I hate to, but I think I put down healing for now. Please make it engaging again, SE.

[Lodi]

All healers lost something in tandem with simplified dps rotations, this shouldn't have happened, the thought process should have been ok we are simplifying dps on healers how can we improve engagement elsewhere on each healer this is where the devs have gone wrong and where they need to see what they have done to the healer role.

We shouldn't even call it an expansion at this point, we lost a lot more than we gained.

We lost role skills: Eye for an eye, Largesse, Protect...
WHM lost all its dot management (18s & 24s > 30s).
AST lost its cards and its buff extenders.
SCH lost all its damage actions save for a nuke, 30s dot and generic aoe (Miasma I & II, Bane, Energy Drain, Shadowflare...), and one fairy.

What did we gain?
Healing CDs, a boring and uninspired card system, healing CDs, Repose, healing CDs, one new damage spell for WHM, and healing CDs.

Expansion implies additions and improvements, not removal, dumbing down and oversimplification.

Oh,and let's not forget that SE still refuses to adress this.
They tuned AST's numbers up and called it a day, and look at how well it went. Still the least played healer by a huge margin, despite going from the worst healer to the best in a few months.

I guess that's all we are to them, numbers.


#FreeAeroIII

[MitsukiKimura]

Funny because AST damage rotation was pretty much the framework for the Shadowbringers damage re-work and no AST would have wished their pre-ShB rotation on anyone.

Regarding their lore, I find it funny that basically that their lore is essentially useless now with the current changes.

It's also sad how they want to keep to the lore of other aspects of the game such as Viera and Hrothgar and other things but when it comes down to AST...Nope let's just throw out the very thing it made it fun and unique out the window. I can't even bring myself to play AST other than weekly Savage clears, it's just downright not fun. I love this game but I do not approve of their vision for the healers. They took a wrong turn in that department and need to do a quick U turn before people just walk away from it.

[Side-Eye]

Oh,and let's not forget that SE still refuses to adress this.
They tuned AST's numbers up and called it a day, and look at how well it went. Still the least played healer by a huge margin, despite going from the worst healer to the best in a few months.

AST's complexity (well, its pre-SHB card system) was what drew me to healing in FFXIV. I've never even leveled up the other two heal jobs, so I've honestly got to ask: is astro really best at healing now?? I've played DPS in plenty of recent groups with non-ast healers and it seemed to me as though they got the job done with less button mashing than I've experienced playing astro. And sometimes when the CDs are exhausted it seems like bene2 can't even keep pace with damage on a w2w pull. When the healer is a WHM they're easily able to spend most of their time dpsing. (Again, my perception here..)

Try not to judge me on not having leveled up all the jobs to 80... my playtime is limited so I honestly only invest that time in the jobs that appeal most to me. I have to read and learn when the other jobs are discussed.

[Ceasaria]

Ast also has a lot of Stigma to get past as well

-Healer stigma in general of being dull 1 nuke 1 DoT for downtime when heals aren't needed.
-New card system is underwhelming
-The reward is not worth the effort over the competition
-Controller issues especially when optimising
-Gameplay doesn't reflect lore

The devs have only addressed one of these, that being the reward/effort with Ast now being the strongest healer but the biggest one keeping Ast numbers so low is the controller issues, this problem needs to be addressed asap yet they will not even acknowledge it and thus the stigma will remain for most of the expansion alienating people before touching it.

The funny thing is how we could already see it with tooltips from media tour that SE didn't fixed any healer problems (except adlo crit) but instead created new ones, and I was far from to imaginate they would be numerous and quite important.
For me, it's maybe radical as solution, but healer role and every healer job need a total rework at this point (or at the very least come back to previous iterations and see what works well and build healers on them, it shouldn't be complicated...).

[Crushnight]

AST's complexity (well, its pre-SHB card system) was what drew me to healing in FFXIV. I've never even leveled up the other two heal jobs, so I've honestly got to ask: is astro really best at healing now?? I've played DPS in plenty of recent groups with non-ast healers and it seemed to me as though they got the job done with less button mashing than I've experienced playing astro. And sometimes when the CDs are exhausted it seems like bene2 can't even keep pace with damage on a w2w pull. When the healer is a WHM they're easily able to spend most of their time dpsing. (Again, my perception here..)

Try not to judge me on not having leveled up all the jobs to 80... my playtime is limited so I honestly only invest that time in the jobs that appeal most to me. I have to read and learn when the other jobs are discussed.

Ast has the best rDPS of the healer role by a noticeable amount (not huge but there is a clear gap between it and whm now) the only current end game fight whm can beat it is E1S due to how meteor adds are placed so Holy can hit all 4 + boss, I would still say Ast doesn't have the best healing kit but it is way more than sufficient to do everything and with how the game as well as how the community treat healers, when there is no more need for heals gotta bump that deeps which is where Ast shines. Unfortunately it is just not fun to do for a noticeable amount of players which is the real kicker yet SE won't acknowledge that how current Ast is designed is a problem due to ignorance/arrogance.

