Quote Originally Posted by Melichoir View Post
I think I get what you guys are getting at broadly, its just I feel that its a ...flawed way of looking at things? I know that comes off as condescending, but its partly the way Im seeing this. Its like arguing that when something was ultra clunky, it's still good due to how much APM or how many buttons to press. My understanding of SMN is that this is the problem - to much going on. More buttons can be interesting, but it tends to sidestep other issues such as "Is this even well designed?" What Im feeling is that this feels like the illusion of gameplay, rather than actual gameplay. Like how for a while in games everything was a QTE. Like there wasnt deep thought for on keeping straight shot buff up. Is it gonna fall off? reapply before anything else. If you can get a straighter shot crit, great. Its something to do but its not meaningful skill.

Id say that yeah, if we want to debate if things got simpler this xpac, sure. I think thats the case. I have my complaints about DRK personally, but I think the thing Im not connecting with here is simply how this is being framed. This isnt like DRK, as an example, where you had managing 2 buff windows, ontop of mana pool management that couldnt be remedied by someone elses raid buffs, oGCD usage of DA (as in where you use it in the oGCD) paired with Tank CDs and aggro management, but now its just Put on Grit, use that Standard DPS combo, and spam EoS until youre down to 3k mana, and use Delirum and Spamotard BS. The skills shifted into much less interesting versions of themselves, aggro management is now a joke, youre not really managing mana anymore, you dont really have to care about how oGCDs are used, etc. Im not seeing my blind spot on this when people are saying "Oh, we lost an oGCD that was used on CD, and a dot that was mana heavy, poor poor selene, therefore the class is substantially less interesting." What Im asking is where is the big nuances that define a substantial differences between 4.x SCH vs 5.x SCH? Cause I can do that with DRK, but Im having difficulty doing that with SCH, even after reviewing guides on SCH from 4.X, particularly since some of these nuances seemed like bad game design. Not that DA spam was good design. It certainly wasnt, but some of the things buried in there were. There was more meta thought to it. You could do more damage doing DA earlier in the GCD. Things like that.

So if there is something akin to this, then Id be interested in hearing that. But the "Well I needed to use this skill on CD, and that dot was kinda mana intensive" isnt telling me that there was much deeper things going on.
I'll try to explain this from my AST perspective with a bit of the other healers. The cards were changed to be simpler to use but it was changed badly, as the cards lost their greater impact but also have been made worse to use especially for controller players.

They changed the fishing from 92% for trying to get aoe balance (which wasn't the only useful thing just the most desired) to 76% for 3 seal divination, this could look like an improvement but it does not feel like an improvement to a lot of AST players heck 3 seal divination is such a small increase over 2 seal divination(even 1 if that unlucky which can happen) it feels so lackluster getting that card luck over how it used to be.

Draw and using the card(Play now) are now separate buttons which makes it unlikely you'll accidentally use the card early with a double tap but adds a slightly longer delay to use the cards, fix one problem add another the staple of ShB AST, also with cards being only single target as a controller player you have to cycle through the party list or use macros this becomes mandatory for openers and every 6 mins of a fight in 8 man content due to always going to have to click up/down 4 times due to how the party list is structured, this is very cumbersome and a major issue that sadly is not being addressed by the development team.

Cooldowns are also being forced into scenarios that should never be forced into Lightspeed is not being used purely for movement or for fast heals/dps, you have to save it for the opener and every 6 mins in a fight or you are going to have an atrocious time with Sleeve Draw heck just Sleeve Draw in general, the opener is especially bad because you have 4 gcds to get 3 seal divination and with 24% chance to get it without redraw(another ogcd) it requires a lot of work for a very small payoff combine this with needing to select party members individually and it is the worst designed job for controller players during those points(job gets way more manageable after opener/6 mins but still saying that feels bad after 3.0-4.XX AST).

You also have to wait for the server to register both you and your card target to be in combat (1 server tick) for you to acquire any seals if unlucky this can cost you a seal in the opener if you act too quickly, but when you only have 4 gcds you have to act quickly in the opener.

You then have the stuff they took away like Time Dilation and old Celestial Opposition where you cannot interact with your buffs anymore, the buffs are both AST's buffs but not AST's buffs at the same time, those two skills were simple but added a lot to AST's playstyle because it added small decisions on what buffs do i extend (HoTs/dmg reduction on tank or dmg up on Dps or extend my own mp resoration etc), it wasn't huge nor was it difficult to gauge what would be appropriate to do but it added something to AST that no other healer could do.

SCH has had similar issues with its fairy they tried fixing a problem (Which fairy is better) but created more from it (Lack of variety/decision making, ghosting issue), this has sorta been sch's big loss over the years losing their decision making skills from DoTs, fairies and to deal damage or heal with stacks(sorta revised now with energy drain back).

Ogcds are so powerful on healers right now and fight design has not really changed since Creator that healer downtime has only increased as they add more ogcds but instead of making healer downtime more interesting they simplified it as well for all healers, this is where a lot of the healer problems are stemming from we want more to do during this period and since encounter design seems off the table then people ask for job changes instead.

TLDR healers as a whole feel like they tried to take a step forward but took 3 steps back even WHM hasn't really moved, it still is prone to powercreep if AST gets buffed too much.