Astrologian Speculations! How will it fit in?

[Defteros]

when expansion hits, I'm gonna change main to machinist...
but I'm so excited to play Astrologian, i like the dress, I like how it uses cards to fight (oh, Luxord, my love :3) i'm just gonna use it as a main Healer *_*

[KisaiTenshi]

funny that this is coming especially from you.

Whatever, I'm not the one parading "WHM's are LAZY" nonsense that keeps fueling those threads.

Man, if you are CONSTANTLY (which I highly doubt) running into these kinds of healers, I'm glad I'm not on your data cluster.

I find it bizarre how certain people on the forum are insistent that there is enough time for a healer to DPS during any of the dungeon instances, because it seems like they're in bizzaro land. I've yet to run into an PUG DF instance where the Randoms played well enough from the start that they actually avoid taking damage. Like 2 in maybe 100, and they're usually tank+dps pairs from the same server/FC. The perfect random party is PLD/BLM/BRD with appropriate gear. Maybe people have just been facerolling through the dungeons too long with no new content and rely on powercreep over actual strategy. When was the last time I saw someone use Repose/Sleep? The nightmare combo is MNK/MNK, DRK/DRK, or NIN/NIN, since these combos require party healing frequently instead of single target healing.

As for AST...

I do wonder what will be done to keep it balanced versus WHM/SCH. It seems like anyone who starts the game and picks AST will have a horrible experience playing with other players who have already beaten all the 2.x content and just want to faceroll/speedpull through content.

[Kuwagami]

As for AST...

I do wonder what will be done to keep it balanced versus WHM/SCH. It seems like anyone who starts the game and picks AST will have a horrible experience playing with other players who have already beaten all the 2.x content and just want to faceroll/speedpull through content.

can't play AST if you haven't finished 2.55 main scenario quest. this issue will NOT exist at all. Also, from what it seems, AST is just the "you'll always have a WHM and a SCH in your party" type of healer. Probably less efficient than the 2 others in their specialty, but able to do both to fill in the empty spots.

[Ghishlain]

I find it bizarre how certain people on the forum are insistent that there is enough time for a healer to DPS during any of the dungeon instances, because it seems like they're in bizzaro land. I've yet to run into an PUG DF instance where the Randoms played well enough from the start that they actually avoid taking damage. Like 2 in maybe 100, and they're usually tank+dps pairs from the same server/FC.

I pretty much have the exact opposite anecdotal experience to you. In other words:

I find it bizarre how certain people on the forum are insistent that there is not enough time for a healer to DPS during any of the dungeon instances, because it seems like they're in bizzaro land. I've yet to consistently run into an PUG DF instance where the Randoms played well enough from the start that they actually avoid taking damage. Like 2 in maybe 100 are bad at dodging, and they're usually tank+dps pairs from the same server/FC.

And this is from someone who has built both healer Zodiacs and solo queued about 75% of those runs on said healer.

Hence my comment, I'm glad I'm not on your data cluster. Apparently your data cluster is just bad (probably why there's a guy on the same server as you who has spent 8 hours trying to clear the Steps of Faith and hasn't been able to yet). Anyone from Behemoth, Brynhildr, Diabolos, Exodus, Famfrit, Hyperion, Lamia, Leviathan, Malboro, or Ultros can confirm?

Regardless, this leads me to pretty much say:

Welp, I guess we're at a stalemate, mate.

We're clearly going to have different opinions as we've have extremely differing duty finder experiences. *Shrugs*

[Asheilin]

Anyone from Behemoth, Brynhildr, Diabolos, Exodus, Famfrit, Hyperion, Lamia, Leviathan, Malboro, or Ultros can confirm?

Regardless, this leads me to pretty much say:

We're clearly going to have different opinions as we've have extremely differing duty finder experiences. *Shrugs*

on Levi (also played on Diabolos, lamia and Malboro but have since deleted the alts) I'm one of the ones who commented back a few pages that Healers shouldn't be expected to dps because we're too busy! I actually dont main heal anymore simply because I am constantly running into the tanks/dps who prove KisaiTenshi is right. Data center full of trollers, who knows, but the end result.... Healers spend 98% of their time trying to keep their parties alive.

