New healer: Sage. Barrier healer.

Two categories going forward: Scholar and Sage will be barrier healers. Astrologian and White Mage will be pure healers (AST will be retooled).

Sage Reveal Trailer

https://i.imgur.com/uicJlQW.png
https://i.imgur.com/wXX9Mpx.png

Super excited we're finally getting a new job! It's been so long.

I instantly cringed hearing the words "PURE HEALER" and "BARRIER HEALER".

Can't say I'm surprised they decided to rip apart AST given how they've approached healers up until this point. I know a lot of AST will be unhappy with this, but I hope this change will make things less painful going forward.

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Originally Posted by Enla

Can't say I'm surprised they decided to rip apart AST given how they've approached healers up until this point. I know a lot of AST will be unhappy with this, but I hope this change will make things less painful going forward.

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Good Ast is the problem child of the healers

Dont get blinding by the fancy sparkly effects, Sage only matters if it actually plays different.
It only matters if healer gameplay improves.

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Originally Posted by Duskane

Good Ast is the problem child of the healers

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Amen to that. They've always unbalanced the healers.

Gotta say, disappointed to see another mage. Chemist and dancer were just too far outside the box for YoshiP.

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Originally Posted by Duskane

Good Ast is the problem child of the healers

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It wasn't. I don't care either way but dual style healers like AST are fine as long as your game design is ok.
AST will most likely keep neutral so for most people losing noct won't be too much of an issue.

This, and how party finder has been retooled for pure/shield healers suggest that we're still heavily homogenized because now they will expect us to swap more for PF. RIP

Rip ast, I loved you. 2015-2019, this is very likely to be more desercration on the grave

pure healer is bad! that mentallity needs throwing out

They better make barriers stack if they are having distinctions now between regen healer and barrier healer



that being the case...interesting weapon design! I seriously hope it comes with better non robe glamour

Everyone, please. Don't overact just yet. Wait until more information about the healers (and Tanks) come out first. We still don't know if SE has learned their lesson yet or not. Be patient. If SE screws up again, we'll let them hear it. For now, we'll have to wait until more information about healer gameplay is released, and pray to God almighty that Yoshi-P and the battle directors have learned from their mistakes.

In the meantime, let's be happy that a new healer is finally coming out.

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Originally Posted by Recon1o6

Rip ast, I loved you. 2015-2019, this is very likely to be more desercration on the grave

pure healer is bad! that mentallity needs throwing out

They better make barriers stack if they are having distinctions now between regen healer and barrier healer



that being the case...interesting weapon design! I seriously hope it comes with better non robe glamour

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I think they're making that distinction specifically because they don't. We won't know for sure until people play test them but I'd put my money there.

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Originally Posted by currentlemon

Everyone, please. Don't overact just yet. Wait until more information about the healers (and Tanks) come out first. We still don't know if SE has learned their lesson yet or not. Be patient. If SE screws up again, we'll let them hear it. For now, we'll have to wait until more information about healer gameplay is released, and pray to God almighty that Yoshi-P and the battle directors have learned from their mistakes.

In the meantime, let's be happy that a new healer is finally coming out.

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I didnt see any evidence of any combos or any fun dps options in that trailer.

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Originally Posted by althenawhm

I didnt see any evidence of any combos or any fun dps options in that trailer.

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We did see two DPS nukes that weren't dots, so there's a start. Dear god please let them have learned their lesson.

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Originally Posted by Videra

We did see two DPS nukes that weren't dots, so there's a start. Dear god please let them have learned their lesson.

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no...? we saw 1 nuke and 1 aoe

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Originally Posted by althenawhm

I didnt see any evidence of any combos or any fun dps options in that trailer.

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Umm... it's just a 50 second trailer. Showing only one healer. And only three abilities! I know people are on guard after SE did what they did this expansion, and believe me, I'll be more than happy to criticize them with the rest of you all if they make the same mistake. But for the love of God, please be patient. We'll get more info as time goes on.

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Originally Posted by Videra

We did see two DPS nukes that weren't dots, so there's a start. Dear god please let them have learned their lesson.

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Looked like single target and ranged aoe (gravity equivalent) to me.

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Originally Posted by currentlemon

Umm... it's just a 50 second trailer. Showing only one healer. And only three abilities! I know people are on guard after SE did what they did this expansion, and believe me, I'll be more than happy to criticize them with the rest of you all if they make the same mistake. But for the love of God, please be patient. We'll get more info as time goes on.

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On the one hand I get what you're saying.

On the other hand, they've already proven that they don't understand healing in general.. you add the fact that they are re-working astro again to make this other healer "work" and now adjusting queues (which will make some queues suck in my opinion) just for so that this new concept could work... well you can understand how people are already up in arms.

