After this is all over, can we never claim "WHM is fine"?

This is perhaps something that might come off as spiteful in a way, but I feel like it's worth bringing up.
I'm looking at all of the AST complaints. That it has lower rDPS contribution in comparison to WHM and SCH, that it's kit and heals feel weak.

WHM was in this exact same situation for both HW and SB, with possibly an even larger gap in DPS, lower heals and a clunky kit, and yet the majority opinion was that "WHM is fine, it's still viable".
Now, AST of course is due for a buff. And in general, raid utility always beats personal DPS, so once we're back to our usual AST/SCH unbreakable comp for the rest of ShB, can we never go back to "WHM is fine" arguments? WHM hasn't changed much. We have mobile heals and, currently, the highest DPS potential. Once raid utility scales higher and shoots past that, and our personal DPS starts to become lower than what an AST can bring in utility, and our heals already being weaker than SCH, we're going to be right back where we were for the past 4 years.

I am not in any way trying to undermine AST issues. I just hope that if history repeats itself, we instead can treat WHM how we're treating AST right now.

No.

Square Enix was playing the big brain 4D chess with these changes and they've played us all like a bunch of green fiddles. Having grown tired of WHM feedback for years and years, SE was counting on 5.0 sowing the seeds of discontent between the three by giving AST and SCH the dreaded 'White Mage Treatment,' albeit temporarily, no doubt. 1/3 of a group having issues is far more manageable than 2/3. By stinging the majority, SE has ensured not a single drop of WHM feedback will ever grace their doorstep again, So Help Them God. For the next time a White Mage dares open their mouth, an AST or SCH will be there to remind them of 'that time you out-damaged a Dark Knight during Titania Extreme while you made your poor, crippled Scholar friend do all of the healing so you could press Glare the whole time. Your era has come and gone, grandpa.'

We've all been had. This was their plan all along.

I look forward to Thin Air and Presence of Mind being made healer role actions by 6.0.






Please don't take this seriously.

My view of WHM, standing as a SCH has been that I hope they address these issues. At first, my thoughts were "maybe it's not gonna be as bad as this" or "maybe they'll fix it, something that can be patched" when WHM issues were first arising. And tried to look at it from a less pessimistic angle. But when the same problems repeat themselves, you have to stop and think maybe there is a bigger problem. My desire since is that WHM gets the treatment it needs.

But I have the advantage of having had a WHM cohealer since ARR and listening to her issues with each patch and hearing about the old carrot and stick. Her annoyance with the ShB change is that in order to bring WHM into line they didn't fix WHM, they just did what they've gradually done to WHM to SCH and AST in one go. She also said the only reason WHM's are probably complaining less is because they're used to it and that WHM hasn't changed all that much in ShB and the other healers are now in a bad position. Last I checked, WHM was probably last fine in A Realm Reborn?

So I can get your desire to want the rest of the healer community to not dismiss WHM complaints once things go back to the way they were and I hope they don't and that some can better empathise now having had their own job messed with. However, I feel it is at a point SE really needs to step in and seriously take a lot at what needs to be done with the game's healing and correct all 3 jobs to a point where people who main them are satisfied. My hope is that things don't go back to as they were. But you are probably right, AST will get the buffs they need (even if the other problems remain unaddressed), they'll have their utility and their heals will be more balanced after tweaks and WHM's strong DPS will start to look less attractive and SCH still has some utility and then WHM without any will be the least preferred.


Maybe all healers should unite and storm Area 51...wait...no, this is not where I was going with this...

I'd have an easier time sympathising if every thread wasn't getting hijacked by one of several bitter WHM mains that think the other healers deserve getting watered down and/or weaker, like it's their 'turn'.

I've never seen such vicious infighting among a group of what should be like minded players (healers in this case). I agree that WHM concerns shouldn't be dismissed, all healers went through big changes, it's a lot to process, and we should be supporting each others concerns instead of tearing each other down.

