Ive no faith in SE/Yoshi-P when comes to balancing healers

[Truen]

I dont have any faith. I mean look what happened to DRK for 4.0 They gutted the job to where it was basically crap. I had healers leaving the party because I was a DRK before the dungeon even started. I saw party finder groups excluding WHM and DRK.

I bet Thin Air becomes a role action skill for sure and lilies will most likely be reworked but still wont be any good.

I hope I am wrong and that its awesome and the jobs become amazing, but given the past track record there is always 2-4 jobs that will be bad upon expansion release and sadly in the past it has always been 1 healer and 1 tank that takes the short end.

I agree. This is what's going to happen to the Scholar class. When they're done with it the class will be a fraction of what we know, enjoy, and play currently...mark my words. We're going to find out very soon.

[Atlantasia]

My expectations are being kept purposefully low after Stormblood destroyed me. So I have an extremely low bar and if they surprise me, great, if not, same old same old.

I think Scholar is actually good, it's fun to play, useful and wanted by all. I think that if they want to make the healer player base happy, then they need to bring AST a little up (it has a good foundation, it needs tweaks, I think the sects changing the cards, etc would be a very interesting change). And they need to bring WHM up on par with the other two.

The problem is in how they do this, while still keeping all three useful, wanted and FUN.

End game raids definitely trickles into other aspects of the game. I am a selfish person, I raid on WHM, but I have had my groups all joke about wanting me on AST. I have never had a group not make that joke, and not just once, at least once a week. I've full on had raidmate DPS plead with me to switch to AST for their buffs. But I just cannot play AST the way I play WHM, I have been a WHM main since day one of this game when ARR launched. I am clumsy and awkward on AST, especially with raiding tier. I am solid enough on SCH, but the difference with my skill level on WHM when compared to the other two is just night and day. I come alive on the class. I want more of that, but on an actual equal playing field with the other two! I don't want to feel guilty and like I'm putting a raid group in a worse position because of my selfishness in wanting to play my main class. I am a skilled WHM, I take pride in that, but I'm not blind to the power imbalance.

[Veis_Alveare]

I am a skilled WHM, I take pride in that, but I'm not blind to the power imbalance.

I can very much sympathize and I felt similarly to you not long ago. I woundup giving AST a good shot after the Malefic cast time reduction and it's honestly really fun. I'm not saying you should switch but I'd say keep your mind open; really playing on AST for a bit might be what you need to get into the groove.

I just wanted to touch on this idea of the power imbalance between WHM and AST as well. The thing is WHM has better pDPS than AST does in a vacuum and gets more out of each cast because Stone IV has 30 potency on Malefic III. WHM isn't underpowered until you factor in a skilled group coordinating buffs to maximize the rDPS from those cards. If your group isn't all doing fairly well on their own subbing in a similarly skilled AST over a WHM isn't really going to change anything for anyone unless you're specifically padding individual players for parse runs and with less potent emergency recovery tools (namely no CureIII equivalent) a group that's used to doing things with a WHM/SCH combo might find it hard to adjust to playing around AST's HPS.

I guess I just wanted to say don't feel like you're cheating your group, AST might be much better than WHM in a lot of ways but the ways that selfish dps care about only really matter if the whole group is really skilled to begin with. Keep throwing rocks!

[Atlantasia]

I can very much sympathize and I felt similarly to you not long ago. I woundup giving AST a good shot after the Malefic cast time reduction and it's honestly really fun. I'm not saying you should switch but I'd say keep your mind open; really playing on AST for a bit might be what you need to get into the groove.

I just wanted to touch on this idea of the power imbalance between WHM and AST as well. The thing is WHM has better pDPS than AST does in a vacuum and gets more out of each cast because Stone IV has 30 potency on Malefic III. WHM isn't underpowered until you factor in a skilled group coordinating buffs to maximize the rDPS from those cards. If your group isn't all doing fairly well on their own subbing in a similarly skilled AST over a WHM isn't really going to change anything for anyone unless you're specifically padding individual players for parse runs and with less potent emergency recovery tools (namely no CureIII equivalent) a group that's used to doing things with a WHM/SCH combo might find it hard to adjust to playing around AST's HPS.

I guess I just wanted to say don't feel like you're cheating your group, AST might be much better than WHM in a lot of ways but the ways that selfish dps care about only really matter if the whole group is really skilled to begin with. Keep throwing rocks!

I have tried AST, I play most other content on AST currently. My friends prefer it (because they like being showered in buffs) and it's not a bad class, but after months of playing it on everyday content to Extreme fights, it's just not the same. It's like trying to find the synergy with a new healing partner and it's just not there, it doesn't click for me in the same way. I find it stressful in raid content.

The groups I was in had high quality DPS who would have fully utilized those buffs. I wouldn't feel guilty if they couldn't, but they were excellent people. I know it's not by much, my DPS is good for a healer and I'm reliable in my heals on top of this. But it would have made differences in clearing. xD And they so wanted to do parse runs.

