Never healed before in my life in a game until now and I gotta say....

Hi, I main tanks in this game. Was DRK last expac, now gunbreaker. Prior to those 2 I was either a melee dps, ranged dps, or caster... kinda kept jumping until I found out I love tanking. Over the years I have always felt healing was an absolute chore from a distance. I look at healers complain about dumb dps or dumb tanks, and I just imagine "why put yourself through such a stressful job then?" I've cleared this tier of savage as my first tier of current savage content ever, and I'm currently working on clearing TEA. Now.... In the mean time, I felt a little bored and figured, I'd give healers a shot. Scholar always fascinated me because it's more of a mitigation healer.... I like mitigation. Unfortunately, fairies and its cosmetic didn't appeal to me as much. Then I considered white mage... Neat job but, feels a bit vanilla to me I suppose? So I picked Astrologian. I've picked up some things over the years I get from healers and I'm now level 58 with it and I wanted to share my opinion so far as a first time healer both in FFXIV and in mmo's in general.


So, I do remember last expac AST had cards that boosted your mp gain, your defense, and general dps. I know they've completely changed that now and I do notice a significant difference between the 3 healer job types. So far.... I feel.... busy, but bored? I'm trying to figure out what would give me a high for this job like others do. For Red mage it' the melee combo burst window, for dragoon it was the geirskogul and jumps, for tanks it's successful tank swaps and mitigation as well as positioning perfectly. Every job I've played gives me something that I value as "fun" and gives me a high to do.... With AST right now.... I don't know what I should be feeling.


I get a sense of tension when I do trials because I'm not sure what my other healer covers or will do. I only have about 3 dps skills total, one of which is just for aoe'ing. My cards are still a thing but they feel... annoyingly stressful? I'm sure it's a dps gain and all and I like the concept behind seals for divination but.... Something is just off about how it feels. We have skills that are in strange spots imo too.. Like I did Hauke Manor today, seeing I have Diurnal Sect, but I don't have any skills that it affects?....

I also have Undraw.... still not sure why someone would want to use this as it doesn't seem to affect cooldowns or anything. It's simply removing the card in general and that sounds like a waste of a cd for Draw to begin with. I'm healing fine I suppose, but so far I don't feel anything out of doing it. All my heals feel like they're small or I have to use twice in a row to really heal someone up... But I understand that's WHM's job to have really high healing. Then the same case for being in nocturnal sect... my shields feel, negligible and not really worth using half the time. Frankly if I see a WHM in my trial, I go noct with the mindset of "I guess they got this covered, Ill add my healing but it's not going to really show." So i'm confused on that front.... If the draw of the job is about the card system and being the red mage of healers while providing support to your party through these card buffs.... why did they nuke the joy of it? I don't heal very well to feel good, I don't provide shields well enough, and my cards are tedious all to buildup a group dps buff.


I guess what I mean to ask here is... Is this how AST is supposed to feel right now or am I missing something? Where do healers get their "high" from in playing the healer role in this game? Is there a reason they changed astrologian so much and is this change why people have been complaining about AST right now(if so, I kinda see it and I haven't even played SCH or WHM)?

Welcome to the healer role!

Unfortunately it is exactly as you described it. AST changes made the job absolutely un-fun and that's exactly why healers complain so much. Unless you prefer fast casting job, I'd suggest switching to WHM to at least enjoy the blood lily. Or max AST and see how it feels at 80 but it's dynamics don't really change much.

Personally, I decided to completely ignore the seals in roulettes/alliance raids. Everyone gets whatever I draw and everyone gets divination when it's up. It didn't made the job more fun but it removed a portion of my frustration with it.

Hopefully changes in 6.0 but until then, it is what it is.

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Originally Posted by Valic

Like I did Hauke Manor today, seeing I have Diurnal Sect, but I don't have any skills that it affects?....

I also have Undraw.... still not sure why someone would want to use this as it doesn't seem to affect cooldowns or anything. It's simply removing the card in general and that sounds like a waste of a cd for Draw to begin with.

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Sects affect whether your "aspected" spells apply Regen or shields, and you don't have those yet in Haukke.

Undraw seems to be a leftover from the older system where you would need to clear a drawn card (and corresponding skills to clear your held card and Royal Road effects) sometimes. There isn't any benefit to it now when there's no downside to using the 'wrong' card.

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Originally Posted by MuseTraveller

Welcome to the healer role!

