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

[Cyrocco]

-snip-

Then you missed the entire point of my argument. The point is that there will always be more DPS than Healers, because Healer gameplay in general is not everyones favorite. Of course Healers like playing Healers, that's why they're playing a Healer. Everyone plays what they like. Way more people like dealing damage than healing though, and so of course healers are less popular.

[Feyona]

Then you missed the entire point of my argument. The point is that there will always be more DPS than Healers, because Healer gameplay in general is not everyones favorite. Of course Healers like playing Healers, that's why they're playing a Healer. Everyone plays what they like. Way more people like dealing damage than healing though, and so of course healers are less popular.

Oh well not here to argue. Maybe its tanks need work then cos theres definitely a shortage of those, but as for healers I struggle to get in pf because of shortage of places.

[SaitoHikari]

Don't weaken my cards at all.
-snipped-

Once again, we're only asking for a Balance nerf. Balance is only 1/6th of your cards.

Here's a couple suggestions:

- Balance: Damage buff lowered to 10% single target/5% group, OR base buff duration lowered to 15 seconds
- Bole: Damage reduction lowered to 15% single target/8% group
- Arrow: Kept the same.
- Spear: Overhauled entirely, now causes buff timers to fall more slowly, 20%/10% for group/30% enhanced. Does not include itself for obvious reasons. (For example, a 20 second Internal Release would last 24 seconds, 28 when Enhanced. Effect would be retroactive with existing buffs.)
- Ewer: Now regains TP on top of the MP regeneration.
- Spire: Overhauled entirely, now lowers TP/MP costs by a flat 25% (36% enhanced).

Additionally, for setups where there are two Astrologians in the same party (or a single Astrologian uses two cards at once), Ewer and Spire will now stack with every other card (which would help solve the issue with Arrow currently only leading to other classes running out of their resource very quickly). The other four cards will still overwrite each other, however. And as a QoL change, using the same card on the same person whose card buff is still up will extend the buff timer rather than overwrite the remaining duration, stackable up to 90 seconds. Though it'd have to be the same enhanced type of card - they'd still overwrite instead if, say, you used an Extended Balance on someone that still has an enhanced Balance with 5 seconds remaining.

To encourage more strategic card usage on top of that, perhaps Draw CD should be reduced to 20 seconds too. With Draw CD being the half minute it currently is, it kinda feels like Royal Road is more of a beneficial trash bin if you happen to draw one of the more 'useless' cards.

[Cyrocco]

Once again, we're only asking for a Balance nerf. Balance is only 1/6th of your cards.

And I said, keep off of my cards. Nerf the heals, buff the other cards up to match Balance.

In return, I won't ask for WHM Identity nerfs or SCH Identity nerfs. I understand it's 1/6 of my cards, but it's my identifying toolkit you're talking about. Not happening.

[SaitoHikari]

And I said, keep off of my cards. Nerf the heals, buff the other cards up to match Balance.

In return, I won't ask for WHM Identity nerfs or SCH Identity nerfs. I understand it's 1/6 of my cards, but it's my identifying toolkit you're talking about. Not happening.

Nerfing the heals but leaving Balance alone is not going to work, ever. Again, I've already witnessed another game try to use your approach only to fail in the end.

If you nerf the heals, you end up with a situation where AST may struggle in 4-man dungeons where they're the ONLY healer. All your approach achieves is that they basically become the raid-only healer, and WHM is still going to be pushed out because the community will just shift the responsibility on the rest of the party members to stay alive. People like their damage to skip mechanics, they don't care if it's riskier.

Your argument is literally 'my identity is that I can buff party damage by 10%/buff a single person's damage by 20 or 30%!', and it's not very compelling.

You CAN try buffing the other cards to match current Balance to make up for supposed healing nerfs, but tell me, realistically, how that's even going to happen, when Arrow currently shafts more classes than it actually helps, Spear is only ever situationally useful, and nobody cares about the resource regeneration cards.

If you want to keep Balance as is, I suppose that's fine too. Remember that part of the problem on the other side of the spectrum is that WHM has no meaningful identity of its own. So let's take away Protect and Stoneskin from AST and SCH. (Ironically, such a thing could also lead to PLD being more desired for cross-class Protect too, if people still want to run AST/SCH setups.) This might actually be a better solution, now that I'm thinking further on it...

[ToasterMan]

And I said, keep off of my cards. Nerf the heals, buff the other cards up to match Balance.

In return, I won't ask for WHM Identity nerfs or SCH Identity nerfs. I understand it's 1/6 of my cards, but it's my identifying toolkit you're talking about. Not happening.

If it were up to me I'd have balance completely removed from the game and replaced with something different. A straight up damage buff is way too powerful and a utility that a healer should never have. Those were some pretty good adjustments he suggested.

