Can Healer Balance Survive a 4th Healer?

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Originally Posted by Side-Eye

There is already a heal powerhouse, there is already a shield powerhouse, and there is already a healer that can sufficiently compliment either of the first two, with a card/buff gimmick to supplement what it lacks in healing.

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Actually, AST takes the crown in all categories. I'm not sure where the idea that WHM is the "heal powerhouse" or SCH is the "shield king" comes from when AST has free oGCD's, the strongest aoe heal in the game with Star, COpp and CU which are half the cd of Seraph, a far superior Plenary and Tetra and it loses the least potency for GCD heals. Not to mention its higher rDps and full mobility. This is why top raid comps are nearly always AST + Other.

Healer balance is fairly terrible right now. They gave AST everything.

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Originally Posted by Liam_Harper

Healer balance is fairly terrible right now. They gave AST everything.

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That's the big problem with AST.

Since people seem to think that you need a regen and a shield healer in a party AST needs the ability to do both, since it has the ability to perform one or the other it needs to be competent at both (yeah...no, it does not) so what ends up happening is that AST becomes too powerful because both SE and a lot of players seem to think that AST needs healing powerful enough to compete with WHM and shields powerful enough to compete with SCH.

Can Healer Balance Survive a 4th Healer?

- Already remove one of the two stances of AST and then create two groups of healers : HoT|Direct healers / Shield|Preventive healers.
- Reverse the homogenization.
- Rework healers so they fit their category (like it was in ARR or HW without counting AST).
- Finally add the 4th healer.

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Originally Posted by Liam_Harper

Actually, AST takes the crown in all categories. I'm not sure where the idea that WHM is the "heal powerhouse" or SCH is the "shield king" comes from when AST has free oGCD's, the strongest aoe heal in the game with Star, COpp and CU which are half the cd of Seraph, a far superior Plenary and Tetra and it loses the least potency for GCD heals. Not to mention its higher rDps and full mobility. This is why top raid comps are nearly always AST + Other.

Healer balance is fairly terrible right now. They gave AST everything.

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Didn't you know? AST gets nerfed to Oblivion every beginning of the expansion and will eventually catch up a couple of patches after to being one of the best again. That might change with a new healer where healer balance gets properly sorted, but if it becomes a trend there's always room to meme.

As for the 'heal powerhouse' they probably refer to on demand quick powerful heals they can give out (aka GCD heals) cause of their nearly infinite MP supply when things are not going well, though AST's MP rework puts them to a very close 2nd here because of how overtuned they got.

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Originally Posted by Ceasaria

Can Healer Balance Survive a 4th Healer?

- Already remove one of the two stances of AST and then create two groups of healers : HoT|Direct healers / Shield|Preventive healers.

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This only works if they actually make shielding have a stronger impact again, otherwise you end up with some healers simply being inferior to the HoT/direct heal counterpart.

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Originally Posted by AnotherPerson

As for the 'heal powerhouse' they probably refer to on demand quick powerful heals they can give out (aka GCD heals) cause of their nearly infinite MP supply when things are not going well, though AST's MP rework puts them to a very close 2nd here because of how overtuned they got.

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the only thing white mage has over astro is cure 3 tbh. recovering with ast is a lot easier than whm, since whm is mostly confined to the gcd for heals (meaning it cant get everyone to full health really fast except with cure3). Ast heals on the other hand, are mostly mp free, have low cooldowns, and since draw also has a low cooldown they can get their mp back a lot faster. Neutral sect aspected helios spam is actually stronger and cheaper than cure 3 spam, and when it comes to basic gcds, whm and ast are about even with medica(2) and (asp) helios, except ast has lightspeed for six instant helios while whm has at most 3 instant raptures. id even say ast now has a better mp economy than white mage.

So no, whm really isnt a heal powerhouse. it also wasnt one in stormblood. the only thing it has going for it healing wise is cure 3.