Unfortunately it is exactly as you described it. AST changes made the job absolutely un-fun and that's exactly why healers complain so much. Unless you prefer fast casting job, I'd suggest switching to WHM to at least enjoy the blood lily. Or max AST and see how it feels at 80 but it's dynamics don't really change much.

Personally, I decided to completely ignore the seals in roulettes/alliance raids. Everyone gets whatever I draw and everyone gets divination when it's up. It didn't made the job more fun but it removed a portion of my frustration with it.

Hopefully changes in 6.0 but until then, it is what it is.

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Huh... that's a good idea. Well dang, that's a shame.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

Sects affect whether your "aspected" spells apply Regen or shields, and you don't have those yet in Haukke.

Undraw seems to be a leftover from the older system where you would need to clear a drawn card (and corresponding skills to clear your held card and Royal Road effects) sometimes. There isn't any benefit to it now when there's no downside to using the 'wrong' card.

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I mean, I guess my point there was.... why give me a dozen abilities at level 30 including a buff that adds regen to specific spells... and then not give me at least one of said spells? It's like Machinist getting their overcharge heat buff but they don't even get the heat blasts/arrows or even the potency buff.... At that point, why bother? Seems like they should've given me a sect + aspected benefic to start ya know?

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Originally Posted by Valic

I mean, I guess my point there was.... why give me a dozen abilities at level 30 including a buff that adds regen to specific spells... and then not give me at least one of said spells? It's like Machinist getting their overcharge heat buff but they don't even get the heat blasts/arrows or even the potency buff.... At that point, why bother? Seems like they should've given me a sect + aspected benefic to start ya know?

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There are lots of jobs built like that, though. Lv30 is your first step into a job but they often give you "half an ability" at that point.

I'm not sure what the setup now is, but previously warrior got tank stance at Lv30, which gives you the Beast Gauge... but you don't get the skill Inner Beast (ie. the thing you spend gauge power on) until Lv35 so the gauge just sat there and you couldn't do anything with it.

It can even happen later, eg. summoner getting Dreadwyrm Trance (Lv58) but not immediately getting Deathflare (Lv60) so you just let your trance fizzle out at the end.

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Originally Posted by Valic

I mean, I guess my point there was.... why give me a dozen abilities at level 30 including a buff that adds regen to specific spells... and then not give me at least one of said spells?

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It's a vestige of the HW/SB days when Sects buffed your healing magic potency and reduced enmity generation for all spells, in addition to the Aspect-specific effects. General buff to healing at 30, then Aspected Benefic a few levels later.

That's why Diurnal Sect feels anachronous now that the Sects strictly only add regens or shields to Aspected and Celestial actions.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

previously warrior got tank stance at Lv30, which gives you the Beast Gauge... but you don't get the skill Inner Beast (ie. the thing you spend gauge power on) until Lv35 so the gauge just sat there and you couldn't do anything with it.

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Similarly, once upon a time, WARs got Defiance at 30 and could start building stacks of Wrath to give themselves a scaling buff that affected them generally, and then a few levels later they got an action to spend their Wrath stacks, resetting the buff to 0 but dealing a big attack.

I understand your frustration and believe me.. I've been very vocal about how AST got changed with its card abilities. 2 years of playing since before Stormblood was when AST felt amazing and fun, now it's just pure damage. You won't feel like you're contributing to anything outside of a savage/ultimate raid. Some people say it was for balance but for it to change to something like this, just feels rushed without thinking outside the box. When the expansion of 5.0 came out, AST was horribly awful. It's been receiving buffs lately but I'm still waiting on some answers about any feedback they're willing to provide for this card system. Hopefully we'll hear something in the next live letter to come out on Feb 6. We might have to be patient but hopefully good things come to those who wait.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

There are lots of jobs built like that, though. Lv30 is your first step into a job but they often give you "half an ability" at that point.

I'm not sure what the setup now is, but previously warrior got tank stance at Lv30, which gives you the Beast Gauge... but you don't get the skill Inner Beast (ie. the thing you spend gauge power on) until Lv35 so the gauge just sat there and you couldn't do anything with it.

It can even happen later, eg. summoner getting Dreadwyrm Trance (Lv58) but not immediately getting Deathflare (Lv60) so you just let your trance fizzle out at the end.

