I'm a medical student so there's bias in here, but healing in XIV is much-too binary. Anyone, even those not in this profession, can tell you that different ailments often require different treatments. You do not engage a laceration the same way you engage a burn.

The problem I see with healing in XIV is that in this magical world full of all kinds of potentially destructive energies, their infliction is reduced to just that: damaged or not damaged. This reductive approach makes for an equally reductive approach of dealing with said damage. It all comes down to... keeping the HP up. There is no nuance. What triaging exists is extremely basic.

The idea of proposing a complex healing system, however, feels like a pipe dream in this game. I suppose they could at least start with different types of damage?

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Originally Posted by Almagnus1

IMO the jobs should be balanced around how they work in Savage, and let the rest of the game figure it out.

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Absolutely, 100% wrong. You can't balance the game around content that 90% of the playerbase will never experience.

Exactly. However, those 'gameplay elements' that 90% of the playerbase experiences are focused around housing issues and pretty pretty Mogstation glamours, if the Q+A sessions are anything to go by. Why would you address job balance issues around meeting their preferences, instead of the 10% of the playerbase who are more invested in playing said jobs than they are at playing dress-up? You're catering to the wrong audience.

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Originally Posted by Deceptus

Absolutely, 100% wrong. You can't balance the game around content that 90% of the playerbase will never experience.

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Actually you should because what's going to work in that environment is going to form the meta for everything else in the game.

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Originally Posted by Deceptus

Absolutely, 100% wrong. You can't balance the game around content that 90% of the playerbase will never experience.

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You can only balance jobs around their maximum potential contribution. To do less than that is to not actually balance anything but just rather assigning arbitrary numbers.

There's no "balancing" jobs around a dungeon setting or a suboptimal rotation.

All job balance is top-down. What works in Ultimate/late stage Savage will absolutely be fine in all other content but the same can't be said for something like an Alliance raid.

I don't think many would argue that the healers are currently unbalanced. They're just not fun to play.
Where I agree: Sacrificing fun for excessive homogenization and a narrow focus on numerical balance is a bad idea in a game.
Where my eyes narrow: "Therefore since balance is less important than fun, clearly that means this philosophy only applies to two out of the three healers who both get to be fun and directly stronger than the third one, and that one can languish in simplicity because it belongs there."

You take off the thumbscrews and allow all three healers design space, or we're going to be right back here in another expansion or so. I'll beat this drum as long as I keep seeing "Oh just revert AST and SCH and keep WHM the same as it currently is".

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Originally Posted by Semirhage

I don't think many would argue that the healers are currently unbalanced. They're just not fun to play.
Where I agree: Sacrificing fun for excessive homogenization and a narrow focus on numerical balance is a bad idea in a game.
Where my eyes narrow: "Therefore since balance is less important than fun, clearly that means this philosophy only applies to two out of the three healers who both get to be fun and directly stronger than the third one, and that one can languish in simplicity because it belongs there."

You take off the thumbscrews and allow all three healers design space, or we're going to be right back here in another expansion or so. I'll beat this drum as long as I keep seeing "Oh just revert AST and SCH and keep WHM the same as it currently is".

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Yeah, i understand that some tuning may be necessary for things to be fair and balanced, but man did they crank it up to 11 on healers and tanks. Theres a critical point between "ease of use" and "like watching paint dry" and i think they may have crossed that line a little bit on some jobs in both catagories.. I'm not too thrilled what might happen next expansion. Theres going to be some new job actions displayed that will inevitably disappoint people when they see what they really are all about,instead of how they're portrayed. The only thing left too murder some of these jobs in pve is to put the pvp one button does it all in there. That happens, im out.

Not a rework from ground up in general, but besides making their dps rotation a bit more engaging again, I think with the inevitable addition of a fourth healer, Astrologians could really have their Regen/Shielding aspect reworked into something else. To me it always felt like this in specific was just some sort of band-aid solution to mend the balance between WHM/SCH.

The perfect scenario to what each healer brings
WHM: No special utility, but extra heals - which may give room for them to dps more freely
SCH: A second pocket healer in the faerie - but they would have to improve her AI and resposiveness
AST: Cards giving buffs to the party
Apothecary*: Potions debuffing enemies

*Or whatever new job

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Originally Posted by Raikai

Not a rework from ground up in general, but besides making their dps rotation a bit more engaging again, I think with the inevitable addition of a fourth healer, Astrologians could really have their Regen/Shielding aspect reworked into something else. To me it always felt like this in specific was just some sort of band-aid solution to mend the balance between WHM/SCH.

