5.05 Healer Changes

[Yuyuka3]

So AST/SCH buffs but no fixes for WHM issues. Business as usual in other words.
Looking forward to AST/SCH meta again with some of those changes...

[einschwartz]

I am overjoyed with AST potency buff and divination reduced CD. Hopefully enough to make me comfortable healing with the job again. I'm happy too that WHM stays the same!

[Conna]

trick attack atm is not doing enough to make ninja worth taking for one, and two thats when you use all the buffs at once. The value of the card buff outside of actual cd windows is pretty low.

[Exiled_Tonberry]

Irrelevant when it doesn't even come close to making up for their terrible personal dps.

What do you mean irrelevant? The very reason why AST personal DPS is so low is because their raid utility is so high. You can't have it both ways.

[Risvertasashi]

Irrelevant when it doesn't even come close to making up for their terrible personal dps.

On the contrary. AST has been meta when its personal DPS has been low before (See Stormblood yet again). But then when AST's personal DPS gets buffed up, then it just goes completely off the charts and makes the others (well, WHM) irrelevant.

If you want to play a healer with excellent personal DPS, play WHM.

If you want to play a healer with excellent buffing, play AST.

Even if specific numbers need slight tweaks - This is balance and this is the way it should be. I hope AST is never the best at everything again. Because no healer should be.

[Silver-Strider]

I thought the point was to make all three healers meta, right? Isn't that what balanced means? Also if you think that ast will be on an even playing field with sch and whm right now, you're mistaken. Healing potencies was not what they needed most. The only actual buff they got to their raid contribution is divination being on a shorter cooldown. And let's be real, divination being a 6% buff for 15s on a 2 minute cd is still pretty pathetic.

Even so, it does put AST on a much sturdier base than it was before and while the Divination change will need to be fully tested before we can make any actual arguments about AST's spot in terms of the meta, it's still a good improvement overall.

[fantasticm]

Well, SCH is still boring to play

That's what the bed mount is for.

[Lagomorph]

On the contrary. AST has been meta when its personal DPS has been low before (See Stormblood yet again). But then when AST's personal DPS gets buffed up, then it just goes completely off the charts and makes the others (well, WHM) irrelevant.

If you want to play a healer with excellent personal DPS, play WHM.

If you want to play a healer with excellent buffing, play AST.

Even if specific numbers need slight tweaks - This is balance and this is the way it should be. I hope AST is never the best at everything again. Because no healer should be.

Ast never was the best at everything. I'm not sure how you and a few others have deluded yourselves into thinking that. It's fine if ast is the "buffs" healer. But their buffs are not strong enough to make up for how weak malefic/combust are. Also realistically there are two metrics that matter: healing output and raid dps contribution. Whm was the best in both of these areas. I'm not sure what you're talking about when you say that no healer should be the best at everything?

What do you mean irrelevant? The very reason why AST personal DPS is so low is because their raid utility is so high. You can't have it both ways.

It is not having it both ways. Ast needs their personal dps combined with their contributions with buffs to be at least close to the other healers. It can be a little behind, that's fine. I'm saying that it will still be far behind. If you disagree with this, then just way a few days and see for yourself.

[Dogempire]

That's what the bed mount is for.

Petition to make mounts usable in dungeons so I can heal the tank and then go back to sleep

[Rubiss]

Absolutely sourgrapes about Energy Drain coming back. Gameplay wise Energy Drain does one thing: Makes it feel bad to use healing aetherflow. If damage aetherflow is an option it will ALWAYS make using healing aetherflow feel bad. Always. Sacred Soil got some amazing frequent use with the new Sch and not we're going to go back to only using it seldom to negate big damage. Your designers knew what they were doing when they removed Energy Drain and to bring it back because people who don't understand class design are crying about wanting more damage is just incredibly disappointing.

Astro changes are great. I wanted the gravity cast time and horoscope duration changes so I'm happy about those. I didn't expect sleeve draw to change at all but it looks good. I'm a little bit curious why Ast shields get nerfed but sch shields don't. Considering how strong sch shielding can be.

Are you insane? Energy Drain came back because we needed a way to dump excess Aetherflow. Using it to heal SHOULD ONLY feel bad if you could have, as a team, not needed that heal to survive. That's how literally every heal in this game should be though of. Every Cure II could have been a Glare. Every Adloquium could have been a Broil III. You will ALWAYS feel bad about using a heal over damage if you don't need it. Seems like you don't understand class design. Feel free to ignore energy drain and continue to overheal / sit on Aetherflow stacks. You can't keep it off your hotbar. The rest of us will actually play the class properly.