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I mean, everyone else actually gets something to go with that ability even when it's by itself. WAR's defiance before was their tank stance, so they could generate enmity to begin with. So that has a function.... Diurnal without anything else, literally doesn't increase anything you do lol. Dreadwyrm is the same, it still resets tri-disaster and reduces your cast time by 2.5 seconds.... So it still functioned to actually do something even if it was by itself. I'm saying giving us a stance at that level... does LITERALLY nothing, no passive attached to it, no halved portion of the skill, it's just literally useless by itself. Seems like flawed design imo.

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Originally Posted by Rongway

It's a vestige of the HW/SB days when Sects buffed your healing magic potency and reduced enmity generation for all spells, in addition to the Aspect-specific effects. General buff to healing at 30, then Aspected Benefic a few levels later.

That's why Diurnal Sect feels anachronous now that the Sects strictly only add regens or shields to Aspected and Celestial actions.

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That explains a lot...

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Originally Posted by MitsukiKimura

I understand your frustration and believe me.. I've been very vocal about how AST got changed with its card abilities. 2 years of playing since before Stormblood was when AST felt amazing and fun, now it's just pure damage. You won't feel like you're contributing to anything outside of a savage/ultimate raid. Some people say it was for balance but for it to change to something like this, just feels rushed without thinking outside the box. When the expansion of 5.0 came out, AST was horribly awful. It's been receiving buffs lately but I'm still waiting on some answers about any feedback they're willing to provide for this card system. Hopefully we'll hear something in the next live letter to come out on Feb 6. We might have to be patient but hopefully good things come to those who wait.

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If they could keep the seal system how it is to a less tedious degree and give us back all those buffs (maybe substitute spire for crit and arrow with d.hit or determination?)... I feel like I'd at least be useful and diverse in that sense. If they made it so you just need 3 different seals used too, I feel like that would even lessen the amount of "fishing" needed to be done and would provoke more usage of different cards like the bole for the tank, balance for a dps, and some mana for yourself.

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Originally Posted by Valic

If they could keep the seal system how it is to a less tedious degree and give us back all those buffs (maybe substitute spire for crit and arrow with d.hit or determination?)... I feel like I'd at least be useful and diverse in that sense. If they made it so you just need 3 different seals used too, I feel like that would even lessen the amount of "fishing" needed to be done and would provoke more usage of different cards like the bole for the tank, balance for a dps, and some mana for yourself.

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What I've suggested and many others have as well, is for the shire card to be replaced with Direct hit % increase. I've also suggested that the balance card be cut down to 5%. Testing out suggestions takes time and work put into it. Hopefully they've taken in some suggestions and been testing things out so we can have our different card abilities, without it being too over the top. It made AST unique and really engaging in my personal opinion.

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Originally Posted by Valic

I guess what I mean to ask here is... Is this how AST is supposed to feel right now or am I missing something? Where do healers get their "high" from in playing the healer role in this game? Is there a reason they changed astrologian so much and is this change why people have been complaining about AST right now(if so, I kinda see it and I haven't even played SCH or WHM)?

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I can't really say to help you on AST, but let me share some history: Scholar used to have a dps class in it's base and boy did it show. The "high" you describe came from pre-emptively shielding, mitigating and find the pauses where everyone is safe to switch stances, put up five dots, one with melee range, able to refresh the core resource out of combat, hardcast 3s for a damage field, able to apply stats down, slow and blind, switch between two fairies for either increased healing or haste and look after it like it was a party member and much more.

Because most of the time I didn't have time to do all that, I was there to make sure nobody died, but the system above ensured I always had something to work with and towards, BOTH in parties and solo. Coming from DPS and tanks, can I wager a guess you also apriciate the feeling of finally manage to just use that right ability or apply a hit at just the right moment. Scholar was that. Always shielding, buffing and debuffing for unavoidables, using the seperate hotbar to manually target the fairies heals even when casting, the making sure I had all five dots up and always judge if I can safely enter Cleric Stance and apply dots for the hard five second cooldown before I could leave it again. Always on the lookout to make use of the whole arsenal. That was my high and what made me play the job.

All that stuff above? It's gone now. Removed and imprisoned in 4.0 and 5.0, for which I can only guess theirs was the crime of being too fun. It's conjecture because SE isn't in any hurry to share details about the design behind ast, whm and sch.

