Concerned about changes to healers

So I'm new to FFXIV (played a couple of months now). This may just be rumors or may be the norm here so forgive any ignorance on my part.

I've been leveling all three of the healers because I enjoy playing them. I do MSQ and most other quests mostly with my DPS. I do dungeons, trials, and raids with my healers. I've found that I enjoy my Astrologian the most. I enjoy that I can change my emphasis from rejuvenation to shields depending on if the other healer is a white mage or a scholar. I enjoy that if it is another Astrologian, we can coordinate which one uses the regen and which the shields. I'm working on learning how to use the cards and other skills effectively as I want to become proficient.

I've read that they are taking shields away from the Astrologian. Do we know that is happening? I almost always play with using shields unless I'm paired with a scholar.

I'm asking because I may want to stop concentrating on gearing/leveling the Astrologian if it is becoming less useful or fun to play.

What I would like to know is this: going forward, what is the role for each of the healers?

It was clear to me before, white mage was regen, scholar was shields, and astrologian could move between those. I realize that they have other skills and that is a simplified description but I'm unclear of how it will work out.

Check the live letters.

Yes, astrologian is being stripped down, it's joining WHM as the regen based healer.
It's going to be 2 shield healers and 2 regen healers.

The good news is, other then the main equipped weapon, anything you equip as a healer, will be fine on any healer, once you level them.


And yes, you are not the only one worried, they've been taking away more and more from healers over the years, asking less and less of them, it's a diminishment that can be easily felt.

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Originally Posted by ICountFrom0

Yes, astrologian is being stripped down, it's joining sage as the other shield only healer.

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This is flat out wrong. It’s White Mage that AST will be emulating. Sage has been announced as a shield healer while Scholar is remaining as one as well. SE does want a 2/2 split so Nocturnal Sect’s shield effects are going away entirely so that AST can become a Regen healer like WHM. It wouldn’t be out of the question to see a card rework either.

So they are reworking Astrologians and Scholars (pets are being changed?). Are they changing White Mages too? I'm not sure where to find the live letters talking about the classes. The ones I've looked at were talking about other things.

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Originally Posted by Katz_McKatz

So they are reworking Astrologians and Scholars (pets are being changed?). Are they changing White Mages too? I'm not sure where to find the live letters talking about the classes. The ones I've looked at were talking about other things.

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I'm 90% sure that they'll just leave whm as it is. Much to my disappointment.

They'll find a new way to nerf Fluid Aura.

Ironic that they made healer into regen and shield but they gave all tanks the options too main tank. Can’t wait for the reduced limit break gain when you would run astro and whm or sage and sch. If it’s not mandatory too run extreme or savage I don’t care but I don’t have high hopes after all these heal changes.

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Originally Posted by Katz_McKatz

So they are reworking Astrologians and Scholars (pets are being changed?). Are they changing White Mages too? I'm not sure where to find the live letters talking about the classes. The ones I've looked at were talking about other things.

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It’s likely there will be some restructuring to account for the differences between the Shield and Regen healer split. How that pans out has yet to be seen. I’m assuming the worst (nonsensical ability trimming, new stuff functionally replaces multiple old buttons while actual additions remain small), because then I can at least be surprised by stuff like ShB WHM, but I would not expect much change to anyone’s kits. The only sure-fire thing is Endwalker AST will be similar to Diurnal Sect AST and White Mage will likely remain the least changed of the three given its rework was well received.

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Originally Posted by Mesarthim

They'll find a new way to nerf Fluid Aura.

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Funny that. I've had this dread feeling they will "remove" Fluid Aura at 15 and give us "Watery Aura" or some BS that's the same as Fluid Aura in 2.0 but is now a level 90 spell -_-;

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Originally Posted by Mortex

If it’s not mandatory too run extreme or savage I don’t care but I don’t have high hopes after all these heal changes.

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Even if it wasn't mandatory, expect the community to make it mandatory. This is the same community that insists on running Noct in Normal mode because there's a WHM or puts One-per-job restrictions on Emerald EX where you can't even reach lb3. They won't let facts get in the way.

Most likely every PF group will put up a WHM/AST slot and a SCH/SGE slot regardless of whether other combinations function fine, or even better.

Overall you're right they did indeed make tanks flexible on the MT/OT spot, which is a positive. For healers, this is a step backwards.

Curious if they'll go further and have something along the lines of Ast/Sch raid utility while Whm/Sge personal damage?

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Originally Posted by Katz_McKatz

So they are reworking Astrologians and Scholars (pets are being changed?). Are they changing White Mages too? I'm not sure where to find the live letters talking about the classes. The ones I've looked at were talking about other things.

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It's because it didn't happen yet.
At this moment, we have just some pieces of information (i.e. Astro being reworked to be a regen healer, sage as a shield healer). Any other thing is merely speculation (how shields will work, how the separation will work, and even how the AST rework will be).

Battle Changes Live Letter happens on the 18th of September, with English translation available. The media tour will start right after, which might include more information.

Except based off of previous experiences, we will have absolutely zero Healer Influencers, and people who know very little about the Role will say, "Its fine, no worries." Square Enix will continue to downplay the problems, and not really give us much information.

We'll finally see the patch notes, and people will be, "It's not that bad! Wait till it releases!"

Then it will be that bad; it'll be, "Wait till .1 patch! Raids haven't even come out!"

