5.0 healer catastrophizing is illogical - Change My Mind

[Jollyy5]

I believe I speak for all those healers who were against the changes before ShB when I say: "Told you so."

They effectively made WHM seem like an interesting choice due to neutering the other two healers.
AST is an unholy mess where its CPM is really high due to how the cards work, and numbers state that they have to do a lot of work for a whole lot of nothing while still managing to be boring.
SCH is just... there... With next to nothing to do during downtime and several unnecessary healing spells, to a point where some players have complained they aren't even sure which heals to use and why.

So yeah... The prophecy has come to pass, and it's incredibly difficult to motivate myself to finish levelling a healer.

[CrazyAce]

The only reason I'm going to have lvl 80 healer is because they didn't completely destroy SMN so I'll be getting that to lvl 80 eventually. SCH is just along for the ride. I'm not playing it until they fix that class. It's super boring to play, almost as boring as AST. It's like they made the ShB healer changes to cater to babies that don't want to have to press more than 3-4 buttons during a fight. Oh wait, that's exactly what they did. That why all the noobs love the changes. They like it when the skill ceiling is the same as the skill floor.

AST is just sad. DNC literally has better buffs, now. The card effects uptime is awful as well as weak, Divination is abjectly terrible, and the only saving grace is Neutral Sect, which has a very short duration. Why anyone would bother playing AST right now when it's a lesser version of either SCH (better heals and mitigation) or WHM (better heals and HoTs) is beyond me. It was relatively strong in SB, now it's pretty much pointless to even play, unless you just want "flavor".

WHM is the only interesting healer class left, though that's only due to the other classes being dumbed down into oblivion. It got some nice quality of life changes, but still suffers from needless skill bloat. I mean, does anyone even USE Cure III? I can't even remember the last time I cast that in any notable content.

[Sloprano]

Missed this thread earlier, but any chance to champion for Selene.

* Selene was a great addition to an already varied set that had something for every situation.
* In Deep Dungeons Fey Caress aoe esuna was a lifesaver, Fey Dusk helped against Garms and Fey Wind make fights go a little bit faster when every second could count on deeper sets.
* Selene's silence was wonky to perform manually, only on Sic would make she silence before a mob even thought about casting. She even tried to silence non-spells which failed. Now that they made Interrupts a big thing Selene could have her moment.

That Selene and arcanist roots was removed to make room for more ways to fill up healthbars is not a design philosophy I subscribe to. There are times when all those healing spells go unused because nothing is happening and since we can plan healing around the scripted fights I always look for oppertunities to help in other ways. This became more of an issue as sch got less interesting things to do. In everything from Extreme fights to low-level dungeons in roulettes to solo questing, we used to have a several things to do. These days I spam Broil III.

At the end of SB I found myself going into 24-mans a lot, performing triage on several wiped Alliances while the boss was alive is among the more exciting moments on scholar during that expansion.

Also think Seraph could've been a permanent summon as a shielding fairy with own pet hotbar. Maybe with only powerful shields and Blind on enemies from all that sparkle. The 2 min would cooldown appear if you sent her away or summoned Eos or Selene.

[Shalan]

So I've been playing AST at 70 for a while now. All I can think of is people played AST during leveling and it felt underpowered then, and they never actually payed attention to how it feels in actual relevant 80 content.

My heals feel fine, the new card system makes AST feel as active as a DPS, and while things like Divination and collective unconscious could absolutely use some shorter CDs, it's not this irredeemable garbage healer people are trying to claim it is.
People need to look past leveling dungeons. Everything feels like trash in them.

I'll never understand why people think this is a winning argument.

The vast majority of this game's content is encountered during the leveling experience and in instances below max level. A shitty ride in levels 30-79 is not excused by an "okay" or "working" experience at level 80. How many hours of playing a subpar or boring class are most people willing to put themselves through to hit level 80 when they could have a much more enjoyable time on SCH/WHM for both the leveling experience and the endgame content?

If that leveling experience is bad, the actual class design and changes are bad unless the end is a stellar payout, which for AST it is not.

[Saefinn]

I'll never understand why people think this is a winning argument.