I can still shield and mitigate but it's all for naught because only reward is to press Broil III one more time. All those dots, damage variety, separate fairy hotbar and second fairy and support abilities all gone with the wind. People take damage, I press a oGCD, and resume pressing the same button until everything stops moving. What used to be a fully-fledgded job is now no more than it's role. There is no high anymore, only numbness.

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Originally Posted by Sloprano

*snip*

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If I'm honest.... I'm prolly that player that would "just want to heal". That's not saying I don't dps in down time where there's clearly nothing to heal... But rather, I'd prefer being able to fulfill my role in its avenues specifically to mitigate/protect/heal my party over deal damage. However.... I do appreciate design in where this concept it coupled with a reward of extra damage. Things like how Holy causes stun, and thereby is a form of mitigation while dealing damage. Or how WHM gains a blood lily for healing and etc. I like these concepts of "you're doing your job well, here's something akin to a reward for your job" type of deal. So far on AST, I'm mashing malefic and keeping up a dot... I know I get earthly star but that looks like a "plant it and let it be" type skill like DRK's salty earth lol.

If every job could get a form of synergy in what their dps is with their healing capabilities, even if it's subtle/small... I'd like that. I don't want the job to be "when can I stop healing so I can go back to mashing 1 and dotting again"... Rather, "I can't wait until I blank enough so I can provide blank". I don't want to be a dps with healing capabilities I guess is my point here... but I do need something that synergizes with what I do to give me some form of "feel good" thing. Whether it's you do healing/cards enough you're rewarded a fantastic self bonus, group bonus, or mitigation or guaranteed crit heal, crit on a damage skill... ANYTHING like that would be nice. It doesn't necessarily need to be "you do higher dps cuz you heal gud" either. As I typed this, I realized I think the only thing I get a high from AST atm is all 3 different seals and getting to use divination but.... trying to pop it on everyone in the group when they're spread out and the fact cards are a chore kinda nullifies that feeling sometimes. It's a short duration and long cd too.

I won't say I wish that all I had to do was heal. However I will say that for all I have to do on AST so far, I'd appreciate more noticeable differences or more enjoyable buffs that make me shine with this job over the other 2 just as they shine in particular ways over the remaining 2. I shouldn't need encouragement to dps as a healer, or a feeling of "relief" when I see everyone's topped off and I can continue casting malefic. I should feel a sense of accomplishment and pride that by doing what I do best, I'm rewarded with something to provide to the party or myself that others cannot provide. I feel like the former cards were a bit of that, maybe not as much of a buildup but just knowing you had the power to hold cards for specific situations sounded like AST was a utility healer. It didn't excel particularly in any one situation, but it looked like it could adapt to whatever situation it was dealt with.

This is only speculation though from what I remember seeing out of AST's back in the day. I remember boles saving people on the final boss of Sohm Al Hard because that mitigation could let a dps take the tank buster and survive. It wasn't that it was necessarily required or needed, but the fact "you could" and it showed for it.

I think pretty early on you're seeing where some of the complaints are coming from and IMO you're playing the job with the most to do and least unlikely to have problems with 'boredom' from the perspective of downtime, because if I heal, I pick AST as I find it less boring than SCH or WHM ATM. Though you are noticing where many of the problems are with AST and also its lack of satisfaction.

However, it terms of flow, I think out of the three, WHM is probably the most fluid at the moment. SCH flows better than AST, but I think a couple of their skills down meld as well together.

In terms of getting a 'high', it is of course subjective, but many of us posting in this section of the forum aren't getting that high either. We used to. I generally get my high when the group is struggling and I'm having to carry them, because they are testing my ability as a healer to keep things under control. When people are doing well enough, not much fun.

I just did Dun Scathe for the first time with another AST. I went Noct sect, and I actually had fun keeping people topped off. Same with Alexander A12, felt like I had more satisfying things to do at least... Still felt like the cards were tedious though among all the healing I did.

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Originally Posted by Valic

I just did Dun Scathe for the first time with another AST. I went Noct sect, and I actually had fun keeping people topped off. Same with Alexander A12, felt like I had more satisfying things to do at least... Still felt like the cards were tedious though among all the healing I did.

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Healing with AST feels really good, it's always been my favorite healer. It's a worse feeling from all the way from level 30 to 70, your cards won't feel like they're contributing anything until higher levels. The one card I loved and begged every AST to give me when I was a black mage was arrow. Bigger numbers with balance? Didn't care for it. 25% faster cast rate for 30 seconds? I felt like a god

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Originally Posted by Valic

I just did Dun Scathe for the first time with another AST. I went Noct sect, and I actually had fun keeping people topped off. Same with Alexander A12, felt like I had more satisfying things to do at least... Still felt like the cards were tedious though among all the healing I did.