The perfect scenario to what each healer brings
WHM: No special utility, but extra heals - which may give room for them to dps more freely
SCH: A second pocket healer in the faerie - but they would have to improve her AI and resposiveness
AST: Cards giving buffs to the party
Apothecary*: Potions debuffing enemies

*Or whatever new job

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Good grief no, that scenario will, once again, leave WHM's bored which is unacceptable to the casual audience and booted out of extremes/savage/ultimate

We don't want 2/3 or 3/4 jobs to be fun during downtime and WHM not because they have more heals. Having more heals doesn't make healing any easier given how a single aoe heal fixes most incoming damage in this game.

A better scenario where each healer actually has some downtime.

WHM: High elemental burst damage, magical utility
SCH: Consistent dot damage, physical utility
AST: Card buffs
CHM: Potion debuffs

That way each healer can contribute with 2 more selfish dps and 2rdps based. WHM being a more high/low style and sch returning to being a gradual grinder.
More importantly, each one is also fun for the 90% of the playerbase that doesn't do savage.

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Originally Posted by Recon1o6

Good grief no, that scenario will, once again, leave WHM's bored which is unacceptable to the casual audience and booted out of extremes/savage/ultimate

We don't want 2/3 or 3/4 jobs to be fun during downtime and WHM not because they have more heals. Having more heals doesn't make healing any easier given how a single aoe heal fixes most incoming damage in this game.

A better scenario where each healer actually has some downtime.

WHM: High elemental burst damage, magical utility
SCH: Consistent dot damage, physical utility
AST: Card buffs
CHM: Potion debuffs

That way each healer can contribute with 2 more selfish dps and 2rdps based. WHM being a more high/low style and sch returning to being a gradual grinder.
More importantly, each one is also fun for the 90% of the playerbase that doesn't do savage.

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I like this idea

Another idea for WhM, would be to give it an additional DoT and a high mana instant-GCD damage ability. Such as (potencies would need adjusting):

Tornado: Instant: 40 potency DoT on all enemies, 30 sec Duration.
Break: Instant: 2.5 recast, 700 mana. 300 potency earth damage. Heavy effect with 15 sec duration (your weave/move tool, at a tax to MP)

Then add a system that causes certain GCD heals to become instant oGCD's at half mana cost once you've charged the Elemental Gauge enough.
This Gauge would increase by 3 for each DoT tick and 5 for each Glare/Break/Assize/Misery. When the gauge reaches 100 you gain an Elemental charge buff and the gauge resets (basically you could stock 1 charge). Keeping constant damage rolling and both DoTs maintained would allow you to smoothly weave in strong oGCD medica II's, Cure III's or such without dps tax. So a really good WHM could indeed do high personal damage and shoulder bulk healing, even without a buff, shield or other utility and would be a valuable co-healer.

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Originally Posted by Deceptus

Absolutely, 100% wrong. You can't balance the game around content that 90% of the playerbase will never experience.

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But Savage and Ultimate are the only content where jobs actually need to be balanced.

You can have horrible imbalance in dungeons and alliance raids and it would never matter. People won't be kicked for being the "worst" healer in a roulette.

Tight job balance only matters in Savage+, and honestly only really affects that 10% of players. Designing AST, SCH and WHM to be comparable in Savage and up should be the goal. If WHM dominates in 4 man content, nobody should care. The content is still so easy that it'll never matter what jobs you bring.

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Originally Posted by Towns

But Savage and Ultimate are the only content where jobs actually need to be balanced.

You can have horrible imbalance in dungeons and alliance raids and it would never matter. People won't be kicked for being the "worst" healer in a roulette.

Tight job balance only matters in Savage+, and honestly only really affects that 10% of players..

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EX Farm parties are where many people learn about job inefficiencies. In HW and SB WHM were actively being excluded from EX's.

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Originally Posted by Towns

But Savage and Ultimate are the only content where jobs actually need to be balanced.

You can have horrible imbalance in dungeons and alliance raids and it would never matter. People won't be kicked for being the "worst" healer in a roulette.

Tight job balance only matters in Savage+, and honestly only really affects that 10% of players. Designing AST, SCH and WHM to be comparable in Savage and up should be the goal. If WHM dominates in 4 man content, nobody should care. The content is still so easy that it'll never matter what jobs you bring.

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Actually people would start kicking the weaker healers if it got too big a gap, Holy is amazing but its damage is balanced with the other two healer aoe nukes, E1s has been the only savage fight(this expansion) that aoes even factor in for healers(do healers aoe E8s adds? Because I've yet to see it) so the aoe skill numbers are most likely balanced around dungeon and alliance raids.

