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

[HopeEstheim]

I don't post very often but, as an AST main since 3.0, I must agree that the Balance card need to be tuned down.
This is just... not fun. The card is not fun to use, it's literally the most powerful card AND the laziest one to throw at your party.

Since 3.4, the gameplay of the Astrologian is all about Balance; I mean, even before, Balance was the best card but you could use other card without hearing your party ''Oh... Arrow... but, throw it away we want the true DMG buff".
I love the job for their RNG 6 cards buff, not for playing lottery to get an AoE Balance like it's a regular spell. I like feeling rewarded for good use of my buffS and not for ''Omg 5 AoE Balance in a row, I'm the best AST eveeeeer".

When you look at it, Bole is an indirect dps buff for healers ( and maybe tanks ), and it helps to save some MP since you'll need less healing, Spear is the hardest card to use well, Arrow is good on certain jobs and bad on others so you have to be careful, and Ewer/Spire cards need you to analyze who needs it the most in your party at any given time. And here, you have balance, throw it on your highest DPS and call it a day.
How many AST players since 3.0 still find our buffing job fun?

That being said : what are the solutions? Nerf Balance so cards will bring less DPS and our whole card system will feel weak(?), or nerf our healing but keep the boring Balance buff? None of these seems really fun to be honest

Now about the WHM state... I don't know, it need some mitigation and better MP management at least, but I agree that all healers feel balanced because they are all viable. Now, I think that if anything should be done, they need to balance them all at once, because SCH is still way too powerful, AST bring too much raid DPS, and WHM... well... nothing. You just can't nerf AST without touching SCH, the "meta" shouldn't be WHM/AST + SCH like before, no job should have a guaranteed place in a raid group. So yeah, better buff one healing job than nerf two in my opinion; but still : AST don't feel fun anymore, at least to me, so I hope they'll adress that in the future.

( I know efficiency > fun, but before 3.4 card system felt a bit more fun, and if only they buffed Arrow to match 10% balance and buffed/reworked Spear the job wouldn't be a Healer that can carry free Raging Strikes )

[IttyBitty]

Viable does not mean equal or balanced in any way. It just means they can all clear. I've cleared almost everything there is as WHM, but I can feel the massive discrepancy between kits.

The issue with SCH is that neither healer has anything like the fairy. A completely free regen that will work adequately without any kind of management is ridiculously powerful. There's not really anything they can do with the other healers to match up with that.

They could give N.AST's globe a similar effect, but once again that's just just giving AST even more power when they're already loaded with it.

[A_Hortensia]

Viable does not mean equal or balanced in any way. It just means they can all clear. I've cleared almost everything there is as WHM, but I can feel the massive discrepancy between kits.

From my experience with FF Online; I'm satisfied with viable and usable. I feel like it's A-OK for a class or job to be inferior to another as long as it's still capable of passing content. It's a lot better than dead or unusable; which was actually a thing before. It just sometimes happens that my main isn't the one in the spot light; and that's going to fluctuate a lot with patches and updates. I just hope no body feels like WHM is dreadful, because it's not, and I hope no one alienates them because they would rather tackle harder content as a WHM.
(tldr; It's not bad enough to buff/change)

On the flip side; WHM is extremely powerful in PVP; where I never see SCHs anymore. ( ' w ')b

I really respect and appreciate the insight and sharing of perspective from everyone. It's really enlightening, I had no idea people felt this way.

[Yuyuka3]

From my experience with FF Online; I'm satisfied with viable and usable. I feel like it's A-OK for a class or job to be inferior to another as long as it's still capable of passing content.

No, it is NOT OKAY. It is not okay because if this continues, WHM will be shunned from raiding even more than it already is. I really don't know why this argument has to haunt me as it does...
It's just basic logic, you got three healers, two are powerful, one is lacking. Why take the one who is lacking when you got two powerhouses sitting there that will make everything much, MUCH easier and faster?

Sorry, but I'm really getting very mad every time someone tells me 'it's fine, WHM is totally viable!' whenever I speak about my worries. I'm having this discussion so often with people, mainly AST mains who are apparently so scared of loosing their cosy raid spot that they don't even want to consider WHM is having a hard time that it's making me sick. Shouldn't YOU of all people know better? I'm also very sick of the entire 'it only matters in Savage content, you shouldn't balance the entire game around what makes out less then 10% of content.' That's an acutall quote there. Yes, yes it should be balanced around this 'less than 10% of all content' because it's the only 10% in this game where it even matters. This is what balancing is even there for.

Also, I'll say it again louder for the people in the back:

VAIBLE =/= DESIRABLE or even EQUAL

WHM might be viable, but it's neither desirable to have on your team nor equal to the other two healers.
It's equality that should be aimed for, not vaiability, because viability just means people will be left behind because they want to play class x instead of y when y is 'better'. Which is NOT. GOOD.

[A_Hortensia]

Shouldn't YOU of all people know better?

Well all my posts kind of mirror what you quoted; I didn't know people felt this strongly about it until I read through the forums.

I personally haven't run into any of these problems myself; the groups that I run end-game content with typically want a WHM to compliment a DRK tank.

