The finalized 5.0 healer changes revealed (links)

https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/jobguide/whitemage/
https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/jobguide/scholar/
https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/jobguide/astrologian/

And to the shock of no one who's been paying attention for the last 4 years, they are almost exactly the same as the media preview build. Glaring oversights included.

oof. As expected.

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Originally Posted by Sebazy

And to the shock of no one who's been paying attention for the last 4 years, they are almost exactly the same as the media preview build. Glaring oversights included.

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Keep your expectations low. You'll either be proven right (in this case) or pleasantly surprised.

No not really. I did notice some differences. Such as Ruin being bumped to 160 potency which mitigates that low level issue mentioned here. Not to mention that Seraph has the bumped potencies to justify her place as the "big cooldown"

A fun thing I did notice is that Physick, Cure, and Benefic now have 1.5 cast times. Which means, despite how evil gcd heals seem to be with this community, does give all 3 healers single weave space. That's good for those scenarios where you get that bad tank who takes too much damage, you can at least weave an ogcd heal onto those heals to save mp and not clip.

Oh my. I liked the changes to AST cards when I first heard about them, but seeing the full changes in the job guide got me thinking …

Could not a skilled AST potentially boost a party member (or 2) by up to 20% damage if I'm reading those cards accurately?

I don't see a warning about Divination and Lord/Lady not stacking with the base cards. If that's true, Could we not potentially setup a situation where we get max Divination on the party, Balance a target then immediately use a Sleeve Draw charge to acquire a second Balance while the first is still active with Divination ticking and convert that into a Lord to also apply to our chosen DPS to bring all 3 buffs (6+8+6) for a 20% damage boost for a single target?

Of course, none of that is possible if the various effects overwrite each other. But if they don't, That could be a fun replacement to the old card fiddling.

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Originally Posted by Sebazy

And to the shock of no one who's been paying attention for the last 4 years, they are almost exactly the same as the media preview build. Glaring oversights included.

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Looking over these changes, I'm even more convinced SCH won't be weak.

Even more AoE healing - a new mini indom. effectively 400-potency heal mode for the pet that can be rotated with Fey Union, which is already the strongest regen effect in the game by a wide margin. Instant, free shield on a 20s CD. etc etc

And of course, chain strat is still there. I think SCH can afford to have 20 less potency on their nuke.

Sch is looking mighty even before these changes. Roll on home time so I can have a proper browse. One interesting note is that these potency bump should help offset the usual scaling woes the fairy sees as we level up.

AST is the one that’s looking underwhelming imo

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Originally Posted by Sebazy

And to the shock of no one who's been paying attention for the last 4 years, they are almost exactly the same as the media preview build. Glaring oversights included.

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Yeah, I don't really get those people. Guess we're headed into "try it first" stage, followed by "wait for a patch" stage?

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Originally Posted by Risvertasashi

Looking over these changes, I'm even more convinced SCH won't be weak.

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To be fair, the new SCH being weak was never too much of a concern for people. It seems like a pretty powerful healer in a lot of ways despite the nerfs to DPS. The issue is more that the new SCH seems a lot more boring than they used to be. Between not having those cool decisions between whether one can pull off an energy drain or not, the simplified DPS rotation, and the easier pet management there might just be...less. I'll definitely give it a try, but I'm pretty concerned.

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Originally Posted by Sylve

Oh my. I liked the changes to AST cards when I first heard about them, but seeing the full changes in the job guide got me thinking …

Could not a skilled AST potentially boost a party member (or 2) by up to 20% damage if I'm reading those cards accurately?

I don't see a warning about Divination and Lord/Lady not stacking with the base cards. If that's true, Could we not potentially setup a situation where we get max Divination on the party, Balance a target then immediately use a Sleeve Draw charge to acquire a second Balance while the first is still active with Divination ticking and convert that into a Lord to also apply to our chosen DPS to bring all 3 buffs (6+8+6) for a 20% damage boost for a single target?