On a side note, alot of people came to FFXIV from other mmos; mmos which DISCOURAGE healers dpsing because thats not their job and will cause people to wipe. Healers have dps spells to level when they're not in dungeons.

[Ghishlain]

on Levi (also played on Diabolos, lamia and Malboro but have since deleted the alts) I'm one of the ones who commented back a few pages that Healers shouldn't be expected to dps because we're too busy! I actually dont main heal anymore simply because I am constantly running into the tanks/dps who prove KisaiTenshi is right. Data center full of trollers, who knows, but the end result.... Healers spend 98% of their time trying to keep their parties alive.

If it truly is a Data Cluster issue in terms of bad players, I feel sorry for all of you. When players are i120+ and taking much too much damage in WoD / random 4-mans, that truly is just bad players.

But I guess that explains some of the debate going on too (to a degree).

On a side note, alot of people came to FFXIV from other mmos; mmos which DISCOURAGE healers dpsing because thats not their job and will cause people to wipe. Healers have dps spells to level when they're not in dungeons.

I don't disagree with this as most MMOs tend to have some sort of "spec system" and you're generally doing some sort of DPS spec while leveling / soloing and I don't see Cleric's Stance implementation to be any different from that.

What makes Cleric's Stance unique is the fact that you can activate at any moment, where as every other MMO I've played to date that does this usually has some sort of restriction. This makes your healer a fantastic DPS and thus you should be making use of this when opportunities present themselves.

Keywords: when opportunities present themselves

If you're healing 95% of the time because of derpy players, well, you're healing 95% of the time because you just cannot afford to DPS.
If you aren't DPSing when the tank is an i130 tank doing single pack pulls in Snowcloak, well, prepare for something like 80% idle time (or even 100% in the case of a SCH). So, why not DPS? <<< This is where comments about lazy come in.

Here are my metrics for healers:
Terrible - Full time DPS, or just letting me die ALL THE TIME to things outside of my control
Average - Keeping party health full, doing nothing more and nothing less to contribute
Excellent - Making effective use of cooldowns to help maintain party health, using idle healing time to produce additional DPS for the party to help defeat trash/bosses faster, adapting to unforeseen situations as they occur

I personally don't like to call people lazy, but I can appreciate where the comments themselves come from and respect the opinion.

[Cynfael]

Playing from Faerie, most of my bizarro experiences are when I'm NOT healing and am watching the healers be extremely slow or just do the wrong things.

It's gotten to the point that I immediately expect pain if both of my healers are WHMs; when SCHs are bad, at least the fairy will do something.

I wonder what exciting derp-AST stories we'll all experience in Heavensward.

[Ghishlain]

Playing from Faerie, most of my bizarro experiences are when I'm NOT healing and am watching the healers be extremely slow or just do the wrong things.

It's gotten to the point that I immediately expect pain if both of my healers are WHMs; when SCHs are bad, at least the fairy will do something.

This makes me wonder if I've ever run into you randomly since we're on the same data cluster. lol. I actually ran into a MNK that had a very similar name to your user name and thought that was you (during a time where Shiva HM was absolutely crushing our soul and we actually had to Healer LB3 to save the group..)

I wonder what exciting derp-AST stories we'll all experience in Heavensward.

"I'm too busy buffing that I forgot to heal the tank"

[Cynfael]

This makes me wonder if I've ever run into you randomly since we're on the same data cluster. lol. I actually ran into a MNK that had a very similar name to your user name and thought that was you (during a time where Shiva HM was absolutely crushing our soul and we actually had to Healer LB3 to save the group..)

Yeah, I don't play MNK at the moment, but it's certainly possible that we've run into each other. I'm SCH or BLM most of the time; occasionally WHM.

And yes, that's probably what will happen with AST, lol. They both go into barrier stance and neither is healing.

[seekified]

Usually when I play SCH on no-brain content, I'm way too DPS-heavy - I go dotting something to hell, bane it, Ruin II a couple of things, then realise my tank is at 30% and go OH SHIT *pop Rouse and everything Eos has to save tank*. Maybe I should've been a summoner, dunno.

It'll be interesting to see what similar brainfarts we'll see from AST. If it's true that 3.0 will rework the DoT system, I can see skill speed becoming a thing and them being very HoT-focused.