Disrespectful and Dismissive.

[Shurrikhan]

https://www.fflogs.com/zone/statistics/17#class=Any

https://www.fflogs.com/zone/statistics/25#class=Any

https://www.fflogs.com/zone/statistics/29#class=Any

Edit: Currently I cannot say with certainty the timeframe of these data sets.

However, if we assume a two week snapshot of each, Eden far outstrips Omega on all tiers. Dwindling healer numbers seems an inaccurate claim.

That said, how much of that can we prove isn't just due to fflogs being more frequently used now? We'd at the least need to compare it to achievement counts and other measures of Savage participation. Or, better yet, just use those instead of a voluntary upload as the basis for our sample.

[Laphael]

And while they achieved balance, they did it at the cost of what made the classes fun and unique, and that's the worst way to do it.

SCH still plays very different than WHM or AST. Each healer needs the standard heal spells as much as each tank needs tank stance and cooldowns.
I play all 3 and they feel still unique in their playstyle.

Also fun is very subjectiv (especially with the new card system for AST).
I realise, that a part of the playerbase is not enjoying the new healing aspects, but most comments describe it much worse than it is and most are also only talking about the dps ... but SCH, WHM and AST are healer classes.
WHM lost 1 aoe dot. SCH lost 1 dot and bane (miasma was just exchanged with AoW). AST dps is the same.

The healing toolkits got some really nice additions in my opinion.

[Edaniel]

SCH still plays very different than WHM or AST. Each healer needs the standard heal spells as much as each tank needs tank stance and cooldowns.
I play all 3 and they feel still unique in their playstyle.

Also fun is very subjectiv (especially with the new card system for AST).
I realise, that a part of the playerbase is not enjoying the new healing aspects, but most comments describe it much worse than it is and most are also only talking about the dps ... but SCH, WHM and AST are healer classes.
WHM lost 1 aoe dot. SCH lost 1 dot and bane (miasma was just exchanged with AoW). AST dps is the same.

The healing toolkits got some really nice additions in my opinion.

I'm pretty sure a majority of the AST comments aren't about their DPS. And if it is, they're more than likely referencing the complete garbage that the new card system is in regards to buffing the DPS of the other classes.

[Hatstand]

SCH still plays very different than WHM or AST. Each healer needs the standard heal spells as much as each tank needs tank stance and cooldowns.
I play all 3 and they feel still unique in their playstyle.

Also fun is very subjectiv (especially with the new card system for AST).
I realise, that a part of the playerbase is not enjoying the new healing aspects, but most comments describe it much worse than it is and most are also only talking about the dps ... but SCH, WHM and AST are healer classes.
WHM lost 1 aoe dot. SCH lost 1 dot and bane (miasma was just exchanged with AoW). AST dps is the same.

The healing toolkits got some really nice additions in my opinion.

We're complaining about the offensive kits because the defensive kits are (mostly) fine. And yes, the defensive kits are more important. And if they had broken the defensive kits to this extent you can bet we'd be kicking up an even bigger fuss. However, just because the defensive kits are more important than the offensive kits doesn't mean that the offensive kits aren't important. (And yes, I'm talking about offensive kits, which includes AST buffs, as opposed to just DPS kits.)

The reason why offensive kits are important is that offence can always be useful whereas defence is contingently useful. If people aren't dying, you don't need more defence and no matter how many more nice healing buttons you press you won't be being helpful. That means that, assuming you care about helping your party more than a pure healing fantasy, as you and your party get better at content, you're going to be spending more and more time utilising your offensive kit. This has two ramifications for current healers:

1. Old content is excruciating. There are lower level dungeons you can heal with only 1 healing button every 30 seconds or less. That means that at least 92% of your casts will be offensive, and under the current system that means mostly mashing the same button (or the same few buttons on AST) without any active thought.
2. The better you get at healing (and therefore the more efficiently you use your heals), the more time you spend mashing the same button over and over again. It makes being good at healing a punishment, not a reward.

The second point is what's pushed me into giving up healing for the time being. I'm not the best healer and I already feel like I spend too much time mindlessly spamming my few offensive buttons. The idea of practicing and getting better only to do more of that is depressing.

[Laphael]

I'm pretty sure a majority of the AST comments aren't about their DPS. And if it is, they're more than likely referencing the complete garbage that the new card system is in regards to buffing the DPS of the other classes.

Well, its pointless to discuss about Fun.

[Edaniel]

Well, its pointless to discuss about Fun.

You mean to tell me that Fun isn't the main point of an online game? What is it all for then? Surely not making money.

[Hatstand]

Well, its pointless to discuss about Fun.

Why is that? Are you saying that you can't determine that one system is more fun than another, and thus we should only care about balance? I mean, yes, it's subjective, but a) the people playing the class may still have a preference en mass, and b) it's important to cater to different tastes.

There have been multiple indicators that the people who main these jobs don't find the current playstyle fun, from the rampant complaints to the satisfaction poll that was done shortly after the release of 5.0.

Also, it seems to me that people who like the new healers seem to like ALL the new healers, whereas the people who don't like them don't seem to like any. Contrast this to before, when you had people who liked one or two of the jobs but thought the other(s) had problems. It seems to me that now the healers are all catering more towards the same sort of person's idea of fun, and therefore are not as well designed for pleasing healers as a whole.

[Laphael]

I mean, yes, it's subjective, but a) the people playing the class may still have a preference en mass, and b) it's important to cater to different tastes.

Fun is subjectiv and you can´t determine the "preference en mass" from forum posts.

I liked the old healers and i like the new healers, because they didn´t change as much as some ppl want me to believe, and yes, i play them all myself.

Of course they should cater to different tastes, but lets be honest here. As much fun as a class might be, if its underpowered it wont be played, so yes, balance probably is first priority with fun being a close second.

[Hatstand]

Fun is subjectiv and you can´t determine the "preference en mass" from forum posts.

I liked the old healers and i like the new healers, because they didn´t change as much as some ppl want me to believe, and yes, i play them all myself.

Of course they should cater to different tastes, but lets be honest here. As much fun as a class might be, if its underpowered it wont be played, so yes, balance probably is first priority with fun being a close second.

Not much point in saying it again for myself when it's been said very eloquently before:

There is more to a game than just numbers and parses. wanna talk numbers? Let's look at MCH. In terms of dps and viability, it was great in SB, it could compete just fine against BRD, but despite that nobody played it. Why? Because it felt like trash to play, it was a nightmare trying to play that class well, despite how good of numbers it could produce. Same thing with AST, even if for optimization it is better in terms of sheer numbers, it feels like garbage to play it, and that's 1000x worse than having bad numbers. That's why you dont see very many ASTs now, not because it isnt viable to take one, but because it's too much of a headache to get the opener, and then after opener its boring as hell.

And if you think forums are a bad metric for what people find fun (and I assume you also don't consider the poll reliable) please tell me what metric the devs should be using to tell whether people are having fun playing a class. Usage? Because AST seems to be falling down there, too.

[Hatstand]

Also, for those who say that the forums are a bad metric of how much people like the new healers:

This might be true in terms of absolute like/dislike ratio since those who are content are less likely to visit the forums, but it can give us an idea of relative like/dislike ratio. There are more people coming on the forums to complain about healers now than before 5.0. Ergo, a larger proportion of healers are unsatisfied. As such, even if the majority of healer mains like the new healers, an even larger majority of healer mains liked the old healers.