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Originally Posted by QooEr

the only thing white mage has over astro is cure 3 tbh. recovering with ast is a lot easier than whm, since whm is mostly confined to the gcd for heals (meaning it cant get everyone to full health really fast except with cure3). Ast heals on the other hand, are mostly mp free, have low cooldowns, and since draw also has a low cooldown they can get their mp back a lot faster. Neutral sect aspected helios spam is actually stronger and cheaper than cure 3 spam, and when it comes to basic gcds, whm and ast are about even with medica(2) and (asp) helios, except ast has lightspeed for six instant helios while whm has at most 3 instant raptures. id even say ast now has a better mp economy than white mage.

So no, whm really isnt a heal powerhouse. it also wasnt one in stormblood. the only thing it has going for it healing wise is cure 3.

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Yes and no. I'm referring to why people thought WHM is a heal powerhouse in this expansion. In terms of heal powerhouse, I'm referring to how much MP they have that they can throw for healing continuously. In terms of healing everyone to full, WHM and AST are equally powerful, but WHM has a slight advantage over -x- seconds. You're right that the only thing White mage has over Astro is cure III, but that's really only the case after AST's MP rework, but before that it was a different story. For AoE healing, White Mage generally have MP to use their MP-expensive heals. Cure III helps a lot for GCD heals when you have no other abilities available because it becomes very efficient for immediate healing when grouped together, but they also have Rapture + Assize (45 sec cooldown means it comes up fairly quickly) + Plenary Indulgence + Asylum + Temperance. Asylum, Temperance, and Plenary Indulgence all work to make your GCD heals much stronger, which is why for most content, using lilies is enough if you use one of those with them. Medica II then becomes supercharged healing if you need more healing than what lilies can do. Regen becomes an excessive heal - a 500 potency increase instead of using Afflatus Solace. You are right for cases where AST can get people's HP to a safer margin faster in planned scenarios (Earthly Star, Horoscope, and Neutral Sect), but in terms of raw HP recovery, WHM still beats them by a mile with Plenary Indulgence supercharging their AoE heals for 10 seconds. Heck, if you have enough spell speed, you can probably throw in a lily at the last second so Plenary Indulgence's effect could be used 5 times in 10 seconds - giving you a maximum of 1200 potency AoE heal in addition to your GCD heals. The second thing to note is that while White Mage does seem to have very heavy MP expensive healing spells, their GCD lilies offsets this very subtly. This is because their natural MP regen - at least 200 MP - would tick in roughly the time they use a lily since they are on the GCD, making lilies a MP positive healing resource. On the other hand, the other healing jobs would use the time to weave in a DPS attack to heal with their oGCDs (ex: Malefic or Ruin II) or clip their heal. This is also what makes Thin Air so powerful - for 12 seconds your MP expensive spells - including ressing - is free. At the same time, you gain MP from your natural MP regeneration, which becomes a net positive MP increase in addition to whatever MP heavy healing GCDs you had to use. This is especially the case where a White Mage swiftcasts a ress in Thin Air.

This is also why AST had some MP issues in the past - they can weave their abundant oGCD healing spells freely using Malefic, but they would still be eating up their MP without another source to regain it outside of lucid dreaming if they don't have enough piety to boost their natural MP regeneration, and when they did need to GCD heal, their MP would be heavily spent so they don't have a lot of on demand healing available, especially if they have to give resses.

This is what made White Mages get a lot of extra power for raw heals if all other oGCDs healing tools get consumed. When the situation becomes bleak and they are forced to GCD heal, White Mage is generally able to keep things going as their GCD heals are strong enough and plentiful. With the MP changes, AST is pretty much in the same boat as their MP Expensive GCD heals were cut across the board while getting an additional 1600 MP per minute.

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Originally Posted by Ceasaria

Can Healer Balance Survive a 4th Healer?

- Already remove one of the two stances of AST and then create two groups of healers : HoT|Direct healers / Shield|Preventive healers.
- Reverse the homogenization.
- Rework healers so they fit their category (like it was in ARR or HW without counting AST).
- Finally add the 4th healer.

