5.0 healer catastrophizing is illogical - Change My Mind

[whiskeybravo]

I'm not a healer main but trying to understand my healers thoughts on why they are upset. After reviewing and thinking as critically as I can, I can only arrive at the conclusion that it's really not all that bad - more or less it's just that people expected something different.

Much like the tanks got homogonized treatment in their CD rotation, healers got homogenized in their dps. They pretty much all have one dot, one spam and one aoe. They all do basically the same base potency with whm edging ahead, and I assume that AST lags a bit behind because of their slightly faster cast time? Either way, it is a dumbing down in a way but also balancing them in that aspect. It hurt SCH the most, but I think they will be OK outside of possible MP drain being too high if they want to spread Bio around before spamming Art of War.

Otherwise, AST healing kit itself is mostly unchanged or upgraded. Cards were simplified, as most people have stated you were always trying to draw balances anyways so now they'll be crapping them out left and right and get to manage seals or whatever else instead. It's not the end of the world.

Outside of obvious complaints about SCH being stripped of it's DPS kit, I think WHM has the next most to complain about. The 2 new heals should've been off the GCD. The charge time for lillies is 30 seconds anyways, just make them 30 sec CDs and it'd probably solve most if not all WHM complaints, at least a major one. Quite honestly I don't see why they haven't done something to consolidate the cures & medicas like most other 1-2-3 abilities get upgraded. I'm sure there's some logic behind it, but I haven't spent enough time on healers to know one way or the other. It's getting into a different topic altogether, but seems like it could be loosely related if it allowed to them to add other types of heals or support abilities.

In hindsight, it might've been better for DNC to be a healer because it would've allowed (or perhaps forced) them to make more interesting utility kits for the other healers to compete. Since they decided to make it a DPS, it seems reasonable to assume they didn't want people stacking DNC buffs with AST buffs and so forth, so they just gave them all to DNC instead. I'm not saying that's a good choice, but it's a somewhat logical conclusion to arrive at if we are just looking at the facts.

I don't know. At the end of the day people have the right to voice their opinion about job changes, especially jobs they have mained for years. From the outsider perspective that I have, it doesn't seem unreasonable to assume most of these problems can be worked out with a few minor changes. Just gotta stay persistent.

[EaMett]

You seem to be missing the point on quite a few things when it comes to SCH. The idea that Ruin II is still worth anything outside of a double weave is enough for me to tell you don't have a good understanding of the current changes. Spoiler alert, it's only useful if you double weave. Spoiler alert 2, SCH no longer has much to weave with either.
The idea that you would consider dissipation bringing the fairy back noteworthy when sch no longer has an AF dump is also overshooting. I can't remember the math but iirc dissipation is a DPS loss unless you need to heal completely for the entire duration of the buff. Yeah, no thanks.
Your comment about optimization still being there is also way too simpleminded. We lost many forms of ressource management from stacks to MP. We lost many weaving options. We went from managing 3 dots to 1. Our dungeon play went from 3 aoes to manage to 1. And yet we're expected to think we can still optimize just fine? Yeah maybe if by "optimize" you mean do the very least which is communicate with your healing partner.

We essentially went from a job that had good flow, good weaving, good management, both mana and af ressource wise, with a high skill ceiling to work towards as a result and many tools to be flexible in many situations. To a two button nuking machine with an incredibly reduced skill cap. People are correct to be upset.

Have any doubts? Here's roughly the Garuda opening sequence I use for reference, both before and after 5.0 and this has a lot of extra comfort padding in as I usually do the heavy lifting here, and it isn't even fully optimized:

(pre pull stuff) > Miasma > Bio (Energy Drain+shadowflare) > Broil > Miasma II (Energy Drain+ Chain Stratagem) > Broil ==Swiftcast== > Broil (Indom+Aetherflow) > Miasma (Fey Illumination) > Miasma II (Largesse + Excog) > Adlo > Bio (Lucid + deploy) > Broil > Miasma II > Miasma II > Miasma II > Miasma II (Fey covenant + Sacred soil)> Miasma> Succor (Whispering dawn) > Bio (indom + Emeregency Tactics) > Broil > Broil > Broil > Succor > Succor > Broil > Miasma> Bio (shadowflare+ Aetherflow) > Ruin II > etc...

Ok so that's the current situation. Full of colors to the point I didn't even have enough. Now this is a large amount of healing in a short amount of time mind you. We won't even need this much healing for most content. Even if they up the requirements.
You'll notice we don't have downtime, we're never waiting for the GCD to return ("!!!" signs) we're only clipping once during opener ("==" signs) and we're never holding onto AF stacks past the AF cooldown.

After 5.0 this will look roughly like this (I'll assume we can dissipate pre-pull for this and there will probably be a more optimized opener but I'll just show it 1:1):

(pre pull stuff) > Broil > !!! Bio !!! > Broil > Broil ==CS== > Broil > Broil ==Indom== > Broil > Ruin II (Excog + Recitation) > Adlo > Bio (Lucid + deploy) > Broil > AoW > AoW > AoW (Fey illumination) > AoW (Sacred soil + AF)> Broil > Succor > Bio (indom + Whispering dawn) > Broil > Broil > Broil > Succor ==ET== > Succor > Broil > Broil > !!! Bio !!! > Ruin II > etc...