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This is how I’ve been playing AST, whilst Noct being weaker than Diurnal is a complaint on AST, when one of the general complaints is that healers heals too well, I think this is better.

The problem is astro is the healer we’re you have the most things to do. That doesn’t mean it feels fun and good to play. But as a healer main in a static having to go whm because it’s way more safe and can heal big chunks faster to learn the fight, it becomes so boring after you know the fight. I whas a whm Main all expansions before and now I want out of sheer boredom play astro as main so i don’t fall asleep when I do a fight

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Originally Posted by Valic

I mean, I guess my point there was.... why give me a dozen abilities at level 30 including a buff that adds regen to specific spells... and then not give me at least one of said spells? It's like Machinist getting their overcharge heat buff but they don't even get the heat blasts/arrows or even the potency buff.... At that point, why bother? Seems like they should've given me a sect + aspected benefic to start ya know?

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Same reason Warriors used to get Defiance at lvl 30 without anything to use it with. It happens. It's absolutely terrible design but it happens.

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Originally Posted by Saefinn

This is how I’ve been playing AST, whilst Noct being weaker than Diurnal is a complaint on AST, when one of the general complaints is that healers heals too well, I think this is better.

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Diurnal works if you're paired with a WHM, or SCH. (regens can stack)

Noct doesn't (shields don't stack)

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Originally Posted by Deceptus

Same reason Warriors used to get Defiance at lvl 30 without anything to use it with. It happens. It's absolutely terrible design but it happens.

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Again, that's not the point... Defiance back then still changed your stats and gave you increased enmity. You could use it and it did "do" something for your job even without any actual skills to couple it.... I can use Diurnal Sect being level 30-34.. but nothing affects it and I don't get any boosts for activating the stance to begin with.

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Originally Posted by Valic

Again, that's not the point... Defiance back then still changed your stats and gave you increased enmity. You could use it and it did "do" something for your job eve without any actual skills to couple it.... I can use Diurnal Sect being level 30-34.. but nothing affects it and I don't get any boosts for activating the stance to begin with.

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Yeah it's really dumb. Diurnal used to increase your healing by 10% back in SB, now it just does nothing until you get an aspected ability

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Originally Posted by Billythepancake

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I guess it was a way for SE to force player into selecting one sect before the start of a fight [?]

Reading the OP, they've sensed something important missing. Every compelling MMO class has a Crowning Moment of Awesome, but healers largely don't in XIV. DPS can, at times, but healers? Not so much. Let me tell you a story about how a healing class stumbled into being great in another MMO.

First, imagine a kit whose cooldowns all synergize with each other - and it has roughly five of them. These include a ground-bubble that boosts healing within it, a fat ground-targeted AoE heal that copies itself a few seconds after it's placed, an ability that starts copying a % of healing done when pressed and then releases all the stored healing after 15 seconds (or when pressed again), and then two bog-standard large percentage increases in healing (akin to WHM's two % healing boosts). Every single one of these abilities had a different cooldown, from 30 seconds and 45 seconds to two and three minutes.

As with tanking, most of the time you'd only want to use one or two at once in order to survive - anything else would be wasteful overhealing, after all. That's not unlike current XIV healing. But every so often, a fight would have a section or two designed to test the healing team. And then, because you've planned and saved your cooldowns, setting them up in advance to be properly layered... you blast out an order of magnitude more healing than your baseline standard. Quite literally, up to an order of magnitude when executed correctly.

Those moment feel incredible, but there is nothing like it in XIV healing because the kits are almost entirely linear rather than multiplicative. There isn't anything like jamming Resto Shaman cooldowns into Aggramar's DoT phase because only WHM could get even close to meeting such a challenge. That leaves the experience feeling... flat. Without peaks. The closest I've gotten is the satisfaction of setting up layered shields as SCH at just the right time during early progression.

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Originally Posted by Corbeau

Reading the OP, they've sensed something important missing. Every compelling MMO class has a Crowning Moment of Awesome, but healers largely don't in XIV. DPS can, at times, but healers? Not so much. Let me tell you a story about how a healing class stumbled into being great in another MMO.