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I'm quoting myself, but thanks Yoshi for creating two categories (as it was in ARR) and moving AST in pure healer category.
Thank you for Sage job. The video and skills are not exceptional, but it's still nice.
Now, I hope the gameplay will really improve and be back as it was before.

I'm probably preaching to the choir when I say this, but please take time to temper your expectations going into this new expansion. Maybe they'll take time to address issues such as healer gameplay consisting of 121111 (with heals sprinkled in :o), maybe they'll give us more of the same shadowbringers gameplay but with a shiny new toy to distract the masses. I'd like to believe they'll do the former, but as they've proven multiple times now, history tends to repeat itself.

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Originally Posted by Liam_Harper

Actually, AST takes the crown in all categories. I'm not sure where the idea that WHM is the "heal powerhouse" or SCH is the "shield king" comes from when AST has free oGCD's, the strongest aoe heal in the game with Star, COpp and CU which are half the cd of Seraph, a far superior Plenary and Tetra and it loses the least potency for GCD heals. Not to mention its higher rDps and full mobility. This is why top raid comps are nearly always AST + Other.

Healer balance is fairly terrible right now. They gave AST everything.

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true-ish.

Everything you say about AST's capabilities is right on. Because WHM is still the most popular and populous healer, AST is just flat out better/"OP" to at least get people to play it. Combined with the expac's SCH nerfs means SCH is no longer the "mandatory" healer for high end comps, and it's now AST instead.

However, in that "other" slot, SCH and WHM are pretty decently competitive with each other. The end result is a meta where any healer can be played and most people aren't feeling the pressure to switch that characterized Heavensward and Stormblood.

So, in that sense, the balance is not so bad. It does mean Scholar can't have the buffs its aficionados periodically ask for on these forums, however. And still, having one healer clearly be on top obviously isn't ideal.

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But it looks like this is finally being fixed. But just as many SCH mains were very upset with ShB, there's going to be no small amount of hurt feelings/salt/etc with AST now. Still, with any luck things will be much improved from 6.0 onward.

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Originally Posted by Liam_Harper

Actually, AST takes the crown in all categories. I'm not sure where the idea that WHM is the "heal powerhouse" or SCH is the "shield king" comes from when AST has free oGCD's, the strongest aoe heal in the game with Star, COpp and CU which are half the cd of Seraph, a far superior Plenary and Tetra and it loses the least potency for GCD heals. Not to mention its higher rDps and full mobility. This is why top raid comps are nearly always AST + Other.

Healer balance is fairly terrible right now. They gave AST everything.

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I don't agree that AST is the best at everything, but I fully support giving the other heal jobs more interesting DPS tools -- I just regret that astro's card system was distilled into such a boring mess. Maybe I just don't care as much about optimization, but the old card system was more interesting, regardless of it being less than optimized for DPS.

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Originally Posted by Side-Eye

I don't agree that AST is the best at everything, but I fully support giving the other heal jobs more interesting DPS tools -- I just regret that astro's card system was distilled into such a boring mess. Maybe I just don't care as much about optimization, but the old card system was more interesting, regardless of it being less than optimized for DPS.

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I'm sorry man, but they really did give Astro everything, and if they hadn't have taken away the old cards it would have been near play scheme wise to 3.0 Scholar; exceedingly complex and a high skill ceiling to pull off that makes it truly satisfying.

Played Scholar since 2.2, was a White Mage all through Beta and on till 2.2.

I HAD to go Astro not to loose my mind, it was THAT boring on Scholar. I love Scholar, but Astro is the only Healer job that is remotely engaging anymore.

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Originally Posted by Risvertasashi

true-ish.

Everything you say about AST's capabilities is right on. Because WHM is still the most popular and populous healer, AST is just flat out better/"OP" to at least get people to play it. Combined with the expac's SCH nerfs means SCH is no longer the "mandatory" healer for high end comps, and it's now AST instead.

