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

[SaitoHikari]

Adding to the above, I shall repeat myself, a party damage buff is the single greatest form of utility any class can have. This is especially considering the devs have taken to giving nearly every major fight a hard enrage these days, which is the entire reason why the DPS meta has become so toxic these days. No amount of healing or defensive support will break though that, but a damage buff in itself essentially mitigates the risk of outright total failure happening. A group struggling to avoid enrage has a far, FAR greater chance of clearing with a AST in the party - and the other two healers have no answer to anything like that, no matter how hard they try, especially WHM.

(The developers COULD actually counter this by adding more reverse enrages, as in, DPSing past a certain point too quickly would cause a mechanic to fire off as if the party had failed to navigate through it. While most ARR fights appear to have something like this, there's a conspicuous lack of them in HW. Though I imagine many raid groups would cry bloody foul if the devs brought this back, although I also can't help but laugh at the mental image of an unskippable Soar, or Zurvan outright wiping the party if they DPS too far past the point where adds spawn and he just goes straight to the ultimate with a full limit break bar.)

Actually, to add even further than that, imagine what would happen if the developers made the mistake of balancing Stormblood raids with the idea that group Balance gets used at least 2 times per fight. Think back to people wondering if the developers designed raids to take into account healer damage or not. Most would say that today, it has become very, VERY clear that they ARE indeed designed under the assumption that healers will contribute some DPS.

[IttyBitty]

SCH at least has Fey Wind. It's nothing when compared to Balance, to be fair, but it's better than WHM's zip. You still may be better off running double AST if you really don't need the support of SCH's fairy (which also frees up quite a bit of healer time). Defensive utility is helpful during progression, learning and certain fight phases when not overgeared, but offensive utility is -always- useful.

I'm not a fan of enrages due to too much DPS. It effectively punishes groups who are doing well. Ifrit and Leviathan are two of the most hated primals whenever I run them with people unsynced because of it. Wasting GCDs to not wipe feels so...wrong.

It is true that they don't design encounters with healer DPS in mind (or tanks going full tilt, for that matter). They design them for an iLevel higher that what's available at the raid's launch (thus healer DPS & efficient DPS output from everybody else is required to fill the deficit). But boy if they actually DID start to balance them based on the assumption of Balance use? RIP WHM & SCH, hail the AST/AST meta.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

snip

Wiping the party due to them pushing too much DPS is among the laziest ways of forcing players to stop dealing damage. It's neither fun nor engaging when you literally stand still because you'll wipe the party otherwise. Soft enrages are the better compromise; only wiping the party if they cannot survive gradually increasing damage. Nidhogg and Brute Justice used these mechanics with Ark Morn and J-Wave, respectively. They actually rewarded raw healing and remain some of the very few fights where a White Mage truly shines. Going back to Brute Justice Savage, you'd almost want to bench Scholar because Cure III is amazing.