To healers enjoying 5.0: a gil for your thoughts?

[Gravagar]

I think the uptime on healers being the In-Demand role in DF speaks for itself, and I'd wager that some adjustments are incoming. I've seen a number of detailed responses explaining what people dislike and wish to change, but (from briefly skimming) I've mostly seen one-sentence responses in favor of the changes. I don't see a lot of discussion about the exact details of positives to our changes (SCH and AST in particular), just broad general opinions. I'm personally in the camp of feeling like my main job just dumped me and doesn't want me to play it anymore due to these changes, but I don't want to demand changes that make people who ARE enjoying the healer jobs to feel this way either. To that end, I want to ask people who're enjoying healing in 5.0 to give us the precise details, so that the rebalance of this rebalance gets better for everyone. So, those of you who are enjoying 5.0 healer jobs... What're the details that you most like and why?

[Muziko]

I suppose I am in a vocal minority of SCH that my dps was always secondary to me. More than once I main healed while my co-healer dps'ed. I did it mind you but never made it more important than keeping people on their feet. That said I think one of the features that I miss is having an aetherflow spender that didn't feel like wasting my stats to give me back mana. Mind you, I don't care if I get ED back but it is a perfect example of a skill that can be used to use of aetherflow without feeling like it was wasted. Honestly, even if they made it a mana siphon with low cooldown that did no damage I would take it. The only other thing I really miss is the trait that lowered the cooldown on atherflow. It was rewarding to time getting the best use out of my stacks. Did I use them for ogcd heals or save it for energy siphons toward the end. My sch is only 73 at the time of this post so I will see how I feel when I get to 80.

Also, just to get this out there. With people complaining about the atherflow in battle just hit your tank with adlo or heck ruin II a random mob. Aggro management is so dummy easy for tanks right now running and aoe attack will keep all the aggro off you. Plus it puts you in battle to pop your aetherflow to use excog and such.

What I enjoy now:
Healing in higher dungeons feels impactful.
Embrace on instant cast so I dont have to set her as much. (Still do for bosses for that sweet regen)


What I dont enjoy:
Lower dungeons were as easy as ever. To be fair, most lower dungeons have always been easy as sch so nothing really changed. X3
MP management can be tough sometimes on bigger pulls. (Generally alternating atherflow and lucid should be enough but can feel real rough when trying to add in aoe damage)

[Elamys]

Right now, I have only played AST; I can't speak for WHM or SCH yet.

I was really nervous about the changes to AST because I've never encountered a job in an MMO that I loved so much. So imagine my shock when I queued up for a dungeon to practice the new changes (got Skalla so good to learn on!) and had...fun. It's not perfect! But I don't think it's all doom and gloom, and a number of my friends that are AST mains agree with me.

To clarify before I start, I was never a Balance or Bust AST. The only card I would refuse to cast unless I had some oddball reason for it (like a DPS that just got Raised) was Spire, and it was usually Roaded anyways. I always felt that my cards were an afterthought though. I didn't have to interact with them that often. But now I feel like I'm constantly managing my cards, and I know people will say oh there's no thought or management to it, but I don't think that's the case. Yes, it's a little easier, but I still have to weigh, for example, which DPS would be better served by the boost. I still have to decide if it's better to cast this card on that person now or save it for a little later. And it's so much faster! Sleeve Draw is more powerful now than ever.



At the end of the day, sure, you had to make choices like giving an Arrow to a BLM over a Summoner or something like that, which is a little more complex than what we have now and requires knowing something about the other jobs, but it wasn't that interactive. And while I'd like to see some uniqueness bought into Divination along with a shorter CD, I'm really enjoying how fast I can throw out buffs. Plus, no more card drama. Everyone feels the love!

The other two complaints I'm seeing mainly are 1.) MP pool is not big enough and 2.) you have to spend more time healing or that healing is harder in general. First of all, I suspect part of SE's reasoning for the MP changes is to encourage the melding of Piety, a stat I never saw anyone meld. Also, everyone is still learning and adjusting and gearing. As we all get used to the changes and get more gear, we won't need to meld (at least as much) Piety. Also, AST at least did not really lose any MP regen tools. We may have lost the Ewer, but remember that you wanted to avoid using Ewer for MP if you could because you needed it for the party buff. It was legitimately a last ditch MP tool and I used it for that purpose so rarely that nothing has changed for me. All we really lost was a reduction in power due to the potency cut and the lost of Celestial Opposition's timer extension.