The vast majority of this game's content is encountered during the leveling experience and in instances below max level. A shitty ride in levels 30-79 is not excused by an "okay" or "working" experience at level 80. How many hours of playing a subpar or boring class are most people willing to put themselves through to hit level 80 when they could have a much more enjoyable time on SCH/WHM for both the leveling experience and the endgame content?

If that leveling experience is bad, the actual class design and changes are bad unless the end is a stellar payout, which for AST it is not.

Very much this. People level, levelling is not instant, they go through story content playing these jobs, they have to grind using them before they even get to 80. And once they are level 80 they will still grind through roulettes for which there is only 1 level 80 roulette. But they do the roulettes for gear. And once gear cap increases, it'll be the same again. They may also still do older content to help others out. There is a lot of content people do that's not at level 80. And if you're a new player trying out a job, "it gets good at 80" is not really an incentive to pursue it.

And to add, it's also less incentive for healers to do roulettes. Healer in need has been a common sight even after the novelty of GNB and DNC has worn off.

[Brarry]

What's illogical is devs still trying to say "this is how healers should play" or "this is how healers should have fun". Okay short term sure as we try to adapt to the changes forced on us. Then when healers get bored for unimaginative boring game play we are just gonna post our feed back and move to another class or game. Getting sleepy at low level dungeons is how they want us to have fun?

[Saefinn]

I'm curious. Did anybody change the OP's mind? I always wonder with anything that says "change my mind" if anybody actually does. I just don't fancy reading through 14 pages to see whether they did or not.

[Shalan]

I'm curious. Did anybody change the OP's mind? I always wonder with anything that says "change my mind" if anybody actually does. I just don't fancy reading through 14 pages to see whether they did or not.

They did not. The first seven or so pages shows the OP's hand a fair bit actually. Side-stepping arguments, misconstruing arguments, holier-than-thou attitude, only attacking weak points/ignoring any potentially strong counterarguments, (intentionally?) misunderstanding other's statements, attacking people on the basis or character or their post formatting rather than addressing their statements, etc.
They weren't really open to changing their mind, basically.

Also, this

I'm happy for each and every SCH nerf that happened and I think after the total domination of SCH in SB they deserved it.

lol, great attitude.

The OP left around page 5/6, and people stopped really quoting/talking about them after page 7 or so if you want to go back and read some. It's not as long as you'd think.

[Saefinn]

It's funny how that happens when a thread starts with the premise "change my mind". But yeah, that don't sound like a very good attitude, and honestly, I don't mind people disagreeing with me on healer changes. But I don't think there's much of a case of people complaining for the sake of complaining or a population afraid of change. To the nerf comment, as a SCH I've been asking for nerfs, I don't wanna be OP...but the nerfs are in totally the wrong place. It's not like we revelled in our OPness and were like "suck it other healers" lol So no, not deserved, except maybe to any vast minority that might have gloated? I never saw any.


Cheers for satiating my curiosity anyway.

[xDaemianx]

[1/2]
While I do agree that you're making strong points I also think that you're leaving out what a potential AST could do before the rework.

When you say that "someone's not an AST because they throw Boles on tanks, you're one because of mobility and timing.", I bid to disagree. An AST had to work with what they are [were] given, properly using a Bole when a TB was about to happen could easily ease the work of the next Healing ability, or even use it to increase the potency of another card, or use it when an Aoe was about to hit and save someone's life when such person ignored/didn't see incoming damage. Yes, they're situational, but they do happen. Those who think that the cards that you had only applied to specific jobs, well, they did not use an AST to its fullest potential. I could perfectly hear a BLM thanking me from overseas for using a Arrow card on them; or a BRD (and sometimes MNK) praising the Lord for being the chosen one when a Spear was drawn. The only card that used to be the most useless (bar certain situations) was Spire and it was still pretty effing useful so that it could be burnt to spread the effect of another card.

Iirc, Malefic had its spelltime reduced because ASTs could not fit cards (a job they're supposed to do) in between casts, not because it was its job to cast more of it. LS is amazing, I'm not going to tell you otherwise because I can't find anything against that, tbh. Same goes for ED and ES. But these are not the truest identity of an AST. After all, the lore and the quests you're given when you start the quest revolve around the cards. These spells align with the concept of what an AST is, unquestionably, but the cards have strayed from what an AST is and have rendered it into a power-buffing (instead of defense/speed/crit/regen that it used to be) job. AST used to be way more flexible.