First, imagine a kit whose cooldowns all synergize with each other - and it has roughly five of them. These include a ground-bubble that boosts healing within it, a fat ground-targeted AoE heal that copies itself a few seconds after it's placed, an ability that starts copying a % of healing done when pressed and then releases all the stored healing after 15 seconds (or when pressed again), and then two bog-standard large percentage increases in healing (akin to WHM's two % healing boosts). Every single one of these abilities had a different cooldown, from 30 seconds and 45 seconds to two and three minutes.

As with tanking, most of the time you'd only want to use one or two at once in order to survive - anything else would be wasteful overhealing, after all. That's not unlike current XIV healing. But every so often, a fight would have a section or two designed to test the healing team. And then, because you've planned and saved your cooldowns, setting them up in advance to be properly layered... you blast out an order of magnitude more healing than your baseline standard. Quite literally, up to an order of magnitude when executed correctly.

Those moment feel incredible, but there is nothing like it in XIV healing because the kits are almost entirely linear rather than multiplicative. There isn't anything like jamming Resto Shaman cooldowns into Aggramar's DoT phase because only WHM could get even close to meeting such a challenge. That leaves the experience feeling... flat. Without peaks. The closest I've gotten is the satisfaction of setting up layered shields as SCH at just the right time during early progression.

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I want to say this sounds right but I feel as though FFXIV wasn't always like this. Specifically AST at least I know wasn't since the setup to feel good for them was in holding just the right card/buff for the right moment. It's kinda like having TBN on DRK. you could use it for anything really but there's genuine moments you can use it and it absolutely saves someone and it feels like the most rewarding feeling. Even when used casually, the shield shatters, a sound is played to signify it broke and g ranted you a reward in return... It just "feels" good to do. AST I feel... almost underrated in what I do. I feel cards go unnoticed just as divination kinda does.

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Originally Posted by Corbeau

Reading the OP, they've sensed something important missing. Every compelling MMO class has a Crowning Moment of Awesome, but healers largely don't in XIV. DPS can, at times, but healers? Not so much. Let me tell you a story about how a healing class stumbled into being great in another MMO.

Those moment feel incredible, but there is nothing like it in XIV healing because the kits are almost entirely linear rather than multiplicative. There isn't anything like jamming Resto Shaman cooldowns into Aggramar's DoT phase because only WHM could get even close to meeting such a challenge. That leaves the experience feeling... flat. Without peaks. The closest I've gotten is the satisfaction of setting up layered shields as SCH at just the right time during early progression.

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That crowning moment of awesome you're talking about for me was whenever any raid boss in 3.0 did they ultimate charging and I'd rush to get out Sacred Soil, Fey Covenant, Fey Illumination, Rouse, Whispering Dawn, Virus, find the most central party member or Eos in my huddled group, cast adlo, hope for crit, don't get it, cast adlo again, ultimate attack almost finished casting, see the wonderfully large number after an adlo crit, wait that precarious second where the server finally realizes the shield has been applied and hit Deployment Tactics. Hear the wonderful deploy sound, see the technicolor spectacle explode the arena and everyone in the party take 0! damage.

Another one was succesfully putting up all the dots with cleric stance on in a large group who seemed to never stop putting red circles on the ground, finally finding a free moment, putting the last one up, hitting Bane, seeing the purple puff of smoke as numbers started ticking over each and everyone of them. Scholar was mostly about tons of little crowning moments, manual Embrace, Virus, E4E, Rouse etc., but those two are those I know I instinctivly reach for as my phantom skills. I want to press them, but they aren't there.

It was my version of a an ever increasing Fire IV supercrit my BLM friends keep talking about and I never got tired of it. Most of the time chance was against me and crit never came, but it was for those moments, and several other little things that made scholar special. Letting it sit on the shoulders of Arcanist, a fully formed dps class, letting it stand tall and shine all the more for it in the sun. SE taking an axe to Arcanist meant Scholar had to stand on it's own legs in everything, but turns out they were made of paper-mache and crumbled under the weight of healing Abilites on the oGCD.

I know classes that also got lumped in as "healer" in other mmos, the warden in Rift, Druid in WoW, Imperial Agent in SW:TOR. All these had healing abilities, but also had a steady stream of damaging abilities making you feel that healing is just part of the job instead of all there is to it. SW:TOR is almost as story heavy as FFXIV and Im reminded thats where the IA gets to use stealth and a several offence abilities.