What would happen if only Holy was given a 3x potency boost(other 2 same potency as now) while keeping its stun, everyone would start trying to get Whm in parties for dungeons and most likely Sch would start being kicked while Ast would be tolerated due to cards.

People used to full on leave me as soon as we zone in back in 3.0 as I was an Ast didn't matter that I had Ravana weapon(this was all pre savage it got worse after savage was released) or full gear or say full pulls are fine I can handle, people just didn't want to take a chance with the healer that had to put in much more work than the other 2.

Healers are awkwardly designed as they are the only role purely designed around group content even tanks have a better solo design than healers do, when 90% of my entire toolkit can be ignored when I'm doing solo stuff(MSQ being the big offender here) you messed up design, we should not be fighting Ran'jit the exact same way at lv72 as we did at lv78 we should have developed on a personal level, no healer did but all tanks did all Dps did, so why can't healers.

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Originally Posted by Recon1o6

Good grief no, that scenario will, once again, leave WHM's bored which is unacceptable to the casual audience and booted out of extremes/savage/ultimate

We don't want 2/3 or 3/4 jobs to be fun during downtime and WHM not because they have more heals. Having more heals doesn't make healing any easier given how a single aoe heal fixes most incoming damage in this game.

A better scenario where each healer actually has some downtime.

WHM: High elemental burst damage, magical utility
SCH: Consistent dot damage, physical utility
AST: Card buffs
CHM: Potion debuffs

That way each healer can contribute with 2 more selfish dps and 2rdps based. WHM being a more high/low style and sch returning to being a gradual grinder.
More importantly, each one is also fun for the 90% of the playerbase that doesn't do savage.

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I'm fine with that, tbh. I was only playing around the idea that they have of what a WHM niche is nowadays, but yeah, having actual utility would be great.

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Originally Posted by Recon1o6

Good grief no, that scenario will, once again, leave WHM's bored which is unacceptable to the casual audience and booted out of extremes/savage/ultimate

We don't want 2/3 or 3/4 jobs to be fun during downtime and WHM not because they have more heals. Having more heals doesn't make healing any easier given how a single aoe heal fixes most incoming damage in this game.

A better scenario where each healer actually has some downtime.

WHM: High elemental burst damage, magical utility
SCH: Consistent dot damage, physical utility
AST: Card buffs
CHM: Potion debuffs

That way each healer can contribute with 2 more selfish dps and 2rdps based. WHM being a more high/low style and sch returning to being a gradual grinder.
More importantly, each one is also fun for the 90% of the playerbase that doesn't do savage.

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Uh no- who honestly wants to be a "gradual grinder"..Sounds like fun to anyone? Uh NO.

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Originally Posted by IDontPetLalas

Uh no- who honestly wants to be a "gradual grinder"..Sounds like fun to anyone? Uh NO.

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Keeping your DoT effects up was certainly more engaging than 150 Broil casts in 8 minutes.

While I wouldn't disagree that SCH's current rotation is boring that doesn't mean being a "gradual grinder" would be a plus, even a few patches ago I wouldn't have called it a grinder (personally)- and if it would be reworked in future, then I certainly wouldn't want to be any slower than it is now.

I can appreciate that balancing is difficult, however it should take into consideration that a job should be able to run group and solo content - and that should not necessitate require changing your job because it is so painfully slow to kill anything. That's what "gradual grinder" ends up being, it's basically balanced for group content but potentially very unsatisfying for solo content.

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Originally Posted by IDontPetLalas

While I wouldn't disagree that SCH's current rotation is boring that doesn't mean being a "gradual grinder" would be a plus, even a few patches ago I wouldn't have called it a grinder (personally)- and if it would be reworked in future, then I certainly wouldn't want to be any slower than it is now.

I can appreciate that balancing is difficult, however it should take into consideration that a job should be able to run group and solo content - and that should not necessitate require changing your job because it is so painfully slow to kill anything. That's what "gradual grinder" ends up being, it's basically balanced for group content but potentially very unsatisfying for solo content.

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because that was exactly SCH's playstyle from 2.0 to 4.0 that was incredibly popular? Several dots that are totalled up with the occasional burst of fester

You had 3+ dots to juggle and for most people it was good.

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Originally Posted by Recon1o6

because that was exactly SCH's playstyle from 2.0 to 4.0 that was incredibly popular? Several dots that are totalled up with the occasional burst of fester

You had 3+ dots to juggle and for most people it was good.