However, in that "other" slot, SCH and WHM are pretty decently competitive with each other. The end result is a meta where any healer can be played and most people aren't feeling the pressure to switch that characterized Heavensward and Stormblood.

So, in that sense, the balance is not so bad. It does mean Scholar can't have the buffs its aficionados periodically ask for on these forums, however. And still, having one healer clearly be on top obviously isn't ideal.

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But it looks like this is finally being fixed. But just as many SCH mains were very upset with ShB, there's going to be no small amount of hurt feelings/salt/etc with AST now. Still, with any luck things will be much improved from 6.0 onward.

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We will see. At this point it’s a time honored tradition that astro sucks hard for the two raid tiers in a expansion only too get buffed to outshine all. And seeing how square talked about aetherflow that should be more used for heals then dmg. Excuse me when I don’t have high hope in the dev team

I'll admit I've not read the entire thread (I only read the OP), so this might've been brought up buuuut...

WoW has 6 different healers. If they can manage 6, SE should be able to manage 4. If they can't, there's some huge issues there.

Would say if they decide not to work out Schs kit, it'll certainly be left in the dust. Its already in a horrible spot and with Sage taking the limelight, its going to be in a worst position if no major changes or rework happens to Sch.

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Originally Posted by hythrain

I'll admit I've not read the entire thread (I only read the OP), so this might've been brought up buuuut...

WoW has 6 different healers. If they can manage 6, SE should be able to manage 4. If they can't, there's some huge issues there.

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XIV hasn't even managed to make it's current 3 healers feel unique.
Granted WoW's encounter design simply allows for more creative healer design than XIV's does, but it's still not a very good track record.

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Originally Posted by Hanayumi

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It would be nice to see more parties which don't feel obliged to bring a SCH. If only for a bit of variety after 8 years.

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Originally Posted by Risvertasashi

So, in that sense, the balance is not so bad.

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Perhaps. But it's still only "balanced" by the fact that there's one ridiculously good healer and the 2 others are roughly equal so both can fit in the second place slot. It's not balanced by the 3 classes being equally capable. I don't really see that as well designed balance, more an artificial balance helped by the small number of healers. With 4 healers and 2 split specializations that doesn't work as well. Let's say one pure healer is OP. That automatically pushes the other pure healer out of the slot.

I'll admit WHM is fascinating though. Despite everything it remains the most popular healer by far at all levels of gameplay. It's currently the worst choice in this Savage tier and the forums love to hate how it works and constantly request it to get raid buffs, debuffs, utility and complexity. But I feel there's something in its popularity, that many people do like the idea of straightforward effective gameplay without micromanaging clunky pets or juggling card rng. Probably best they build on that and make the gameplay smoother and flow better rather than rework it, more weave, a bit more engagement on dps, similar mobility to BLM and it'd be great. Similar with SCH, they could look at what made it popular in StB, putting fairy actions onto the oGCD was big mistake really.

Right now, SCH is actually straight up better. WHM is just popular and the gap isn't too big. Since the buffs last patch, it pulled ahead slightly on rdps and it compliments and brings out the best in AST by allowing it run the superior Diurnal even at endgame, where WHM will tend to lean heavily on AST in order to perform well.

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Originally Posted by Liam_Harper

Perhaps. But it's still only "balanced" by the fact that there's one ridiculously good healer and the 2 others are roughly equal so both can fit in the second place slot. It's not balanced by the 3 classes being equally capable. I don't really see that as well designed balance, more an artificial balance helped by the small number of healers. With 4 healers and 2 split specializations that doesn't work as well. Let's say one pure healer is OP. That automatically pushes the other pure healer out of the slot.

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So just to be clear, I don't think it's ideal, I don't think it's great. But if all healers can be played and accepted, then... well that's a lot better than that we've gotten in the past.