Perhaps I’m misremembering, but I seem to be remember it being near unanimous amongst all the healers that Stormblood WHM was not fine—and especially that WHM’s Lily System at the time was not fine. I do remember a very long thread about WHM feedback that had very few supporters when it came to 4.0 WHM’s design regardless of whatever healer they may have mained.

But, perhaps my memory is failing me.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Exiled_Tonberry

I am not in any way trying to undermine AST issues. I just hope that if history repeats itself, we instead can treat WHM how we're treating AST right now.

---

I would like to direct you to the 143 page complaint thread regarding White Mage, Lilies and its overall design was flawed. The overwhelming consensus was White Mage needed utility. Did some people defend the old Lily system or maintain it's meant to be a pure healer for newer players? Of course. Just like you can parse through nearly every Astro thread currently and find some defenders in the sea of detractor.

Regardless, this whole "job x was good for long enough. Now it needs to suffer like job y has" needs to stop. You acknowledge White Mage had an extremely flawed philosophy. Why are we repeating the same bad habits because its Astro's turn to suffer? After four years of dealing with White Mage's issues, you should know precisely how much it sucks when your preferred job can't hang. At least White Mage pre-Shadowbringers could actually heal efficiently. Current Astro struggles mightily in dungeons, works twice as hard for weaker results and has by far the most complex (or rather, tedious) "rotation amongst healers. If you ever want to see a fourth healer implemented, we can't keep putting down the ones we have.

Everytime I see a post/thread from you, I always have the same rolling eyes reaction, because you never bring any good argument to the table;instead, they're all fallacies.

Anyway, let's move on:

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Exiled_Tonberry

WHM was in this exact same situation for both HW and SB, with possibly an even larger gap in DPS, lower heals and a clunky kit, and yet the majority opinion was that "WHM is fine, it's still viable".

---

You probably didn't even play Heavensward. Or, if you did, you played it badly.
WHM was the king (alongside SCH) for 2/3 about of that expansion. Astrologian was indeed not viable at least for Gorgias. The main AST buffs happened on the last tier, which, by the way, was the easiest on both healing check and dps check, leading to believe its usefulness.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Exiled_Tonberry

lower heals and a clunky kit

---

You can say anything but that. That's a very false argument (I mean, all of your post is).
Another clue that you never played HW is that AST had the lowest healing kit. It was the only healer without a oGCD healing there. Also, the kits were kind of comparable:
WHM had 3 DOTs and Stone 3 with a few oGCDs to weave (same thing on SB, except we didn't have Aero I anymore). AST, on the other hand, had 3 DOTs and a lot more oGCDs to weave, which got even clunkier with the lost of Aero I and Combust I on Stormblood (before it got fixed).

We can all say that AST is viable. But, it's not worth it press a whole bunch of buttons for little reward, while WHM push a few and easily out-DPS tanks.

And a tip: see what you wrote before you post. It's getting embarrassing.

Though I only have WHM to 60, I think part of the problem is that so many healers play all three, and switch around flexibly by preference rather than complain. Healers should complain more, and this time we shouldn't stop.

There's no reason for WHM to do less damage than a tank - even if it hit like a Samurai people who don't want to heal wouldn't play it. Dancer is what Astro should be if we're not getting the time component back. Scholar is supposed to be a combat tactician.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Caduagm

And a tip: see what you wrote before you post. It's getting embarrassing.

---

And then there's posts like this, where just because it's a post from me you'll completely disregard everything I say.
The pattern since HW has been WHM being decent for 1, maybe 2 patches, and horrible for the rest of the expansion. In HW AST was fixed in Midas, but overbuffed in Creator.
In SB it was never bad. People were under this impression that WHM HAD to be the prog healer, and bought it for the first tier, but realized over time that AST was just as good. It got worse with the Malefic buff allowing AST to outdps WHM before raid buffs. At that point there was no longer any questioning who to bring.