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Originally Posted by EaMett

This, and how party finder has been retooled for pure/shield healers....they will expect us to swap more for PF. RIP

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8 Mans might need 1 pure and 1 shield.

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Originally Posted by Wiccan026

On the one hand I get what you're saying.

On the other hand, they've already proven that they don't understand healing in general.. you add the fact that they are re-working astro again to make this other healer "work" and now adjusting queues (which will make some queues suck in my opinion) just for so that this new concept could work... well you can understand how people are already up in arms.

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Let's not forget that they're sticking to the "pure healer" semantics. lol. That doesn't say much but it's all adding up.

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Originally Posted by Wiccan026

On the one hand I get what you're saying.

On the other hand, they've already proven that they don't understand healing in general.. you add the fact that they are re-working astro again to make this other healer "work" and now adjusting queues (which will make some queues suck in my opinion) just for so that this new concept could work... well you can understand how people are already up in arms.

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Hey, I'm on edge as well. I get why healer mains are anxious. If SE fails to learn anything from their past mistake with healers and tanks, I might just stick to DPS jobs. But I'll give Yoshi-P and the battle devs a chance. Even though the bar isn't high.

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Originally Posted by currentlemon

Umm... it's just a 50 second trailer. Showing only one healer. And only three abilities! I know people are on guard after SE did what they did this expansion, and believe me, I'll be more than happy to criticize them with the rest of you all if they make the same mistake. But for the love of God, please be patient. We'll get more info as time goes on.

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I'm gonna sit back with my bucket of popcorn and watch from my RDM seat. "Pure healer" was head-in-rectum design *both* expansions thus far they applied that "identity" to the role, so I'm going to sit back and watch them utterly fail to give WHM a niche that isn't "overhealer of the year". Maybe AST will join in on that fun this time around.

We were told to wait and see both those times too. Let's see. Next comes ability descriptions which may look alarming. Forums will be told "this is just a dev build!" "Potencies aren't set in stone!". Next comes release day, with the attendant "Wait for patches". And finally "You can't expect changes mid-expansion, wait for next one!"

I switched to DPS for a reason, yo. If anyone here thinks these are forewarnings of another expansion where glare glare glare glare glare glare glare glare glare glare glare glare glare glare is the soup du jour, then your solution is to level a DPS. Don't settle for Stockholm.

I'm rather dissapointed. I was hoping for something that wasn't another graceful light-flinging spin mage.

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Originally Posted by GrimGale

I'm rather dissapointed. I was hoping for something that wasn't another graceful light-flinging spin mage.

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I was hoping that a new healer would be something more aggressive. Like a leach-healer that heals or stores healing abilities by dealing damage.

To be fair, Sage looks pretty agressive, with the lasers and whatnot. I was mostly talking about aesthetics. Its another light-based mage. Its like a Shield White Mage.

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Originally Posted by Darkstride

I was hoping that a new healer would be something more aggressive. Like a leach-healer that heals or stores healing abilities by dealing damage.

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I was hoping for that too, but thinking about it, that would be rough to balance. It would always take a spot in 8 mans because why would you not take a healer, that pumps out dps as a part of its healing? Maybe not give it a dot, and have the damage that would come from a dot be the damage they'd by healing? But 5ha5 seems like more issues as you would then lose damage if you are not healing, maybe a regen/dot type spell?

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Originally Posted by EaMett

Let's not forget that they're sticking to the "pure healer" semantics. lol. That doesn't say much but it's all adding up.

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I’m fairly certain it’s been said before that “pure healer” is just the terminology they use for “regen healer”. Not “pure healer” in the sense of “no damage-healing only” healer.

I'm not against the new healer - it looks aesthetically pleasing to me. Kinda like green RDM, but we'll have to see how the healers toolkits have changed accordingly before judging.

While astro is gonna maybe lose stance I must laugh at to this day how ignorant and stubborn these scholar lovers are stating how scholar have the biggest shields , let us see both aspected helios and succor migitates 125% block however aspected helios slighty is better because it has has a 200 pot and and succor 180, now aspected benefic vs alco , aspected benefic is a 200 pot heal with a instant 250% migi block. scholar alco is 300 pot with a 125% only block and that is only when you get a cata for the extra 125 shield for the 250% only then alo win, else in the end aspected benefic still wins. lets not forget noct field + celestial option shields all stack for a 250% migitation for the entire team, can a sch do that? Finally 2 ast both netrual sect with celestial op/nocturnal balance ,celestial opposition all can stack for a total of 7 regens and 4 shields a whopping 50k+ tick or regen while a whooping 500% migitation, so please stop crapping on ast noct stance and just face the fact ast is always the best migitation. people are just so regen obsessed that they fail to see nocts power. Just look at my rdm friend with 110k something hp and I cover his whole bar with just my ast.