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Originally Posted by Liam_Harper

I'll admit WHM is fascinating though. Despite everything it remains the most popular healer by far at all levels of gameplay. It's currently the worst choice in this Savage tier and the forums love to hate how it works and constantly request it to get raid buffs, debuffs, utility and complexity. But I feel there's something in its popularity, that many people do like the idea of straightforward effective gameplay without micromanaging clunky pets or juggling card rng. Probably best they build on that and make the gameplay smoother and flow better rather than rework it, more weave, a bit more engagement on dps, similar mobility to BLM and it'd be great. Similar with SCH, they could look at what made it popular in StB, putting fairy actions onto the oGCD was big mistake really.

Right now, SCH is actually straight up better. WHM is just popular and the gap isn't too big. Since the buffs last patch, it pulled ahead slightly on rdps and it compliments and brings out the best in AST by allowing it run the superior Diurnal even at endgame, where WHM will tend to lean heavily on AST in order to perform well.

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And this is probably why WHM is always doomed to be the least powerful healer, at least outside of shining for maybe a patch or two.

It stays the most popular unless the other healers are buffed to an extreme point of forcing players' hands - see previous expansions. At least ShB hasn't reached that point. A small improvement in SE's balancing, but there nontheless.

As for WHM's popularity, it's no great mystery. As you say, it's straightforward. It's also very iconic - in more way than one. First in that it's a classic final fantasy job, of course. But even when a potential player doesn't know anything about that, WHM is very iconic as a healer in general.

Then you have to consider what draws a person to play a healer over the other roles. There's a lot of fantasies that are simply better served by red or even blue. If someone's willing to break from the mainstream to go heal, there's a pretty high chance they're envisioning themselves doing the things that White Mage's class fantasy promises more than the others. (Promises, but doesn't necessarily deliver on).

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Originally Posted by Liam_Harper

I'll admit WHM is fascinating though. Despite everything it remains the most popular healer by far at all levels of gameplay. It's currently the worst choice in this Savage tier and the forums love to hate how it works and constantly request it to get raid buffs, debuffs, utility and complexity. But I feel there's something in its popularity, that many people do like the idea of straightforward effective gameplay without micromanaging clunky pets or juggling card rng.

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Perhaps it's also because having a low APM also helps healers with all the different things they have to juggle
-what they're doing
-monitor how their party is
-manage how their party is
-stay on top of what the boss is doing and respond to mechanics
-be able to stay enough ahead of it all that one can still improvise when things inevitably go wrong somewhere in the party.
-etc.

At least, that's what I like about it.

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Originally Posted by Liam_Harper

I'll admit WHM is fascinating though. Despite everything it remains the most popular healer by far at all levels of gameplay. It's currently the worst choice in this Savage tier and the forums love to hate how it works and constantly request it to get raid buffs, debuffs, utility and complexity. But I feel there's something in its popularity, that many people do like the idea of straightforward effective gameplay without micromanaging clunky pets or juggling card rng. Probably best they build on that and make the gameplay smoother and flow better rather than rework it, more weave, a bit more engagement on dps, similar mobility to BLM and it'd be great. Similar with SCH, they could look at what made it popular in StB, putting fairy actions onto the oGCD was big mistake really.

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Much as I hate this fact, it's got truth in it. WHM is too popular to be allowed to be anything other than the McDonald's of healing.

Then again, I look at BLM. It shares a lot of that iconic hype. Doesn't need raid buffs. Has procs that align with their skilled play and make them feel powerful instead of just reducing how sucky they are (looking at YOU Freecure). Has a few timers to manage (horror, horror! White Mages can't handle anything other than passive noninteractive gameplay!). And best of all, it's allowed its power level without its competition staging a forum revolt and whining their asses off every time they're can't both have and eat their utility plus power cake that cements them into direct upgrades to the "baby" job.

This is a (largely; yeah yeah there are outliers) solved problem with caster DPS. They don't have snobby SMN and RDM mains clutching their pearls and screeching every time BLM is actually allowed to be, y'know, good at something or have an identity.

