The finalized 5.0 healer changes revealed (links)

[Michiko]

Looking at all the Astro changes.. I wonder.. does anyone on square's side actually play or have tried to play Astro itself? I find it puzzling how our malefic potencies get a nerf.. but that 3/3/6% won't actually make up for it in any way unless they've literally changed the damage formula. So things in the overworld and solo questing stuff, will not take even longer to kill? Cause even before 5.0, it would generally take 4-5 Malefics to kill 1 lv60 monster at lv70. and these were the beastman daily spawns which usually have reduced HP.. O.o just.. wow..

At least our cures got a little boost, fat good that will do with the 10k mp limit.. seems that 10-12 cures = out of gas now. Also confused on their logic for the aspected Helios changes.. the cure gets a nerf to potency but we keep the 250% shield if we go nocturnal?? at a whopping 1100mp? I suspect alot of this stuff will get tweaked in 5.1

[Sylve]

Looking at all the Astro changes.. I wonder.. does anyone on square's side actually play or have tried to play Astro itself? I find it puzzling how our malefic potencies get a nerf.. but that 3/3/6% won't actually make up for it in any way unless they've literally changed the damage formula. So things in the overworld and solo questing stuff, will not take even longer to kill? Cause even before 5.0, it would generally take 4-5 Malefics to kill 1 lv60 monster at lv70. and these were the beastman daily spawns which usually have reduced HP.. O.o just.. wow..

At least our cures got a little boost, fat good that will do with the 10k mp limit.. seems that 10-12 cures = out of gas now. Also confused on their logic for the aspected Helios changes.. the cure gets a nerf to potency but we keep the 250% shield if we go nocturnal?? at a whopping 1100mp? I suspect alot of this stuff will get tweaked in 5.1

10 potency. Malefic lost TEN potency. You know whats probably worth more than 10 potency? A near permanent 8% +Damage buff that we can now keep on ourselves thanks to the card changes. So literally no change or a very very minor damage buff at worse. Combust got it worse, going from 50p to 35p. Made up again slightly by the Card buff, but not quite as much.

unless they've literally changed the damage formula.

It has been stated multiple times by Yoshi-P that the combat formulas DID in fact change. They've been warning us about it for a long time that Potencies seen in ShB reveals can't be properly compared to 4.x Potencies because of that.

Main issue with this is that basically every SCH healing skill is an ability and not affected by Dissipation.

Dissipation, Temperance and Neutral Sect have the exact same wording {Increases Healing Magic Potencies by 20%}. So if SCHs Abilities aren't affected, neither are the WHM's and ASTs from their version of it. Limiting the effectiveness of their respective buffs to beefing up Cure/Physik/Benefic and Helios/Medica/Succor.
If it doesn't affect Abilities in ShB, it affects all the healers not just SCH. All 3 Healers have powerful Abilities, not just SCH.

[Ilenya]

Dissipation, Temperance and Neutral Sect have the exact same wording {Increases Healing Magic Potencies by 20%}. So if SCHs Abilities aren't affected, neither are the WHM's and ASTs from their version of it. Limiting the effectiveness of their respective buffs to beefing up Cure/Physik/Benefic and Helios/Medica/Succor.
If it doesn't affect Abilities in ShB, it affects all the healers not just SCH. All 3 Healers have powerful Abilities, not just SCH.

SCH: Physick, Adloquium, Succor.
WHM: Cure, Medica, Cure II, Regen, Cure III, Medica II, Afflatus Solace, Afflatus Rapture
AST: Benefic, Helios, Benefic II, Aspected Benefic, Aspected Helios.

I see a difference in the number of affected skills there.

I decided to check something.

SCH: Lustrate, Sacred Soil, Indomitability, Excogitation, And literally everything the faerie does.
WHM: Benediction (Ha ha), Asylum, Assize, Tetragrammaton, Divine Benison (I guess? Unsure how new skill would count), Plenary Indulgence.
AST: Essential Dignity, Collective Unconscious, Celestial Opposition, Earthly Star, Celestial Intersection, Horoscope (Maybe?)

All unaffected skills.

Does Recitation work for 1 cast only or the full 15 seconds? The tooltip reads as though it works for the duration.

There is no way on Hydelaen it's be allowed for the full 15 seconds. It'd be BUSTED if that were the case.

[Eisenhower]

10 potency. Malefic lost TEN potency. You know whats probably worth more than 10 potency? A near permanent 8% +Damage buff that we can now keep on ourselves thanks to the card changes. So literally no change or a very very minor damage buff at worse. Combust got it worse, going from 50p to 35p. Made up again slightly by the Card buff, but not quite as much.

50% uptime in solo content is one helluva stretch for the description of "near permanent". If the lights were on for half the time I was in a room, I wouldn't call the room "near permanently illuminated".

That being said, 10 potency lost from a 220 base equals to 4.5%. Assuming that the AST use Minor Arcana on self with every card on cooldown, you can translate the buff from 8% with 50% uptime to 4% with 100% uptime. So If you're standing there only casting Malefic II with no clipping ad infinitum there is a slight loss with the new potencies and cards. Combust, in turn, was changed from 500 total potency to 350 total potency - a loss of 30%. No card in the world is going to compensate for that.

When it comes down to it, ASTs have the lowest direct damage and over time damage potency-per-MP efficiency among the healers and I'm unconvinced that the cards provide sufficient offset in terms of rDPS. At least all cards provide an easily quantifiable boost to damage. Shame about the flavour though.

As for the "potency changes" it is true that 1 potency in StB can't be equated to 1 potency in ShB. But surely potencies within a job and between jobs in ShB are comparable (e.g. an AST dealing 100 potency worth of damage should be the same as a WHM dealing 100 potency worth of damage)? Unless we're expecting SQEX to be using vastly different formulas for different jobs and actions, which sounds like madness.

Such things aside, one of the more egregious points is the state of Collective Unconcious and Celestial Opposition which feel like they're too weak compared to their counterparts in WHM and SCH - and it's not like ASTs can throw cards at their healing actions to make them stronger or increase ally mitigation anymore. In my eyes, the effects are too weak for the cooldowns given.