Disheartened healer annoyed with Shadowbringers' difficulty

[IttyBitty]

Levelled WHM to 80 first. Was business as usual the entire time, DPSing wall to wall pulls throughout.
Levelled SCH to 80 with the same gear my WHM had available. Pretty much played out exactly like WHM did, except I had to be a little bit more mindful of my MP and the tank's HP.
I'm still yet to see the much vaunted difficulty difference between this and early SB/HW.

[Schan]

Levelled WHM to 80 first. Was business as usual the entire time, DPSing wall to wall pulls throughout.
Levelled SCH to 80 with the same gear my WHM had available. Pretty much played out exactly like WHM did, except I had to be a little bit more mindful of my MP and the tank's HP.
I'm still yet to see the much vaunted difficulty difference between this and early SB/HW.

Now go level AST with dungeon drops and no tome gear. I want to see if you will singing the same tune.

There are too many variables to say the dungeons hit exactly the same. As someone who rushes the holy trinity to cap and tends to try out the weakest jobs at the begining of each expansion there is a stark difference. I would argue this is actually worse than AST on release back in HW and that was really really bad.

[HyoMinPark]

Now go level AST with dungeon drops and no tome gear. I want to see if you will singing the same tune.

There are too many variables to say the dungeons hit exactly the same. As someone who rushes the holy trinity to cap and tends to try out the weakest jobs at the begining of each expansion there is a stark difference. I would argue this is actually worse than AST on release back in HW and that was really really bad.

AST is the only one that arguably sees the “healing is harder” statement—however, it’s an outlier. The other two don’t struggle nearly as much. That said, it’s no where near the mess that 3.0 AST was. Let’s not get carried away here.

[Schan]

AST is the only one that arguably sees the “healing is harder” statement—however, it’s an outlier. The other two don’t struggle nearly as much. That said, it’s no where near the mess that 3.0 AST was. Let’s not get carried away here.

no the other two are bored to death with far more healing tools they know what to do with.

I don't know if im getting carried away... i was "fine" back then, i am "fine" right now but that doesn't mean the job is in a good state.

[HyoMinPark]

no the other two are bored to death with far more healing tools they know what to do with.

I don't know if im getting carried away... i was "fine" back then, i am "fine" right now but that doesn't mean the job is in a good state.

I never said AST was in a good state. I’ve been in multiple threads saying the opposite. However, I also recognize that it is not as broken as it was upon 3.0’s release. Its potencies are weak (both healing and damage), and could use some tweaks. But it can still heal, even if it has to work harder and has a trash oGCD kit. Unlike 3.0 AST, which struggled to do even that.

I’m hoping to see potency buffs in the 5.05 balance patch. If they don’t adjust them then, then I’ll have some real concerns: since it will appear that they think AST is fine as is. I also don’t like the card system, and it’s seeming like it doesn’t offer enough rDPS to compensate for AST’s lack in personal damage—meaning it still cannot match WHM. But, the cards are unlikely to be overhauled until 6.0 at the earliest.

[Boomsmash]

Also as an aside, this is just a tinfoil hat theory. But I think Scholar and Astrologian particularly have had way too much weight put on Seraph and Neutral Sect while they were balancing the healing kits. The result is that before you get those abilities, it can feel like your healing is a bit weaker than in the past. But then when you do get them, suddenly your healing (and thus personal DPS) capabilities shoot right up, especially since the abilities work best with pre-planning due to their long duration and relatively short cooldowns. Basically, I think that the devs have made the healer kits weaker for everything below level 80, because once you reach that point you get abilities that make it much stronger

Neutral Sect is active for 20s every 120s. That's 1/6 uptime, for Largesse + Regen + Barrier. I am going to have to play with it, but considering AST used to have 15% boost to healing from Nocturnal and Largesse was still a thing that let you heal for even more? Nope, not "much stronger". Demonstrably weaker and much more button pushing to get similar. Diminishing returns comes to mind.

[ksuyen]

Most of the time the culprit is a clueless tank. They come in level 80 dungeons in 420 set, didn't ask anything and start pulling multiple groups of adds (or even wall to wall), AND didn't even use their cooldown, expecting healer to keep them alive and at the same time demanding us to AOE DPS more. If they died, they usually blame the healer for doing such a poor job then vote to kick us.

[IttyBitty]

Now go level AST with dungeon drops and no tome gear. I want to see if you will singing the same tune.

There are too many variables to say the dungeons hit exactly the same. As someone who rushes the holy trinity to cap and tends to try out the weakest jobs at the begining of each expansion there is a stark difference. I would argue this is actually worse than AST on release back in HW and that was really really bad.

"Healing hasn't changed? Go play the healer that was massively undertuned and then say the same thing".

No duh? AST being a garbage fire right now doesn't change the fact that the content (which is what dictates how we interact with the game) hasn't actually changed.

Classes that are capable are not experiencing difficulty that we haven't already experienced via early HW/SB. AST is not currently a capable class. Which is why everybody I know who played it before ShB has dropped it. SCH became more boring, but it still has a pretty powerful healing toolkit. WHM is very much the same as it always has been. AST is the outlier. Trying to use it as a gotcha is a bit silly.

[Schan]

I'm sorry. throught the patches, I was annoyed with MCH, I facepalmed with DRK but for some reason nowadays the more i talk about AST the more my blood boils.

I disagree that AST is not capable. It is... you just need to put 110% ALL THE TIME while the other healers are snoozing in the corner and got forbid if the tank messes up. Add to that you need to put in your 110% and your returns feel minimal... i understand why people shy away from the job.

I feel it's more noticable if you have a crap tank or if the tank messs up. trash mobs now have mini tank busters and wind up animations that you can dodge (part of the reason I'm starting to really dislike Holy as a tank). They were given even more "mechanics" than before and since people love to wall to wall pull sometimes you can't see the tiny aoe markers so people get hit without noticing adding even more pressure to the healers. In DF I find it normal to see DPS die because they've stepped on the bad one too many times.

Like i said.. there are too many variables to say dungeons hit exactly the same. Now the healer can't muscle through it while carrying 3 suicidal babies. Each person either shows a sliver of competency or you're eating dirt. i personally find that a good thing but the playerbase needs to get used to it lol.

[Connor]

Neutral Sect is active for 20s every 120s. That's 1/6 uptime, for Largesse + Regen + Barrier. I am going to have to play with it, but considering AST used to have 15% boost to healing from Nocturnal and Largesse was still a thing that let you heal for even more? Nope, not "much stronger". Demonstrably weaker and much more button pushing to get similar. Diminishing returns comes to mind.

You’re right that Neutral Sect doesn’t actually increase Astrologian’s healing output relative to before, which i think is kind of at the root of Astrologian’s problems on the healing side. I admit that I was overselling them when I said ‘much stronger’. I just meant that the devs seem to have put so much weight on the skills that they thought the rest of the kit would need toned down, when the reality is that it they just bring them a bit closer to what they were like before.

That said, I would be interested to see how high regen/shields would stack from an Astrologian coordinating Neutral Sect with the Scholar / White Mage, since shields/regen can be stacked if they come from Neutral Sect where they otherwise wouldn’t (like stacking shields with galvanise by using Neutral Sect in Diurnal). Plus throwing in Collective Unconscious and Celestial Opposition (not that you’d ever blow every oGCD you have at once lol). I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad skill

Not saying this is some secret trick that makes everything on Astrologian ok, just that I think SE really overestimated how much it would add because of that potential and made some knee-jerk adjustments in reaction