Korean fan fest translation says ast changes balanced healers, do you agree?

[Exiled_Tonberry]

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That is..... Shockingly similar to what's happening here.

AST really is badly designed too. At it's base, AST is a WHM. It's entire basic toolkit is 1:1 of a WHMs, with the only differences coming with Cure III and Medica IIs range. They literally made AST a WHM with cards, which is never good design.

What they could do, and what I hope they consider, is nerf AST healing back down to it's 3.0 potencies. But leave the buffingpower and all the changes to the card system the same.
That way, you really have to decide between having a harder time healing but getting strong buffs, or have much safer healing with WHM. That's how I feel it was supposed to work in the beginning, but it was lost thanks to how awful ASTs card system was back then. Now though? It's very good. It's worth considering even if you have to risk spotty healing for it.

[SaitoHikari]

Yeah, it was similar, but I'd be lying if I said it was exactly the same. AST still at least has the card system to differentiate it from WHM.

Light Bringer in Dragon Nest had very, VERY confused design. It was like trying to be some kind of awkward WHM/SCH hybrid, kind of like what AST stances were like, but still different (as in worse in every way possible compared to AST design). Essentially, it only needed to use like 5-6 skills to succeed (it had a literal spirit bomb nuke that could be thrown halfway across the map with invulnerability frames while casting, it could meditate in mid-air and heal/buff all at once along with being invulnerable to ground-based attacks, another attack, an esuna-type skill, and it had two other heals), everything else was insignificant filler.

But when LB's nuke and the buff were nerfed, they suddenly found themselves lacking in unique party utility AND had a very awkward means of playing offensively compared to the other two healers in the game. (Light Bringer was a high mobility range/melee hybrid with dark and light elemental skills, Saint was a summon healer/lightning mage, and Physician was essentially Scholar with offense cranked up to 10 without the shielding and without the fairy.)

I may be a bit biased as I mained Saint (and DN Saint is IMO the best designed action-MMO healer in existence), but I've described what happened in that game as impartially as possible. As similar as things sound, what's happening between WHM and AST now is nowhere near as bad as what happened between LB and Saint in DN. FFXIV devs still have time to turn this around, and raid design isn't as such as to outright promote specific classes while rendering others near unplayable. DN developers had many more problems between many classes at once combined with content design, had outright financial investment in keeping the situation broken as long as possible in certain regions of the world, until it became too late for the community to ever forgive them.

[ToasterMan]

I've got one theory on why things are the way they are now.

You see, we all know that 1.0 was a massive failure. It was a miracle that they managed to save this game. That's exactly what 2.0 was, a miracle. When they were designing healers, they pretty much didn't care about already covering all the bases with them since They did not expect 2.0 to do well. BUT, by some miracle, it was a success, and when the time came to release a healer, they didn't know what to do because they didn't think they would ever design another healer. They had to do SOMETHING for heavensward because their players wanted a new healer and they knew that. So what we got was AST, a poorly designed hybrid of WHM and SCH because they honestly could not think of any other ideas. They designed themselves into a corner and it's going take some real creativity to get out of it. Judging from what I've seen so far I do NOT think SE is up to the task, but we'll have to wait and see.

Of course I'm probably completely wrong but it's just something I've been thinking about.

Story

Everything you said about the meta getting so out of control is eerily similar to what's happening to this game right now. The meta right now is all about DPS. If SE doesn't do something about it then I can see a similar situation happening in this game.

[IttyBitty]

At this point, I'd much rather them leave AST where it is, rebalance the cards (bring balance down, raise arrow up, figure out a way to make spear useful without knowing someone's CD usage intimately), then give WHM some much-needed utility and build a better identity on top of that framework. If they want AST and WHM to have similar healing tools, okay. Let's change things up elsewhere.

Unless encounter design is changed across the board to accommodate it, the "big healz" identity that WHM currently has is never going to thrive. Doing so would may also make the other two struggle (especially if AST healing is nerfed), and frankly, WHM being the only healer that can't potentially save a run via mitigation (eg Seph EX or Ravana EX ults) just doesn't sit right with me. It puts them at a disadvantage from the outset.

[Risvertasashi]

My fear is that I'm actually watching the same exact thing happening in FFXIV now, although at least Astrologian has more unique mechanics that would still retain their identity should Balance end up being nerfed. The Balance card can take a hit - it's Arrow and Spear that needed buffs in the first place, especially Spear. There's a reason why everyone sensible never ever imagined the devs would even buff Balance in the first place.

Very interesting story. But as someone already pointed out... Astro actually doesn't have much identity of its own. There's a few nuances, sure, but its core is a straight copy of white mage. That used to be weakened, and now is more powerful (Faster in Diurnal stance, flat out potency buff in Noct)

Basically, my argument is that if a party damage buff is the only argument for taking a healer to a raid, and people act like touching it at all is going to lead to the class being filed away as worthless, then it's a pretty clear sign that it's actually horrendously broken and everything else in the class' toolkit is grossly under-powered or poorly designed. Though many in this thread know the situation is a bit more complicated than that - WHM's fault is that it has no significant unique tools of its own that the other two healers can't copy in their own way.

Well, so that's the thing. AST is not underpowered anymore. SE buffed away literally every weaknesses. "OK AST heals are strong enough now, but the MP management is poor." Then SE buffs Luminiferous Aether to the point where it takes you from empty to full, even with the high piety levels we see now, even as you continue to spam heals. And so on.

And, SE specifically took away and/or nerfed WHM's unique utility at the beginning of HW. It didn't happen by accident.

