Is it time to get rid of the PIE party bonus?

[FoxyAreku]

How about we leave it as it is because there's nothing wrong with it and this whole thread is mostly nitpicking.

Or we can have AST give mind when in diurnal and PIE when in nocturnal, that'd make more sense than anything I think.

[technole]

How about we leave it as it is because there's nothing wrong with it and this whole thread is mostly nitpicking.

Or we can have AST give mind when in diurnal and PIE when in nocturnal, that'd make more sense than anything I think.

It is nitpicking, and the only reason it's coming up is because of the weaker AST potency and toolkit. One more MND accessory in stats won't fix the stubborn RNG of the cards, nor the high cooldown cost of it's niche skills. Giving both jobs both bonuses adds new questions, and new possible problems are created that could upset the apple cart in balance (SCH+SCH with MND bonus, that is a problem). Not to mention there will be more healer jobs in the future.

[mp-please]

It is nitpicking, and the only reason it's coming up is because of the weaker AST potency and toolkit.

Astrologian and scholar are support healers, people seem to love to forget the fact white mage is the main healer and that simple fact warrants certain perks.

[Alu79]

Astrologian and scholar are support healers, people seem to love to forget the fact white mage is the main healer and that simple fact warrants certain perks.

This is 100% wrong. They are all healers that each have a different focus and kit, mitigation and mana efficient dot dmg (sch), raw dmg/heal and excellent recovery tools (whm), and all I can really come up with is card utility for astro (and I play one at 60 too, really not much kit here).

The game is designed to have any mix of players in a group for success (so long as all the proper roles are filled). Problem with Astro currently is they are a bit under-tuned and are being looked at and adjusted accordingly..

The thing with buff can easily be fixed by simply having mnd be the default and pie trigger only when a second healer is present. That would pretty much solve the issue.

[Cynfael]

Astrologian and scholar are support healers, people seem to love to forget the fact white mage is the main healer and that simple fact warrants certain perks.

They threw that already-debatable meta out the window when they drastically improved SCH's ability to handle raid damage and removed WHM's exclusive Graniteskin and Proshell traits. Clearly they intend for all healer jobs to be capable as "main" healer, albeit with different strengths. They just didn't do so well at giving AST distinctive strengths.

[mp-please]

They threw that already-debatable meta out the window when they drastically improved SCH's ability to handle raid damage and removed WHM's exclusive Graniteskin and Proshell traits. Clearly they intend for all healer jobs to be capable as "main" healer, albeit with different strengths. They just didn't do so well at giving AST distinctive strengths.

snip

That's because this game is a MMO and every class needs to be balanced in some sort of way or everyone will play the same thing (or cry that one class is overpowered).
On every final fantasy game white mage/devout was and has always been the main healer with every other healing class sacrificing healing output in exchange for party support skills and that's what makes them support healers rather than main healers. There's 13 games before this one for god sake, get with the lore.

edit: and before someone picks on my line "this is a MMO", this is still a FF game, there's a legacy behind it that needs to be respected or the game will turn into another generic themepark rather than FF themed.

[technole]

They threw that already-debatable meta out the window when they drastically improved SCH's ability to handle raid damage and removed WHM's exclusive Graniteskin and Proshell traits. Clearly they intend for all healer jobs to be capable as "main" healer, albeit with different strengths. They just didn't do so well at giving AST distinctive strengths.

Yet we all know what is really happening when it's a WHM/SCH paired raid. That hasn't changed at all.

See the threads asking for WHM's 20y HoTs, this one for MND bonus, among other things that ASTs want to raid from the WHM toolkit. Now why is that?

AST is supposed to bring buff utility at the cost of potency, it's not reliable. The combo is kind of like how DRK negates the loss of the highest defensive tank (PLD) with it's higher tank DPS and raid utility skills like Delirium, yet with the most inferior immunity cooldown. Clearly one job is in a better position because it is reliable utility.

Sure, YoshiP did apologize for flattening stoneskin and proshell, but also on the same line said they made up for it by giving WHM more healing power. Sure, SCH can perform the main healing role. Albeit with Indomitability requiring Aetherflow and Emergency Tactics also being a cooldown. Is it optimal? No. But it can work.

[Cynfael]

Sure, SCH can perform the main healing role. Albeit with Indomitability requiring Aetherflow and Emergency Tactics also being a cooldown. Is it optimal? No. But it can work.

It can be optimal if that's all your party requires. By the end of 2.x SCH had largely closed the healing gap with WHM simply because of ilvl inflation (remember all the SCH>WHM threads after everything was on farm?); with the new tools in 3.0, SCH provides enough raid healing even at our effectively lower ilvls to fill the main healer role even better than before when necessary.

Anyway, the real point I'm making here is that "main healer" is a subjective label. All three Jobs should be viable in this role. As you suggest, WHM brings the heaviest healing with the fewest CD and resource restrictions; SCH brings heavy single-target healing and burst raid healing restricted somewhat by CDs and resource consumption; AST is clearly supposed to bring added utility for the party, but that's where they went wrong by making the utility fairly weak and by failing to grant AST a fraction of the useful healing CDs that WHM and SCH have.

[Selli]

How about we leave it as it is because there's nothing wrong with it and this whole thread is mostly nitpicking.

Not really.

Lets pretend you main AST, its your only class at 60, it's decently geared, and you want to do some A1 Savage progression. You see one party up in the PF and they're missing a WHM. On my server, if you were to ask this party leader if you could heal instead of a WHM, because it's a pug and progression, they will turn you away. They want the healers to be healing and DPSing for as much as possible, so they take that MND bonus into consideration.

About a half hour of waiting later, another PF pops up. It's requesting a WHM and a SCH. Well, you have a stance that allows you to shield and you offer the PIE bonus, so you ask this party leader if he'll let you join in place of a SCH. "Lolno. Your Adlothing doesn't Crit and I know your SCH stance sucks. Go ask to WHM another party or something, bro."

For old content (like Coil), especially if its undersized, people aren't going to care if you're a WHM, SCH, or AST. And as we get more Eso each week and new items, I'm sure this too will pass. However, if you wanted to do Savage since day 1 as an AST in a pug, you were never ever considered for the WHM role (so there goes one half of your play style) and were left to fight with SCH for the second spot, and because of AST's current issue with their Noc Sect, they were almost always pushed aside for a real SCH.

You can see it as nitpicking, but it can effect part one's experience in-game and not in a positive way.

[EDIT] I made reference to the 2 PIE classes and 1 MND class causing an issue in another AST thread. And I did get this response:

I agree with Selli, I quit Ast because of the very same reasons that they couldn't take me instead of a Scholar, since they were, technically (and they are) better.

It does exist, it is an issue, and it does effect people who want to play the class.

[FoxyAreku]

Or we can have AST give mind when in diurnal and PIE when in nocturnal, that'd make more sense than anything I think.

Still say this is the best and easiest solution.