WHM has always had a really weak identity and kit. Nothing has changed in ShB, WHM looks great because the other healers are a bit undertuned atm.

None of this has to be a contest or competition between healers and bitter griping isn't going to make things any better.

The reality is that the 3 healers should be getting designed to be synergistic with each other rather than facing off as competition for 1 of the 2 seats.

2.0 demonstrated that SE's job design team are capable of doing this. I've assume the fall from grace is a case of them just not having the time or resources to keep up the standard of their earlier work.

I’d like for you guys to realize how we got here Sch/AST have been the preferred healers for way too long because of raid utility and their ability to solo heal content a WHM never could because they lacked shields. This is the price u pay for being the top healers for years. Let the WHM have their fun I’m sure the “balance” patch will make them feel inadequate again.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Hammerhorn

I’d like for you guys to realize how we got here Sch/AST have been the preferred healers for way too long because of raid utility and their ability to solo heal content a WHM never could because they lacked shields. This is the price u pay for being the top healers for years. Let the WHM have their fun I’m sure the “balance” patch will make them feel inadequate again.

---

And this sort of mentality is one I absolutely abhor. “We suffered, so it’s only right that you suffer now, too.” That is a terrible mentality to have. All three healers should be balanced—they shouldn’t trade “who gets the crappy spot this expac” with one another. And players should stop with the above idea that, just because one healer had to suffer means the others get their turn as well. Honestly, it’s the same crap I see from DPS mains who are mad that some jobs were meta and think they deserve to be put out with the trash so that other jobs can shine. All jobs should try to find balance—half should not be great while the other half suck.

I don’t recall many ASTs or SCHs ever advocating to leave WHM in the dust. Not in any of the discussions I was present in for Stormblood, and I was in quite a few of them (and lurked in several more).


EDIT because posting limit... Guess it’s time for a 24-hour break from the forums again.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Hammerhorn

This balance your looking for doesn’t exist in this landscape if u have 3 classes and u can only field 2 one will always preform worse than others it’s the nature of the beast , it’s the predictable pattern, Trust me I’m a tank main PLD since launch I want the healers happy but this isnt new nor is it goin away. Look at PLD when Drk came out nobody wanted PLD , look at Nin now ppl are takin DNC instead, look at how War hasn’t been left out of raid group comp forever now, look at how AST/sch have dominated the past 2 yrs. There’s a pattern here I’m not condoning it but merely recognizing it. Square rotates whos time to shine it is. At the end of the day if your good enough with a gimped class it won’t matter much everything will be ok, but you can’t turn a blind eye to the fact balance is a illusion, there is no such thing as equal here.

---

It is not right for you to justify AST’s current suffering with the suffering WHM endured. Especially when there were AST mains advocating on behalf of WHM when it was suffering. It’s poor on your part.

WAR/DRK/GNB shouldn’t advocate for PLD to suck, or vise versa. The melee shouldn’t advocate for NIN to suck, or vise versa (I don’t know why you’re comparing NIN to DNC—they aren’t in the same role and would never compete with one another for a spot—NIN competes with the melee, DNC with BRD/MCH). Likewise with the casters and physical ranged.

I think balance can be obtained. After all, the physical ranged are relatively well balanced now—DNC could maybe use slight potency buffs, but it is, at most 300~400 rDPS behind the selfish physical ranged MCH. BRD is 50~70 rDPS behind MCH. Taking any of them would not be a horrible hinderance to a party. Conversely, taking an AST over a WHM is denying ~900 rDPS. Taking a SMN over a BLM is denying ~600 rDPS. Tanks are also well balanced in terms of damage right now, based on the numbers and data I have seen on a Certain Site—WAR’s numbers seem to be lower in terms of uploads, but I think that’s due to job design. I don’t main tanks enough to know what their discussions are about its current design, but tanking a combination of any of the tanks would not be gimping your party.