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Originally Posted by FoxCh40s

I'm sorry man, but they really did give Astro everything, and if they hadn't have taken away the old cards it would have been near play scheme wise to 3.0 Scholar; exceedingly complex and a high skill ceiling to pull off that makes it truly satisfying.

Played Scholar since 2.2, was a White Mage all through Beta and on till 2.2.

I HAD to go Astro not to loose my mind, it was THAT boring on Scholar. I love Scholar, but Astro is the only Healer job that is remotely engaging anymore.

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I bet if you asked those who played AST as main, they'd consider post-5.0 astro to be far less engaging than the job was before. And that's what pisses me off. We were FINE with the card system not yielding consistent DPS; it was very much satisfying because of the variety it could potentially offer a group. The only people who I've heard praising the "all-DPS" card system are DPS mains and those who only played AST when they had to.

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Originally Posted by Side-Eye

I bet if you asked those who played AST as main, they'd consider post-5.0 astro to be far less engaging than the job was before. And that's what pisses me off. We were FINE with the card system not yielding consistent DPS; it was very much satisfying because of the variety it could potentially offer a group. The only people who I've heard praising the "all-DPS" card system are DPS mains and those who only played AST when they had to.

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Consistent wise the new astro is really well made. Feeling wise it’s so boring. Like the new system feels like you use food dye to paint bread in 6 different colors were 3 of them are for lactose intolerant and the other are for lactose tolerant people. In the end it’s bread the same is with the cards it’s just different colored single target balances. And also the removed Job theme of time magic.

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Originally Posted by Mortex

And also the removed Job theme of time magic.

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This was what disappointed me the most. Astro was given the duty of filling whichever heal role complimented our co-healer, but the two aspects which gave us our job's identity were 1) utility of the card system, and 2) our time-manipulation. BOTH were taken away in 5.0. And Squeenix didn't even bother to re-write the lore which explained how and why those things mattered. After people stopped playing AST in droves, devs simply buffed the base remnants of the job so we could continue being a competent healer. In a few cases they actually over-compensated, but they never restored the things that had previously made the job interesting and engaging.

By time-manipulation 'theme', do you mean Time Dilation? It's not like you were ever rewinding damage.

Wasn't it regular WHM vs. diet (Balance) WHM since 2015? It's not like the rest of us could ever tell the flavor of your sparkles apart.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

By time-manipulation 'theme', do you mean Time Dilation? It's not like you were ever rewinding damage.

Wasn't it regular WHM vs. diet (Balance) WHM since 2015? It's not like the rest of us could ever tell the flavor of your sparkles apart.

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time dilation and celestial opposition. extending regens and buffs to get more healing and mp is a lot more interesting than having a free medica ii ans free mp on cards, even if the results are the same

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Originally Posted by QooEr

time dilation and celestial opposition. extending regens and buffs to get more healing and mp is a lot more interesting than having a free medica ii ans free mp on cards, even if the results are the same

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don't forget about the limit break "Astral Stasis" whose animation has the astrologian literally rewriting the stars and seemingly reversing time.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

By time-manipulation 'theme', do you mean Time Dilation? It's not like you were ever rewinding damage.

Wasn't it regular WHM vs. diet (Balance) WHM since 2015? It's not like the rest of us could ever tell the flavor of your sparkles apart.

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Well... you would've had to actually PLAY astro to fully understand the loss. Apparently, you did not.

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Originally Posted by Side-Eye

Well... you would've had to actually PLAY astro to fully understand the loss. Apparently, you did not.

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Considering that it applied to Celestial Opposition as well (which was largely considered to be a DPS/MP Cooldown due to its interaction with Luminiferous Aether and AoE Balance). The Time Mage aspects certainly were present, but mostly as a subtheme. Time Dilation had the upper hand as a DPS cooldown that had real application as an actual healing tool. I would like to see it again, but only if it applies to regens only. The relative DPS gain of extending a Lord/Lady card is enough to push out its utility.