I'm trying to share my own personal perception without taking away from anyone else's.

I also have experience in FFXI where WHM was at one point completely replaced by SCH in end-game content, and more less already overshadowed by RDMs every where else. (I know it's two different games; but it could be so much worse.)
The difference there was remarkably vast and never really improved all that that much. I've never felt anything close to that in FFXIV; but it doesn't mean that your complaints aren't valid.

They are real opinions that I can understand, but just don't share. ( ' w' )b

[Yuyuka3]

snip

I'm sorry if it sounded like I was talking to you at that point - it was more toward the AST mains that just close eyes and ears and pretend everything's fine and balanced than anyone in particular.

I never played 11, but I heared of the problem WHM had there and it actually makes me very sad because history repeating itself just proves to me that the people at SE are either unable to learn from their past mistakes, don't communicate between development teams, or just plain don't care. But, yes, of course people feel very strongly in the face of party finders like 'Midcore raid looking for SCH and AST for A12S and SB'. Or all those Zurvan groups wanting AST/SCH or only one of those healers (mainly AST because BALANCE), be it for speed runs or just because they don't want to bother with a crutch in the team. Just like when AST was left behind, which wasn't great, either. It's never nice to be shunned from content because your class doesn't bring as much to the table as the others.

[Exiled_Tonberry]

From my experience with FF Online; I'm satisfied with viable and usable. I feel like it's A-OK for a class or job to be inferior to another as long as it's still capable of passing content.

I respect your opinion, but it's really not fine for a job to stay so inferior in it's role.
It's not as bad right now, but come 4.0, if WHM still doesn't offer anything special and unique to a raid, its going to get the same treatment AST did in 3.0, or WAR did in 2.0. I would absolutely hate to see my preferred job sink so low because SE felt that being viable is enough.

Viable is not balanced. You probably wouldn't be able to feel it outside of raids, but AST and SCH are mountains above WHM in terms of...Well everything. Better MP management, better utility, better healing kits, better sustained DPS. The powergap between WHM and these two healers is huge, it's almost ridiculous.

[HopeEstheim]

Viable does not mean equal or balanced in any way. It just means they can all clear. I've cleared almost everything there is as WHM, but I can feel the massive discrepancy between kits.

That's why I said they feel balanced, not that they are, because they can clear content. I'm raiding with a WHM right now, and even as his co-healer I can see how he struggles sometimes, and he's really good at his job.
I even said that WHM need something. They are all viable as healers; that's what they bring to the party that need balancing.
And the fairy still needs to be balanced too, it's a pet that does a better job than a WHM when you look at it ( Strong regen, mitigation and party buff ) so even here you can see that WHM is still lacking a lot of things. How can a job kit have less options than a pet?
I hope they adress the WHM issue in 4.0, but I don't know how they won't make at least ONE healer job mandatory with 3 healers and 2 spots. Even if, in a perfect world, healers are all equally balanced, theory crafting will prove that bringing X and Y jobs will be more optimized and Z healer, while perfectly fine will be left out. You just can't balance equally 3 healers with only 2 spots, so I don't know what to expect.

[Ghishlain]

I never played 11, but I heared of the problem WHM had there and it actually makes me very sad because history repeating itself...

I just want to add a small correction here - WHMs in the current iteration of XI are actually very much desired. No one can heal harder or faster in the game than WHM. They weren't desirable in an era pre-Abyssea because they had no strong MP sustainability but after the advent of (1) Afflatus Solace (2) Empyrean Legs and Empyrean Body (3) Large amount of incoming AoE damage and status effects - NOTHING can keep up with how hard WHM can heal and status mitigation and how long they can maintain that healing power for.

RDMs were considered the better healers prior to this time frame because damage of lower incoming damage, infinite MP, and high enfeebling power thus they were desirable for an all-in-one healing + support package. I will admit, I've had LFP flag up for 8-hours at one point on WHM and got not a single party invite for EXP in the 30+ range during the era of "RDM HEALER OR NOTHING", lol. Ah well. Those were in the past now xD

I just bring this up because just like XI, XIV will have jobs that will be considered inferior and jobs that will be considered superior. This wave will come as expansions and balances are pushed out and the one thing I can respect about S-E's dev team is the viability of every single standard composition to clear any content - just some composition will have an easier and/or faster time at clearing it due to the imbalanced kit. I dislike how much of a gulf there is between AST and WHM but at least all three healers are viable unlike how it was with AST back at 3.0 inception where ASTs were outright ostracized from participation. At least WHMs will still be considered in the current iteration even if they are less desirable than AST.

[Lyrica_Ashtine]

snip

I'd just want to slip in that this was primarily for merit point parties (or meripo). Back in the days White mages were still very desired for endgame content. Just not for the exp grind after hitting level cap. This applied to Paladins too and heavily favoured certain jobs depending on the area. In particular Bards were almost mandatory when you're in a group full of strangers.

As for the exp parties to get to said level cap, it kind of depends on the level range and area. Due to getting some spells and abilities at certain levels (like Refresh/haste), Red Mage became significantly more desired from that point onwards