Do AST really need this Buff?

[AstroZombie]

Whitemage got almost nothing thats actually useful, its all circumstancial and frankly bad. Scholar took nerfs to both its DPS and its Fairy's healing potency and all it got was a contingency heal (which is underwhelming with the cleric stance change- which seems to have been what the contingency heal was designed for) and a mediocre crit buff (its not additive). Astro got powerful new toys that make up for its few shortcomings and a bunch of buffs- while still having the lowest mana costs to boot. All they need is a lustrate equivalent and a bit more potency on Malefic to be literally the best at every single thing healers do (not that burst healing or individual DPS contributions matter anyways).

[FreakinRican]

I like how all these nerf beggars leave out the fact that Thin Air and Divine Benison exist.

[RukiaFae]

I like how all these nerf beggars leave out the fact that Thin Air and Divine Benison exist.

Or decreased that Benediction cool down (full hp every 3 min or 5 times in a 15 min fight). Assize every min or less (dps/heal/mp). WHM will able to heal and DPS for days.

Or the fact that none of the potency are final and they may change the MP cost and potency. Nothing is fact until next week.

[Belhi]

I like how all these nerf beggars leave out the fact that Thin Air and Divine Benison exist.

Thin Air is great but doesn't really address the existing issues with WHM beyond helping somewhat with Mana which WHM was by far the poorest in managing. Divine Denison came at the cost of Stoneskin and honestly I am not entirely convinced that stoneskin wasn't more useful. 15% HP shield instant cast sounds nice but isn't especially strong and is on a 1 min cd. Seriously its not that great and honestly I don't know why some people point to it as being so.

WHM had its healing buffed but its healing was never an issue and frankly it didn't need more healing power. The problem is it lacks utility outside healing and its mechanic, the lillies, are counter intuitive. Either AST has to be able to heal in the Main healer slot or it will get sidelined, Balance or no, which isn't fair to AST. If it is able to heal as a Main healer though WHM's additional heals aren't much value and it offers nothing else but its heals and slightly higher dps if it is attacking which means AST is still going to be better than it.

Regardless, as the healers are designed now there is no way to effectively balance them. WHM is getting a lot stripped down and is getting rather poorly designed healing systems as its new tools. AST is keeping the edge it already has and getting some pretty useful new toys on top of it. Regardless, AST is pretty solidly designed. WHM isn't. Its mechanic is a mess and difficult to use and its new toys rely on procs that require rather inefficient healing to really get use out of.

I am not saying they should necessarily nerf AST, but as things are now the healing Jobs aren't going to be balanced and unless they screw over AST again, it's WHM which is going to be the inferior healing Job. No amount of mana management and short cd heals will fix that.

[Ceasaria]

Thin Air is great but doesn't really address the existing issues with WHM beyond helping somewhat with Mana which WHM was by far the poorest in managing.

Thin Air + -30 sec CD Assize + -2min CD Benediction + 2 ticks from Lucid Dream + new skills = more large MP management than before and surely the best among the 3 healers.

[VanilleFang]

I like how all these nerf beggars leave out the fact that Thin Air and Divine Benison exist.

Did they change Divine Benison so that it doesn't use up Lilies? If not? Eeeh...

[Belhi]

Thin Air + -30 sec CD Assize + -2min CD Benediction + 2 ticks from Lucid Dream + new skills = more large MP management than before and surely the best among the 3 healers.

After 4.0 yes but not before. Frankly after 4.0 I don't see any of the healing Jobs having much of an issue with MP.

That really isn't the point. I mean I said that MP is getting solved. My point was WHM's problem was never its healing. Its healing is very solid. Even if it didn't get any new spells in SB its healing skill set is really solid. The issue is that is all it has. The cd reduction on Benediction is situational useful. Rarely am I going to need to Benedictions in under 5 minutes now that cleric stance has been removed, which is what it was most useful for. Assize is a nice buff but doesn't really offer much on what we already have. I bit of extra damage? I mainly used Assize for dps in most content anyway.

That is the thing, WHM has great healing. Were it lacks is what else it brings. Healing works of meeting a quota. If your good enough to meet that quota then your all the Job needs. Any healing on top of that quota is a waste so with Heals more doesn't necessarily mean better. If AST can meet that quota then the question becomes what else to they bring because the extra heals don't count for much and AST brings a lot more.

And if AST cant meet that quota AST gets screwed over instead and balance is shot anyway.

This is why a Pure healer concept is flawed. The gameplay doesn't support it. AST brings useful extra strengths. WHM brings excess. That isn't even touching on the flawed design of the Lilly system and confession stacks.

[RukiaFae]

All they need to do is change the lily system and confessions into some sort of DPS utility. Then WHM would be on par because that's all they are missing. WHM is not going to be overly complex like AST and SCH. It is the PLD of healers and is meant to be easier. They should have given WHM the SCH skill skills.

[AstroZombie]

I like how all these nerf beggars leave out the fact that Thin Air and Divine Benison exist.

I mean you clearly aren't reading since I mentioned Thin Air in the post directly above yours as the only worthwhile skill WHM got. I didn't mention Benison because it's just stoneskin on a cooldown, and stoneskin hasnt been relevant since coils. I also hope you aren't seriously implying either of those things put WHM on par with AST, even before the buffs, because that's delusional.

Or decreased that Benediction cool down (full hp every 3 min or 5 times in a 15 min fight). Assize every min or less (dps/heal/mp). WHM will able to heal and DPS for days.

As stated by others, but those are buffs in areas that WHM didn't need buffs in. The only thing thats really giving them is a bit of MP recovery, but not as much as say just giving them lower MP costs (since apparently those potencies at lower costs are balanced on Astro)

[Elamys]

??? If WHM has better MP regen, but higher MP costs, how is that so unbalanced compared to AST having worse regen, but lower costs?