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Originally Posted by Side-Eye

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Nobody is claiming to be able to understand your loss or your grief, little one. But a time mage, you were not.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

Nobody is claiming to be able to understand your loss or your grief, little one. But a time mage, you were not.

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Being able to extend both buffs and regens, as well as stunning enemies to prevent damage, were significant time-affecting abilities. It was the closest any class/job has ever come to being considered a "time mage" -- but feel free to wrongly disagree.

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Originally Posted by Side-Eye

It was the closest any class/job has ever come to being considered a "time mage"

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Closest =/= being one.
The most like one maybe, but still not one.
It was close, but no cigar.
As she said:

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Originally Posted by Lyth

But a time mage, you were not.

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To be fair astro in lore whas some one who reads the fate (aka drawing a card) and the try too change it a bit or use it for his benefit. You even learn what what cards represent in ingame lore and what fates they normally hold. So maybe not a time mage in a traditional sense ,but it whas a fate rewinding Job lore wise and the only thing that comes close too these kind of things is a time mage. Like I don’t remember any other job in final fantasy in general that could rewind time. Like even Ultimecia could only stop time and if I remember correctly not rewind it and i would call her the closest thing we have too a time mage. Like time rewind is a ability so absolutely powerful only some specific things in final fantasy can do that and only then some of the strongest entities. And don’t forget time rewinding in final fantasy 14 uses up a massive amount of aether so I don’t think it would mage sense to implement it as a job mechanic.

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Originally Posted by Mortex

To be fair astro in lore whas some one who reads the fate (aka drawing a card) and the try too change it a bit or use it for his benefit. You even learn what what cards represent in ingame lore and what fates they normally hold. So maybe not a time mage in a traditional sense ,but it whas a fate rewinding Job lore wise and the only thing that comes close too these kind of things is a time mage. Like I don’t remember any other job in final fantasy in general that could rewind time. Like even Ultimecia could only stop time and if I remember correctly not rewind it and i would call her the closest thing we have too a time mage.

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You're not rewinding fate.
If anything you're rewriting fate.
Using words like "rewind" makes it sound like you're trying to shoehorn the concept in there.

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Originally Posted by Mortex

To be fair astro in lore whas some one who reads the fate (aka drawing a card) and the try too change it a bit or use it for his benefit. You even learn what what cards represent in ingame lore and what fates they normally hold. So maybe not a time mage in a traditional sense ,but it whas a fate rewinding Job lore wise and the only thing that comes close too these kind of things is a time mage. Like I don’t remember any other job in final fantasy in general that could rewind time. Like even Ultimecia could only stop time and if I remember correctly not rewind it and i would call her the closest thing we have too a time mage.

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You're not rewinding fate.
For that to be the case the fate the cards are foreseeing would have already had to have come to pass.
If anything you're rewriting fate.

Oh look, a visual variation of echolalia (j/k).

Manipulating space and time, in order to affect the outcome of an immediate fate/situation, was (is?) the premise for the Job, and so time is (was?) a defining aspect of the job, at least at first, since few other jobs, if any, have any time-related abilities to speak of in FFXIV. I'd say that, in order to see an incoming fate, one must technically see further in time, therefore one could argue that Astrologians are always using a form of Time magic as long as they're divining in some capacity.
So, I dunno. I can personally accept people thinking of Astrologians as partial Time Mages. At least until Squeen realizes this and they remove the abilities and destroy the rest of Astrologian's lore in order to erase any fun older Astrologians used to have to make room for their new healer order. :)

Incidentally, although not entirely related, in Dragon Quest of the Stars, they offer the Astronomer class; funnily enough, if you were to translate the name from Japanese to English using google translate, it comes out as Space-Time Surgeon.

And that was an example of vorbeireden.