Your post had very little to do with balance being unobtainable and everything to do with “it’s AST’s turn to warm the bench”.

This balance your looking for doesn’t exist in this landscape if u have 3 classes and u can only field 2 one will always preform worse than others it’s the nature of the beast , it’s the predictable pattern, Trust me I’m a tank main PLD since launch I want the healers happy but this isnt new nor is it goin away. Look at PLD when Drk came out nobody wanted PLD , look at Nin now ppl are takin DNC instead, look at how War hasn’t been left out of raid group comp forever now, look at how AST/sch have dominated the past 2 yrs. There’s a pattern here I’m not condoning it but merely recognizing it. Square rotates whos time to shine it is. At the end of the day if your good enough with a gimped class it won’t matter much everything will be ok, but you can’t turn a blind eye to the fact balance is a illusion, there is no such thing as equal here.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by HyoMinPark

.

---

Adding onto that, it's not like most people only ever play one class. A lot of people here played one, two, or even all three healers. Many of us had a vested interest in seeing WHM do just as well as SCH/AST since we played the class as well, and were actively advocated buffs for it.

There's no need to drive a wedge between people by acting as though classes had a static playerbase that could never understand the plights of WHMs without their favored class of healing being put down as well.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Hammerhorn

This balance your looking for doesn’t exist in this landscape if u have 3 classes and u can only field 2 one will always preform worse than others it’s the nature of the beast , it’s the predictable pattern. Square rotates whos time to shine it is. At the end of the day if your good enough with a gimped class it won’t matter much everything will be ok, but you can’t turn a blind eye to the fact balance is a illusion, there is no such thing as equal here.

---

That indicate's a failure on Square's part, and is not something that we should simply roll over and accept because it's not "our time to shine."
SE could have simply touched up on WHM without taking the bat to SCH/AST as hard as they did.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Sebazy

The reality is that the 3 healers should be getting designed to be synergistic with each other rather than facing off as competition for 1 of the 2 seats.

2.0 demonstrated that SE's job design team are capable of doing this. I've assume the fall from grace is a case of them just not having the time or resources to keep up the standard of their earlier work.

---

This. I've long felt that AST lazily being given a regen-mode/shield-mode toggle is much of the root cause of X healer being straight up better than another, along with encounter design not pushing healers hard enough to make a "pure healer" with higher HPS desirable. Sadly, SE job and encounter design has doubled down on homogenization and the removal of synergy as a method of balancing.

The problem with balance by homogenization is that if you have ANY differences remaining between jobs/characters/etc. it's more likely one of those things will be outright superior to another. If you don't have any differences remaining, why do you even have separate jobs? At least with heterogeneous balance a given job can be better in some encounters and worse in others.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Shalan

That indicate's a failure on Square's part, and is not something that we should simply roll over and accept because it's not "our time to shine."
SE could have simply touched up on WHM without taking the bat to SCH/AST as hard as they did.

---

I think you missed his point.

He said that, in a game balanced around having 2 healer spots for the hardest content, 1 of the 3 will always be less interesting to take than the others. Perfect balance in a mmo (and any kind of online/competitive game) is just impossible, or else all your classes would have the same spells but with different colors. Look at WoW : so many years of terrible balance, be it for tanks/dps/healers. Look at GW2 (which I hate with a passion but still) : Chronomancer was king for a looong time, and that was the meta. So many games failed at balancing everything, do you think that it can be done by SE ? After years (I was not there, just informations I found) of imbalances ? Nah, it seems like it will be the same as always : some jobs on top, some at the bottom.

The only way for jobs to be balanced is by homogenizing them, but that's fucking boring and defeats the point of having multiple classes in the first place. If not, people will just take the 2 most interesting choices out of the 3 (or stack 2 of the strongest one).

Btw, I thought the main complains came from the fact that AST/SCH's gameplay was kinda butchered.