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YES that was the jobs main schtick. There was also cleric stance, that had "sch dots" written all over it. There wasnt just spam shit damage spells and heal at max potency. No. There was pop damage stance and deal damage while every single heal you deal is lowered by half. That worked with SCH a ton. It gave them damage phase, and heal phase. WHM, not so much. Their straight forward damage had to be deal with, and not overtime like SCH. Healing was incredibly more active in 2.0 without shit like broil an egg 2 and 3

I would love stormblood astro to make a return, the current one is boring.

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Originally Posted by Noctisnine

I would love stormblood astro to make a return, the current one is boring.

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Apparently, whether a heal job is boring or not isn't a consideration anymore. I do not look forward to what they come up with for 6.0, as a fourth heal job is almost guaranteed.. but if 5.0+ changes have been any indication, a new 6.0 heal job is probably going to suck donkey balls.

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Originally Posted by Side-Eye

Apparently, whether a heal job is boring or not isn't a consideration anymore. I do not look forward to what they come up with for 6.0, as a fourth heal job is almost guaranteed.. but if 5.0+ changes have been any indication, a new 6.0 heal job is probably going to suck donkey balls.

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The 4th healer is likely to start as basic as possible due to being able to be picked up by anyone at level 70 and also likely to not see anything more in depth until lv80-90 range.

That is what I feel is the most likely scenario and that sucks for jobs I feel deserve more depth to them ala Chm earlier on but SE are most likely to design to the lowest common denominator which is as an example a Drg who only ever was a Drg jumping on it or never touched game before other MMO player.

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Originally Posted by Noctisnine

I would love stormblood astro to make a return, the current one is boring.

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I actually like the mechanics of seals + divination... The only part that makes it bland is the actual effects of the cards. Everything comes down to just a damage buff.

I think AST should have its +dmg% buff tied only to Lady and Lords minor arcana, as it's all you use after getting 3 seals, and the regular cards offering utility once more, but not directly related to damage.

Ewer - MP regen
Spire - HP regen
Spear - Shield
Bole - Damage % reduction
Arrow - Movement speed increase
Balance - Reflects part of the damage received

The whole melee/ranged choice would only matter for the Lady/Lord draws. You would be able to use the utility separated from the damage where the situation calls. Most of the utility is very defensive related, sans the Ewer, used on the AST themselves (since it's the most MP challenged healer) or other struggling healer... The spear and Spire are healing effects. The arrow gives a boost to movement which can increase dps indirectly on some caster jobs, and also help with moving mechanics in general. The Balance would shine more in AoE scenarios when used on a tank.

Of course, having the %dmg removed from the regular cards, would mean an overall less +dmg% contribution from the AST to the party, so to compensate that they could increase slightly the dmg bonus from Lady/Lord.

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Originally Posted by Raikai

I actually like the mechanics of seals + divination... The only part that makes it bland is the actual effects of the cards. Everything comes down to just a damage buff.

I think AST should have its +dmg% buff tied only to Lady and Lords minor arcana, as it's all you use after getting 3 seals, and the regular cards offering utility once more, but not directly related to damage.

Ewer - MP regen
Spire - HP regen
Spear - Shield
Bole - Damage % reduction
Arrow - Movement speed increase
Balance - Reflects part of the damage received

The whole melee/ranged choice would only matter for the Lady/Lord draws. You would be able to use the utility separated from the damage where the situation calls. Most of the utility is very defensive related, sans the Ewer, used on the AST themselves (since it's the most MP challenged healer) or other struggling healer... The spear and Spire are healing effects. The arrow gives a boost to movement which can increase dps indirectly on some caster jobs, and also help with moving mechanics in general. The Balance would shine more in AoE scenarios when used on a tank.

Of course, having the %dmg removed from the regular cards, would mean an overall less +dmg% contribution from the AST to the party, so to compensate that they could increase slightly the dmg bonus from Lady/Lord.

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This would just mean Balance fishing for dungeons. The % buff to Div for different seals isn't nearly enough to waste cards on something like MP regen or movement speed.

People will always find the most effective dps utility when given the choice. SE understands this which is why the engaging part of AST is snapshotting buffs on people during their burst not whether or not you can even give direct dps contribution.

Keep pointless "utility" in the garbage can where it was (deservedly) placed.

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Originally Posted by Veis_Alveare

This would just mean Balance fishing for dungeons. The % buff to Div for different seals isn't nearly enough to waste cards on something like MP regen or movement speed.