Please no more buffing. Go read Saito's story about what happened to that old game he played when everything just kept getting buffed. Nerfs are apart of the balance process too.

[Cyrocco]

Nerfing the heals but leaving Balance alone is not going to work, ever. Again, I've already witnessed another game try to avoid your approach only to fail in the end.

Hadn't realized you were a pro when it came to predicting the success of MMOs.

You would prefer nerfing Astrologians cards. Do you know what an Astrologian with weak cards is? It's a barely buffed White Mage. So what comes next? some kind of heal nerf. My argument is that if we're going to make classes more unique, then they each need to play up their defining characteristics as much as possible. Let Astrologian own the shit out of every single card, make them card gods, a class that can do amazing things with their cards.

White Mage has been a nuke healer from the VERY start. Astrologian can handle a nerf to their heals, not a MASSIVE overhaul, but a reasonable nerf so that White Mage can be the designated nuke healer. But that's all WHM gets.

[Yuyuka3]

And I said, keep off of my cards. Nerf the heals, buff the other cards up to match Balance.

In return, I won't ask for WHM Identity nerfs or SCH Identity nerfs. I understand it's 1/6 of my cards, but it's my identifying toolkit you're talking about. Not happening.

What? WHM got an identity? I want to play the same Final Fantasy as you.
Btw, nerfing AST's heal, while I'm all for it, won't change anything as others said because then they would have to adjust fights to cater to the lower healing since else all AST's would cry again about not getting any groups.

I got so mad reading the comment in the original post yesterday. Viable? Maybe. But as long as AST can heal everything in the game just as well as WHM plus offering very good buffs while WHM does not, WHM will just die further. Viable really shouldn't be what we aim for, but balance. It's really sad how many people don't get the difference... especially since AST has always been viable (I cleared the first few savages with one as a partner)...
I already see a lot of parties in party finder excluding WHM from search because why bother with them when AST is just as good in heals plus offers buffs. It's outright disgusting how blind some people must be. Or just don't care, I don't know. However, I'm really, really angry and if they don't add anything worthwile to WHM in 4.0, all I can do is encourage all my fellow WHM to just boycott WHM so that MAYBE they will finally wake up and correct the mess they created by creating a WHM copy with buffs. Jesus am I mad...

[Cyrocco]

all I can do is encourage all my fellow WHM to just boycott WHM so that MAYBE they will finally wake up and correct the mess they created by creating a WHM copy with buffs. Jesus am I mad...

I'm not sure why people were playing WHM in the first place. All it's ever done is vanilla heals. What did you expect? Furthermore, that's like getting mad at parties for wanting to recruit certain DPS classes. Healers don't get a privilege not offered to others in the same raid group just because of their class.

[SaitoHikari]

Hadn't realized you were a pro when it came to predicting the success of MMOs.

You would prefer nerfing Astrologians cards. Do you know what an Astrologian with weak cards is? It's a barely buffed White Mage. So what comes next? some kind of heal nerf. My argument is that if we're going to make classes more unique, then they each need to play up their defining characteristics as much as possible. Let Astrologian own the shit out of every single card, make them card gods, a class that can do amazing things with their cards.

White Mage has been a nuke healer from the VERY start. Astrologian can handle a nerf to their heals, not a MASSIVE overhaul, but a reasonable nerf so that White Mage can be the designated nuke healer. But that's all WHM gets.

I certainly have more experience than you in that field, at least. I was actually an official moderator for that dying game, for a service region whose suggestions were largely ignored in favor of the whales in China. It still stings.

The fundamental difference is knowing that each adjustment is also going to affect future dungeon/raid design, and how the community is going to react by placing different values on each type of support. That recent Korean Live Letter thread has WHMs scared for a reason: it implies the developers measure healer balance based on overall healing strength, when the community thinks the opposite - min/maxing the amount of healing needed with enough offense to burn bosses before the lower heals are ever an issue.

(On a slightly unrelated note, that principle is also why shielding is now seen as more valuable than HP regeneration over time - it provides a buffer to award more DPS time shortly after a major attack when everyone's HP is already full. And HP regeneration over time by itself is rarely enough - it too needs shielding or a follow-up heal to be truly effective if a boss decides to use multiple group attacks back to back. And Scholar can do both at once, while the other two healers either have to choose one or the other or can outright only regen. Though this thread isn't about SCH.)

Note we're about to get new skills in Stormblood: and that by default means the DPS are going to get stronger, while it may not automatically translate to healer utility improving at around the same rate. A 20% damage buff now is not going to mean the same as a 20% damage buff then - the gap will increase and become more apparent.

Anyway, I've already provided my specific ideas. Let's see yours.