Of course, none of that is possible if the various effects overwrite each other. But if they don't, That could be a fun replacement to the old card fiddling.

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Am fairly certain that the card effects will overwrite each other like they used to do.

What I do not understand is that SCH still is Hybrid in PvP (needs Broil to get Aetherflow Stacks) but in PvE they removed the Hybrid feeling? Does that even make sense? Does the PvP Team and PvE Team work together? Seriously this makes me even more angry because why not streamline in PvP aswell so it's not only WHM-oriented? This is madness, nothing else anymore and nobody can argument against this now because being Hybrid in PvP and not PvE anymore(I know SCH has still DPS skills, let's not be childish, it's about how and how much).

Really shocking and I really really hope they do something because this is beyond ridiculous.

And also: it is sad too see that the criticizing people were right about everything..I really hoped for something from SE but I guess they want the healer community to quit playing healer? I don't know anymore..

im still looking to see what the effect of catalyze means for SCH

Those Collective Unconscious nerfs are absolutely hilarious
Literally a shittier Sacred Soil now and I still have to channel it

Oh dear.

/10char

I'm not going to sugar coat this

Devs need to try harder than this if balance is their goal

Collective Unconscious needs to be buffed significantly as of right now sch can effectively have sacred soil up 50% of the time, its better in every way as sch is not rooted, heals more, its bigger by a lot, has a shorter cd, and its cost is non existent atm for anything lv70 and below, and bonus its a lv50 skill while ast has to wait till lv58.

Ast cards have no 'cannot stack' clause so they might effectively set up +20% damage up for 12-15s, but it still looks like it will have mp issues.

Whm/sch getting the reduced cast time on their physick/cure is nice but i think it would've been better on their Glare/Broil III cast times since from what i have seen you will be using these a lot more than physick(lol) and cure, they keep giving us too many ocgd options to use these frequently enough to warrant the reduced cast time.

I could probably think up more and lol smn got its regen buffed, its like the devs want a 1 hlr meta or something XD

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Originally Posted by Crushnight

I'm not going to sugar coat this

Devs need to try harder than this if balance is their goal

Collective Unconscious needs to be buffed significantly as of right now sch can effectively have sacred soil up 50% of the time, its better in every way as sch is not rooted, heals more, its bigger by a lot, has a shorter cd, and its cost is non existent atm for anything lv70 and below, and bonus its a lv50 skill while ast has to wait till lv58.

Ast cards have no 'cannot stack' clause so they can effectively set up +20% damage up for 12-15s, but it still looks like it will have mp issues.

Whm/sch getting the reduced cast time on their physick/cure is nice but i think it would've been better on their Glare/Broil III cast times since from what i have seen you will be using these a lot more than physick(lol) and cure, they keep giving us too many ocgd options to use these frequently enough to warrant the reduced cast time.

I could probably think up more and lol smn got its regen buffed, its like the devs want a 1 hlr meta or something XD

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You are right but Sacred Soil only has Regen in ShB as far as I remember correctly?

Though it is all ridiculous atm, I am so angry.

What were they thinking? Did they think that we are happy? I mean seriously, they have to consider that people LOOK at the changes beforehand and that they look at their jobs and start thinking. Why do they change nothing? Why do they not talk to us? Where are CMs? If they have no Beta, okay, that's fine to me, but why is nobody talking directly to the healers?

I mean seriously, PvP actions and PvE actions are so different(SCH) that I think that they do not talk to each other(the devs).
How far do they want to go? Only one job left? 1 Heal job only? Oh wait, they started it already...

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Originally Posted by Crushnight

I'm not going to sugar coat this

Devs need to try harder than this if balance is their goal

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But they couldn't afford to make a new healer thanks to this wonderful balancing we got, remember?

Less facetiously...the changes seem pretty bad. It feels like they took the simplest, laziest route at every decision point. Had trouble balancing Eos and Selene? Eh, just make them the same. Had trouble balancing cards? Eh, make them all the same. Had trouble balancing healer dps? Eh, just make them the same. Had trouble with healers feeling like they had too much downtime? Eh, just don't worry about it. Had trouble with people not knowing when to cast time magic spells? Eh, just remove them. That's what it feels like all the time, and it's kind of sad.