I did several level 70 dungeons this morning after finally hitting 70... I felt like I never healed at all. they did large pulls, mechanics correctly... I used essential dignity, celestial opposition, and aspected helios whenever there was unavoidable raidwide damage. While I'm glad our groups did so well, I had never been so bored with a job spamming the 1 key in the entirety of this game. As a dps or tank in any of these, I know there are areas I could mitigate or needed to focus damage on or things I needed to position for but as a healer in these... Idk, I felt like I was an add-on just distributing buffs RNG style. I know it's probably a gear thing for the most part but I almost feel as though this isn't going to change even when I hit current end game dungeons.

That's because it doesn't.

Wall pull -> AoE down -> Wall pull -> Aoe Down -> Kill boss -> Repeat two more times

Dungeons never change other than for visuals and the outdated gear (playability wise) they come with. You'll get more scenery changes for your hallway simulator.

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Originally Posted by Sloprano

That crowning moment of awesome you're talking about for me was whenever any raid boss in 3.0 did they ultimate charging and I'd rush to get out Sacred Soil, Fey Covenant, Fey Illumination, Rouse, Whispering Dawn, Virus, find the most central party member or Eos in my huddled group, cast adlo, hope for crit, don't get it, cast adlo again, ultimate attack almost finished casting, see the wonderfully large number after an adlo crit, wait that precarious second where the server finally realizes the shield has been applied and hit Deployment Tactics. Hear the wonderful deploy sound, see the technicolor spectacle explode the arena and everyone in the party take 0! damage.

Another one was succesfully putting up all the dots with cleric stance on in a large group who seemed to never stop putting red circles on the ground, finally finding a free moment, putting the last one up, hitting Bane, seeing the purple puff of smoke as numbers started ticking over each and everyone of them. Scholar was mostly about tons of little crowning moments, manual Embrace, Virus, E4E, Rouse etc., but those two are those I know I instinctivly reach for as my phantom skills. I want to press them, but they aren't there.

It was my version of a an ever increasing Fire IV supercrit my BLM friends keep talking about and I never got tired of it. Most of the time chance was against me and crit never came, but it was for those moments, and several other little things that made scholar special. Letting it sit on the shoulders of Arcanist, a fully formed dps class, letting it stand tall and shine all the more for it in the sun. SE taking an axe to Arcanist meant Scholar had to stand on it's own legs in everything, but turns out they were made of paper-mache and crumbled under the weight of healing Abilites on the oGCD.

I know classes that also got lumped in as "healer" in other mmos, the warden in Rift, Druid in WoW, Imperial Agent in SW:TOR. All these had healing abilities, but also had a steady stream of damaging abilities making you feel that healing is just part of the job instead of all there is to it. SW:TOR is almost as story heavy as FFXIV and Im reminded thats where the IA gets to use stealth and a several offence abilities.

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Oooh man.. the feels...

Someone should start a thread collecting those good memories from the old healer implementation

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Originally Posted by Mesarthim

That's because it doesn't.

Wall pull -> AoE down -> Wall pull -> Aoe Down -> Kill boss -> Repeat two more times

Dungeons never change other than for visuals and the outdated gear (playability wise) they come with. You'll get more scenery changes for your hallway simulator.

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Not even that, I mean I just don't have to heal anything between any of that lol. I don't mind the setup of dungeons that much, but if I'm not able to do my job, it's kinda boring.

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Originally Posted by Valic

I guess what I mean to ask here is... Is this how AST is supposed to feel right now or am I missing something? Where do healers get their "high" from in playing the healer role in this game?

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"In playing healers" should probably be "despite playing healers". Apart from a perfect Divination + MAs for each DPS, spread auto-crit-Adlos, and Afflatus Misery, there's not much to go off of.

As for where the high does come from... presumably out of game, or at least things mostly unrelated to healer gameplay.

haven't totally completed healers, but did get them all past the 70 mark. Highs for me:
- wrecking face as WHM in dungeons while successfully keeping tank 75%+
- any sort of decent mitgation for a big attack, or a quick re-up when reactive. Can kinda pat yourself on the back if you finesse some of the timings nicely.
- casting Holy at weddings
- casting limit break 3 after nearly everyone across all alliances is dead. Did that at one of our FC minimum ilvl "sync-it" events.
- instant queue.