Perfect balance is probably not achievable, and I think we all can agree on that. There's always going to be some kind of job that narrowly cuts out the others. But you can get pretty close. (See the numbers HyoMin posted about rDPS)

Ever since Astrologian was added the balance has been pretty comically bad. They can do better.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ColaSama

I think you missed his point.

---

I quite understood what he said, it was easy and simple to understand. And I perfectly understand how having three healers can create some form of dilemma, and how idiotic it would be to pine for perfect balance. I just don't agree with his justifications.

Quote:

---

This is the price u pay for being the top healers for years.

---

and

Quote:

---

Square rotates whos time to shine it is. At the end of the day if your good enough with a gimped class it won’t matter much everything will be ok

---

Feel like trashy cop out excuses to the current situation, and makes it sound as though we should find the current state of healing acceptable because it's WHM's "time to shine."

If that's the balancing attitude we want to take we'll be forever in a cycle of classes being shat upon for the benefit of the others. That's not something I want to see happen, and I feel as though we should be requesting and expecting more if we ever want to see some form of progress.

Sorry, I'd write something more eloquent and longer to address more points but I'm on lunch break atm, lol. I'll come back later to see if there's anything else to add.

(Also, there are more issues with AST at least than gameplay issues - there's some potency, lacking pDPS/rDPS contributions, and to a lesser extent MP issues - here's hoping Tuesday gives them a little love)

SE seems to have this dogma that, for healers, "easier to play" necessarily means "pushing fewer buttons". I'm not convinced that there can ever be balance between the healers so long as WHM has a fundamentally different, less-efficient design than the other two.

We need to realize, collectively, that if any one of us is disadvantaged, then nobody is "fine". ShB should've made that abundantly clear to non-WHMs. You can draw a straight line of causality between the lack of visible and vocal urgency for fixing White Mage and the devastation which was wrought on Scholar.

The imbalances led them to approach healer changes from the perspective of broad design goals, to the exclusion of gameplay considerations. They'll tweak some potencies on AST and things will be much as they were in SB, just with healers using a few extra GCDs on healing now and then. Tah-dah, everyone's a "more pure healer" and still everyone's "viable"; but somebody's still not "desirable" and nobody's having fun.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Hammerhorn

This balance your looking for doesn’t exist in this landscape if u have 3 classes and u can only field 2 one will always preform worse than others it’s the nature of the beast

---

This is nonsense. The problem isn't the number of Jobs in the meta, it's that one of the Jobs is fundamentally different in a way that makes balancing their capabilities across a diverse set of content nearly impossible.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Shalan

Feel like trashy cop out excuses to the current situation, and makes it sound as though we should find the current state of healing acceptable because it's WHM's "time to shine."

If that's the balancing attitude we want to take we'll be forever in a cycle of classes being shat upon for the benefit of the others. That's not something I want to see happen, and I feel as though we should be requesting and expecting more if we ever want to see some form of progress.

---

I don't want to sound pessimistic, but, as seen in every MMO ever (and other games), devs have a hard time balancing classes/characters. I have seen people say the same things as you did, about it being "an eternal cycle of classes being shat upon for the benefits of others"... but the sad truth is that it's common. I have seen it on WoW's forums since vanilla, every single expansion, every single day a new post saying "come on, do not make 1 class OP and then an other one so everyone has his time to shine".

https://9gag.com/gag/ayLr86y/how-dif...ce-their-games

This "balancing attitude" is here since eons. It's a meme at this point. I lost hope in balancing teams many years ago.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Sebazy

2.0 demonstrated that SE's job design team are capable of doing this. I've assume the fall from grace is a case of them just not having the time or resources to keep up the standard of their earlier work.