I'm guessing Healer will be a pretty rare role this expansion...and forever if they can't ever get their stuff straightened out.

Really looking forward to a whole expansion of potency fixes to try and deal with the changes before they can't make a new Healer in the next one since they need to balance us again.

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Originally Posted by Yulja

What were they thinking? Did they think that we are happy? I mean seriously, they have to consider that people LOOK at the changes beforehand and that they look at their jobs and start thinking. Why do they change nothing? Why do they not talk to us? Where are CMs? If they have no Beta, okay, that's fine to me, but why is nobody talking directly to the healers?

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I don't think they really have English CMs, but they did have "influencers" and players with a base of large followers come out for the media tour. Said influences & a few gaming journalism organizations had the opportunity to do interviews and ask questions, but guess which role didn't have any influencers/players that main their role attend?
And subsequently, guess which role didn't really get any questions asked about in interviews?

I don't think it's malicious, I think it's that they just don't have a solid media outreach team and the ones they do reach out to aren't focused on our role (healer). IIRC, during the last Fanfest in an interview Yoshi was surprised that people were expecting a new healer with this expansion and he didn't realize there was any sort of backlash at the lack of healer info that was dropped in the fanfest. They're just really out of touch with this role.

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Originally Posted by Crushnight

its like the devs want a 1 hlr meta or something XD

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With all the extra healing abilities the healer got, it shouldnt be thaat hard anymore to solo heal pfs. That would probably the only situation where one would find use for their entire kit.

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Originally Posted by Ezikiel

im still looking to see what the effect of catalyze means for SCH

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It means that you can't deploy Catalyze, thus indirectly nerfing Deploy + Critlos. Deploy specifically speaks to spreading Galvanize.

It's actually a pretty ingenious way of nerfing Deploy without hurting Adlo too much in the process since Deployed Critlo's gave so much mitigation it wasn't even funny.

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Originally Posted by Sebazy

Sch is looking mighty even before these changes. Roll on home time so I can have a proper browse. One interesting note is that these potency bump should help offset the usual scaling woes the fairy sees as we level up.

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I feel like S-E is trying to push SCH to have two healing modes and to rotate between. Dissipation is a lot more palatable now due to both the nerf in Embrace potency and the fact you get the the fairy back afterwards. So you want to use Dissipation when pet abilities / Seraph are on CD to help push more healing with SCH.

( I don't really want to debate the semantics of whether the extra healing power is even needed - just wanted to state a personal observation based on the kit and some of the choices that went into the SCH changes )

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Originally Posted by CaesarCV

But they couldn't afford to make a new healer thanks to this wonderful balancing we got, remember?

Less facetiously...the changes seem pretty bad. It feels like they took the simplest, laziest route at every decision point. Had trouble balancing Eos and Selene? Eh, just make them the same. Had trouble balancing cards? Eh, make them all the same. Had trouble balancing healer dps? Eh, just make them the same. Had trouble with healers feeling like they had too much downtime? Eh, just don't worry about it. Had trouble with people not knowing when to cast time magic spells? Eh, just remove them. That's what it feels like all the time, and it's kind of sad.

I'm guessing Healer will be a pretty rare role this expansion...and forever if they can't ever get their stuff straightened out.

Really looking forward to a whole expansion of potency fixes to try and deal with the changes before they can't make a new Healer in the next one since they need to balance us again.

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All of this.

Plus, now we also have to look forward to two more years of them trying to "balance" healers, until the next expansion comes around and we're graced with, wait for it . . . two more DPS jobs again, and more excuses as to why we can't have a new healer job.

What a joke... I went from being a pure WHM main for years to now feeling pretty grossed out and even disgusted thinking about levelling a healer into ShB. They really have no clue or desire on how to make healers fun or engaging. White Mage got Divine Seal back for their level 80 cap ability, Scholar got their DPS gutted and AST’s potencies and new card system is hilariously bad and boring. It’s a good thing they added the trust system in time for these appalling healer “additions” (more like culling) so I don’t have to wait for healers anymore.