Raids will come out and we get no fixes or acknowledgement, and then it will be, "Wait till .3 for balance changes!"

.3 will come with no changes, and it will be, "Just wait till the next expansion!"

And we start the cycle all over again.

I wouldn't read too deeply into ANYHTING people say here about AST being stripped of all abilities and such. No one actually knows what is planned, and if they claim to, they are lying.

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Originally Posted by deadman1204

I wouldn't read too deeply into ANYHTING people say here about AST being stripped of all abilities and such. No one actually knows what is planned, and if they claim to, they are lying.

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I mean, we all have the fear based off of Shadowbringers iteration of Healers. It's clear that they have no idea what they're doing with Healers, and don't really care how the players play them.

Logically, abilities that likely might go away or be changed from what we know them to be will be Aspected Benefic, Aspects Helios, Neutral Sect, and Celestial Intersection.

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Originally Posted by Liam_Harper

Even if it wasn't mandatory, expect the community to make it mandatory. This is the same community that insists on running Noct in Normal mode because there's a WHM or puts One-per-job restrictions on Emerald EX where you can't even reach lb3. They won't let facts get in the way.

Most likely every PF group will put up a WHM/AST slot and a SCH/SGE slot regardless of whether other combinations function fine, or even better.

Overall you're right they did indeed make tanks flexible on the MT/OT spot, which is a positive. For healers, this is a step backwards.

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Yeah had that talk with some peps I wanted to choke in party finder like when unreal Titan whas a thing. We have a whm so go noc astro ( tanks were dying because they didn’t use cds but it must be the missing shield that kill us…….. also I assume we don’t need shield healer for anything other the ultimates and week 1 savage because the moment they make a aoe that one shots you with no decent mitigation casuals will fume at the mouth and call for nerfs like always

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Originally Posted by FoxCh40s

Except based off of previous experiences, we will have absolutely zero Healer Influencers, and people who know very little about the Role will say, "Its fine, no worries." Square Enix will continue to downplay the problems, and not really give us much information.

We'll finally see the patch notes, and people will be, "It's not that bad! Wait till it releases!"

Then it will be that bad; it'll be, "Wait till .1 patch! Raids haven't even come out!"

Raids will come out and we get no fixes or acknowledgement, and then it will be, "Wait till .3 for balance changes!"

.3 will come with no changes, and it will be, "Just wait till the next expansion!"

And we start the cycle all over again.

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I've said a variation of this before and yes this will absolutely happen.

How do we know this? Because the exact same situation has happened since Heavensward.

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Originally Posted by Mortex

Yeah had that talk with some peps I wanted to choke in party finder like when unreal Titan whas a thing. We have a whm so go noc astro ( tanks were dying because they didn’t use cds but it must be the missing shield that kill us…….. also I assume we don’t need shield healer for anything other the ultimates and week 1 savage because the moment they make a aoe that one shots you with no decent mitigation casuals will fume at the mouth and call for nerfs like always

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Sometimes I think the casually-doing-endgame crowd is the most difficult to deal with because they're usually misinformed or only have very superficial knowledge about something but at the same time, they are dead set on things getting done their way.
I stopped counting the number of times I got chewed out for going Diurnal with WHM or for starting in Noct for prepull Neutral shields with a SCH that didn't prepull shield or the many times I saw a huge discussion because someone locked two slots to melee when it had absolutely no drawback to run double caster or double physical ranged or the "no double" lock on a fight that was too short to ever get LB3 or the drama when someone suggested switching DP because the DP either frequently failed mechanics, performed poorly in general or was undergeared compared to the rest. And apparently you can only take a tankbuster with invuln and if you don't have invuln, you just die. Yes, even if it's much more hassle for an AST/ SCH team to heal LD than a regular hit with some mitigation, you have to invuln it.
Someone somewhere said you can't have doubles, you need two melees, a regen and a shield healer, DP on SAM or NIN and take every TB with invuln or die. So everything that deviates from these "rules" causes a drama.
And don't even get me started on how healers are designed for at least some semblance of a mapping but in PF, many just spam and freestyle even when it's to the party's detriment. Seen a lot of WL 2 wipes on e8s and Cycle wipes on e11s pre Echo because of that.

I have absolutely no problem with people just casually dipping their toes in endgame content, everyone enjoys content at their own pace, but there are so many misconceptions going around and they keep getting spread and enforced by this particular group. Getting people to accept that it's not the end of the world to run double caster or let the AST play Diurnal with WHM is like pulling teeth.

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Originally Posted by Deceptus

I've said a variation of this before and yes this will absolutely happen.

How do we know this? Because the exact same situation has happened since Heavensward.

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I've long merely just read the forums, but yes, how long have you been trying to tell people about this Deceptus?

It feels like it's been since 3.2 or 3.3 at the least.

id imagine it would be similar to how WHM currently handles shielding, and how SCh currently handles AoE healing/regen.
WHM has a very limited shielding option. (single target, long CD) SCH has very limited AoE healing/regen. (cost a long CD, or a lost energy drain)

in short, AST will have its shields, but probably just a long CD thats used rarely, and not on demand.
Sage will have on demand shields, but long CD regen/aoe options.

SE's honestly going to do whatever they want at this point, so I've decided that it's healthier for my mind to just go with the flow with whatever happens, I have other MMOs I can play if they truly make me miserable.