What makes WHM special? Nothing anymore.

[Tyla_Esmeraude]

At the end of the day, AST is A HEALER first who has some decent cards that can buffs the party. AST IS NOT A BUFFER job who can heal here and there. The same can be said to SCH, they can DPS yes, but they will not outDPS a Summoner.... So now, we have THREE different healers in the game. Be happy, be grateful, be thankful, less bickering, and less finger pointing. Stop playing negative nancy, bitter betty, and doomsday daisy lol.

You completely misunderstood Belhi's posts.

He is not being a negative nancy at all lol infact he's one of the few posters with helpful and contributing posts to this thread. He's just stating the facts in terms of design flaw when it comes to feeling unique on healer roles.

Simply put, if AST are going to match WHM as backbone healers, WHM identity shouldn't be focused on being a backbone healer otherwise they will feel inferior to the more versatile and utility rich AST. This doesn't mean AST should be weaker. As I said, this is a class design issue. It means WHM needs to have its identity not bound up in what has become a prerequisite of healer classes in the role they fill.

Very well said and this is what I've been thinking all this time. The way they designed WHM and SCH and also the fight mechanics or just the core gameplay doesn't leave much room for uniqueness in future jobs. They gave a lot of diverse tools to WHM (single regen, direct aoe heal, regen, an ability to cast faster for a few seconds: PoM, aoe regen) and SCH (mitigation shields, pet with buffs, etc) so any job that comes up with something similar but absolutely needed to be competitive in end game (balance) will get looked down the same way people are looking down at Astrologian when it's not even the job's fault to begin with. I bet if the cards instead had been AoE heal or AoE regen with the same potency as WHM people would've complained anyways because HoTs and AoE heals are supposed to be WHM exclusive according to them. But the way the fights are designed, regen and aoe heals are definetely needed. WHM shouldn't be unique for its core base as all healers, which is.. to heal, but then again they did remove protect and stoneskin traits for the sake of balance and you know what? Being a WHM main I didn't even complain nor cared, in fact I was pleased because that meant more power to my co-healer to help me out in raids and I guess I hated being the only one to cast all buffs lol. Maybe the limitation due to the way the game/jobs were designed was the reason I felt WHM was bland to me (no hate on the job, I've mained WHM since 2.0 and I like it a lot, it's just not exactly fun or interesting for me personally. The only fun I could have was when Holy'ing and then even that got nerfed for the second time so I needed something that kept me awake when playing healer for raids), lacking that something I was looking for in a healer. Astrologian was the answer and I've genuinly had so much fun with it and it saddens me how some people just wanna burn it to the ground because they want to keep feeling special and aren't looking at the bigger picture. It's not the job they should be mad at but at SE devs.

@OP I understand your concerns but don't hate on the job nor the people who play it. It's not our fault how the job was designed. We did ask for the cards to synergize with the heals, but SE designed the job this way and not us. They weren't going to have time to redesign the job from the ground so this is what they came up with and I think they did a good job in terms of balancing the job with others.

[Luvbunny]

He is not being a negative nancy at all lol infact he's one of the few posters with helpful and contributing posts to this thread. He's just stating the facts in terms of design flaw when it comes to feeling unique on healer roles.

Sorry, was not trying to say he is negative nancy or debbie downer, lol. Though, if you want to make a comparison, AST is somewhat similar to FFXI's SCH. FFXI's SCH has two sects, they can be a healer with emphasize on HoT, or they can be pure magical DPS similar to BLM. It was a bit rough when they introduce this because how powerful SCH come across. At one point, it was killing WHM and BLM spot in a party, since FFXI's SCH can switch stance at will, and have close to the destruction power of BLM and then some unique abilities as well. SE finally made adjustment to WHMs and turned it into the powerhouse healer that eclipse all other healer type in that game.

SE knows how to make a great hybrid job, FFXI's Red Mage, Scholar, Blue Mage, Corsair and after long tweaks, Summoner and Puppetmaster. I am sure given time, a year from now, SE would probably do more tweaks and redefine some of the characteristic of WHM, SCH and AST. And if they bring another healer type in 4.0, they probably have to make a big distinction to the existing three. There are only so many ways you can heal in this game

[Belhi]

Sorry, was not trying to say he is negative nancy or debbie downer, lol. Though, if you want to make a comparison, AST is somewhat similar to FFXI's SCH. FFXI's SCH has two sects, they can be a healer with emphasize on HoT, or they can be pure magical DPS similar to BLM. It was a bit rough when they introduce this because how powerful SCH come across. At one point, it was killing WHM and BLM spot in a party, since FFXI's SCH can switch stance at will, and have close to the destruction power of BLM and then some unique abilities as well. SE finally made adjustment to WHMs and turned it into the powerhouse healer that eclipse all other healer type in that game. SE knows how to make a great hybrid job, FFXI's Red Mage, Scholar, Blue Mage, Corsair and after long tweaks, Summoner and Puppetmaster.

I am sure given time, a year from now, SE would probably do more tweaks and redefine some of the characteristic of WHM, SCH and AST. And if they bring another healer type in 4.0, they probably have to make a big distinction to the existing three. There are only so many ways you can heal in this game

I can't comment on the balance in FFXI but for FF14 I see this as a problem. With the way content is built they can't simply buff WHM healing output without it undermining the difficulty of encounters. This seems to be something you see a lot in comparisons between FFXI and FF14.

Perhaps its possible to build there healing dynamics in group content but honestly AST's design seems specifically done to allow them to fit into the old roles within the established group healing dynamic. This design choice clashes with the concept you suggest which is for more variety in healing dynamics. Because of this design choice it means the AST is designed to fill the WHM role which means it has to be able to match WHM performance in that role. This in turn clashes with the design intent of the WHM which is bound up in filling the role within the establish healing dynamic.

Basically it means any AST and for that matter any healer that in the future is added, has to be able to match a WHM's performance in the role it holds in the dynamic. If a WHM's design and identity is tied to their performance in that mechanic we see either balance issues or WHM's identity as a role in healing undermined by other classes that potentially offer utility and versatility that WHM don't have.

Simply put, because of how healing works in groups, which SE has intentionally reinforced with AST's design, an AST that is filling the role traditionally held by a WHM in a group must be able to perform at or close to on par with a WHM. Because WHM's identity is designed by the developers to be tied up in filling this role, having another Job being able to match it in that role AND bring extra things to the table undermines the value of the WHM design. Thus having WHM design focused entirely on the role within the established healing dynamic is flawed as it is something that can't remain unique or special to the Job.

That was a rather complicated way of saying it all but I hope its understandable.