As for needing to heal more, I am perfectly fine with this because I rolled a healer. Don't get me wrong, I can get pretty aggressive about healer DPS. But I was always annoyed at how much time I would spend DPSing simply because no healing had to be done. That's not what I signed up for! Let's dispense with the notion that only the most skilled healers could find time to DPS. They would know how to best maximize that time, but literally any healer who knew the role vaguely would have had time to spam a few Stone/Malefic/Broils because the actual healing requirements, outside of the most challenging content, were so low. And this is something else that will probably change over time too, and will change depending on the skill of your group.

Was it right for a healer to basically be a third DPS in a dungeon? I don't think so in my opinion, and I'm going to enjoy actually being a healer while it lasts. Plus, now it feels twice as satisfying to squeeze in some DPS between heals. And it may even mean fewer Netflixing healers. I'm okay with this and I hope that people realize at least some of the issues we're having are simply growing pains.

[Sebazy]

The 71 dungeon was really quite enjoyable. The damage was a good bit higher than expert roulettes but not quite as nasty as HW's early levelling dungeons, a pretty ideal compromise IMHO. There were some good mechanics on show as well with the final boss being no slouch.

The world design and art is a cut above SB's oft uninspired look too, the aforementioned dungeon gave me a massive Westfall vibe from early WoW whilst the zones themselves so far feel quite a bit more inspired even despite the truly bleak setting (Which is portrayed incredibly well).

Fingers crossed the storyline keeps to the same standard throughout as they've set the bar high so far <3

As far as healer specific gameplay goes, there's not really much to say on my part just yet. I've raised a few issues in other threads but they aren't a topic for this one. I'm just making the most of things whilst everything feels nice and fresh <3

[Ahrijlaken]

I was really nervous about the changes to AST because I've never encountered a job in an MMO that I loved so much. So imagine my shock when I queued up for a dungeon to practice the new changes (got Skalla so good to learn on!) and had...fun. It's not perfect! But I don't think it's all doom and gloom, and a number of my friends that are AST mains agree with me.

You realy enjoy your 15s balance buff spaming with your 3 mins CD divination ?

[Rubytoe]

You realy enjoy your 15s balance buff spaming with your 3 mins CD divination ?

Yea. Seems pretty cool.

[Elamys]

You realy enjoy your 15s balance buff spaming with your 3 mins CD divination ?

I mean I went into depth on why but you can ignore that part I guess?

[Alphras]

WHM: Feels pretty good, granted not much changed.

SCH: Healing feels strange. Dumping aetherflow stacks into overheal just to generate gauge does not feel intended. I don't need to talk about damage, SCH feels really bad there.

AST: I leveled AST from 60 to 70 after the addon dropped. I like the new card system more, it feels alot more active. Granted I didn't enjoy the old balance/spear fishing playstyle (there is a reason my AST was still 60). Healing wise not much changed.

Regarding the dungeons, nothing changed. The amount of healing and the general difficulty is exactly the same.

Edit: To make one thing clear, I only did the 71 dungeon. I don't expect any changes in the later ones however.

Edit 2: Also the requirement of being in combat for Aeterflow and the AST sigils ... f*ck that. For AST it should at least count if one of your party members is in combat. For SCH it should be removed completely. That was a terrible idea by square.

Edit 3: Did the level 75 and the first trial now. I think the incoming damage is even lower than in Stormblood.

[StarRosie]

You realy enjoy your 15s balance buff spaming with your 3 mins CD divination ?

I mean, if you read their pretty well thought out and presented reasoning, then yeah, seems they do. I share a lot of that sentiment as well. Do I miss some aspects of the old card system? Yes. Do I enjoy the new system? Yes. If you don't like the changes, that's fine. But there's no reason to be rude to those who do enjoy them.

[RyuDragnier]

SCH: Healing feels strange. Dumping aetherflow stacks into overheal just to generate gauge does not feel intended. I don't need to talk about damage, SCH feels really bad there.

I really feel like however many aetherflow stacks you had when you reused Aetherflow should be tossed into the fairy gauge. That way if we're barely using Aetherflow, we still get gauge from the stacks we didn't use being converted into gauge.