[Mansion]

If I try to think positive, we can say AST and SCH are at their peak point right now, and that's great. Of course it's unfair for WHM and slightly annoying, but I kinda think that's also why it takes so long to get a 3 healer balance. I guess they fear they'll break what's good in AST and SCH (both individual jobs and their synergy together).
So I like to think they have taken time to fix WHM rather than balance healers in general, because that's a lesser amount of work to change one job thoroughly than redesigning 3 jobs together or changing the whole system of healing in the game.

I think WHM is just the reflect of the grey area the devs keep about healing in general in the game. Bringing WHM to AST/SCH level would be definitely acknowledging that :
- The game does not require a lot of healing.
- GCD healing is not efficient.
- A healer should bring support to the raid.
- A healer should have good options to DPS (but those last two elements can work together)

As long as they keep WHM in the "casual healer" spot, WHM will never bear the comparison to any other healer.

(but I still have this haunting voice in my mind that says balance could be achieved by nerfing AST and SCH to the ground, and I'd be sad).

[ForteNightshade]

I can very much sympathize and I felt similarly to you not long ago. I woundup giving AST a good shot after the Malefic cast time reduction and it's honestly really fun. I'm not saying you should switch but I'd say keep your mind open; really playing on AST for a bit might be what you need to get into the groove.

I just wanted to touch on this idea of the power imbalance between WHM and AST as well. The thing is WHM has better pDPS than AST does in a vacuum and gets more out of each cast because Stone IV has 30 potency on Malefic III. WHM isn't underpowered until you factor in a skilled group coordinating buffs to maximize the rDPS from those cards. If your group isn't all doing fairly well on their own subbing in a similarly skilled AST over a WHM isn't really going to change anything for anyone unless you're specifically padding individual players for parse runs and with less potent emergency recovery tools (namely no CureIII equivalent) a group that's used to doing things with a WHM/SCH combo might find it hard to adjust to playing around AST's HPS.

I guess I just wanted to say don't feel like you're cheating your group, AST might be much better than WHM in a lot of ways but the ways that selfish dps care about only really matter if the whole group is really skilled to begin with. Keep throwing rocks!

Unfortunately, in a vacuum is largely irrelevant because actual execution places AST either on par or superior to WHM in pDPS due to the latter's inability to weave without clipping. Malefic III may be weaker but the reduced recast time helps significantly—to the point AST saw a several hundred point DPS increase. As for cards, unless the group is woefully bad. Raid utility is still raid utility. Even in a group pulling 60-70% on FFlogs will benefit more from an AST than WHM purely because WHM offers absolutely nothing. And therein lies the fundamental issue. There is no real advantage WHM has over the other two healers save MP management. Despite being labeled the "pure healer," AST is actually better. Collective, Earthly and ED are all widely superior to their respectively counterparts. This leads Cure III and Benediction as the two stand outs. Alas, both come with noticeable drawbacks, especially the latter.

Shadowbringers needs to give WHM utility or consider changing Balance entirely. The whole pure healer concept simply does not work in a game where raw healing isn't ever needed. Until they give up on that philosophy, WHM will keep suffering.

[ADVSS]

res/raise etc prob go to cross role like esuna, im guessing.SMN will be mad.
hopefully they "SB paladin" the whm for sure. honestly when they say 4 tanks are better to balance and then they go still 3 healers cause we cant balance, i really feel for you guys, and im hoping for the best out of this live letter

[Truen]

res/raise etc prob go to cross role like esuna, im guessing.SMN will be mad.
hopefully they "SB paladin" the whm for sure. honestly when they say 4 tanks are better to balance and then they go still 3 healers cause we cant balance, i really feel for you guys, and im hoping for the best out of this live letter

I hope they don't make that change. It's the diversity between the classes that I like the most in FF14. That's what keeps me logging in and trying new things: diverse and interesting classes. More than the quests. More than the grind of duties. It's the different, compelling classes; while nobody likely cares about who I am or what I'm going to do--I'll say anyway that I doubt I'll continue logging in if the 5.0 changes homogenizes the classes and trims the differences between them away. I've waited before pre-ordering once I read about the 5.0 nerfs coming down the pipe. I'm going to wait to see what they do before making a decision about whether to keep supporting them game, and I guess we'll be finding out tomorrow what the plans are too.

[Kurando]

res/raise etc prob go to cross role like esuna, im guessing.SMN will be mad.

I don't know about that, I mean Ascend has a very unique animation compared to the other Rez actions, if anything AST players will be more mad than SMN. Although making Rez cross role (like Esuna) doesn't really fix much though but I guess we'll see what happens.

[Vivian_Vex]

As a White Mage for life. There is absolutely nothing wrong with the class. In fact I'd say it's perfect now as it is. Can it be added to? Sure and it will either be good or pointless. Either of which wouldn't matter. But the point is is that you think the world is ending when you have absolutely no idea what is coming.