Why not just delete the healers and be done with it, Square? That seems like it would be the route most appealing to you given how uninspired and out of touch these healer “balancing” acts have been. The fact that Yoshi P didn’t even REALISE people were upset at getting no new healers speaks volumes on how out of touch they are on the matter, it’s kinda sad...

Changes between now and the Media Tour build that I noticed (might have missed some):

Cure: 1.5s cast, from 2s
Assize: 5% MP recovered, from 10%

Ruin: 160p, from 100p
Bio: 20p/30s, from 40p/18s
Physic: 1.5s cast, from 2s
Bio II: 40p/30s, from 50p/30s
Adloquium: Catalyse at 125% of HP restored, from 100%
Ruin II: 400MP, from 600MP
Sacred Soil: Removed the 20% chance of the next Succor costing no MP
Indomitability: 400p, from 500p
Broil: 240p, from 220p
Emergency Tactics: Now also mention Catalyze being transformed in HP restored
Fey Blessing: 350p, from 250p
Consolation: 300p, from 150p

Benefic: 1.5s cast, from 2s
Combust: 30p/18s, from 40p/18s
Combust II: 35p/30s, from 50p/30s
Divination: Damage increase from different types of seals 2%/4%/6%, from 3%/3%/6%
Malefic II: 170p, from 180p
Malefic III: 210p, from 220p
Combust III: 45p/30s, from 50p/30s
Malefic IV: 240p, from 250p
Celestial Intersection: 150p, from 100p
All cards & arcanas: now includes a variance for Tanks and Healers

Can someone explain to this casual the benefit to cure's 1.5 cast time?
I mean it's nice to cast it a bit faster I guess, but it still has the standard 2.5 gcd.

Not that anyone is ever going to opt for cure/psysick1 over 2, or solace, or tetra.

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Originally Posted by Orbus

Can someone explain to this casual the benefit to cure's 1.5 cast time?
I mean it's nice to cast it a bit faster I guess, but it still has the standard 2.5 gcd.

Not that anyone is ever going to opt for cure/psysick1 over 2, or solace, or tetra.

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You can react during the downtime with an oGCD easier without losing anything. Potential for double weaving.

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Originally Posted by Orbus

Can someone explain to this casual the benefit to cure's 1.5 cast time?
I mean it's nice to cast it a bit faster I guess, but it still has the standard 2.5 gcd.

Not that anyone is ever going to opt for cure/psysick1 over 2, or solace, or tetra.

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It lets you weave oGCD abilities without clipping your next GCD. It also gives slightly more mobility. This helps WHM more than AST. I don't play enough SCH to know how much it matters for them.

Wow they've ruined everything I loved about playing Healer. Literally unplayable.

I will give it a chance, but I am utterly disappointed with what they did to Collective Unconscious and Celestial Opposition. Patch X.1 will most probably include job adjustments, but still...

Looking at all the Astro changes.. I wonder.. does anyone on square's side actually play or have tried to play Astro itself? I find it puzzling how our malefic potencies get a nerf.. but that 3/3/6% won't actually make up for it in any way unless they've literally changed the damage formula. So things in the overworld and solo questing stuff, will not take even longer to kill? Cause even before 5.0, it would generally take 4-5 Malefics to kill 1 lv60 monster at lv70. and these were the beastman daily spawns which usually have reduced HP.. O.o just.. wow..

At least our cures got a little boost, fat good that will do with the 10k mp limit.. seems that 10-12 cures = out of gas now. Also confused on their logic for the aspected Helios changes.. the cure gets a nerf to potency but we keep the 250% shield if we go nocturnal?? at a whopping 1100mp? I suspect alot of this stuff will get tweaked in 5.1

Wow, Whm level 80 skill is the combination of two lesser skills...

But at least we have Fluid Aura!