---

I'm almost convinced that 2.0 only went so well because there was barely any choice in the matter. You had 2 tanks, 2 healers so it just worked.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ColaSama

I don't want to sound pessimistic, but, as seen in every MMO ever (and other games), devs have a hard time balancing classes/characters. I have seen people say the same things as you did, about it being "an eternal cycle of classes being shat upon for the benefits of others"... but the sad truth is that it's common. I have seen it on WoW's forums since vanilla, every single expansion, every single day a new post saying "come on, do not make 1 class OP and then an other one so everyone has his time to shine".

https://9gag.com/gag/ayLr86y/how-dif...ce-their-games

This "balancing attitude" is here since eons. It's a meme at this point. I lost hope in balancing teams many years ago.

---

Eh. FFXIV is still generally the best-balanced MMO I've ever played. Even through SB when WHM was relatively trash, it was still used - it had its niche, and was viable otherwise. And on the DPS side they really do a pretty good job. There will always be a "meta comp" that's mathematically the best. But players are people and it's often a DPS gain to bring someone who's actually having fun. Most balancing issues in other MMOs tend to come from sprawling class systems via talent trees and other "progression paths". At their most extreme in XIV, relative imbalances are nowhere near what I've seen regularly in other games, where DPS classes fall behind by 10 and 20 percent for months and years.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Hammerhorn

This balance your looking for doesn’t exist in this landscape if u have 3 classes and u can only field 2 one will always preform worse than others it’s the nature of the beast , it’s the predictable pattern, Trust me I’m a tank main PLD since launch I want the healers happy but this isnt new nor is it goin away. Look at PLD when Drk came out nobody wanted PLD , look at Nin now ppl are takin DNC instead, look at how War hasn’t been left out of raid group comp forever now, look at how AST/sch have dominated the past 2 yrs. There’s a pattern here I’m not condoning it but merely recognizing it. Square rotates whos time to shine it is. At the end of the day if your good enough with a gimped class it won’t matter much everything will be ok, but you can’t turn a blind eye to the fact balance is a illusion, there is no such thing as equal here.

---

There's a farcry between the attitude you put across and the impossibility of 'true' balance. "This is the price you pay for being top healers". The healer issues don't boil down to that impossibility. Otherwise I'd be complaining that my DNC is the lowest ranged physical DPS AFTER contributions are taken into account. But the difference doesn't gimp them and despite the 3 jobs playing very differently to each other, they've kept them at a level where the disparity only matters to top percentile meta groups.


When it comes to healing, I've yet to see complaints about who is meta yet. The gap as I understand it is an issue for AST specifically because their healing potential is weaker, so is their DPS and cards are pretty gimp compared to what they used to be. So in this instance, AST is in a bad place because there's much less of an advantage in having one. (or at least is one aspect where they're in a bad place)

But this is only one part of the issues that SCH and AST are for some reason are "paying the price" for. The issues are at the core of how healing works in this game, how the healers play. What SE did was break the other healers rather than fix WHM. WHM still has issues, they've not been resolved, they've just got shadowed by the AST and SCH now joining in the well hoping for Lassy to show up.

Speaking as a Scholar, I get bored. That's my biggest issue, I heal too well. Dungeons feel like Sastasha to me, because I'm using 1 heal ability and 1 or 2 DPS abilities. And I can fit in 10 or more DPS moves before I need to cast 1 or 2 healing spells. I know on content that'll be different, but I am told SCH doesn't feel that different to me playing at 70 than it does at 80 and that's putting me off from taking it all the way because I am bored at 70.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Trunks

Even through SB when WHM was relatively trash, it was still used - it had its niche, and was viable otherwise.

---

oh gods, here we go again...

And now we see why there wasnt a fourth healer implemented. Everyone complains thier healer fave is trash but nobody has figured a way to make the three healers we have equally appealing and fun to play.. Just saying put those headmeats together and figure out what would do this without making one more desirable than the other. then once thats done compile the data and hand it over to SE

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by kidalutz

Just saying put those headmeats together and figure out what would do this without making one more desirable than the other. then once thats done compile the data and hand it over to SE

---

https://i.imgur.com/8rkwoRa.png

Bam.