As you can see there's way less stuff going on, way fewer colors. We're clipping a total of 3 times in this short span. We cast two instant casts with NO WEAVING. I can't emphasis enough how horrible this feels in terms of gameplay. It's been a huge thorn in the side of WHM for these past few years... Why make MORE healers go through this? They should've fixed WHM instead.
We're also late on the AF stacks which means it isn't optimized play and our fairy gauge is lagging behind (should probably weave overheal lustrate into those Bios which is a ridiculous way of optimizing play). What would I do with the extra 3 stacks from dissipation had I used it? I can't even use my stacks fast enough with ultimate levels of healing.

And ALL this is on a fight with A LOT of healing where we need to leverage A LOT of ogcds. Your average fights will never require you to use this much and therefore you should expect a lot more clipping and instants with no weaving. Less healing also means more DPS uptime which means you get to spend more time crying about how bad DPSing feels.

It's a huge downgrade in playstyle, it's a huge downgrade in optimization, it's a huge downgrade in skill cap. Any extra healing optimizations we could do with new abilities would make the clipping and non weaving way worse.

And don't get me started on dungeons where we're going from Miasma > Bio > Bane > Misama II (shadowflare) > Miasma II (ED) > Miasma II (ED) > etc... to AoW > AoW > AoW > AoW > AoW > AoW > AoW > AoW > AoW > AoW > AoW > AoW > AoW > AoW > AoW > AoW > AoW > AoW > AoW > AoW > AoW > AoW > AoW > AoW > AoW > AoW > AoW > AoW > *rolls around on keyboard*

[Vivian_Vex]

OP, is your main class really lvl 43 NIN? Respectfully, I see some points in your post which make me think you haven't played healer at a high level in this game.

The "Main Class" thing is just what you last had as your active class when the server did it's check on your character.

[Josco]

The "Main Class" thing is just what you last had as your active class when the server did it's check on your character.

Nope, you can set your main class manually. Go to "Settings" in the upper right, click "edit character," and you can pick which of your characters is your main. The first job (on the left) you pick from the dropdown is what's displayed as your main.

[Shalan]

Nope, you can set your main class manually. Go to "Settings" in the upper right, click "edit character," and you can pick which of your characters is your main. The first job (on the left) you pick from the dropdown is what's displayed as your main.

It's probably just an alt they have for use as a forum face. Don't get too caught up with whatever character or class someone has their forum set up to.

[IttyBitty]

We know what makes playing healers fun for us right now. We also know that the combat system for the game isn't likely to actually change very much beyond number fudging (as last two expansions have shown). What makes healers fun right now for a lot of people is being decimated.

There is really nothing you can say to change any of that.

[Selova]

A very well articulated post. It pretty much covered exactly what I've been thinking. I'd like there to be more actually focus on the healer changes instead of losing pdps on the healers.

[Josco]

It's probably just an alt they have for use as a forum face. Don't get too caught up with whatever character or class someone has their forum set up to.

That's why I asked.

[MerlinCross]

In a community that pushes DPS above everything else, I'm not surprised AST is just now "Balance Card the class".

The WHM changes I actually don't mind but I have no reason to try AST now. I thought about it before but I play on controller. I was worried about selecting the right teammate with the right card. Like the MNK or RDM might like Arrow more than the Tank.

Now it really doesn't matter. Okay, FINE, it matters a little but when you're someone like that that is far more causual and tends to play a patch or two behind, how needed is 6% over 3% damage? Besides it's the seals you're fishing for so just throw your card out as soon as possible to get another one for the seal you're looking for. And after all that work what's your reward? AoE Balance. Really? That's it?

All that work for just more another damage buff? Might not be as RNG based as fishing for Arrow/Spear and Balance so you can do the combo but really just more damage? Given how much people go on about FFlogs in this community at times(The ENTIRE community not just here) I suppose this was to be expected.

AST sounds really bland to me now. And I play WHM, the Vanilla of healers. And if the class doesn't sound that much different from the class I'm already in, why should I give it a try? Might be easier to play but also sounds less dynamic. Sorry AST, you get to sit at 30 for another expansion.

And while this is for Healers; if this is what they did after player feedback/complaining about AST, Dancer is also going to face a really uncertain future. There's no room for support other than just more damage.

[Brandedblade]

snip

...in your theoretical opener why do you have Art of War spamming? If it's meant to be representing an add phase fine I'll accept that notion. But without that context that just looks misleading. AoW is only a gain over both your single target nukes at 2+ adds. Not to mention the possibility of needing to move at any point in the sequence, wherein Ruin II would be the better skill to you.

Art of War is definitely a downgrade from the old sch aoe rotation. But I would argue its probably the best of the reworked aoes because of its potency being the best of the three and the additional weaving space and mobility it provides.