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Originally Posted by Ghishlain

I feel like S-E is trying to push SCH to have two healing modes and to rotate between. Dissipation is a lot more palatable now due to both the nerf in Embrace potency and the fact you get the the fairy back afterwards. So you want to use Dissipation when pet abilities / Seraph are on CD to help push more healing with SCH.

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Main issue with this is that basically every SCH healing skill is an ability and not affected by Dissipation.

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Originally Posted by Michiko

Looking at all the Astro changes.. I wonder.. does anyone on square's side actually play or have tried to play Astro itself? I find it puzzling how our malefic potencies get a nerf.. but that 3/3/6% won't actually make up for it in any way unless they've literally changed the damage formula. So things in the overworld and solo questing stuff, will not take even longer to kill? Cause even before 5.0, it would generally take 4-5 Malefics to kill 1 lv60 monster at lv70. and these were the beastman daily spawns which usually have reduced HP.. O.o just.. wow..

At least our cures got a little boost, fat good that will do with the 10k mp limit.. seems that 10-12 cures = out of gas now. Also confused on their logic for the aspected Helios changes.. the cure gets a nerf to potency but we keep the 250% shield if we go nocturnal?? at a whopping 1100mp? I suspect alot of this stuff will get tweaked in 5.1

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10 potency. Malefic lost TEN potency. You know whats probably worth more than 10 potency? A near permanent 8% +Damage buff that we can now keep on ourselves thanks to the card changes. So literally no change or a very very minor damage buff at worse. Combust got it worse, going from 50p to 35p. Made up again slightly by the Card buff, but not quite as much.

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unless they've literally changed the damage formula.

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It has been stated multiple times by Yoshi-P that the combat formulas DID in fact change. They've been warning us about it for a long time that Potencies seen in ShB reveals can't be properly compared to 4.x Potencies because of that.

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Originally Posted by Ilenya

Main issue with this is that basically every SCH healing skill is an ability and not affected by Dissipation.

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Dissipation, Temperance and Neutral Sect have the exact same wording {Increases Healing Magic Potencies by 20%}. So if SCHs Abilities aren't affected, neither are the WHM's and ASTs from their version of it. Limiting the effectiveness of their respective buffs to beefing up Cure/Physik/Benefic and Helios/Medica/Succor.
If it doesn't affect Abilities in ShB, it affects all the healers not just SCH. All 3 Healers have powerful Abilities, not just SCH.

If SCH's recitation skill makes it so that excog and indom don't consume an aetherflow stack, does that mean they won't generate any faerie gauge either, while recitation is active?

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Originally Posted by Sylve

Dissipation, Temperance and Neutral Sect have the exact same wording {Increases Healing Magic Potencies by 20%}. So if SCHs Abilities aren't affected, neither are the WHM's and ASTs from their version of it. Limiting the effectiveness of their respective buffs to beefing up Cure/Physik/Benefic and Helios/Medica/Succor.
If it doesn't affect Abilities in ShB, it affects all the healers not just SCH. All 3 Healers have powerful Abilities, not just SCH.

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SCH: Physick, Adloquium, Succor.
WHM: Cure, Medica, Cure II, Regen, Cure III, Medica II, Afflatus Solace, Afflatus Rapture
AST: Benefic, Helios, Benefic II, Aspected Benefic, Aspected Helios.

I see a difference in the number of affected skills there.

I decided to check something.

SCH: Lustrate, Sacred Soil, Indomitability, Excogitation, And literally everything the faerie does.
WHM: Benediction (Ha ha), Asylum, Assize, Tetragrammaton, Divine Benison (I guess? Unsure how new skill would count), Plenary Indulgence.
AST: Essential Dignity, Collective Unconscious, Celestial Opposition, Earthly Star, Celestial Intersection, Horoscope (Maybe?)

All unaffected skills.

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Originally Posted by Sylve

Does Recitation work for 1 cast only or the full 15 seconds? The tooltip reads as though it works for the duration.