People will always find the most effective dps utility when given the choice. SE understands this which is why the engaging part of AST is snapshotting buffs on people during their burst not whether or not you can even give direct dps contribution.

Keep pointless "utility" in the garbage can where it was (deservedly) placed.

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The lone fact that these utilities are in the bin is why these kind of threads exist and always will until it gets solved.There is a fair share amount of People who want a more complex way of playing this Game. The current way how every Job works does work fine, dont get me wrong on this, but it is quite monotonous, all you have to do is burst everything down what stands infront of you and make sure that mechanics and telegraphs dont hinder you on this. there is hardly any room for skillful gameplay since there isnt enough variety among skills. Currentlly the way i see it, if you cant burst down a boss on min ilvl because of mechanics, you simply just gear up for getting that better damage and retry again until you either A: win or B: lose and repeat on gearing up again/are fast enough to actually kill the boss before said mechanics get you. and how do things get fixed? Bosses like the Coincounter in Aurum Vale for example who actually forced players to pay attention gets simplified to the Point that he got actual working telegraphs. It basically reached a point where even the early dungeons are so easy that you dont even need to put any effort in order to clear them, thanks to the overpowered damage everyone does, you just waltz through it and be done with it.

My point on this is, instead of just having everything being a cookie cutter, it would be great if there would be LESS focus on tank and spank and roles in general and put more focus on individuality so that like the case of healers, the scholar/white mage/astrologian actually feels like what it is instead of just being a healer that has way too many healing spells, 1 direct spell, one dot and some lolmechanic that gives a faint illusion of unqiueness.

as for the line "People will always find the most effective dps utility when given the choice" is not entirely correct. People ALWAYS choose the path of least resistance when it comes to clearing stuff in pretty much every game unless youre trying to challenge yourself.

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Originally Posted by Veis_Alveare

This would just mean Balance fishing for dungeons. The % buff to Div for different seals isn't nearly enough to waste cards on something like MP regen or movement speed.

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Okay but what if... each card (with its existing buff) had a secondary effect which gave a benefit to the astro? That would be interesting, and wouldn't change current gameplay. In fact if the secondary effects were just stuff like self defensive mitigation, mp regen, movement (in-combat would be neat), self-regen, etc... it wouldn't really be a balance concern at all. It'd just put a unique twist on the system and make using cards feel less monotonous.

I don't think non-damage utility is useless necessarily. But if it has resource competition with damage, that's never going to fly in XIV.

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Originally Posted by Side-Eye

Okay but what if... each card (with its existing buff) had a secondary effect which gave a benefit to the astro? That would be interesting, and wouldn't change current gameplay. In fact if the secondary effects were just stuff like self defensive mitigation, mp regen, movement (in-combat would be neat), self-regen, etc... it wouldn't really be a balance concern at all. It'd just put a unique twist on the system and make using cards feel less monotonous.

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In 99% of cases it'd be pointless. For a start, you aren't going to melee card your tanks for defensive buffs or ranged card your healers for mp regen, except in dire emergency when the card comes up in the exact situation its badly needed. In all other cases it's an unnecessary rdps loss. Mp regen does nothing for most ranged dps. Damage reduction on a melee dps won't mean you don't have to aoe heal the next raidwide. Maybe once in a while it might barely save a bad dps who stood in something, but you couldn't rely on it.

It would have to be a separate card, maybe generated by using X number or pattern of regular cards, that you can place where you choose. But then AST's heal toolkit is so powerful and well designed, if it was good utility it would be overkill.

To be honest I actually like AST. It has dps levels of APM, a good heal toolkit that you're actually meant to use and aren't punished for, mobility and plenty of weaving to keep you busy. It could do with a little more dps variety than Malefic spam and it's a shame they neutered Sleeve Draw for those who enjoyed the busy playstyle, there are definitely improvements to make but it's probably in the best spot for healer engagement.

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Originally Posted by Noctisnine

I would love stormblood astro to make a return, the current one is boring.

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Would love too so much !

During this expansion, I have just quite his level up already, especially after not being able to use Divination anymore during trash mobs in Pixie quests.
I was already forcing myself during this expansion, but the last patch just made it worse for solo play again.

Anyways, the whole healer role is boring and I have reduced my playtime by like 75% compared to Heavensward and Stormblood where I was always subscribed.

As others players have mentioned it, the best would be to have WHM (ShB), SCH (HW) and AST (SB).
If SE don't want to do that, then rework them all completely (which will take too much time, so it would be stupid compared to the previous solution).