I do want to comment that we shouldn't be saying stuff like "It's ASTS time to suck". We should be looking to get everyone in line now.
Honestly, now that WHM has some semblance of utility in it's high dps, if they can just get ASTs Rdps and lack of healing in check we'd be fine.
At this moment, there's a real chance to get healers balanced. Now watch SE do something stupid like buff up AST to do WHM level personal dps.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Risvertasashi

https://i.imgur.com/8rkwoRa.png

Bam.

---

oh yes I know the flowchart.. now MAKE THEM ALL INTERESTING TO PLAY.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by kidalutz

oh yes I know the flowchart.. now MAKE THEM ALL INTERESTING TO PLAY.

---

the problem with "interesting to play" is it's very subjective. And a lot of the suggestions on these forums since shb launch have been power increases where they probably aren't needed, so "interesting to play" and "balanced" do seem to be rather at odds with each other. If you can even get people to agree on what "interesting to play" means.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Risvertasashi

https://i.imgur.com/8rkwoRa.png

Bam.

---

Even right now, I think everyone can agree that whm isn't balanced, but the current healer model would pass under that chart you made. Dose ast offer anything that whm doesn't? No, it doesn't bring anything at all. And somehow this chart would suggest balance? Not sure why your chart is whm-centralized anyways, or do you think that whm/ast should always compete for the same spot in raid?

WHM will never be fine as long as SCH has access to both many and strong heals and shields while WHM has only access to heal skills.
In fact, WHM will always struggle with AST for the last spot because SE doesn't know how to make Nocturnal interesting and competitive against SCH.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ceasaria

WHM will never be fine as long as SCH has access to both many and strong heals and shields while WHM has only access to heal skills.
In fact, WHM will always struggle with AST for the last spot because SE doesn't know how to make Nocturnal interesting and competitive against SCH.

---

As a SCH, I am happy with taking a nerf to pure heals. If I wanted to be really healy healer, I'd play WHM. If I wanted a mix of both I'd play AST. SCH was handicapped on pure heals in the beginning, its relationship with WHM was fantastic and was still able to holds it own. The balance concern really should have been "how do we make AST work in this already great healer relationship" and you can see how they attempted to do that in AST's design. Then they made it completely meaningless by buffing SCH's pure heals at the same time.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ColaSama

I think you missed his point.

He said that, in a game balanced around having 2 healer spots for the hardest content, 1 of the 3 will always be less interesting to take than the others. Perfect balance in a mmo (and any kind of online/competitive game) is just impossible, or else all your classes would have the same spells but with different colors. Look at WoW : so many years of terrible balance, be it for tanks/dps/healers. Look at GW2 (which I hate with a passion but still) : Chronomancer was king for a looong time, and that was the meta. So many games failed at balancing everything, do you think that it can be done by SE ? After years (I was not there, just informations I found) of imbalances ? Nah, it seems like it will be the same as always : some jobs on top, some at the bottom.

The only way for jobs to be balanced is by homogenizing them, but that's fucking boring and defeats the point of having multiple classes in the first place. If not, people will just take the 2 most interesting choices out of the 3 (or stack 2 of the strongest one).

Btw, I thought the main complains came from the fact that AST/SCH's gameplay was kinda butchered.

---

Except White Mage was not that bad in early Stormblood, Lilies notwithstanding. It still had a fairly large presence on the more casual to light midcore scene and was widely preferred for both prog and Ultimate despite Astro's utility. Some semblance of balance could have been achieved had they built upon what worked and addressed what was lacking. Had they simply given White Mage utility, it could finally answer Balance. Perhaps White Mage's version (we'll call it Bravery/Cheer) is a flat buff they main similar to Trick Attack or Brotherhood but it has a long CD and/or is weaker than Balance. Now both healers have something to suffer. One has a better buff but is subject to RNG whereas the other has flat damage. Conversely, they could have kept Astro exactly the same but reduced all the card effects to 15s. That puts a significant dent in its rDPS without gutting the job wholesale.

