It has begun!

[Kethic]

I will say that White Mage has some ridiculous healing power at times. I had a cohealer disconnect on me in susano ex, I was able to carry the raid as a White Mage through swords and beyond, solo. I was spent by the time my partner came back, but it only took me 30 seconds to recover once they returned.

[Sebazy]

Should have clarified, I meant from Creator and on.
Heck even in Midas, I felt the powercreep, but it wasn't so bad. Actually 3.2 was the closest to balance the healers have ever been since HW.

That makes a lot more sense aye. I'll agree with you on 3.2, Noct was still a little underwhelming but you saw a good amount of all 3 healers even for progression with many (mine included) groups switching comps on a turn by turn basis. The meta was much too close to call and it was only really the 3.0 stigma holding back AST in some people's eyes. It makes me wonder if SE would be better off just giving up on the whole Dia/Noct thing and just keeping AST as an alternative to WHM.

I will say that White Mage has some ridiculous healing power at times. I had a cohealer disconnect on me in susano ex, I was able to carry the raid as a White Mage through swords and beyond, solo. I was spent by the time my partner came back, but it only took me 30 seconds to recover once they returned.

Align thin air with the big throughput phases such as sword and lightning strikes (particularly if you've got people forgetting to move). The amount of MP you can save with it is nothing short of incredible especially if you can get your group to stack tight enough for cure 3.

[OcieKo]

It makes me wonder if SE would be better off just giving up on the whole Dia/Noct thing and just keeping AST as an alternative to WHM.

I would hide this thought before WHMs cry at the inevitable change that would come with it... Only 1 Medica II and Regen per target, then WHM/WHM would have to suffer like the other 2. SCHs just being boned and ASTs having to hope the second prefers the other sect. Tho honestly Im surprised they havent removed that WHM ability yet.
Or AST getting to stack AHelios/ABene.

Edit: Forgot about Noct and SCH hating each other as well.

[loreleidiangelo]

I agree with the above.

AST is a beautifully designed and versatile job but WHM is literally so simple it's hard to mess it up, it's an absolute animal built from the ground up to not let people die. If they tweak that stupid lily mechanic to work with skills that actually matter: It'll be even better.

SCH on the other hand...

I'll respectfully disagree here; I do not think AST is a well-designed job at all. I think it's the product of developers so afraid of designing a healer that might be off-meta or compete with one of the two existing healers that they in their infinite wisdom created a healer who by its nature will compete with both...forever.

At the risk of being off-topic, in my ideal world...

1.) AST would be the pre-eminent HoT/sustain healer; a kit entirely focused around stacking multiple HoTs, increasing their power, increasing their duration, frontloading their HoTs for a burst of healing when they need it. Hugely efficient mana costs but outside of a few cooldowns lack burst healing when it might be needed. They wouldn't be completely helpless against back-to-back damage, but it would be their weakness and they'd have a clearly defined niche.

2.) Subsequently, WHM would have a decent (not all) portion of its HoTs removed to prevent role overlap. They would be the ultimate burst healers instead, with relatively higher mana costs to reflect their power but a whole kit of awesome healing cooldowns that could drag parties back from the brink. In drawn-out fights where they're forced to spam they might struggle, but there needs to be some penalty for being the gods of HPS lol.

3.) SCH shields would see hefty reductions in mana cost in return for losing some of their redonkulous reactive healing. Shields should BE how they "heal" people; by preventing the damage done in the first place. If they lose a lot of their reactive healing though, I really think shields should stack - even if just partially (ie the second shield only adds 50% of its value if the target already has Galvanize). Double SCH comps DO happen in DF and no one wants a return to double SCH Titan HM lol. I just think the bulk of their power should be in shielding and manipulating those shields, not in spamming Lustrate and Indom. This is probably the most controversial of my wish list. No, I do not want to remove the fairy: I think she'd work well as SCH's only real form of reactive healing. I'd like Selene to have more value, but I'm not exactly sure how in regards to the changes I've posted here.



To be honest, there's a lot more that would need to go into that, like making HPS have a more equivalent value to eHPS (right now you want eHPS since preventing damage lets you DPS more and damage isn't frequent enough to put a lot of stake in quickly recovering health bars - just let Eos and AOE regens do the work), and adjusting mana costs and cooldowns and all that jazz, but that's my rough ideal. I'd love for all three healers to have their own strengths and weaknesses, even if that means some healers may have to work harder on certain fights than others (and vice-versa).