I will reiterate, current Ast's biggest problem is how controller unfriendly it is, 8+ macros should never be a more beneficial alternative to using the system as is especially with their inherent input delay, at such a point I class that as a failure of a design on the dev team that urgently needs to be looked long before the next expansion, refusal to look at it is just going to keep Ast numbers low.

I swear if they just continuously buff Ast just to make people play it ala 3.4 buffs again, I'm going to be yelling not so nice words at a few people oh and i will yell at the devs over the changes for so called 'balance' too.

[Punslinger]

Funny because AST damage rotation was pretty much the framework for the Shadowbringers damage re-work and no AST would have wished their pre-ShB rotation on anyone.

Regarding their lore, I find it funny that basically that their lore is essentially useless now with the current changes.

A 5.x AST reads horoscopes for their FC:

Capricorn: You will deal +6% DPS today!
Pisces: You will deal +6% DPS today!
Gemini: You will deal +6% DPS today!
Scorpio: You will deal +6% DPS today!
Leo: You will deal +6% DPS today!
Cancer: You will deal +6% DPS today!
Virgo: You will deal +6% DPS today!
Aquarius: You will deal +6% DPS today!
Taurus: You will deal +6% DPS today!
Libra: You will deal +6% DPS today!
Aries: You will deal +6% DPS today!
Sagittarius: You will deal +6% DPS today!

[EwokAssassini]

For games or any hobby, I think it's important to have that satisfaction that you're actually contributing something, that you're good at it or feel good doing it at least. Overcoming challenges and getting good at XYZ is rewarding. But if something is too easy and isn't fulfilling like that, then... it's really not worth doing.

Exactly this. It feels like healer is just a slot that needs to be filled in order for a party to queue into content. It feels like you don't make an impact aside from the party not being dead. You're just... there, only pressing the healy button every so often so that other people can continue playing the game. We don't have anything that lets us go above and beyond the duty of being a healer, nothing that we can aspire to be rather than, say, a glare/broil/malefic bot.

[Elamys]

Even though I still play and enjoy AST healing as a role is getting boring in this game because I never have to heal. Someone said it before, but I shouldn't have to actively hope for a bad group just so I get to feel like a healer.

If I wanted to play a DPS - I'd have rolled a DPS. And before people get angry, I'm not saying healers shouldn't have to DPS, but that DPS time shouldn't be the defining feature of the role.

Maximizing my healer DPS is only fun when I still have to do some healing. It doesn't feel like an accomplishment that I did a ton of damage on a fight just because nobody took any damage I couldn't instantly fix. It's not exciting to sit there and spam Malefic while occasionally moving for AoEs while nobody takes any damage. It bothers me that the "best healer" is gauged not on their ability to actually heal the group, but based on their personal DPS. Healer DPS is great and all, it should be a part of the game, but it shouldn't be the most important thing to a healer.

But I don't see how they could fix it without fundamentally changing how damage is delivered in the game. The server tick is too slow. I'd rather they replace the healer role with a dedicated support role at this point.

[ForteNightshade]

Even though I still play and enjoy AST healing as a role is getting boring in this game because I never have to heal. Someone said it before, but I shouldn't have to actively hope for a bad group just so I get to feel like a healer.

If I wanted to play a DPS - I'd have rolled a DPS. And before people get angry, I'm not saying healers shouldn't have to DPS, but that DPS time shouldn't be the defining feature of the role.

Maximizing my healer DPS is only fun when I still have to do some healing. It doesn't feel like an accomplishment that I did a ton of damage on a fight just because nobody took any damage I couldn't instantly fix. It's not exciting to sit there and spam Malefic while occasionally moving for AoEs while nobody takes any damage. It bothers me that the "best healer" is gauged not on their ability to actually heal the group, but based on their personal DPS. Healer DPS is great and all, it should be a part of the game, but it shouldn't be the most important thing to a healer.

But I don't see how they could fix it without fundamentally changing how damage is delivered in the game. The server tick is too slow. I'd rather they replace the healer role with a dedicated support role at this point.

If only to emphasise this point, I'll reiterate something I've said in several healer related threads. Despite thirty-five Raises between myself and my BFF, we still had a combined 70-75% Glare uptime in The Copied Factory. It's completely laughable how easy healing is below Savage. You simply don't need two healers whatsoever, and it shows.

Unfortunately, the dev team still assumes healers play entirely differently than we do.

[Cled-cat]

Is it just me, or is the silence from the Dev team deafening right now? There’s been a pretty significant dialogue on the state of healers ever since ShB released yet... what changes have we got so far? What acknowledgement have we got so far?? I haven’t seen much at all, it’s really disheartening that a whole role and many of its concerned/disappointed players is practically being ghosted since they don’t want to acknowledge its problems. The longer they stick their head in the sand or look the other way, the more contempt they’ll get.