Instead, they fixed the clipping issues Astro had without realizing just how much that impacted its damage, indirectly buffed Collective and kept designing fights which encouraged movement—something that worked entirely against White Mage. In the end, the dev team's stubbornness sealed brought White Mage down.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Exiled_Tonberry

WHM has always had a really weak identity and kit. Nothing has changed in ShB, WHM looks great because the other healers are a bit undertuned atm.

---

A bit is more of an understatement. AST was quite literally gutted. With that being said, they have to figure out a way to make all three classes fun and viable. At this current moment at least in my own opinion, AST has had the fun sucked right out of it.

It's funny how all of this could have been fixed by giving WHM utility, but for whatever reason they absolutely will not budge. They would rather gut every other job than give them utility. It's weird, I'm actually really curious what their reasoning is for this.

I played Whm from ARR to Hws. When I unlocked Astro I fell in love. Loved how it played and everything.

Then in SB I did hate the lily gauge for Whm causs it felt usless, but I did content with it and had no issues (except when I accidentally used regen on a tank one time)

In SB astro felt great to me. The cards were good. Both sects were good, and we had a little more diversity. We had the buffs for situations and kicked butt.

Now I can only stomach Whm. Why? The lily gauge is good now I will say. The blood lily is a deadly foe, and heals are nice, but what the devs gave up was Astro.

My cards are small little balances and i hate the new mechanic. My shields are not worth it due to mp costs went up way to much. All together....it trash. I had enough to the point I discarded my Astro globe and quit. No buffs can fix this class cause everything is gone.

I've always loved Whm through the game, and now it's all I'm allowed to love now.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Risvertasashi

the problem with "interesting to play" is it's very subjective. And a lot of the suggestions on these forums since shb launch have been power increases where they probably aren't needed, so "interesting to play" and "balanced" do seem to be rather at odds with each other. If you can even get people to agree on what "interesting to play" means.

---

Yeah flat power increases are never fixes. However being able to keep busy while contributing that is something worth looking into

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Saefinn

As a SCH, I am happy with taking a nerf to pure heals

---

This likely wouldn't work, as far as balancing things goes. All three healers being viable numbers-wise is an explicit design goal from Square. Fun, interesting gameplay, utility, et al aside, from a very basic standpoint, this has been true with few exceptions (viable in this instance meaning "can heal content with reasonable skill levels"). So if numbers are, in theory, always going to be fine, then nerfing Scholar's pure numbers would just lower the acceptability bar and create more overhealing for the other two.

I'm one of those mean WHMs who's always beaten the Nerf Scholar drum, and it's not because I want the job unfun. Scholar is (and has always been) OP because once potencies are at a baseline for clearing stuff, all of the variability comes in with things like efficiency, utility, personal damage, and time-saving. All things Scholar's kit has been incredibly good at, and the reason why Noct AST "sucks". Its shield potencies are higher, but it doesn't bring nearly enough of that list of features, so Scholar is always the obvious pick. Both healers benefit from the time-saving windows that things like constantly pulsing Embrace or highly available, beefy Indom or Excog create.

Tl;dr nerfing Scholar's potencies hasn't historically worked because the discrepancy between it and the other two isn't potency.

WHM has always been fine and not bad, it always had the highest healing throughput and the highest pDPS of the healers which is why it remained popular even when it was not meta. The problems it had in the past were centered around a poorly designed job system, which has since been fixed, and a lack of utility, which still has not been fixed. Right now it is the top healer simply because its main competition has been crushed to the point of being a deficit in any healer combination. Which has made things very lopsided.

WHM should of been brought up to AST/SCHs level by giving it some utility. That would have given a third "knob" to twist for healer balancing. It is easier to balance classes that have utility against other classes that have utility then it is to balance a class without any utility against those that do.