https://www.linkpicture.com/q/EtgoGqIXYAEClXf.jpg

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Originally Posted by IceBlueNinja

While astro is gonna maybe lose stance I must laugh at to this day how ignorant and stubborn these scholar lovers are stating how scholar have the biggest shields , let us see both aspected helios and succor migitates 125% block however aspected helios slighty is better because it has has a 200 pot and and succor 180, now aspected benefic vs alco , aspected benefic is a 200 pot heal with a instant 250% migi block. scholar alco is 300 pot with a 125% only block and that is only when you get a cata for the extra 125 shield for the 250% only then alo win, else in the end aspected benefic still wins. lets not forget noct field + celestial option shields all stack for a 250% migitation for the entire team, can a sch do that? Finally 2 ast both netrual sect with celestial op/nocturnal balance ,celestial opposition all can stack for a total of 7 regens and 4 shields a whopping 50k+ tick or regen while a whooping 500% migitation, so please stop crapping on ast noct stance and just face the fact ast is always the best migitation. people are just so regen obsessed that they fail to see nocts power

https://www.linkpicture.com/q/EtgoGqIXYAEClXf.jpg

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So your only issue with that is that you better have all of those cast pre-pull since you can’t swap sects mid-combat, thereby taking away a lot of that shielding power you’re boasting in this image.

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Originally Posted by IceBlueNinja

While astro is gonna maybe lose stance I must laugh at to this day how ignorant and stubborn these scholar lovers are stating how scholar have the biggest shields , let us see both aspected helios and succor migitates 125% block however aspected helios slighty is better because it has has a 200 pot and and succor 180, now aspected benefic vs alco , aspected benefic is a 200 pot heal with a instant 250% migi block. scholar alco is 300 pot with a 125% only block and that is only when you get a cata for the extra 125 shield for the 250% only then alo win, else in the end aspected benefic still wins. lets not forget noct field + celestial option shields all stack for a 250% migitation for the entire team, can a sch do that? Finally 2 ast both netrual sect with celestial op/nocturnal balance ,celestial opposition all can stack for a total of 7 regens and 4 shields a whopping 50k+ tick or regen while a whooping 500% migitation, so please stop crapping on ast noct stance and just face the fact ast is always the best migitation. people are just so regen obsessed that they fail to see nocts power. Just look at my rdm friend with 110k something hp and I cover his whole bar with just my ast.

https://www.linkpicture.com/q/EtgoGqIXYAEClXf.jpg

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Ty for trying to educate people. Even top end players to this day think sch shields are higher potency when they are not and while deploying a crit adlo is still more aoe shield than a asp helios, its still not as not significantly bigger since you can't deploy cata and a crit asp helios would be just as good.

I feel like all healers will have at least one regen or shield like how we have it now

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Originally Posted by Zolvolt

Ty for trying to educate people. Even top end players to this day think sch shields are higher potency when they are not.

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Originally Posted by HyoMinPark

So your only issue with that is that you better have all of those cast pre-pull since you can’t swap sects mid-combat, thereby taking away a lot of that shielding power you’re boasting in this image.

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While the shielding power is impressive in that image, without the ability to swap sects mid-combat, you lose out on a lot of it. He’s got both Diurnal and Nocturnal shielding on there for Aspected Benefic and Neutral Sect. That is impossible in actual combat since you are locked to a single sect the minute a boss is pulled. So, boast about it all you want, but realize the limitations as well.

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Originally Posted by IceBlueNinja

snip

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It's something I mentioned before as well.

However for me it's less of a "look at how powerful shield AST is" and more of a "look how terrible SCH design in ShB is"


-your powerful heals are tied to both a cooldown and a resource which at the same time competes with your dps and mp regen
-your shields are nothing amazing
-your downtime filler is an absolute snoozefest
-your gimmick fairy is more of a hindrance than a benefit

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Originally Posted by Zolvolt

while deploying a crit adlo is still more aoe shield than a asp helios, its still not as not significantly bigger since you can't deploy cata and a crit asp helios would be just as good.

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This is the thing that makes me sigh every time, a lot of scholars waste recitation on a crit adlo instead of using it on the significantly superior option of casting indom or excog for free.

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Originally Posted by HyoMinPark

While the shielding power is impressive in that image, without the ability to swap sects mid-combat, you lose out on a lot of it. He’s got both Diurnal and Nocturnal shielding on there for Aspected Benefic and Neutral Sect. That is impossible in actual combat since you are locked to a single sect the minute a boss is pulled. So, boast about it all you want, but realize the limitations as well.