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There is no way on Hydelaen it's be allowed for the full 15 seconds. It'd be BUSTED if that were the case.

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Originally Posted by Lannybaby

If SCH's recitation skill makes it so that excog and indom don't consume an aetherflow stack, does that mean they won't generate any faerie gauge either, while recitation is active?

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The tooltips read as though the Faerie Gauge is generated on use of the skill, not specifically consumption of a Stack.

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The Faerie Gauge increases when a faerie or Seraph is summoned and an Aetherflow action is successfully executed while in combat.

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This specific line on Fae Union indicates the Gauge goes up when the skill is executed, regardless of the Aetherflow.
Though the old tooltip only specifies that it must be an Aetherflow action and must inflict an effect on a target.
Since we've never had a method to use an AF action without using a stack, I'm not sure we can know for certain how Recitation is going to affect it.

Does Recitation work for 1 cast only or the full 15 seconds? The tooltip reads as though it works for the duration.

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Originally Posted by Ilenya

SCH: Physick, Adloquium, Succor.
WHM: Cure, Medica, Cure II, Regen, Cure III, Medica II, Afflatus Solace, Afflatus Rapture
AST: Benefic, Helios, Benefic II, Aspected Benefic, Aspected Helios.

I see a difference in the number of affected skills there.

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I didn't feel like listing out every GCD heal since since I was mainly pointing out that GCD heals are the only ones affected.

Since Dissipation puts the Fairy away … Of course the Fairy doesn't benefit?

My point is that when using our respective Healing Potency boost, only the GCD heals are affected. As such, ALL Healers are impacted if the buff doesn't get extended to Abilities. Some more than others and I never said otherwise.
Dissipation is underpowered in general because it shunts the Fairy away. Being locked out of Fairy Healing is more detrimental than the potency buff covers. Especially in ShB with so much of the new stuff being built around the Fairy.

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Originally Posted by Ilenya

There is no way on Hydelaen it's be allowed for the full 15 seconds. It'd be BUSTED if that were the case.

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No more busted than Temperance being a party DR and Healing boost in one button.
Nor Neutral Sect offering Regens AND Shields on Aspected casts.
15 seconds of free Adloq crits would just be fun :P

Only reason I even considered it might last full duration is its resemblance to Reassemble, which specifies only the NEXT weaponskill gets a Crit. Same with Sharpcast specifying the NEXT spell will get a bonus. Whereas Recitation simply states that it has a duration of 15 seconds and:

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Allows the execution of Adloquium, Succor, Indomitability, or Excogitation without consuming resources while also ensuring critical HP is restored.

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If it was a one shot deal, shouldn't it specify only the next one cast gets the benefit, in the same way all similar skills are worded?

Heeeeey Urianger... Alphinaud... you two are looking like mighty fine. How about you join my party so I forget about healing. Much better option.

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Originally Posted by Yulja

You are right but Sacred Soil only has Regen in ShB as far as I remember correctly?

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ah yes after re reading it sacred soil does not gain its regen effect until lv78. still better in every way to Collective Unconscious and it gives fairy gauge which helps sch more XD

so any lv78+ schs if i don't see sacred soil every 30s while fighting you better be dancing the manderville mambo

I wondering, why Whm didn't get a Lily consuming dps spell. Transcendent Afflatus: Adds a Blood Lily to the Healing Gauge that blooms after three uses of Afflatus Solace or Afflatus Rapture.
There is not always a use for healing. Getting up the Blood Lily for Afflatus Misery can result in useless overheal.

It's all ok. They fixed dissipation to be in combat only.

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Originally Posted by Sieben79

I wondering, why Whm didn't get a Lily consuming dps spell. Transcendent Afflatus: Adds a Blood Lily to the Healing Gauge that blooms after three uses of Afflatus Solace or Afflatus Rapture.
There is not always a use for healing. Getting up the Blood Lily for Afflatus Misery can result in useless overheal.

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You have 90 seconds to spend 3 Lilies. No one is going to go a full 90 seconds in combat with zero party damage taken.