An easier fix would just be to scrap Noct AST and have now-Diurnal-only AST be WHM's competition for another expac, then introduce a new shielding healer with DPS in 5.0 that's meant to match SCH. I think that boxing healers into archetypes like that is systemically poor class design overall, though, and lends itself to more kit homogenization that I already think we have too much of.

Sorry for text wall; it's 6 AM and I'm stuck at work. Boredom is a scary thing.

[OcieKo]

Snip

AST is pretty well designed if you remove 4 buttons... Diurnal Sect, Nocturnal Sect, Aspected Benefic, Aspected Helios. Using cards finally sucks a bit less, and not just a 3-6min avg AoE Balance CD juggle. I find I use a lot more of the other 5 now since Im speed phishing less.

Tho I'd be cool if AST was changed into a buff based reactive healer. Think Excogitation from SCH on a crazy scale. One of EQ2s healers did a good chunk this way, can be quite fun. If they really wanna keep the sects... On hit procs another heal, on hit procs a shield. Rawrg trap card healing ><. Tho I could enjoy a debuff based healer, hit enemy get health, tho I think this would be more fun on say... DANcer 5.0 (wishful thinking). Or do both and everyone can fight over when to input the heal and how. HOT ahead of time, Shield ahead of time, heal when hit, or heal when hitting.

Keep in mind all wull still need Cure/Bene/Physick... basic simple heal always reqd.

[Novak_04]

1.) AST would be the pre-eminent HoT/sustain healer;

2.) Subsequently, WHM would have a decent (not all) portion of its HoTs removed to prevent role overlap. They would be the ultimate burst healers instead, with relatively higher mana costs to reflect their power but a whole kit of awesome healing cooldowns

3.) SCH shields would see hefty reductions in mana cost in return for losing some of their redonkulous reactive healing. Shields should BE how they "heal" people; by preventing the damage done in the first place.

So...Astro = WoW's Druid, WHM = WoW's HPriest, SCH = WoW's Disc Priest.

[KDSilver]

I don't think that's what they meant by being forced.
In 3.0, I stopped playing WHM in raids because it felt like I was purposely handicapping my party. AST could (and still can) do everything I could do, but offer more. So why am I playing WHM? That's the feeling you have when the power gap is so huge as it is now.

No one's going to be forced into different roles, but you'll feel so weak and unwanted that you will eventually fall into something you don't have as much fun playing.

I was scholar until now and tbh, with the changes they made on the already existing skills of WHM, I have now more fun with WHM and am planning to raid with it, even if WHM have no party bonus or buff.
My static is okay with it as long as I play what I like.

And actually, with WHM mana now, he has a really good recovery for progress.
So I don't think any healer could feel unwanted.

[loreleidiangelo]

So...Astro = WoW's Druid, WHM = WoW's HPriest, SCH = WoW's Disc Priest.

You could conceptualize it that way, yeah, but to be honest those healer archetypes (maybe minus the shielding thing) have been in MMOs as old as EQ. Shaman was a HoT healer and a mezzer, and Clerics had bursty heals and beat people with hammers. They're not schticks limited to just one game. Maybe reusing those archetypes isn't appealing to everyone, but I find the homogenization of abilities we have in this game even less appealing, so I was just offering my opinion.

[Vyriah]

it's not more efficient than SCH's toolkit, which despite the changes that make it so boring to play hasn't really changed at it's core.

Say that to my dead tanks.

Meanwhile, I'm just gonna level AST so I can properly heal through dungeons and enter PF.

[Supersun]

You could conceptualize it that way, yeah, but to be honest those healer archetypes (maybe minus the shielding thing) have been in MMOs as old as EQ. Shaman was a HoT healer and a mezzer, and Clerics had bursty heals and beat people with hammers. They're not schticks limited to just one game. Maybe reusing those archetypes isn't appealing to everyone, but I find the homogenization of abilities we have in this game even less appealing, so I was just offering my opinion.

I mean part of it is that there are only so many ways to make a number go up. Slow, fast, adding onto the number before it's subtracted from, there's not exactly a lot of ways to play around with healing so long as the focus of healing is playing tug-o-war with an HP bar and doesn't involve something else such as mitigation which is instead given to tanks for the most part.