There isn't a whole lot of point in debating whether or not you were a once-upon-a-time-mage. Nor is there much point in debating whether page 87 of the lore book supports the fact that your sparkles are powered by space-time pokemon instead of elemental ones. In a future where healers are to be designed as either WHM flavoured or SCH flavoured, you should ask yourself how everyone else will differentiate you from your twin. Is it going to be by distributing out card buffs (as has historically been), or is it going to be something else? Without a significant redesign, it's almost certainly going to be the former.

I have no problem with time magic. I would like to see FFXIV to try and create its own spin on Haste (with an associated multistrike effect) and possibly Slow (as a physical damage reduction effect). Warp could be designed as a utility spell for moving your entire team across an arena. Reflect might be implementable so long as it allowed some damage through and only countered at a fixed potency, but that's a tough one to implement fairly without shortchanging the original. Float could be a buff that lets a player cast while moving. I would love to see a Tracer-style time-reversal ability on either a tank or a healer for removing damage and debuffs, although that would also be tough to implement.

I would be surprised to see a Time Mage in its original, iconic form (complete with cone hat), but I could certainly see these sorts of utility effects spread out across different healers. And I think that non-damage driven utility is better way of establishing identity, rather than living out your days as a vending machine for dispensing out damage up buffs to your dps masters.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

And that was an example of vorbeireden.

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There are certain implications which can be reached about the fantasy of the experience based upon visuals, tone, descriptions, and just a little bit of critical thinking. It might be a barren wasteland when it comes to flavoring a playstyle, but it's not without merit since the alternative is not an option.
Even if you define flavor strictly by actions, prior to this expansion, AST had several actions and effects which would imply mastery over time. Sadly we've lost most of them and only have 1 remaining action, but it's still not incorrect to think that a Mage who primarily focused on Divining and Space-Time manipulation is at least a little bit of a time mage. Furthermore, it can easily be argued that AST is something more than just a time mage; you know, like, an advanced job, which combines classes of magic, perhaps.

Otherwise, from what I can tell, as of this expansion, creativity for healers has been delegated to creating the ability to plan out or frontload healing, both without significantly changing the overall length of an encounter except in extreme cases. While it would definitely be nice to proven otherwise, I'm under the impression that we're never going to be given something that would actively go against what the development team has been trending and advocating towards, so asking and hoping for more direct representations of time magic, in a Final Fantasy that's moving ever-further away from allowing us any ability to seriously affect battle parameters, is a fool's errand.
At most, you'll see Lightspeed moved to a Role Action, but I doubt we'll even see that happen just because it would enhance the role's DPS contributions too much for their taste, and Yoshi-P knows that's what it would primarily be used for.

Consider that everything you've brought to the table already exists in the game in a watered-down form already (except the tracer-style thing, though semantics can be argued, I'm sure); that's as much as the team is willing to give us, and they seem to regret doing so, as they are limiting it more, if not outright removing it, with each expansion.
For the sake of role balance, healers are not going to be seeing regular use of these things outside of special content, with or without a 4th healer.

More accurately, you're a little bit of a white mage, except with damage buffs.

I like interesting support abilities, which is where the real potential of time magic lies. Actions that indirectly boost your team's performance by giving them positional/movement advantages are always interesting. Maybe that will become a Newtype aka Sage thing, who knows. Being a walking damage-up buff is a bit less interesting, but you do you.

You have limited hotbar design space. Decide on what you want to do with your life and commit to it (i.e. hopefully more than one to two action slots). This degree of dilettantism would even make a Red Mage blush.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

More accurately, you're a little bit of a white mage, except with damage buffs.

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WHMs likely feel this more acutely than anyone, but otherwise, yes, we know that's how it is now and I can feel us creeping even further into that territory with the info we've been provided thus far, about the next expansion.

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but you do you

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You seem to be under this impression that, because I don't 100% agree with you about how to define the job fantasy of AST, or because I'm commenting to what Yoshi-P's team has been doing to the healer role, that I'm somehow against having anything other than DPS buffs for AST. This is an incorrect assumption, but, as you say, you do you.