Anyways I do see the parallels of your story. SE has talked about reigning in Scholar for the expac. If they do, and leave AST pretty much untouched, I do really think we'll start seeing a double AST meta. But it really depends on exactly what approach SE takes to balancing with the expac. And if Mr. Yoshi believes there's nothing much to worry about really, then that does not bode well for the healer community.

[Rai_Takara]

That is..... Shockingly similar to what's happening here.

AST really is badly designed too. At it's base, AST is a WHM. It's entire basic toolkit is 1:1 of a WHMs, with the only differences coming with Cure III and Medica IIs range. They literally made AST a WHM with cards, which is never good design.

What they could do, and what I hope they consider, is nerf AST healing back down to it's 3.0 potencies. But leave the buffingpower and all the changes to the card system the same.
That way, you really have to decide between having a harder time healing but getting strong buffs, or have much safer healing with WHM. That's how I feel it was supposed to work in the beginning, but it was lost thanks to how awful ASTs card system was back then. Now though? It's very good. It's worth considering even if you have to risk spotty healing for it.

I agree with this. I would much prefer AST being able to do what WHM can but through a combination of healing and mitigation and the the time they spendhealing/mitigating isn't dpsing which is equaled by the raid dps contribution of the cards.

Ideally, both AST and WHM both contribute the same raid dps and produce the same healing but in different ways. AST being focused on a combination of healing and mitigation while WHM focuses on pure healing output. This also requires fights to be tailored to more constant raid damage rather than huge spikes followed be lulls.

[SaitoHikari]

Anyways I do see the parallels of your story. SE has talked about reigning in Scholar for the expac. If they do, and leave AST pretty much untouched, I do really think we'll start seeing a double AST meta. But it really depends on exactly what approach SE takes to balancing with the expac. And if Mr. Yoshi believes there's nothing much to worry about really, then that does not bode well for the healer community.

I actually agree 100%, hence the 'situation is a bit more complicated' bit. In the devs' desire to attempt to buff AST up to Scholar utility levels, all they really did was toss WHM to the curb instead. It's to the point where I don't think SCH really is a problem balance-wise anymore, AST as it is now represents a larger threat to the long term balance to the game than SCH ever did.

NOBODY has an answer to a +10% raidwide damage buff/targeted 20% or 30% buff, let alone the other healers. It's just absolutely bonkers. One can try buffing the other two healers in other ways as an attempt to catch up, but nothing will ever match a straight up damage buff in utility. The DN devs tried to avoid nerfing Light Bringer by buffing the other two healers and other support classes as long as possible, but all attempts failed until they were forced to overhaul the entire game to address the insane utility creep that resulted in that buff/debuff arms race between every class in response to their existence. For one can argue that in just about any party-based MMO, bonus damage is the ultimate form of utility. And as already established, AST can do so much more than just Balance on top of that.

One thing I didn't really elaborate about what happened to the other game was that the devs there began designing each major fight by the standards of what the meta classes could pull off, essentially making the game near unplayable for every other class via community enforcement (as in, outright refusal to run any content with non-meta classes). If the FFXIV devs don't make any effort to rein in AST, what if they also make the mistake of designing 4.x raids under the assumption that Balance usage is a new normal rather than an exception? It's a VERY dangerous and destructive path to take.

(I am also 100% serious that the FFXIV devs, or hell, anyone that wants general knowledge on what makes good and bad game design, can do no wrong by studying exactly what happened to Dragon Nest. Even though FFXIV is a tab-target game while Dragon Nest is full action MMO, there are actually some similarities between both games, of the kind in which I can say with full confidence that FFXIV will walk the same path as DN if the devs repeat their mistakes. Although DN being a free to play Korean MMO had some financial investment in breaking the balance every year until the community finally decided enough was enough, FFXIV doesn't. And that's why I have confidence in the FFXIV devs to remedy the situation rather than sticking their heads in the sand.)

[Cyrocco]

Everyone keeps begging for healers having their own identity, but the second THEIR job isn't in demand or has a guaranteed spot, they want to sacrifice the others. (This'll get quoted despite my argument, I can already tell.)

Let's give it a breakdown,

WHM = Healing Powerhouse
AST = Card Buffs
SCH = Mitigation/DPS

Do not debuff my cards. If my cards get weaker, I'm going to come for your Main Healer spots even harder.

If you want your identity as a healing powerhouse back, then fine. Take it, nerf some of my healing power.
However, no one is asking for WHM to get a healing potency nerf. (Their IDENTITY.)
No one is asking for SCH to get an adloquium nerf. (Their IDENTITY.)
I refuse to go back to 3.0 release and being laughed at for playing the job.

You can have your healing superiority. Take my cards and I'm snatching wigs.

[Exiled_Tonberry]

Everyone keeps begging for healers having their own identity

WHM = Healing Powerhouse
AST = Card Buffs
SCH = Mitigation/DPS

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The problem is, while those are valid identites for SCH and AST, WHM isn't a healing powerhouse as people try to claim.
AST heals just as high as it does, occasionally even better because of the nature of it's heals.
The most WHM brings in terms of stronger healing is Cure III, and that's nowhere near good enough to craft an identity out of.

The fact is, with AST healing power as it is how, WHM doesn't have an identity. AST needs their potency nerfed back to 3.0 values so WHM can be seen as the true stronger healer, not "AST without cards".

[Cyrocco]

The fact is, with AST healing power as it is how, WHM doesn't have an identity. AST needs their potency nerfed back to 3.0 values so WHM can be seen as the true stronger healer, not "AST without cards".

If you want your identity as a healing powerhouse back, then fine. Take it, nerf some of my healing power.

You can have your healing superiority. Take my cards and I'm snatching wigs.

Exactly what I said, if I'm quoting myself properly.