Dear SE, I am a Healer

[BroodingFicus]

i'm personally feeling like...
they better be altering the current healers a ton if the reasoning they give for keeping choices so low is they can't balance them after all this time

right now scholar is the one that actually plays different and has a bunch of neat utility and damage reduction options and passive healing

While white mage is the big numbers healer and astro is white mage with cards replacing 5 or so ogc heals/utility skills

if they're going to keep the amount of healers so limited astro is going to need to start playing a lot more different than white mage

Exactly. Really the healer roll suffers from a similar issue to what they said tanks have: you've got an odd number of healers and only two slots to fill. Once upon a time, SCH and WHM had great synergy and it was almost always best to have one of each. Then they added a class that was essentially a SCH with cards and a WHM with cards as far as healing ability went. It pushed WHM out because WHM /only/ has healing, with no utility to offer so if you have a choice between a WHM with cards and a WHM without, the choice becomes simple. Balancing with three healers is going to be seriously difficult. Since everyone has to be able to heal the content and overhealing does nothing, WHM is never going to beat out the others. You can't simply nerf the other twos healing so much that they can't handle encounters without a WHM or you'll just see SCH pushed out for AST and WHM. The root of it? AST. They need to be stripped down and rebuilt so they aren't a carbon copy of the other two and then work from there trying to balance. I don't think its obtainable to find harmony with AST stepping on peoples toes.

That worries me however since we didn't get a new healer. At this point are they planning to massively rework AST? What is this nonsense about making WHM 'easier'? Easier how? We have no real mechanics or rotations, our dps is the most simplistic of any healer, little need for MP management etc. It makes me worried that they're once again focusing on the wrong issue. WHM was WHM from the start. Problems arose when they made AST a WHM as well. So get AST off our turf or give us our own unique identity. However Yoshi has said time and time again he doesn't want to give us utility and our identity is as the 'pure healer'. Which will never work. Simply put I just don't have faith in them to get this right seeing as they haven't listened for the last 4 years and it does make me question how long Ill be willing to play if it becomes clear WHM is going to be odd man out again for another few years.

[Deceptus]

Exactly. Really the healer roll suffers from a similar issue to what they said tanks have: you've got an odd number of healers and only two slots to fill. Once upon a time, SCH and WHM had great synergy and it was almost always best to have one of each. Then they added a class that was essentially a SCH with cards and a WHM with cards as far as healing ability went. It pushed WHM out because WHM /only/ has healing, with no utility to offer so if you have a choice between a WHM with cards and a WHM without, the choice becomes simple. Balancing with three healers is going to be seriously difficult. Since everyone has to be able to heal the content and overhealing does nothing, WHM is never going to beat out the others. You can't simply nerf the other twos healing so much that they can't handle encounters without a WHM or you'll just see SCH pushed out for AST and WHM. The root of it? AST. They need to be stripped down and rebuilt so they aren't a carbon copy of the other two and then work from there trying to balance. I don't think its obtainable to find harmony with AST stepping on peoples toes.

Exactly. Pretty objectively AST messed everything up by being allowed to be either or (regen/shield). Your analysis of Diurnal AST being a better WHM is pretty spot on. As long as you have SCH available for a 2nd, why would you ever bring a WHM over an AST?

[Tsalmaveth]

Exactly. Pretty objectively AST messed everything up by being allowed to be either or (regen/shield). Your analysis of Diurnal AST being a better WHM is pretty spot on. As long as you have SCH available for a 2nd, why would you ever bring a WHM over an AST?

Unfortunately, from the sound of the interview... the target seems to be 'make WHM easier' 'nerf SCH because fairy too OP'

Colour me scared over here, but they still sound like they don't know what they're aiming for.