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but having 2 ast makes it possible hehe

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Originally Posted by IceBlueNinja

but having 2 ast makes it possible hehe

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If double AST was meta, then you’d see it more frequently. But somehow...you don’t. Besides, blowing all of your big healing and shielding CDs at the same time would be a horrible use of resources in any serious encounter. It would make some mechanics too mitigated, and leave others with nothing. Nice try, though. :)

The developers have had 3 expansions to get Nocturnal Sect “right”—or the hybrid aspect “right”, if you’d rather think of things that way. They have failed each time. The duality/hybrid nature of AST has always been a balancing nightmare: make it too strong in one sect, and you oust the accompanying healer—especially when you factor in AST’s rDPS gains. Make it too weak, and AST is ousted (see early ShB and how terrible both Diurnal and Nocturnal AST was in terms of healing versus WHM and SCH) or one Sect becomes staggeringly superior (this has been the case with Diurnal versus Noctural for ages—even after countless buffs to Noct to make it “better”, Diurnal has always been the more MP and resource efficient of the two. Even now. This was an inevitability, and it has very little to do with people being “scholar lovers”. People that see this are just being realistic. And understanding the struggle this job has gone through in terms of balancing for 6 years.

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Originally Posted by Zolvolt

Ty for trying to educate people. Even top end players to this day think sch shields are higher potency when they are not and while deploying a crit adlo is still more aoe shield than a asp helios, its still not as not significantly bigger since you can't deploy cata and a crit asp helios would be just as good.

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The issue here is getting it to crit on all party members. Whether or not an Aspected Helios crits is RNG. It will crit on some party members, and not crit on others.

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Originally Posted by HyoMinPark

If double AST was meta, then you’d see it more frequently. But somehow...you don’t. Besides, blowing all of your big healing and shielding CDs at the same time would be a horrible use of resources in any serious encounter. It would make some mechanics too mitigated, and leave others with nothing. Nice try, though. :)

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And why would you when you're most likely gonna have neutral available for any mechanic that might actually need shields?

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Originally Posted by Absurdity

And why would you when you're most likely gonna have neutral available for any mechanic that might actually need shields?

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Just to emphasize—it would be unlikely to ever need both Neutral Sect and something like, for example, CU for a mechanic. Between other party members’ mitigative tools (Reprisal, PoA, Dark Missionary, Heart of Light, physical ranged mitigation, Addle, you get the point), blowing both on a singular mechanic is a waste. Neutral would be preferred for one—alongside 1 or 2 other tools depending on the severity of the hit—and then CU on the next, alongside 1 or 2 other tools.

However, we do need to consider SB Ultimates, where you don’t have Neutral to rely on. Not that that’s a huge issue. CU’s cooldown reduction has made UCoB mitigation extremely easy. It’s up for so many raidwides and hard-hitting mechanics in there that AST is just *chef’s kiss* in that fight.

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Originally Posted by Zolvolt

Ty for trying to educate people. Even top end players to this day think sch shields are higher potency when they are not and while deploying a crit adlo is still more aoe shield than a asp helios, its still not as not significantly bigger since you can't deploy cata and a crit asp helios would be just as good.

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That's just it, they have Critlo. It is quite literally utility within itself. It's actually crazy to think that it has been nerfed because it is still crazy powerful, which is why it is probably still tied to RNG. Recitation + Succor is a somewhat weaker version of a critlo they also have at their disposal. SCH just always has a response for unavoidable AoE damage, and through various methods which really makes them feel like a tactician opposed to the fewer fallback choices AST has. IOW, SCH has its identity set in stone as a primary mitigation healer.

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Originally Posted by HyoMinPark

While the shielding power is impressive in that image, without the ability to swap sects mid-combat, you lose out on a lot of it. He’s got both Diurnal and Nocturnal shielding on there for Aspected Benefic and Neutral Sect. That is impossible in actual combat since you are locked to a single sect the minute a boss is pulled. So, boast about it all you want, but realize the limitations as well.

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I've been thinking that this might be a good thing for AST because of the limitations it faces as a result of not having access to both sects during combat. Shoed into the "pure healer" branch role, they can focus on making AST its own job, which is what needed to happen in the first place.

This is exactly what I mean. You simply don't need noct AST for most fights since you still have access to shields through neutral sect which will most likely be all the shielding you'll need if combined with other mitigation tools, if you even need any shields at all.


This is however also my fear for the rework, that shields will stay unnecessary for most encounters if you mitigate them properly, making double regen healer the more useful option.